Eight thousand pages of internal communications, released without a single redaction, reveal that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis coordinated extensively with the Biden Justice Department, the Biden White House, and Democrats on the House January 6 committee while building her criminal case against President Donald Trump and his allies. The documents, obtained by Just the News and the nonprofit America First Legal through litigation under Georgia's Open Records Law, paint a picture of a local prosecutor who was anything but local.
Willis's office dropped all privilege claims this week and released the full trove of documents. What emerged is a paper trail stretching from Fulton County to the DOJ to the White House to Capitol Hill, a web of coordination that raises fundamental questions about whether the Georgia prosecution was ever truly independent.
The coordination began early. In March 2022, F. Donald Wakeford, a top deputy to Willis, emailed Assistant U.S. Attorney Lori Beranek to discuss the process for filing Touhy requests, the formal mechanism by which a local prosecutor seeks testimony or documents from federal employees. Wakeford's tone was familiar, not adversarial:
"We anticipate that we might have to make a few more Touhy requests and thought it would be beneficial to have a conversation about the process. Please just let me know if that's something we might be able to work out."
By May 2022, the DOJ was responding through Jay Macklin, General Counsel in the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys. Macklin's letter called the request "premature" since Willis's investigation was still in its "information-gathering phase," but helpfully noted that much of the desired information was already public, and attached congressional transcripts as a "courtesy."
"For example, Messis. Rosen, Donoghue, and Engel each participated in interviews before congressional committees, and they discussed the issues that you identified in your letter."
That would be former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, former Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, and former Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel. The DOJ wasn't slamming the door. It was holding it open and pointing to the welcome mat.
Then came the most consequential document in the trove. In September 2022, Biden Special Counsel Richard Sauber sent a letter to Wakeford explicitly waiving executive privilege for the testimony of former Trump White House officials before the Georgia grand jury. The reasoning Sauber offered was sweeping:
"In light of these unique circumstances, President Biden has determined, as he did with respect to the Congressional investigation of these events, that an assertion of executive privilege is not in the public interest with respect to efforts to thwart the orderly transition of power under our Constitution."
Read that again carefully. A sitting president's White House counsel formally cleared the way for a county prosecutor to compel testimony from a former president's aides before a state grand jury. The Biden White House didn't just decline to block the Georgia investigation, it actively enabled it, invoking the same rationale it had used for the congressional January 6 probe.
This was not a passive decision. It was a deliberate act that removed the single most significant legal barrier between Willis and the witnesses she needed.
The coordination with the Democrat-run House January 6 Select Committee was equally direct. Willis's office emailed the team of committee chairman Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., requesting a meeting:
"Our office is currently engaged in an ongoing investigation related to possible criminal disruptions that occurred during the administration of the 2020 general elections in Georgia. As we discussed, my team and I would like a brief audience with Congressman Thompson related to the aforementioned subject matter."
The phrase "as we discussed" tells you this wasn't cold outreach. There had already been conversations. The email formalized something already in motion.
Tim Heaphy, the committee's chief investigative counsel, took it further. In an April 2022 email to Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Michael Hill, Heaphy laid out a remarkable offer:
"As we discussed yesterday, we're willing to provide an oral summary of what certain witnesses have told the committee in interviews and depositions. We are also prepared to give you access to some committee documents, in camera in our office. We'd like to do this in Washington, sometime next week."
A congressional committee, one that was itself conducting a politically charged investigation, offered to brief a local prosecutor on witness testimony and share documents in a controlled, off-the-record setting in Washington. Willis's office made additional requests for committee materials on August 4, 2022, and again on March 31, 2023.
By December 2022, Wakeford was writing to Heaphy with something approaching admiration:
"Our initial review of the report confirms you all have accomplished amazing things in the past year."
This is not the language of independent, parallel investigations happening to cover similar ground. This is a county DA's office treating a partisan congressional committee as a partner.
Then there's the billing record. Nathan Wade, the outside special prosecutor Willis hired, and whose romantic relationship with Willis would later unravel the entire prosecution, billed Fulton County $2,000 on November 18, 2022, for an "interview with DC/White House."
What was discussed during that interview remains unclear. The billing entry exists in the records, but the substance of the meeting is not detailed. What is clear is that the man Willis chose to lead the prosecution of a former president was meeting with the sitting president's White House during the investigation, and billing Georgia taxpayers for the trip.
Willis announced in August 2023 that she had secured indictments against Trump and eighteen others, including former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, on racketeering, conspiracy, and other charges. The case was the product of a more-than-two-year investigation.
It didn't hold. Willis was eventually removed as the prosecutor overseeing the case. Trump attorney Steve Sadow framed the outcome in unsparing terms:
"The court highlighted that Willis' misconduct created an 'odor of mendacity' and an appearance of impropriety that could only be cured by the disqualification of her and her entire office. As the court rightfully noted, only the remedy of disqualification will suffice to restore public confidence. This decision puts an end to a politically motivated persecution of the next President of the United States."
Peter Skandalakis, the prosecutor who inherited the case, filed a motion on November 26, 2025, that effectively ended it:
"There is no realistic prospect that a sitting President will be compelled to appear in Georgia to stand trial on the allegations in this indictment. Donald J. Trump's current term as President of the United States of America does not expire until January 20, 2029; by that point, eight years will have elapsed."
The indictment was eventually dismissed by a Georgia judge.
Will Scolinos, an attorney at America First Legal, summarized what the 8,000 pages reveal:
"These documents reveal that the Biden Administration and the January 6 Committee were much more involved in District Attorney Fani Willis's prosecution of President Trump than was previously believed. AFL was happy to represent Just the News to get Americans this new information."
The documents don't just suggest coordination, they document it in the participants' own words. Emails with familiar greetings. Offers to share witness testimony in camera. A White House privilege waiver drafted to clear the path. A special prosecutor billing taxpayers for a trip to meet with the very administration that stood to benefit from the prosecution's success.
For months, the Georgia case was held up as proof that the legal system was working independently, that a local prosecutor, acting on her own authority, had found sufficient evidence to indict a former president. The narrative depended on independence. These memos, as reported by Just the News, shatter it.
The case is dead. The indictment is dismissed. Willis is off the case. But the question these 8,000 pages raise isn't about what happens next in Georgia. It's about what the Biden administration was willing to do, and how many institutions it was willing to conscript, to prosecute a political opponent.
Now the documents speak for themselves.
