“The Fulton County Code of Ethics, our code of ethics, only applies to county officers and employees,” Satcher said, reading a prepared statement.
Willis’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Willis has been under intense scrutiny since defense attorneys sought to have her disqualified from the election interference case in January. They say she hired her boyfriend, Wade, to oversee the case, then benefitted financially when he paid for trips to Aruba, Napa Valley and other locales. However, Willis and Wade have said they were not romantically involved when she hired him to oversee the case in November 2021. They said their romance began in early 2022 and ended last summer.
In court documents and testimony, the couple have said they split the cost of their travel roughly evenly and have done nothing improper. Last week Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee heard closing arguments on the defense motions to disqualify Willis and is expected to rule by March 15.
In the meantime, Willis is under scrutiny from numerous quarters. A Georgia Senate committee and the U.S. House Judiciary Committee are investigating her actions, a new prosecutors oversight board could launch its own investigation and some Fulton County commissioners are pushing for an audit.
By comparison, the stakes of the county ethics complaints filed last month were small. If the board found her guilty of violating ethics policies, Willis faced at most a reprimand and a $1,000 fine.
But now even that won’t happen.
One of the complaints, filed by a Johns Creek man, mirrored the allegations of the defense attorneys in the election case. It said Willis should have disclosed the trips with Wade for under the county ethics code.
The other complaint, filed by an internet-based talk show host, said Willis’ office had illegally refused to release financial records related to Wade’s invoices.
Whether the county code applied to Willis was a matter of debate. In motions to disqualify…
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