The Biden administration actively assisted Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in her criminal investigation of Donald Trump, newly released documents show. The records, obtained by Just the News and America First Legal through a Georgia Open Records Act lawsuit, reveal a level of coordination between federal actors and the local prosecutor that goes beyond what was previously known.
Among the documents: a September 2022 letter from then-White House special counsel Richard Sauber to Fulton County prosecutors, informing them that former President Biden had decided not to invoke executive privilege to shield former Trump White House officials from testifying before a Georgia special purpose grand jury. Separately, the Jan. 6 House Select Committee's chief investigative counsel offered Willis's team oral summaries of witness interviews and access to committee documents.
According to Newsmax, Willis's office had fought to keep these records hidden, initially citing claims of legal privilege. This week, her office dropped every privilege claim and released the documents in full, without redactions.
Sauber's letter to then-Deputy District Attorney John Wakeford laid out the Biden administration's rationale for clearing the way. The language was striking in its eagerness:
"These events threatened not only the safety of Congress and others present at the Capitol, but also the principles of democracy enshrined in our history and our Constitution."
"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."
Executive privilege exists to protect the candor of presidential communications. It belongs to the office, not to the individual occupying it. Biden's decision to waive that privilege over a predecessor's communications, in service of a state-level criminal investigation, set a precedent that ought to trouble anyone who thinks about institutional norms beyond the current election cycle.
The documents also indicate that the White House's involvement went beyond the privilege determination itself, though the specifics of that additional assistance remain unclear from the materials released so far.
The coordination wasn't limited to the executive branch. Tim Heaphy, the Jan. 6 committee's chief investigative counsel, emailed Willis's office with an offer that read less like inter-governmental courtesy and more like a partnership:
"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."
A Fulton County team subsequently traveled to Washington and met with committee staff. The committee wasn't simply responding to a subpoena or a formal request. It was proactively feeding material to a local prosecutor building a case against the sitting president's political rival. The offer to provide summaries orally, with document access limited to in-camera review at committee offices in Washington, suggests a careful effort to assist without creating too visible a paper trail.
Consider the architecture. A Democratic president waives executive privilege to expose a Republican predecessor's advisers. A Democratic-led congressional committee funnels investigative material to a Democratic district attorney. That district attorney then brings a sweeping indictment using Georgia's anti-racketeering law. Each institution maintained the polite fiction of independence while operating in concert toward the same target.
Willis announced indictments against Trump and 18 others in August 2023, alleging a wide-ranging conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Trump denied wrongdoing and characterized the investigations as politically motivated.
The case began unraveling well before the documents surfaced. In January 2024, defense attorneys revealed that Willis had carried on a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired to lead the case. They alleged Willis profited from the arrangement when Wade used his earnings to pay for vacations the pair took. The revelation raised serious conflict-of-interest questions about the entire prosecution.
A Georgia judge last year dismissed the election interference case against Trump and his allies.
So the full picture now looks like this:
Willis's office initially fought to suppress the very records that documented this coordination. The decision to finally release them, without redactions, came only after a lawsuit forced the issue.
Will Scolinos, an attorney at America First Legal who helped secure the documents, put the significance plainly:
"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 released materials reportedly contain more than Willis's office had previously turned over to Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. That detail alone raises questions about what else was being withheld, and from whom.
For years, anyone who suggested the various Trump prosecutions were coordinated rather than independent was dismissed as trafficking in conspiracy theories. The standard line held that Jack Smith operated independently, that Fani Willis operated independently, and that Alvin Bragg operated independently. Each prosecution was supposed to be its own island.
These documents don't prove a single puppet master. But they demolish the fiction of total independence. The Biden White House made affirmative decisions to help Willis's investigation. A congressional committee offered to brief her staff and share evidence. These weren't passive responses to legal process. They were active choices by political actors aligned against a common adversary.
The executive privilege question deserves particular attention. Presidents of both parties have historically guarded this privilege jealously, understanding that if advisers cannot speak candidly without fear of future compelled disclosure, the quality of presidential decision-making suffers. Biden didn't simply decline to fight a subpoena. He affirmatively declared that shielding his predecessor's communications was "not in the public interest."
That framing treated the privilege as disposable when politically convenient. The institutional damage outlasts whatever short-term advantage the decision was meant to secure.
The Fulton County case is now dismissed. Nathan Wade is gone. The Jan. 6 committee dissolved after the Republican majority took the House. Biden left office. The wreckage is institutional: norms eroded, precedents set, and public trust in prosecutorial independence further degraded.
What remains are the documents. They tell a story that the participants clearly preferred to keep quiet. A White House, a congressional committee, and a county prosecutor moved in coordination against one man. They wrapped it in the language of democracy and the rule of law. And when the records finally came to light, it was because outsiders sued to pry them loose.
The case failed. The coordination didn't.