State Senate passes their own version of prosecutor oversight commission bill
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Georgia’s Senate passed a bill that could create a commission overseeing Georgia prosecutors.
Critics say the commission could go after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over the investigation into former President Trump.
Channel 2′s Richard Elliot learned that a ruling in Washington, DC could impact the trial here in Fulton County.
A three-judge federal appeals panel ruled that former president Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution, meaning the federal election interference case can go forward.
“We cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter,” the ruling said.
Trump’s attorneys are claiming the same immunity here in Georgia, which a judge has yet to rule on.
Meanwhile, in the Georgia Senate, Republicans used the same logic to argue a bill that would create an independent commission to oversee all of Georgia’s prosecutors.
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Critics argue that, even if lawmakers honestly want to go after what they call “rogue prosecutors,” that commission could have political motivations to go after Willis and her prosecution of Trump
“When you create this type of commission with the power that it would have in this political moment, you can’t guarantee that it won’t be used in ways that explode that toxic energy,” State Sen. Josh McLaurin, D-Sandy Springs, said.
But Columbus Republican state Sen. Randy Robertson insists nothing in the bill has anything to do with Willis.
He told Elliot that he authored this bill after DAs like the one in Columbus who pleaded guilty to nine felony counts of misconduct while in office.
“My focus, 100%, was on the former district attorney of the Chattahoochee Circuit and no other district attorney or solicitor general in the state of Georgia,” Robertson said.
The House has its own version of this bill. Both sides will have to hammer out the differences to get it passed.
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