After more than a year of legal arguments, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis appeared before a special Georgia Senate committee examining her prosecution of President Trump on Wednesday.

Lawmakers created the Senate Special Committee on Investigations in January 2024 to look into allegations of "various forms of misconduct" against Willis concerning her prosecution of Mr. Trump and others over efforts to overturn Trump's 2020 election loss in Georgia. 

Willis had resisted attempts to compel her to testify and did not show up last year when subpoenaed. Her attorneys argued that the 2024 panel lacked the constitutional authority to force her to appear. The legal battle over a previous judge's decision on the subpoena is still in the court system.

In an exchange that often became tense with Dolezal, the committee's vice chair, Willis denied deciding she was going to prosecute Mr. Trump.

"When I became Fulton County DA, the office was in absolute chaos. On the ground, the carpet was molded, there were holes in it, boxes in offices, some where you couldn't open the door," Willis said. "I told you I fired 50 or 60 that I felt were unqualified for the positions that they held. There were 18,000 unindicted cases that went back six to seven years that I was looking at. Not to mention another 10,000 in the system … the office was in absolute chaos."

Asked house much money her office spent prosecuting the election interference case, Willis said she didn't want to speculate.

"Whatever it cost, they tried to steal the rights of thousands of Georgians. It couldn't have been enough," she said.

She estimated that around nine attorneys were working on the case, describing the amount of work as "huge."

"It was lots of witnesses, a lot of work was put into this," Willis said. "I always want to make sure I'm a fair DA. I'm also a fighter for victims. I was fighting for the victims in this case. What happened to Ruby Freeman is horrible. I feel for her and her mother."

A presidential indictment and a romantic complication

The resolution creating the committee focused on Willis' hiring of special prosecutor Nathan Wade to lead the election interference case. It said a romantic relationship between the two amounted to a "clear conflict of interest and a fraud upon the taxpayers."

But in January 2024, a defense attorney in Fulton County's case against Mr. Trump and his allies alleged that Willis was involved in an improper romantic relationship with Wade.

Both Willis and Wade testified about the intimate details of their relationship at a previous hearing. They both vehemently denied allegations that it constituted a conflict of interest.

Willis told Dolezal she hired Wade "because we were drowning" in other cases. 

"Every lawyer I had with that level of experience had a huge project," she  said.

The district attorney said she allowed Wade to bill 160 hours a week while he taught the other attorneys assigned to the case how to prosecute and investigate it.

"You want to investigate something? Investigate how many times they called me the n-word. Investigate them writing on my house, how many times my house has been swatted," she said.

As Dolezal questioned how much Wade was paid, Willis listed out payments for lawyers from the Georgia attorney general, including prominent Republican lawyer Josh Belinfante, who advises the committee and was present. Dolezal cut off Willis' microphone when she spoke over his attempts to move on.

Accusations of the Biden administration's involvement and electioneering

Dolezal displayed bills showing that Wade and others traveled to Washington, apparently part of an effort to suggest that Willis was working with the House January 6 committee or the Biden White House to prosecute Mr. Trump.

Willis said that she couldn't recall the House committee sending her any documents or helping her with the election interference case. She said Wade probably traveled to Washington to "get information on some of the criminals I ended up indicting."

The district attorney said meetings with Biden White House officials were part of a procedure to request documents or testimony from the federal government. While she was invited to the White House for a Black History Month event, she did not make it onto the lawn, where it was being held.

During the hearing, Willis repeatedly accused members of the committee of attacking her to help with their political futures.

"Your real purpose is to try to get elected," she said.

Four of the five Republicans on the committee are running for statewide office in 2026. Chairman Bill Cowsert is running for attorney general, while Sens. Greg Dolezal of Cumming, Blake Tillery of Vidalia, and Steve Gooch of Dahlonega are each seeking the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor. Another Republican who had been on the committee, John Kennedy of Macon, resigned from the Senate on Dec. 8, to pursue his own lieutenant governor bid.

"I think that you're making laws that are supposed to be in the benefit of the community, as opposed to this day where we're wasting a lot of time, where me and my staff could be keeping the community safe, but I'm here to do this song and dance with you," Willis said. "The reality is that I brought forth an indictment because people came in my county, they committed a crime, and they got charged. They didn't get charged because of their race. They didn't get charged because of their political party. They got charged because they came to my county and committed a crime"

The end of the electoral interference investigation

Last year, the Georgia Court of Appeals cited an "appearance of impropriety" connected with Willis and Wade's relationship and removed her from the case. The state Supreme Court in September declined to hear Willis' appeal.

In November, Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia Executive Director Peter J. Skandalakis stepped in to replace Willis as the lead prosecutor. In the days afterward, he filed a motion informing the court of his decision to abandon the prosecution, arguing that the acts listed in the indictment "are not acts I would consider sufficient" to sustain a racketeering case.

A Fulton County Superior Court judge dismissed the case on Nov. 26.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.