Fani Willis doesn't want to pay up. The Fulton County District Attorney filed a response Wednesday in Fulton County Superior Court opposing efforts by Donald Trump and former codefendants to recover nearly $17 million in legal fees — costs they racked up defending themselves against a case that no longer exists because Willis herself was thrown off it.

The New York Post reported that Trump alone is seeking more than $6.2 million. The combined total from all defendants approaches $17 million. And Willis, the prosecutor whose personal conduct destroyed the case she built, now calls the bill "absurd."

The Architect Objects to the Invoice

Willis's filing struck a tone that might charitably be described as lacking self-awareness. Her office, she wrote, has:

"no intention of allowing Fulton County taxpayers" to foot the bill for what she called "an absurd amount for such an absurd reason."

She warned that paying the requested sums could consume a "significant percentage (perhaps all)" of her office's annual budget. She characterized some claimed costs as "truly astonishing," pointing to high-end travel, meals, media communications, and unexplained research expenses.

Then came the rhetorical flourish:

"The defendants are asking that the District Attorney's budget and the taxpayers' funds be handed over to the Trump Campaign and the Georgia Republican Party for expenses including luxury hotels and seafood lunches."

Luxury hotels and seafood lunches. From the woman whose romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade — and the travel that accompanied it — became the reason courts stripped her from the case in the first place. Courts found that relationship created an "appearance of impropriety" and exhibited an "odor of mendacity."

Trump's Georgia attorney, Steve Sadow, didn't let the irony pass. He called Willis's filing a complete "parody" and added:

"Ms. Willis says the money would be better spent on her travel and extracurricular pursuits! Please keep in mind that Valentine's Day is coming up soon."

How the Case Fell Apart

The backstory is worth remembering — not because the media hasn't told it, but because they told it wrong for two years.

Willis brought a sweeping racketeering indictment against Trump and 18 codefendants over the 2020 election in Georgia.

The case centered on events including a January 2021 phone call in which Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes to overturn his narrow loss in the state. Joe Biden had carried Georgia by fewer than 12,000 votes — the first time a Democrat won the state since 1992.

The indictment was supposed to be the legal kill shot. Cable news treated it that way. Legal analysts spoke in terms of inevitability.

Then Willis's relationship with Wade surfaced. Courts intervened. Willis was disqualified. She appealed to the Georgia Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.

Pete Skandalakis, chairman of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia, assumed control — and promptly moved to dismiss the charges entirely. Judge Scott McAfee granted the dismissal the day before Thanksgiving.

The entire enterprise — years of investigation, a made-for-television indictment, wall-to-wall media coverage — ended not with a verdict, but with a prosecutor's personal choices catching up to her.

The Reimbursement Fight

Georgia passed a law last year allowing criminal defendants to seek reimbursement for legal costs when the prosecuting district attorney is disqualified. That law is the mechanism driving the $17 million claim. And Willis hates it.

Her filing called the reimbursement statute a "punitive, nonsensical schema" that could force taxpayers to pay millions simply because a successor prosecutor opted to drop charges. In other words: the law shouldn't apply because the consequences are expensive.

Skandalakis, notably, isn't fully on the defendants' side either. In a recent filing, he argued the statute contains "serious and potentially unconstitutional deficiencies," contending it denies county governments due process by holding them financially responsible without giving them a meaningful opportunity to contest the claims.

That's a legitimate legal question — and one the courts will sort out. But Willis's objection isn't really constitutional. It's personal. She brought the case. Her conduct killed it. The defendants spent millions defending against charges that evaporated. Someone has to absorb that cost, and Willis would prefer it be anyone other than the office that created the problem.

Accountability Runs One Direction

There's a pattern worth naming here. The legal apparatus mobilized against Trump in Georgia was enormous — in scope, in cost, in media oxygen. When it imploded, the consequences flowed entirely downhill. Defendants spent fortunes. Lives were disrupted.

Reputations were weaponized. And the prosecutor whose ethical failures caused the collapse now argues that reimbursing those defendants would be too burdensome for her budget.

Willis complains about luxury hotels in fee requests. Courts found she exhibited an "odor of mendacity" regarding her own relationship with the special prosecutor she hired and the travel they shared. The lack of self-awareness isn't a bug — it's the whole operating system.

Eighteen people were indicted alongside a sitting president. The case is gone. The bill remains. And the woman who lit the match is arguing she shouldn't have to help clean up the ash.