Georgia judge drops 3 charges in Trump election-interference case
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee dismissed three charges Friday in Georgia’s sweeping election-interference case against President Donald Trump.
McAfee tossed Counts 14, 15 and 27 after ruling that Georgia lacked the authority to pursue those alleged false-document offenses, two of which targeted Trump, CBS News reported. He signaled months earlier that the counts were legally flawed but could not formally strike them until the case returned to him after Fani Willis’ removal.
In the same order, McAfee rejected the defendants’ broader constitutional challenges, including arguments invoking the Supremacy Clause, ensuring that only the three counts were eliminated. The judge previously scrapped six charges in March 2024, three of which targeted Trump.
Even with Friday’s trims, prosecutors still hold 32 charges in place, including the expansive racketeering count that anchors the case against the 15 defendants who remain. Trump attorney Steve Sadow said Friday that the president’s legal team “remains confident that a fair and impartial review will lead to a dismissal of the case” entirely.
The ruling coincided with a major shift in the prosecution itself. Peter J. Skandalakis, head of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, announced he would take over the case after failing to recruit an outside prosecutor before McAfee’s deadline. The judge warned that if no replacement were found, he would consider dismissing the indictment in full.
“The public has a legitimate interest in the outcome of this case,” McAfee wrote. “Accordingly, it is important that someone make an informed and transparent determination about how best to proceed.”
The case against Trump had been paused in June 2024 while the Georgia Court of Appeals reviewed defendants’ effort to remove Willis, and although McAfee allowed her to stay on in March, he concluded her relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade created “a significant appearance of impropriety.”
Willis gave Wade a contract paying $250 an hour even as the state’s top racketeering expert earned $200 an hour, despite her claim that all three special prosecutors received the same rate, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.
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