Ga. judge dismisses some counts against Trump; others remain

ATLANTA, Ga. - The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case has dismissed some of the charges against former President Donald Trump, but others remain.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote Wednesday in an order that six of the charges in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump.

But the order leaves intact many other charges in the indictment and the judge wrote that prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed.

The six charges in question have to do with soliciting elected officials to violate their oaths of office. That includes two charges related to the phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021.

The case accuses Trump and 18 others of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

The ruling comes as McAfee is also considering a bid by defendants to have Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis removed from the case. Defendants have alleged that Willis has a conflict of interest because of her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade.

“The Court’s concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants — in fact it has alleged an abundance,” McAfee wrote. “However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned opinion, fatal.

“As written, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission, i.e., the underlying felony solicited,” McAfee wrote. “They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.”

“The Court made the correct legal decision to grant the special demurrers and quash important counts of the indictment brought by DA Fani Willis,” said Steve Sadow, Trump’s Georgia attorney. “The counts dismissed against President Trump are five, 28 and 38, which falsely claimed that he solicited Georgia public officials to violate their oath of office.

“The ruling is a correct application of the law, as the prosecution failed to make specific allegations of any alleged wrongdoing on those counts. The entire prosecution of President Trump is political, constitutes election interference, and should be dismissed.”

Another of the dismissed counts accuses Trump of soliciting then-Georgia House Speaker David Ralston to violate his oath of office by calling a special session of the legislature to unlawfully appoint presidential electors.

McAfee’s order leaves former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows facing only a RICO charge. The order also quashed three of 13 counts against former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.

“There simply was not enough detail to put the defendants on notice of what to defend against,” Giuliani’s attorney Allyn Stockton told the AP, adding the ruling “effectively removes nearly 25% of the charges” against his client.

McAfee wrote that prosecutors could seek a reindictment to supplement the six dismissed counts. Even if the statute of limitations has expired, the judge gave the state six months to resubmit the case to a grand jury. Prosecutors could also ask for permission to appeal the ruling. The case has yet to be scheduled for trial.

McAfee has yet to issue a ruling over whether DA Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade should be disqualified from their investigation and subsequent indictment of Trump.

Willis is the locally elected district attorney who issued dozens of indictments in August 2023 accusing the nation’s 45th president and his allies of trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

But now, Willis is facing allegations she misused taxpayer funds and crossed ethical boundaries during her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. McAfee is expected to soon decide whether they should be disqualified from further participating in the case.

Trump and 18 of his GOP allies were indicted by Willis and her office in August 2023 on charges they engaged in a criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. That election saw Democrat Joe Biden become the first Democrat to carry a deep Southern state in a presidential election since Bill Clinton’s victory in 1992.

On Tuesday, Trump secured an historic third consecutive GOP White House nomination with his presidential primary wins in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state. President Biden also won his party’s Georgia and Mississippi primaries, thus securing his renomination bid as well.

The Nov. 5, 2024, contest will be the first presidential election rematch since 1956.

In 1952, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson after then-President Harry Truman chose not to run for a second full term. Four years later, Democrats again nominated Stevenson for the presidency, which led to a second defeat at then-President Eisenhower’s hands.

No GOP presidential contender has ever been nominated for three consecutive elections; Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, was elected president in 1885 and served only one term before being elected to a second term four years later (1885-1889 and 1893-1897). President Franklin Delano Roosevelt holds the record for the most nominations: four.

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