Judge Dismisses Trump Election Interference Case

A US judge on Wednesday ended the long-running case accusing Donald Trump and his allies of trying to overturn the 2020 election — bringing the curtain down on the final criminal prosecution still shadowing the president’s return to power.

The ruling followed a forceful push from prosecutor Pete Skandalakis, who urged Judge Scott McAfee to shut the Georgia case down, arguing it belonged in federal hands, not state courts. With that, the only remaining legal front in the sprawling battle over Trump’s post-election conduct fell away.

“LAW and JUSTICE have prevailed in the Great State of Georgia,” Trump posted as he celebrated the ruling on Truth Social.

He called the case an “Illegal, Unconstitutional, and unAmerican Hoax” — although several codefendants were convicted — and said it should have “never been brought” in a lengthy statement that repeated his false claims that the election was rigged.

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The Republican president faced a slew of federal charges following his first term in office, including conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election and hoarding allegedly classified documents that the government said should not have been removed from the White House..

Special Counsel Jack Smith dropped both cases following Trump’s election, citing the Justice Department’s policy of not indicting or prosecuting a sitting president.

“Indeed, if Special Counsel Jack Smith, with all the resources of the federal government at his disposal… concluded that prosecution would be fruitless, then I too find that, despite the available evidence, pursuing the prosecution of all those involved in State of Georgia v. Donald Trump, et al. on essentially federal grounds would be equally unproductive,” Skandalakis wrote in his filing.

He also pointed out that prosecuting a sitting president in Georgia is nearly impossible and that without Trump, the trial would be unworkable for the remaining 14 defendants.

McAfee immediately granted the motion to dismiss the case.

Trump and 18 codefendants were charged with racketeering and other offenses in Georgia in 2023 over their alleged efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election in the southern state.

The indictment alleged efforts to persuade state officials to “find” votes to reverse Trump’s narrow loss to Joe Biden, pressure election workers, and install false Trump electors.

Four of those indicted subsequently admitted lesser charges.

A Georgia appeals court in December disqualified Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis from the case over a relationship she had with the man she had hired to be a special prosecutor.

Trump has granted pardons to several allies accused of attempting to subvert the 2020 election, but the pardons only apply to federal crimes, not state offenses such as those in Georgia.

Among those who received clemency were former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows, both of whom faced charges in Georgia.

Skandalakis argued that continuing the Georgia case “in full for another five to ten years” would not serve the state’s voters, saying that the time it would take, combined with unresolved issues like federal versus state jurisdiction and presidential immunity, meant the case was effectively “on life support.”

“As a former elected official who ran as both a Democrat and a Republican… this decision is not guided by a desire to advance an agenda but is based on my beliefs and understanding of the law,” he said.

Willis was removed from the case after Georgia’s appeals court ruled her romantic involvement with special prosecutor Nathan Wade had created an “appearance of impropriety.”

She had indicted Trump in August 2023, charging him and his co-defendants under Georgia’s racketeering laws.

Trump’s lawyers maintained that his statements about the election were simply political speech, protected by the First Amendment.

AFP