Judge dismisses six counts against Trump in Georgia election interference case
Judge rules prosecutors hadn’t properly laid out their legal claims in the indictment, allowing Trump to successfully challenge the wording of the charges but the broader case is still intact.
A Georgia judge dismissed six counts in the election-interference indictment against former President Donald Trump and five co-defendants in Atlanta, though the broader case is still intact.
The six counts tossed Wednesday were related to allegations Trump and four other high-profile co-defendants, including former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, illegally tried to influence Georgia elected officials to violate their oaths of office in the months after the 2020 presidential election in attempts to unlawfully influence the outcome.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled prosecutors hadn’t properly laid out their legal claims in the indictment, allowing Trump to successfully challenge the wording of the charges.
A representative for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who is still facing a motion to be disqualified on misconduct allegations, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 41-count indictment, which Willis filed against Trump and 18 co-defendants in August, alleged a criminal conspiracy that stretched for months across several states. The allegations included planning to block certification of the election, gaining illegal access to voting machines and pressuring local officials, including Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to overturn the results.
In total, 35 counts remain in the indictment, and McAfee said Willis can refile the six tossed ones with more specificity. Against Trump specifically, Wednesday’s ruling removes three of the 13 felony counts he faced -- leaving 10 pending, including racketeering.
All original 19 defendants pleaded not guilty; four have since taken plea deals. Wednesday’s order also removes some, but not all, counts against Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and his former campaign lawyer John Eastman, as well as local Georgia lawyers Robert Cheeley and Ray Smith, who helped arrange meetings in the state.
The defendants argued the now-dismissed counts didn’t fully detail which portions of the U.S. or Georgia constitutions they allegedly failed to uphold.
McAfee agreed. “They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defences intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways,” he wrote in Wednesday’s order.
McAfee’s ruling is unlikely to be fatal to the case; the state now has six months to bring the charges back before a grand jury, if prosecutors choose to try to reinstate them.
A trial date hasn’t been set.
Momentum in the case was stalled by a Jan. 8 motion from co-defendant Michael Roman alleging Willis’ romantic relationship with her chief deputy, special prosecutor Nathan Wade, violated Georgia ethics laws and threatened the prosecution.
McAfee previously said he hoped to rule by this week on whether Willis should be disqualified from the case.
Dow Jones
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