ATLANTA (AP) — A judge on Wednesday dismissed the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and others after the prosecutor who took over the case said he would not pursue the charges, ending the last effort to punish the president in the courts for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, took over the case earlier this month from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was removed over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she chose to lead the case.
After Skandalakis’ filing, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee issued an order dismissing the case in its entirety.
The case began nearly five years ago, when Willis made public her intent to investigate whether illegal attempts were made to influence the state’s 2020 election. That included a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump was recorded urging Georgia’s secretary of state to help find the votes needed to overturn his loss in the critical swing state.
It was the most wide-ranging of four criminal cases brought against Trump in 2023. The resources and manpower required to pursue such a sprawling case made it unsurprising that other prosecutors declined to take it on after Willis’ removal.
The latest criminal case against Trump to unravel
The abandonment of the Georgia case is the latest reflection of how Trump has emerged largely unscathed from a spate of prosecutions that once threatened his political career and personal liberty.
Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who had charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, dropped both cases after Trump won the White House last year. Smith cited longstanding Justice Department policy against the indictment of a sitting president.
And though Trump was convicted of felony charges in New York in connection with hush money payments during the 2016 election, he was sentenced in January to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.
It was unlikely that legal action against Trump could have moved forward while he is president. But 14 other defendants still faced charges, including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, applauded the case’s dismissal: “The political persecution of President Trump by disqualified DA Fani Willis is finally over. This case should never have been brought. A fair and impartial prosecutor has put an end to this lawfare.”
The Associated Press has reached out to a spokesperson for Willis seeking comment.
“The strongest and most prosecutable case against those seeking to overturn the 2020 Presidential election results and prevent the certification of those votes was the one investigated and indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith,” Skandalakis wrote in his court filing Wednesday.
He added that the criminal conduct alleged in the Georgia indictment “was conceived in Washington, D.C., not the State of Georgia. The federal government is the appropriate venue for this prosecution, not the State of Georgia.”
Skandalakis’ review of the case
Skandalakis said he undertook the review of the case “with an understanding of the grave seriousness with which many citizens view the events discussed in this case. I share their concerns and acknowledge the impact that my decision will have.”
He said the indictment “alleges a compelling set of acts” that, if proven beyond a reasonable doubt, “would establish a conspiracy undertaken by multiple individuals” working to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In his filing, he walked through the different parts of the case to explain why he didn’t pursue them.
Among the obstacles he cited are the “complexity of the legal issues at hand” in prosecuting Trump, saying that even if everything was decided in prosecutors’ favor, “bringing this case before a jury in 2029, 2030, or even 2031 would be nothing short of a remarkable feat.”
