Trump wins dismissal of Georgia 2020 election interference case

NATRICE MILLER / ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION via TNS / 2022

Prosecutor Peter J. Skandalakis

WASHINGTON >> A prosecutor today dropped all criminal charges in Georgia against President Donald Trump for interference in the 2020 presidential election, ending a high-profile racketeering case that once seemed like a significant threat to the Republican.

The decision by Peter Skandalakis, a state official who recently took over the prosecution, was a stinging defeat for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who brought the case in 2023 but then lost control of it amid ethics complaints by defense lawyers.

It was one of four criminal prosecutions that Trump faced in the years since losing his 2020 presidential re-election bid to Democrat Joe Biden. Only one of them — a New York case over a hush-money payment to a porn star during his 2016 campaign — went to trial. Trump was found guilty in that case but has asked for it to be thrown out.

Skandalakis said in a court filing that “there is no realistic prospect that a sitting President will be compelled to appear in Georgia to stand trial,” so it would be “futile and unproductive” to push forward with the case.

Skandalakis said his decision, which was approved by a judge this morning, “is not guided by a desire to advance an agenda but is based on my beliefs and understanding of the law.”

Steve Sadow, a lawyer for Trump, praised the dismissal, saying the case should have never been brought.

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Willis had brought the case against Trump and 18 co-defendants, charging a sweeping criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results after a recording surfaced in the media of Trump asking Georgia’s top electoral official to “find” him enough votes to win the state.

The co-defendants included former Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman, who like Trump pleaded not guilty.

An appeals court removed Willis, an elected Democrat in Atlanta, from the case last year. The court said she had created an “appearance of impropriety” by having a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case.

Skandalakis heads the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, a government agency that supports the state’s local prosecutors. Earlier this month, he appointed himself to lead the case, saying he had been unable to find another prosecutor willing to take it over.

Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor, said Skandalakis’s decision to drop the charges was not surprising. The agency he oversees does not have the resources to prosecute such a complex case with several co-defendants, Kreis said.

See more:National newsPolitics

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