The judge in charge of the case related to interference in the 2020 election in Georgia has dismissed some of the charges against former U.S. President Donald Trump and others, but many accusations in the extensive racketeering indictment remain valid.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee stated that six of the accusations in the indictment should be thrown out, including three against Trump, the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. However, he left other charges unchanged and said prosecutors may pursue new charges on the ones he dismissed.
The decision is a setback for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose case has already been in a precarious position due to an attempt to have her removed from the prosecution because of a romantic relationship with a colleague.
This marks the first time charges in any of Trump’s four criminal cases have been dropped, with the judge asserting that prosecutors did not provide enough detail about the alleged crime.
The comprehensive indictment accuses Trump and over a dozen other defendants of breaking Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. The case leverages a law typically associated with mobsters to allege that the former president, lawyers, and other aides operated a “criminal enterprise” to keep him in power after he lost the 2020 election to now-President Joe Biden.
Trump's attorneys did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Wednesday. A spokesperson for Willis also did not promptly respond to a request for comment.
McAfee’s ruling came after challenges to parts of the indictment from Trump, former New York mayor and current Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and attorneys John Eastman, Ray Smith, and Robert Cheeley. They have all pleaded not guilty, and no trial date has been set.
The six contested accusations charge the defendants with urging public officers to violate their oaths. One accusation is related to a phone call Trump had with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, in which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.”
Another of the dismissed accusations accuses Trump of encouraging then-Georgia House Speaker David Ralson to violate his oath by calling a special session of the legislature to unlawfully appoint presidential electors.
McAfee explained that the accusations did not provide enough detail about the nature of the violations.
“The lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned’s opinion, fatal,” McAfee wrote. “They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently.”
McAfee’s ruling means Meadows is now only facing a RICO charge. Jim Durham, Meadows’s lawyer, declined to comment.
The decision comes as McAfee is contemplating a move to disqualify Willis from the case over what defense attorneys argue is a conflict of interest due to her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. McAfee could decide by the end of this week on the disqualification, which would cast doubt on the most extensive of the four criminal cases against Trump.
Willis, who stated that their relationship ended months ago, also stated that there is no conflict of interest and no reason to remove her from the case.
The nearly 100-page Georgia indictment describes dozens of alleged acts by Trump or his allies to overturn his defeat, including harassing an election worker who was falsely accused of fraud and trying to convince Georgia lawmakers to disregard the voters' will and appoint a new group of Electoral College electors favorable to Trump.
Out of the 19 people originally charged in the indictment, four have admitted guilt after making deals with prosecutors. They include well-known Trump allies and lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro.
The Georgia case addresses some of the same issues as the federal case in Washington brought by special counsel Jack Smith, which accuses Trump of conspiring to overturn his election loss in an urgent attempt to remain in power.
Separately, Smith charged Trump with unlawfully keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.
Trump is set to go to trial later this month in New York in a case accusing him of altering his company’s internal records to conceal the true nature of payments to a former lawyer who assisted Trump in suppressing negative stories during his 2016 presidential campaign.
