A Georgia judge ended the sprawling 2020 election interference case against President Donald Trump and his co-defendants after the prosecutor who took it over said he was dropping the charges.
The decision from Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee came shortly after Prosecutor Peter Skandalakis notified the judge he would not proceed with the charges. Skandalakis took over the case earlier this month after the original prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, was disqualified.
"In my professional opinion, the citizens of Georgia are not served by pursuing this case in full for another five to ten years," Skandalakis wrote, saying he was ending the case "to serve the interests of justice and promote judicial finality."
He said the decision is "not guided by a desire to advance an agenda but is based on my beliefs and understanding of the law."
The president celebrated the end of what he called an "illegal, unconstitutional, and unAmerican hoax" in a post on Truth Social.
"LAW and JUSTICE have prevailed in the Great State of Georgia, as the corrupt Fani Willis Witch Hunt against me, and other Great American Patriots, has been DISMISSED in its entirety," he wrote, while also continuing to press his false claim that the election had been "rigged and stolen."
Trump's defense lawyer Steve Sadow praised the decision in a statement. “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,” Sadow said.
Trump and 18 co-defendants, including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, were hit with a wide-ranging racketeering indictment in August 2023. They were accused of engaging in a scheme to illegally overturn the election results in the key swing state.
Four of Trump's co-defendants took plea deals in the case. The others, including Trump, Giuliani and Meadows, pleaded not guilty.
A spokesman for Giuliani, Ted Goodman, said in a statement that the dismissal of the charges “is long overdue and represents a complete repudiation of the demonstrably false claims that partisan actors used to justify his improper disbarment."
Skandalakis' decision might not be much of an aid in getting the former New York mayor's law license back. He was critical of some of Giuliani's conduct in the court filing and said that while he was "reluctant to criminalize the act of attorneys providing flawed legal advice" to Trump, those lawyers should be accountable to their state bars for any violations of professional conduct."
In a 22-page memo explaining the reasoning for his charging decisions, Skandalakis noted the entire case is "without precedent" and pointed in part to the challenges of trying a case against a sitting president.
He noted the charges against Trump centered around a phone call that the then-president made to the state's top election official in January 2021 to "find" enough votes to change Joe Biden's win to a loss.
"There is no realistic prospect that a sitting President will be compelled to appear in Georgia to stand trial on the allegations in this indictment," he wrote, noting that Trump's current term doesn't end until Jan. 20, 2029.
"[B]y that point, eight years will have elapsed since the phone call at issue," Skandalakis wrote, and even then, "an immediate jury trial would be impossible."
Given the complex issues involved, getting the case to trial by 2031 "would be nothing short of a remarkable feat," he added, and waiting that long would deprive his co-defendants of their right to a speedy trial.
Skandalakis said he did not believe it would be fair to sever Trump's case from the others because he "is the lead defendant in the case" and "bears the responsibility for any conspiracy, if it were proved at trial."
He also suggested that the similar federal case that had been brought by special counsel Jack Smith — which was dismissed after Trump was elected — would have been the better forum given the allegations involved.
"Never before, and hopefully never again, will our country face circumstances such as these," Skandalakis wrote.
Skandalakis, a former district attorney and head of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, officially took over the case earlier this month. He had been tasked with finding a replacement prosecutor after Willis unsuccessfully challenged her disqualification, and said he chose himself after everyone he contacted declined the appointment.
Willis, whose office began investigating the case in 2021, was disqualified by a state appeals court last year after it found an “appearance of impropriety” had been created by a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to lead the case.
After she lost her final appeal in September, she said, “I hope that whoever is assigned to handle the case will have the courage to do what the evidence and the law demand.”
Her office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
