Georgia dismisses Trump election case, ending his last criminal prosecution

The Fulton County judge overseeing the 2020 election interference case against President Donald Trump and more than a dozen others agreed to kill the probe on Wednesday after a Georgia prosecutor said the alleged criminal conduct amounted to more of a federal, not state, case.

In a brief, one-page order, Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee dismissed the sprawling racketeering case first brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis more than two years ago.

“This case is hereby dismissed in its entirety,” the judge wrote.

Once seen as among the most promising criminal prosecutions of Trump, the case collapsed amid scrutiny of Willis’ romantic and financial ties to the special prosecutor she hired to help lead it.

While the development isn’t a surprise, it places a capstone on the last criminal prosecution of Trump and one of the most sweeping, divisive cases in Georgia history.

Now, nearly five years after local prosecutors first launched their investigation of Trump, it ends with four plea deals from defendants and zero convictions from a jury. It’s highly unlikely that any of the evidence compiled by Willis’ team and a special grand jury, which heard testimony from everyone from the governor to Trump’s top White House advisers, will ever be heard by a jury.

McAfee’s order came alongside a 22-page exhibit from Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the nonpartisan Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, who spent the last several weeks poring through Willis’s evidence.

Skandalakis recently took over the case after the courts removed Willis.

Skandalakis concluded that “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 (former Justice Department) Special Counsel Jack Smith.”

“The criminal conduct alleged in the Atlanta Judicial Circuit’s prosecution was conceived in Washington, D.C., not the State of Georgia,” he said. “The federal government is the appropriate venue for this prosecution, not the State of Georgia.”

Smith withdrew his election interference case against Trump in fall 2024, shortly after the Republican won a second term.

Skandalakis said there is “no realistic prospect” that a sitting president could be compelled to stand trial in Georgia while he’s still in office. And even after that, it could take years to litigate the complex presidential immunity issues and constitutional fights raised in the indictment.

The veteran prosecutor also said it would be “illogical,” “unduly burdensome and costly” to try the remaining 14 defendants in the case without Trump, given that he’s the central figure named in the indictment.

A spokesman for the Fulton DA’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead Georgia attorney, cheered the developments.

“The political persecution of President Trump by disqualified DA Fani Willis is finally over,” Sadow said. “This case should never have been brought. A fair and impartial prosecutor has put an end to this lawfare.”

Willis was ousted after an appeals court ruled that her relationship with Nathan Wade, the attorney she hired and paid to serve as a special prosecutor, created the appearance of a conflict of interest. Georgia’s Supreme Court in September declined to step in and hear Willis’s appeal, which cleared the way for Skandalakis’s appointment.

Skandalakis said he took on the case after he wasn’t able to find any other prosecutors willing to do so.

Under McAfee’s order, the charges could technically be re-filed within the next six months, though that is considered highly unlikely given the underlying political dynamics and the rapidly approaching statute of limitations for the crimes alleged in the indictment.

The dismissal could put a significant financial strain on Fulton County, which is now likely on the hook to reimburse the 19 case defendants millions of dollars for their legal bills under a new state law.