The case of attempted election fraud carried out by US President Donald Trump and others in the state of Georgia has been dismissed. He will not pursue the investigation, the new prosecutor in the case, Pete Skandalakis, said in a motion to the court on Wednesday. Judge Scott McAfee later ordered the case dismissed.
Skandalakis only took over leadership of the investigation in mid-November from Fani Willis, who filed charges against Republican Trump and other suspects in August 2023. She accused them of a sprawling conspiracy aimed at overturning Trump’s narrow election loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 US presidential election in Georgia.
The indictment accuses Trump and several of his alleged accomplices, among others, of urging public officials to violate their oaths of office to later overturn the election results in Georgia. To this day, Trump has not acknowledged his defeat in the election, but claims that he was robbed of victory due to voter fraud. This has been denied.
Even before Skandalakis’ announcement, the case was considered unlikely to go to trial as long as Trump remained US President. But there are still charges against 14 other people, including former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
Skandalakis closed the case due to lack of evidence. He wrote that basically rejecting the election results is not illegal. There is insufficient evidence of manipulation. Prosecutors emphasized that the charges were dropped “after a thorough examination of the file” and in the “interests of justice.”
His predecessor, Willis, was removed from the post of head of investigations because he had an affair with the special investigator he appointed. Wednesday’s ruling ends the latest case involving Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Trump’s lawyer in Georgia, Steve Sadow, welcomed this. “The political persecution of President Trump by disqualified District Attorney Fani Willis is finally over,” he said. “This process should never have started.”
Two criminal proceedings at the federal level were previously dismissed
US courts have previously closed two criminal proceedings against Trump at the federal level. This also includes the 2020 election manipulation case. The second case concerns the storage of confidential government documents at his private residence, Mar-a-Lago. As justification, special investigator Jack Smith pointed to the US federal judicial practice since the Watergate scandal of not trying sitting presidents.
Skandalakis said Wednesday that Smith’s voter fraud case is the most promising against individuals “who sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.” The alleged criminal behavior that forms the basis of the charges in Georgia originates in Washington and not in the US state.
Trump was only found guilty in a trial in New York over hush money payments during the 2016 presidential election campaign. In January – as he was starting his second term – it was decided not to convict him. However, the guilty verdict remains in effect.
