Georgia Drops 2020 Election Case Against Trump, Allies After New Prosecutor Declines To Pursue
A sweeping challenge to President Trump and a group of his allies over the 2020 election came to an abrupt end on Wednesday, when the newly installed prosecutor announced he was abandoning the case entirely. Within minutes, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee signed off on the request, bringing the long-running prosecution to a full stop.
Judge McAfee issued a brief ruling granting the motion almost immediately after it was filed, writing simply: “This case is hereby dismissed in its entirety.”
The move came from Peter Skandalakis, who had stepped in to run the case after a year-long ordeal in which he attempted — unsuccessfully — to find an outside attorney willing to take over following the removal of District Attorney Fani Willis. In a 23-page explanation, Skandalakis admitted that the sprawling prosecution “is on life support and the decision [on] what to do with it falls on me and me alone.”
He went on to argue that the matter never belonged in state court to begin with. Skandalakis pointed directly to Jack Smith’s decision to abandon the federal version of the Georgia allegations after Trump’s 2024 victory, noting that the special counsel had concluded the case was barred by Department of Justice policy prohibiting charges against a sitting president. “If Special Counsel Jack Smith, with all the resources of the federal government at his disposal… concluded that prosecution would be fruitless,” Skandalakis wrote, “then I too find that, despite the available evidence, pursuing the prosecution… would be equally unproductive.”
Trump’s attorney Steve Sadow welcomed the development and praised the prosecutor, saying, “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 described Skandalakis as “a fair and impartial prosecutor.”
Skandalakis had announced earlier this month that he was assuming responsibility for the case after being unable to secure “another conflict prosecutor,” warning that the deadline to appoint someone was reaching its end and risked dismissal if no replacement was found.
The original indictment, issued on Aug. 14, 2023, named Trump and 18 others on charges ranging from racketeering to conspiracy. Nine days later, Trump traveled to Atlanta for booking, becoming the first president in American history to sit for a mugshot. The roster of co-defendants included figures such as Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro, Mark Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, Michael Roman, Scott Hall, Cathy Latham, David Shafer, Ray Smith, Robert Cheeley, Shawn Still, Harrison Floyd, Misty Hampton, Stephen Lee, and Trevian Kutti. Four of them — Chesebro, Ellis, Hall, and Powell — entered guilty pleas in late 2023, receiving probation and other penalties.
But the case’s momentum had already been severely damaged by the scandal involving Willis and Nathan Wade, whom she had appointed as a special prosecutor. After revelations that the two had been in a personal relationship, Wade was pushed off the case in March 2024. The Georgia Court of Appeals then barred Willis and her office from any further involvement on June 3. Her final attempt to stay on the matter ended in September 2025, when the state’s Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal.
In his dismissal motion, Skandalakis laid out several reasons the case could not responsibly continue. He pointed out that the trial might not begin for a decade, given that Trump is not due to leave office until January 2029. He also emphasized that his office lacks the staff and resources required to manage a massive RICO prosecution of this size, and questioned the entire theory of the indictment. Actions listed as part of the alleged conspiracy — he wrote — were nowhere near sufficient to support a racketeering charge. “Overt acts such as arranging a phone call, issuing a public statement, tweeting to the public to watch the Georgia Senate subcommittee hearings… are not acts I would consider sufficient to sustain a RICO case,” Skandalakis wrote.
With Wednesday’s ruling, all criminal cases against Trump have now been closed. The only remaining courtroom battle is his appeal of the Manhattan verdict on 34 counts related to business records, for which he was given no punishment at sentencing.
{Matzav.com}
