Georgia prosecutor kills the historic election interference case against Trump

By Dan Berman, Holmes Lybrand, and Jason Morris, CNN Photo: AFP A Georgia prosecutor on Wednesday officially dropped the historic racketeering case against President Donald Trump and others for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, closing the chapter in a legal effort once seen as a grave threat to Trump's political future. The move means that Trump has dodged criminal legal jeopardy for his attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. The federal cases against Trump from special counsel Jack Smith on election interference leading up to the January 6, 2021, US Capitol riot and on mishandling classified documents were previously dropped. "Given the complexity of the legal issues at hand - ranging from constitutional questions and the Supremacy Clause to immunity, jurisdiction, venue, speedy-trial concerns, and access to federal records - and even assuming each of these issues were resolved in the State's favour, bringing this case before a jury in 2029, 2030, or even 2031 would be nothing short of a remarkable feat," Peter Skandalakis, the prosecutor on the case, wrote Wednesday. Skandalakis said that he considered severing Trump's case from his codefendants to attempt to try them first while waiting for the conclusion of Trump's second term. However, he said, doing so "would be both illogical and unduly burdensome and costly for the State and for Fulton County." He added: "In my professional judgement, the citizens of Georgia are not served by pursuing this case in full for another five to ten years." The historic state racketeering charges were filed against Trump and 18 others on August 14, 2023, by Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis, an elected Democrat who launched a lengthy investigation into Trump's alleged interference in the Georgia election in early 2021. The investigation began shortly after a January phone call became public in which Trump pressured Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, to "find" the votes necessary for him to win the state in the Presidential election. Willis was eventually removed from the case after a lengthy legal fight over her authority. When Trump won the presidency in 2024, it put the prosecution in jeopardy. Wednesday, Skandalakis, the director of the Prosecuting Attorney's Council of Georgia, issued the final order. The case "is on life support and the decision what to do with it falls on me and me alone. But unlike family members who must make the emotional decision to withdraw loved ones from life-sustaining treatment, I have no emotional connection to this case," Skandalakis wrote. "As a former elected official who ran as both a Democrat and a Republican and now is the Executive Director of a non-partisan agency, this decision is not guided by a desire to advance an agenda but is based on my beliefs and understanding of the law," he added. The high-profile case peaked in dramatic fashion when Trump surrendered to an Atlanta jail for a little over 20 minutes in August 2023, where he was forced to provide his mug shot for the first time. The case was seen as the most likely of the various criminal charges surrounding Trump to go to trial because it was a state case handled by a local Georgia prosecutor, rather than federal charges that could be pardoned. Trump's lead Georgia defence counsel Steve Sadow said in a statement the "political persecution" of Trump was "finally over." "This case should never have been brought. A fair and impartial prosecutor has put an end to this lawfare," he said. Same law used to target the mafia Trump was charged alongside 18 codefendants on sweeping charges using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the state law commonly referred to as RICO, similar to the federal version of the statute that was famously used to target criminal enterprises like the mafia. Beyond the president, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was the highest-ranking official charged, along with former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, who reached an agreement with two Georgia election officials this year to settle a nearly US$150 million (NZ$263 million) defamation lawsuit. Trump and his accused codefendants "joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome" of the election, prosecutors alleged in the indictment, which said they "unlawfully conspired and endeavoured to conduct and participate in criminal enterprise" after Trump lost the election in Georgia. The defendants vehemently denied any wrongdoing, some arguing they were simply trying to rectify what they believed were serious irregularities that tainted the 2020 election results. Four of the 19 defendants in Willis' case, including three attorneys directly involved in Trump's bid to overturn the election results in the Peach State, accepted plea deals, in some cases pleading guilty to felony charges in exchange for more lenient sentencing recommendations. Thirty "unindicted...

Georgia prosecutor kills the historic election interference case against Trump

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