by Dave Williams | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A Fulton County Superior Court judge Thursday dismissed three counts in District Attorney Fani Willis’ election interference case against former President Donald Trump while leaving most of the counts intact.
Two of the dismissed counts were filed directly against Trump, while the other involved co-defendants Shawn Still, a Republican state senator, and Trump lawyer John Eastman.
Judge Scott McAfee declared that the state does not have the authority to prosecute the three counts because they involved accusations of filing false documents in federal court.
A Fulton grand jury indicted Trump and 18 others in August of last year racketeering for allegedly participating in a scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia that saw Democrat Joe Biden carry the Peach State by fewer than 12,000 votes.
The case has been on hold since the Georgia Court of Appeals declared in June it would not move forward until deciding whether Willis should be disqualified because of a prior romantic relationship with attorney Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she hired to lead the case. Wade stepped away from the prosecution last April.
Thursday’s ruling pertained to allegations that Trump’s allies put together a slate of fake presidential electors in Georgia, which met at the state Capitol in December 2020 in an effort to award the state’s 16 electoral votes to Trump, despite recounts and court rulings that showed Biden was the winner.
McAfee ruled that the state lacked jurisdiction to prosecute the three counts he dismissed because a “mechanism of enforcement” was already in place at the federal level to prosecute defendants accused of making false statements under oath in court proceedings. A federal court must have the ability “to police its own proceedings,” he wrote.
The judge’s ruling means five of 13 counts originally lodged against Trump have been set aside. McAfee dismissed six other counts in the case last March, including three against the former president.
Among the charges thrown out then was a count charging Trump in a January 2021 phone call with urging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the 11,780 additional votes he needed to carry the state over Biden.
