The judge overseeing the racketeering case against former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia dismissed six counts of the indictment Wednesday.
Judge Scott McAfee, who is expected to soon decide whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis will be disqualified from the case over an alleged conflict of interest, sided with defendants in a separate motion to toss certain counts. He wrote that six counts did not “give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.”
McAfee’s ruling said that the state can still bring new indictments on the six charges, which all center on “Solicitation of Violation of Oath by Public Officer.”
“The Court’s concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants – in fact it has alleged an abundance,” he wrote. “However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned’s opinion, fatal. As written, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission, i.e., the underlying felony solicited.”
“Under the standards articulated by our appellate courts, the special demurrer must be granted, and Counts 2, 5, 6, 23, 28, and 38 quashed,” he wrote. (RELATED: ‘Pattern Of Deceit’: Defense Attorney Identifies 6 Concrete Examples Of Conflicts That Should Disqualify Fani Willis)
I think Judge McAfee’s decision is correct. I also note that he acknowledges a crime based in the solicitation of a violation of oath is complicated further by the federal constitution having a different structure and tradition from the Georgia Constitution. The DA needs details. pic.twitter.com/k7kEdxsV3Z
— Anthony Michael Kreis (@AnthonyMKreis) March 13, 2024
McAfee noted in a footnote that his order does not “mean the entire indictment is dismissed.”
“The State may also seek an indictment supplementing these six counts,” he wrote. He also denied defendants’ efforts to dismiss certain overt acts contained in the indictment.
“The Court made the correct legal decision to grant the special demurrers and quash important counts of the indictment brought by DA Fani Willis,” Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead defense counsel, said in a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The counts dismissed against President Trump are 5, 28 and 38, which falsely claimed that he solicited GA public officials to violate their oath of office,” Sadow continued. “The ruling is a correct application of the law, as the prosecution failed to make specific allegations of any alleged wrongdoing on those counts. The entire prosecution of President Trump is political, constitutes election interference, and should be dismissed.”
McAfee is also expected to rule on the motion to disqualify Willis by the end of the week. Trump co-defendant Michael Roman accused Willis in a Jan. 8 motion of financially benefiting from appointing her lover Nathan Wade to work as special prosecutor on the case.
Willis and Wade have denied the relationship began before he was hired, though a close-friend of Willis testified it began in 2019 and Wade’s former law partner supplied details about their relationship starting earlier to the attorney who filed the motion.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include comment from Trump’s lead defense counsel, Steve Sadow.
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