The judge presiding over Donald Trump‘s Georgia election interference trial dropped six charges on Wednesday that the former president and his 14 remaining co-defendants face as he also mulls whether to remove District Attorney Fani Willis from the case.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee issued an order dismissing “Counts 2, 5, 6, 23, 28, and 38” of the 41-count indictment related to allegations that Trump and some co-defendants attempted to make Georgia officials violate their oaths of office, finding such allegations were not detailed enough.
“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. However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned’s opinion, fatal,” McAfee wrote in Wednesday’s order.
The judge added that the six counts that were dropped all contained “essential elements” of crimes but failed to allege sufficient detail regarding “the nature of their commission, i.e., the underlying felony solicited.”
“They do 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 added.
Although he threw out the charge of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer, the judge said the alleged conduct that was the foundation for the charge could still be relied on by prosecutors as part of a broader racketeering charge at the core of the case. He also denied efforts by some defendants to dismiss certain “overt acts” included in the indictment.
“This does not mean the entire indictment is dismissed,” McAfee underscored.
Trump attorney Steve Sadow told the Washington Examiner that McAfee made the “correct legal decision” to grant his client’s special demurrers, which were filed by defendants in a bid to toss the charges.
The judge dismissed against Trump counts 5, 28, and 38, which claimed that he solicited Georgia public officials to violate their oath of office.
“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,” Sadow said.
The six charges in question involved soliciting elected officials to violate their oaths of office. Two of the charges were related to the phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021.
“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call.
Willis’s office will have another opportunity to seek charges on the counts that were tossed by McAfee on Wednesday for lack of sufficient detail. But if defense attorneys succeeded at convincing McAfee that those charges would not stick again, prosecutors cannot seek to bring them a third time, according to a post on X by lawyer Andrew Fleischman.
McAfee’s decision comes as he prepares a separate decision on whether to remove Willis after co-defendant Mike Roman filed a motion in January alleging a conflict of interest between the district attorney and her hired special prosecutor, Nathan Wade.
In a rare interview last week on WSB Radio in Atlanta, McAfee briefly spoke about the forthcoming Willis decision.
“I gave myself a deadline because I knew everyone wanted an answer. And I’ll tell you that an order like this takes time to write,” McAfee said in the interview, referencing his comment in the courtroom earlier this month that he hoped to issue a ruling by the end of this week.
The judge also dismissed rumors that the election for his judicial seat may have some sort of impact on how he rules on the disqualification effort against Willis.
“I am calling as best I can and the law as I understand it. So, I still feel like I’m on track to having that done by the deadline that I put on myself,” he said during the interview.
The nearly 100-page indictment detailed several acts by Trump or his allies to undo his 2020 election defeat, including allegedly harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and adopt an alternate slate of Electoral College electors favorable to Trump.
Other defendants in the case include former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, Trump administration Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, and several others. Four defendants have taken plea deals, and Trump and 14 remaining defendants have pleaded not guilty.
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The judge’s order leaves Meadows only facing a racketeering charge. The Washington Examiner reached out to an attorney for Meadows.
Read the decision to toss the six charges:
