DA Fani Willis appeals decision to dismiss charges in Trump election case
ATLANTA - Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is appealing a decision by the judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case dismissing some of the charges against former President Donald Trump.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote in an order in March that six of the counts in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee. But the order leaves intact other charges, and the judge wrote that prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed.
DA Willis filed an appeal with the Georgia Court of Appeals this week, court documents show. The appeal was opened by a defense motion to appeal the judge’s ruling on the disqualification of Fani Willis. Judge McAfee ordered that either Fani Willis or special prosecutor Nathan Wade may remain on the case, after both admitted to an affair. Wade would resign from the case.
Fani Willis, Fulton County District Attorney, at the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Friday, March 1, 2024. Photographer: Alex Slitz/AP/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The sprawling indictment charges Trump and more than a dozen other defendants with violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO. The case uses a statute normally associated with mobsters to accuse the former president, lawyers and other aides of a "criminal enterprise" to keep him in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.
What are the charges that were dismissed?
The six charges in question have to do with soliciting elected officials to violate their oaths of office. That includes two charges related to the phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, 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.
Former President Donald Trump with attorney Todd Blanche speaks to the media during his trial for allegedly covering up hush money payments at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 21, 2024 in New York City. Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying b
The six counts are as follows:
• Count Two alleges that multiple Defendants solicited elected members of the Georgia Senate to violate their oaths of office on December 3, 2020, by requesting or importuning them to unlawfully appoint presidential electors;
• Count Five alleges that Defendant Trump solicited the Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives to violate his oath of office on December 7, 2020, by requesting or importuning him to call a special session to unlawfully appoint presidential electors;
• Count Six alleges that Defendants Ray Smith and Rudy Giuliani solicited members of the Georgia House of Representatives to violate their oaths of office on December 10, 2020, by requesting or importuning them to unlawfully appoint presidential electors;
• Count 23 alleges that multiple Defendants solicited elected members of the Georgia Senate to violate their oaths of office on December 30, 2020, by requesting or importuning them to unlawfully appoint presidential electors;
• Count 28 alleges that Defendants Trump and Mark Meadows solicited the Georgia Secretary of State to violate his oath of office on January 2, 2021, by requesting or importuning him to unlawfully influence the certified election returns; and
• Count 38 alleges that Defendant Trump solicited the Georgia Secretary of State to violate his oath of office on September 17, 2021, by requesting or importuning him to unlawfully decertify the election.
"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. Kimbrough, 300 Ga. at 884. 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 wrote.
"A naked charge of solicitation cannot survive unless accompanied by additional elements establishing the solicited felony," McAfee also wrote, arguing that prosecutors did not explain the exact terms of the oaths that some of Trump's co-defendants had violated.
Other defendants affected
The other defendants listed on the order from Judge Scott McAfee are former New York City mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, attorney John Eastman, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, attorney Ray Smith and attorney Robert Cheeley.
McAfee's order leaves Meadows facing only a RICO charge. Jim Durham, a lawyer for Meadows, declined to comment.
The case accuses Trump and 18 others of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.
The nearly 100-page indictment details dozens of acts by Trump or his allies to undo his defeat, including harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favorable to Trump.