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Judge officially drops 3 charges in Georgia's Trump 2020 election interference case

By
Dan Raby
Senior Digital Producer, CBS News Atlanta
Dan Raby, the senior digital producer for CBS News Atlanta, has been covering everything happening around Georgia for more than a decade.
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Dan Raby

/ CBS Atlanta

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee has officially dropped three charges out of dozens in Georgia's election interference case against President Trump and others.

On Friday, McAfee ordered that Counts 14, 15, and 27, conspiracy and criminal attempt to file false documents and filing false documents, respectively, should be dismissed. Mr. Trump had been charged with two of the counts, 15 and 27.

McAfee had signaled in September 2024 that he wanted to remove the charges, arguing that they lie beyond the state's jurisdiction. He was not able to officially drop the charges until the case was remanded to him, which did not happen until Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis's disqualification was finalized by the Georgia courts.

In Friday's ruling, he said that the defendants' remaining motions challenging the indictment over the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution were denied, meaning only the three were quashed at this time.

The judge had previously quashed six counts in the indictment, including three against Mr. Trump, in March 2024.

Even with the counts removed, 32 remain, including an overarching racketeering charge brought against the remaining 15 defendants.

Earlier today, attorney Steve Sadow, who is representing Mr. Trump in Georgia, said that his legal team "remain confident that a fair and impartial review will lead to a dismissal of the case" against the president.

A new prosecutor in the Georgia Trump election case

The ruling comes on the same day that Peter J. Skandalakis, the director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia, announced he would be filling the position left vacant by Willis after she was disqualified from the case.

Skandalakis said he had appointed himself to lead the prosecution after his organization could not find another prosecutor before McAfee's Friday deadline. If a prosecutor had not been found, the judge said he would have dismissed all charges.

"The public has a legitimate interest in the outcome of this case," he wrote. "Accordingly, it is important that someone make an informed and transparent determination about how best to proceed." 

Skandalakis said Willis' office delivered 101 boxes of documents on Oct. 29 and an eight-terabyte hard drive with the full investigative file on Nov. 6. Although he hasn't completed his review, he took on the case so he can finish assessing it and decide what to do next.

Though Mr. Trump  earlier this week for people accused of backing his efforts to overturn the  — including those charged in Georgia — presidential pardons only apply to federal charges, and Skandalakis has said that has no bearing on these state charges.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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