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Republican Prosecutor Dumps Georgia Trump Election Interference Case
Peter Skandalakis, the Georgia prosecutor who took over the state’s case against President Donald Trump and 14 other co-defendants alleging interference in the 2020 presidential election, dropped the case on Wednesday. Before taking the case, he spent nearly 25 years as the elected Republican district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit in the state.
Skandalakis took over the case earlier this year when the original prosecutor, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, an elected Democrat, was taken off the case. When she was removed, the case was sent to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to decide who would take it over. After no other attorneys wanted the job, Skandalakis, the executive director of the council, assigned it to himself, according to Fortune. The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia is a nonpartisan office.
“Given the complexity of the legal issues at hand — ranging from constitutional questions and the Supremacy Clause to immunity, jurisdiction, venue, speedy-trial concerns, and access to federal records — and even assuming each of these issues were resolved in the State’s favor, bringing this case before a jury in 2029, 2030, or even 2031 would be nothing short of a remarkable feat,” Skandalakis wrote, alleging pursuing the case “would be both illogical and unduly burdensome and costly for the State and for Fulton County,” according to CNN.
The case hinged on a phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, where Trump asked him to “find” enough votes to win the state. If the case had gone forward, being at the state level, Trump could not grant himself or his co-defendants a pardon if convicted.
Skandalakis cited the similar federal case brought against the president by Jack Smith as evidence the Georgia case would not get far.
“[I]f Special Counsel Jack Smith, with all the resources of the federal government at his disposal, after reviewing the evidence in this case and considering the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States, along with the years of litigation such a case would inevitably entail, concluded that prosecution would be fruitless,” Skandalakis wrote, according to the New York Post, “then I too find that, despite the available evidence, pursuing the prosecution of all those involved in State of Georgia v. Donald Trump, et al. on essentially federal grounds would be equally unproductive.”
Smith’s case, and its ultimate dismissal, was controversial. The case was originally to be heard by District Judge Tanya Chutkan, but after Trump’s re-election in 2024, Smith asked her to dismiss the case due to a Department of Justice policy against prosecuting a sitting president, according to ABC News. The case had hit a prior speedbump after the Supreme Court ruled along ideological lines that, as president, Trump would be immune to prosecution for any “official acts” executed as president, but not “unofficial ones.”
Image via Reuters
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