Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee dismissed six charges Wednesday in the Georgia election interference case, including three charges against former President Donald Trump. The judge ruled that the charges were dismissed due to a “lack of detail.”
McAfee’s court order dismissed three charges that had been brought against Trump for allegedly pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.
According to The Hill, the other three charges dropped Wednesday by McAfee were related to alleged efforts by Trump allies, such as former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, to solicit Georgia officials to violate their oaths of office.
“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,” McAfee wrote. “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.”
In Wednesday’s ruling, McAfee claimed that the state has “alleged an abundance” of “sufficient conduct” against the defendants in Trump’s election interference case in Georgia. However, he ruled that the charges were dismissed due to a “lack of detail” regarding an “essential legal element.”
While McAfee’s court order dismissed multiple charges in Trump’s prosecution case, The Hill reported that the judge’s ruling does not dismiss the “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act” charge that Trump and his co-defendants face in Georgia.
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The Hill also reported that the judge’s Wednesday ruling was not related to the ongoing legal dispute over Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s alleged relationship with a special prosecutor on Trump’s case.
Steve Sadow, a Trump attorney, applauded McAfee’s decision on Wednesday in a statement to Fox 5.
“The Court made the correct legal decision to grant the special demurrers and quash important counts of the indictment brought by DA Fani Willis. 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 stated. “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 Trump attorney told Fox 5 that the prosecution of the former president is “political” and amounts to “election interference.” Sadow argued that the rest of the charges in the Georgia case against Trump “should be dismissed.”
