The Fulton County, Georgia case against Donald Trump and 14 others alleged to have participated in a conspiracy to defraud Georgia voters of their votes in 2020 remains in limbo, with a federal appeals court considering whether to let stand Judge Scott McAfee’s decision that DA Fani Willis can continue to prosecute the case.
Trump originally faced 13 counts, reduced to ten last spring before becoming eight this week. McAfee ruled the two recently scuttled counts, involving filing false documents, fall under federal jurisdiction.
Yet even as the case is paused awaiting the court’s decision, McAfee this week struck two counts from the original indictment against Trump, leaving the number of counts the former President faces at eight.
The pause in the case until after the election is perhaps Trump’s lawyers’ biggest victory so far — with an appeals court decision not due till 2025 — but the whittling down of the charges is also a win. (Trump’s lawyers benefitted here from the legal work of two other defendants, lawyer John Eastman and state senator Shawn Still, who brough the challenge.)
Judge McAfee permitted the RICO charge to remain in the case but dismissed counts involving filing false documents, ruling they belong in federal, not state, court. https://t.co/IE2823km8G
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) September 12, 2024
Still Trump faces not just the eight remaining counts but also three lawyers — Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro — and a bail bondsman who flipped and pleaded guilty before the pause, agreeing to cooperate with the prosecution.
[NOTE: Ellis seems to be holding a bag of bad trial news for Trump, if a trial ever occurs. She failed to do her due diligence, she said in pleading guilty, adding: “If I knew then what I know now. I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse.”]
The Fulton County case has much in common with special counsel Jack Smith‘s election interference case against Trump, though Smith’s prosecution doesn’t include alleged co-conspirators.
One pertinent difference is that the Fulton County case remains outside federal jurisdiction and therefore also remains a prosecution Trump can’t cancel if he regains the White House, where he would be able to squash the DOJ’s pursuit of him for multiple instances of alleged criminality.
