But the judge emphasized that prosecutors may refile the charges in greater detail.
The state judge presiding over Donald Trump’s criminal case in Georgia has thrown out six of the indictment’s 41 charges, ruling that the state had failed to make specific enough allegations to support them.
The ruling affects three of the 13 felony counts Trump faces in the case, though not the central charge of a racketeering conspiracy aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state. Several of the dismissed counts do not involve Trump but instead apply to some of his most prominent co-defendants, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Mark Meadows.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee emphasized that prosecutors may refile the charges with greater detail or appeal his ruling.
However, McAfee found that as written, the allegations that Donald Trump and several allies solicited Georgia officials to violate their oaths of office — in part by sending false electors to Congress — were too generic.
“The lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is … fatal,” McAfee wrote.
It’s the latest setback for prosecutors in a case already waylaid for weeks by allegations that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis improperly benefited from the case by appointing a special prosecutor she had a romantic relationship with, Nathan Wade. Defendants have alleged that Wade used income he earned from his contract as a special prosecutor to take lavish vacations with Willis.
McAfee has held extended hearings on the defendants’ claims that Willis and Wade’s alleged impropriety requires that Willis and her office be disqualified from the case and it be assigned to prosecutors elsewhere in the state. The judge has yet to rule on that issue.
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Judge tosses six charges in Trump Georgia indictment https://t.co/IfhunQwWYS
— POLITICO (@politico) March 13, 2024
JUST IN: Judge McAfee has thrown out six counts in the Fulton County indictment of Trump and several codefendants. He says the allegations that the defendants tried to get GA officials to violate their oaths were not detailed enough. pic.twitter.com/0ewQ1TeWip
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 13, 2024
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