Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee tossed out six counts against former President Donald Trump and several of his codefendants in DA Fani Willis’s election interference indictment on Wednesday.
Politico’s Kyle Cheney first flagged the ruling and noted that McAfee “says the allegations that the defendants tried to get GA officials to violate their oaths were not detailed enough.”
“The Court’s concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants – in fact it has alleged an abundance. However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned’s opinion, fatal. 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,” read the order from McAfee.
The six quashed charges in Willis’s sweeping indictment include three against Trump himself. The Associated Press noted that the “charges in question have to do with soliciting elected officials to violate their oaths of office. That includes two charges related to the phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, on Jan. 2, 2021. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.”
Trump still faces more than half a dozen charges in the case and McAfee’s order allows for the prosecution to refile the charges with additional details.
Trump and eighteen of his codefendants pleaded not guilty last August in the racketeering indictment alleging a criminal scheme to try and overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. Kenneth Chesebro, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, and Scott Hall have all subsequently taken plea deals in Fulton County in exchange for aiding the prosecution.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.
