WASHINGTON: The judge in Donald Trump’s Georgia election subversion trial on Wednesday (Mar 13) dismissed some of the charges against the former US president and some of his co-defendants, according to a court filing, while allowing the overall case to proceed.
In throwing out six of the 41 criminal counts, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee said that prosecutors’ allegations that they tried to get officials to violate their oaths were not detailed enough, according to the court filing.
The dismissed charges including three counts against Trump, the Republican presidential candidate in the November election. The central racketeering charge against Trump and his remaining 14 co-defendants remains in place.
Trump and his co-defendants have pleaded not guilty to charges that they formed a criminal conspiracy to seek to overturn Trump’s defeat in Georgia in the 2020 election.
The Georgia case is one of four criminal prosecutions Trump is facing as he tries to unseat Democratic President Joe Biden. He also faces federal charges for his efforts to undo his election defeat and is due to stand trial in New York beginning later this month on charges related to a hush money payment to a porn star.
Trump has denied wrongdoing in all four cases and says they are all attempts to stop him winning reelection.
A spokesperson for the Fulton County District Attorney’s office and a lawyer for Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lawyers for Trump and five allies, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, challenged allegations that they attempted to get Georgia lawmakers to violate their oaths of office by convincing them to appoint fraudulent slates of pro-Trump electors.
Two of the six charges McAfee dismissed relate to a January 2021 phone call when Trump pressed Georgia’s top election official, Brad Raffensperger, to “find” votes to reverse his defeat in the state.
The indictment did not specify in sufficient detail how Trump and his co-defendants could have violated their oaths of office or their respective duties under the US or Georgia state constitutions, McAfee found.
“They do not give the defendants enough information to prepare their defences intelligently, as the defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways,” the judge wrote in his ruling.
McAfee said prosecutors could seek a new, more detailed indictment on those counts.
McAfee’s ruling came as he prepares to issue a highly anticipated decision on whether the prosecutor overseeing the case, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, should be disqualified over a romantic relationship with a lawyer she hired to run the prosecution.
Source: CNA
