FILE - Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks, March 9, 2024, in Rome, Ga. A federal judge on Tuesday, March 12, approved the $92 million bond put up by Trump to ensure that writer E. Jean Carroll will receive a jury award for his verbal attacks against her if it survives appeals. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)
ATLANTA (AP) – The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case on Wednesday dismissed some of the charges against former President Donald Trump, but many other counts in the indictment remain.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wrote in an order that six of the counts in the indictment must be quashed, including three against Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee. But the order leaves intact other charges, and the judge wrote that prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed.
The ruling is a blow for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose case has already been on shaky ground with an effort to have her removed from the prosecution over her romantic relationship with a colleague. It’s the first time charges in any of Trump’s four criminal cases have been dismissed, with the judge saying prosecutors failed to provide enough detail about the alleged crime.
The six 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.
“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call.
The case accuses Trump and 18 others of conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden. The nearly 100-page indictment details dozens of acts by Trump or his allies to undo his defeat, including harassing an election worker who faced false claims of fraud and attempting to persuade Georgia lawmakers to ignore the will of voters and appoint a new slate of electoral college electors favorable to Trump.
