The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s election-subversion case in Georgia dropped two charges against the former president and another against some of his co-defendants on Thursday because the three counts fall under federal jurisdiction.
Judge Scott McAfee largely upheld the indictment brought by Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis last year but dismissed three counts related to filing false documents, saying they should proceed in federal, not state, court.
“Because Counts 14, 15, and 27 lie beyond this State’s jurisdiction and must be quashed, the Defendants’ motions to dismiss the indictment under the Supremacy Clause are granted in part,” McAfee wrote in his Thursday order. The supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution states that federal law takes precedence over state law when the two conflict, he noted.
In March, Judge McAfee dismissed six other counts, including three against the former president, because they lacked “sufficient detail.” Trump now faces eight counts, down from the initial 13 filed against him. The indictment originally included 41 counts against Trump and 18 of his allies, some of whom pleaded guilty to reduced charges in exchange for providing testimony in the case’s future trials.
The top racketeering charge remains intact, however. McAfee declined to remove the Georgia RICO Act violation, saying it’s “facially sound and constitutionally sufficient as alleged.”
That said, the judge wrote in a footnote that the Supreme Court’s recent decision on Trump’s presidential immunity “will likely” affect that charge. “However, unlike the many other challenges raised by the Defendants, the impact of Presidential immunity has not been fully briefed or argued by the parties, and this order does not reach that issue,” he wrote.
McAfee’s order addressed a challenge made by defendants John Eastman and Shawn Still, but Trump’s legal team confirmed that the decision to dismiss the three counts would also apply to the former president.
“President Trump and his legal team in Georgia have prevailed once again,” defense attorney Steven Sadow said. “The trial court has decided that counts 15 and 27 in the indictment must be quashed/dismissed.”
No trial date is set as Trump and his co-defendants appeal McAfee’s refusal to disqualify Willis from prosecuting the case over her inappropriate romantic relationship with then–special prosecutor Nathan Wade. The relationship posed a conflict of interest that Trump’s lawyers argued should have disqualified her.
A Georgia appeals court delayed the 2020 election-interference case indefinitely as a result of the defendants’ claims. The state court is set to hear arguments in December on Willis’s potential disqualification.