Another lawfare project bites the dust, although the Fani Willis melodrama had already chewed up its malevolent leading characters long ago.
The Georgia RICO case against Donald Trump and his team for alleged election interference got derailed before the election. Scandals involving Willis' paramour and partner in the prosecution, Nathan Wade – as well as allegations of false testimony about it – forced a court to order at least one of them to remove themselves. Willis herself finally got removed from the case in December of last year, leaving the indictments and existing plea deals from peripheral figures in limbo.
Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the agency that got assigned the case after Willis' disqualification, personally took over the case several weeks ago when no other prosecutors would agree to handle it. Skandalakis has run for office as both a Democrat and a Republican, which he noted in his motion for dismissal on the basis of there being no actual crime in the "overt acts" that Willis cited in her RICO predicate. A judge was happy to boot the case:
"In my professional judgment, the citizens of Georgia are not served by pursuing this case in full for another five to ten years," wrote Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia, who took over the case after the original prosecutor was disqualified from the case.
Within minutes of Skandalakis' court filing, the judge overseeing the case granted the request and dismissed the case.
"This case is hereby dismissed in its entirety," Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee wrote.
Readers may recall that Judge McAfee presided over the entire mess from the start. He sanctioned Willis and her hired prosecutor Wade, while kicking the question of Willis' potential disqualification to a higher court. Willis lied, or at the very least elided the truth, about the nature of her relationship with Wade and her use of funds in hiring her boyfriend. Judge McAfee probably salivated at the prospect of a clean exit from l'affaire Willis.
This isn't just a punt by Skandalakis over jurisdiction or technical issues, either. The New York Times notes that Skandalakis shredded Willis for pursuing the case at all:
In his filing, he called into question almost every decision made by Ms. Willis in bringing her case against Mr. Trump. He even argued that “reasonable minds could differ” as to how to interpret the January 2021 call between Mr. Trump and Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state.
“One interpretation is that President Donald J. Trump, without explicitly stating it, is instructing the Secretary of State to fictitiously or fraudulently produce enough votes to secure a victory in Georgia,” Mr. Skandalakis wrote in his court filing. “An alternative interpretation is that President Donald J. Trump, genuinely believing fraud had occurred, is asking the Secretary of State to investigate and determine whether sufficient irregularities exist to change the election outcome.”
He added: “When multiple interpretations are equally plausible, the accused is entitled to the benefit of the doubt and should not be presumed to have acted criminally.”
The NYT also laments that "the president has now seen three criminal cases against him dissolve since he was re-elected last year." This was the last of the 2020 election challenge cases against Trump, and all three fizzled.
One question still left unanswered is whether the state will drop the cases against four co-defendants who took plea deals in exchange for cooperation with Willis and Wade. Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro and Scott Hall all decided to cut deals to lesser charges, and technically, those guilty pleas would be unaffected by the decision to dismiss this indictment. Normally, plea deals include a bar on appeals, but given these circumstances, one could expect some or all of the four to ask for reconsideration in light of Skandalakis' assessment of Willis' prosecution.
Atlanta's Fox affiliate provided some commentary on the decision as it got handed down. We may update this post as developments warrant, but the clear message is that the Democrat Lawfare Archipelago has now fully collapsed. The only drama remaining is whether New York's appellate courts will recognize it, or if Trump will have to take the Alvin Bragg and Letitia James abominations to the US Supreme Court to finally put a spike through it.
Editor’s Note: Help us continue to report the truth about corrupt politicians like Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, and all of the Democrat Lawfare Archipelago members.
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