THE DAILY BEAST
The Georgia judge overseeing Donald Trump’s election interference case in Atlanta has taken the remarkable decision to drop criminal charges stemming from the former president’s infamous phone call pressuring the state’s top elections official to “find 11,780 votes” that didn’t exist to flip the results there—considered by many to be the most stark evidence of his alleged ploy to stay in power in 2020.
The sudden court ruling significantly pares down the criminal indictment against Trump, MAGA lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, election coup lawyer John Eastman, and two others.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee quashed six charges against Trump and his co-defendants, but noted that “this does not mean the entire indictment is dismissed.” Three of the six charges involve Trump, who was initially arrested on 13 counts, directly.
“These six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission,” McAfee wrote. “They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitution and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.”
