Donald Trump had two counts tossed from his criminal case in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, after the presiding judge decided on Thursday they fell under the supremacy clause in the US constitution that bars state prosecutors from charging federal crimes.
“The supremacy clause declares that state law must yield to federal law when the two conflict,” the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee wrote in his order.
The judge decided that two charges against Trump and an additional count against several Trump allies, who were charged as co-defendants, should be struck. But he decided the remainder of the indictment – including the Rico racketeering charge – could remain.
Trump now faces eight charges, down from 13 charges. Trump pleaded not guilty to the sprawling 2020 election interference case in Fulton county last year along with 18 other co-defendants. Four have since taken plea deals and agreed to testify against the other defendants.
The charges that were dismissed against Trump – the filing of false documents and conspiring to file false documents – related to the Trump campaign’s gambit to submit fake elector certificates declaring Trump as the winner even though he had lost.
The fake elector certificates were then sent to the National Archives ahead of the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January 2021, which the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, charged as criminal forgery counts.
“President Trump and his legal team in Georgia have prevailed once again. The trial court has decided that counts 15 and 27 in the indictment must be quashed/dismissed,” Trump’s lead lawyer, Steve Sadow, said in a statement.
The 22-page order issued by McAfee comes as the fate of the case hangs in the balance ahead of the Georgia appeals court deciding whether Willis can continue with the case, following her alleged relationship with her deputy, Nathan Wade.
McAfee declined to remove Willis from the case as long as Wade resigned to resolve the conflict of interest allegation, a decision that Trump’s lawyers have appealed.
Trump’s attorneys continue to argue that Willis has a conflict of interest, but also argued that she should have been disqualified for comments she made about the case at a speech at Big Bethel AME church in downtown Atlanta. In the wake of revelations about her relationship with Wade, Willis attributed the legal attack to racist motivations.
Separately on Thursday, McAfee rejected a motion from the former Trump lawyer John Eastman and Trump fake elector Shawn Still to toss the entire indictment on grounds that it relied on an overly broad interpretation of the Georgia state racketeering statute.
