Georgia appeals court upholds dismissal of 6 counts as Trump seeks to keep Willis disqualified from election case
A Georgia appeals court on Friday upheld a lower court's ruling that dismissed six of the charges brought in the 2020 Fulton County election interference case against Donald Trump and other co-defendants.
Trial judge Scott McAfee last year dismissed the charges from the indictment -- three of which applied to Trump -- because he found they were legally deficient and failed to provide enough details.
Trump originally face 13 counts in the indictment, and following the dismissal faced 10.
All of the charges related to the charge of solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer.
The Georgia Court of Appeals, in Friday's ruling, denied an appeal from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on the grounds that the charges lacked enough specificity.
"We find that the indictment fails to include enough detail to sufficiently apprise the defendants of what they must be prepared to meet so that they can intelligently prepare their defense," the appeals court ruling stated.
"Another win for President Trump," Trump's attorney, Steve Sadow, wrote on X in response to the ruling.
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The ruling came on the same day that Trump's attorneys, in a court filing, urged the Georgia Supreme Court to keep Willis disqualified from the case.
The filing asked the court to uphold an appeals court ruling last month that disqualified Willis over her relationship with a prosecutor on the case.
Willis asked the Georgia Supreme Court earlier this month to reverse her disqualification.
Trump's lawyers argued in Friday's filing that the trial court fashioned an "inadequate legal remedy" by allowing Willis to remain on the case if the prosecutor Nathan Wade resigned, which he did following the ruling.
Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty in 2023 to all charges in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, and four defendants subsequently took plea deals in exchange for agreeing to testify against other defendants.
Willis was disqualified from the case last month -- although the indictment was allowed to stand -- when the Georgia Court of Appeals upheld Trump's appeal of the trial judge's ruling that allowed Willis to stay on the case.
Friday's filing also pushed back on Willis' claim that the appeals court created a new standard when it disqualified her, claiming: "Nothing could be further from the truth."
"Mandatory disqualification of an elected District Attorney for a significant appearance of impropriety, for specific conduct, is unlikely to recur because no Georgia District Attorney has engaged in such egregious disqualifying conduct before and it is highly unlikely that any DA will ever do so in the future," the filing stated. "No Georgia court has ever considered impropriety of this extraordinary magnitude."