Judge McAfee, the Fulton County judge overseeing the Fulton County, Georgia RICO case against Donald Trump and a slew of co-defendants, dropped 6 of the 41 counts today, 3 of which pertain to Donald Trump.
Confusing, I know.
But it is actually not a huge deal, because a litany of bigger charges remain. The Washington Post reports that 3 of the 13 charges Trump were facing were dropped (all 6 do not apply to him).
All 6 of the charges that were dropped deal with "pressure that Trump or five of his co-defendants allegedly put on state officials to change the results" of the 2020 election. But, the judge made clear that “This does not mean the entire indictment is dismissed.” And in fact, prosecutors can still present evidence related to the charges that were dropped, that just cannot be charged with them.
The 6 counts affect Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows, former Trump campaign lawyer Robert Cheeley, John Eastman and Ray Smith. In terms of the 3 charges that specifically affected Trump - one related to the infamous phone call Trump made to Brad Raffensperger, ordering him "find" votes. The second count is related to another phone call, this one made on December 7, 2020 to Ralston "urging him to convene a special session of the legislature to reverse Joe Biden’s narrow victory in the state." The third county related to a letter Trump sent to Raffensperger asking him to overturn the election “and announce the true winner.”
Yes, those were pretty incriminating charges, but the 10 that remain are pretty strong and include violating the state racketeering act and filing false documents.
McAfee did leave the prosecution with a 6-month window to consider resubmitting the dismissed charges to a grand jury or they can appeal his order. It is unclear that Fani Willis' office will do at this point. We are also still waiting to see the final ruling on whether Willis and Wade should be disqualified and removed from the case. That ruling could come any day now.
