Final criminal case against Trump dismissed after Georgia prosecutor drops charges

Nick Schifrin:

Liz, I'm going to switch gears for us in what is really the end of a chapter in American history.

Liz Landers:

Yes.

Nick Schifrin:

The final criminal charges against President Donald Trump have been dropped after a prosecutor in Georgia moved to dismiss the case focused on a push to overturn the 2020 election results in the state.

The president, as we remember, was one of 19 suspects — that's his mug shot back then — including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as well as former attorney Rudy Giuliani. What happened today?

Liz Landers:

I want to remind our viewers that this was all precipitated by a phone call, an infamous phone call now, between President Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Donald Trump, President of the United States: So what are we going to do here, folks? I only need 11,000 votes. Fellows, I need 11,000 votes. Give me a break. We have that in spades already.

Liz Landers:

Nick, that phone call happened at the beginning of January in 2021. By February, just a month later, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, Fani Willis, had opened a criminal investigation into that phone call and whether the president was pressuring the secretary of state to overturn the election results in Georgia.

This resulted in a long legal battle. And there were criminal charges that were brought against the president and these 18 other co-defendants in August of 2023. Now, this was considered a RICO, or a racketeering, case. It was sweeping. There were different charges against different defendants here.

But this was all a number of people that are high-profile and that I think our viewers would remember. Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, Rudy Giuliani, the president's personal attorney, were caught up in this as well.

These charges were all dismissed today by the special prosecutor down there who has just recently been appointed to oversee this. He asked for these charges to be formally dismissed by the judge, basically saying that he does not think that there is enough information to bring these charges, going — enough to bring these charges going forward here because it is too sweeping of an indictment, and it would take too long because the president is a sitting president right now.

He does not believe he can charge a sitting president.

Nick Schifrin:

So tell us more about this prosecutor and, as you were saying, why does he feel like this case needed to be dropped right now?

Liz Landers:

Peter Skandalakis is the prosecutor that took over for Fani Willis there when she was taken off of this case. There was some legal drama around that.

He took over this case just recently and he released this 23-page filing today. And I spoke earlier today with Gene Rossi, who's a former federal prosecutor, and he offered his interpretation of why this was dismissed.

Gene Rossi, Former Federal Prosecutor:

And the word T-O-O comes to mind here. This indictment had too many defendants, including President Trump, it had too many counts and it was going to take too long to try this case if they did it in one trial.

And when I'm reading this decision by this special prosecutor, I get the impression he looked at this indictment and he said, what a hot mess. It's just a lot of things put together, a hodgepodge of charges, allegations. And, frankly, he didn't like it and he didn't like it that it was against the sitting president.

Liz Landers:

And, Nick, Peter Skandalakis also wrote today in this decision, this legal filing, he said that: "Given the complexity of the legal issues at hand, bringing this case before a jury in 2029, 2030 or even 2031 would be nothing short of a remarkable feat."

Nick Schifrin:

Is this the end?

Liz Landers:

It sounds like it is, according to Skandalakis.

I mean, he has asked the judge in this case to fully dismiss all of the charges against the president and these other 18 co-defendants here. Rossi also sort of summed this up I think nicely too.

Gene Rossi:

I think a snowball in a certain part of the world has a better chance of survival than this case. This case is dead. And I can't see how it could possibly be resurrected in Georgia or in any other state.

Liz Landers:

And this is overall a win for the president and for his allies here.

And the president posting about this on TRUTH Social today, saying that justice had prevailed here, Nick.

Nick Schifrin:

Absolutely.

Liz Landers, our White House correspondent, covering two stories for us, thanks very much.