America's Talking - Trump election interference case in Georgia dismissed

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

(The Center Square) – Election interference charges in Georgia against second-term Republican President Donald Trump were motioned for dismissal Wednesday by the Prosecuting Attorney's Council. In response, the president later in the day said again the 2020 election was stolen. On social media, the second-term Republican called the case the "Fani Willis Witch Hunt" and accused Democrats of orchestrating it. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had sought to prosecute Trump and his allies, charging them with trying to overturn the state's election results. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, hello again and welcome to America's Talking. I'm Alan Wooden, managing editor on the East Coast. Joining me today is Kim Jared, an associate editor in the South, and we are talking about the last litigation against now President Donald Trump. Kim, let's talk about why the case was dismissed. This case went to the Prosecutor and Attorney's Council of Georgia because Fannie Willis, the Fulton County District Attorney, was disqualified for her romantic relations.

relationship with the lead prosecutor in the case. And last week, right before Thanksgiving on Thanksgiving Eve, the lead prosecutor decided he's going to dismiss his case. His reasonings were, number one, the case is five years old. He was going to prosecute a sitting president after he's out of office. Is it even worth, you know, going after the case then? Plus what some people were saying was the smoking gun, the phone call between the president and Secretary of State Brevard Rothensberger, he said could be interpreted multiple ways. may not be that the president was trying to pressure Ruffinsburg to change the election results in 2020. As far as the other 19 defendants, all their cases are dismissed, but four of them had already pleaded guilty. Those pleas stand as of right now. They can possibly file for other things. But right now, that case is just wiped clean for all of the defendants, including the president. So while it may be wiped clean in that respect, for taxpayers, that's not quite the case and there's legislation that makes that so. Right. Senate Bill 244, which was passed by the Georgia legislature, right at the very end of

this session and signed by Governor Kemp in May, says that if a prosecutor is disqualified for prosecutorial misconduct, that the defendants in that case can go after the county to recoup their legal fees. Now, we know Trump's attorney is now saying, yes, he is going to do that. We haven't heard from other, with 19 defendants, we're trying to try. back down most of the attorneys. That's the only one we've heard of yet. We haven't got a definite number as to how much the president's legal fees will be, but we're hearing that could be in the millions. They have 45 days to file this. So we're looking at that was dismissed on November 26th, probably they could carry this out into January, or they could decide on a Christmas

surprise and say, oh, here's how much the legal fees are. The bill does say that it has to be reasonable cost. And I think that's what is going to be interesting to see what a judge says, once these are filed, what is determined reasonable? And our attorney is going to go for all of their legal fees, or are they going to take it to affect what the bill says that it has to be reasonable? It'll be interesting to see how that plays with them deciding what they would call reasonable, knowing that the taxpayers could be on the hook for that. It is interesting. And it's been, and kind of jumping ahead, there's been some. going back and forth this week, one of the sponsors of the bill this week kind of came out

and kind of bragged that, hey, yeah, we want this accountability. So if you do this, we're going to put you on the hook for this. There's also something interesting about the bill. At the very last minute, there was another bill circulating through the House of Representatives by Katie Dempsey of Rome that would force the state to pay for defendants who were wrongly convicted. It would have forced them to give them, I think, $75,000 each. That bill had done. she had been trying to pass that bill for two years. She has two people in her hometown of Rome that were wrongly convicted and exonerated, and she's been trying to help them recoup some money.

They sat in jail for 20 years. And what they did was they took Dempsey's bill and tacked it on to this bill that would allow defendants to recoup their legal fees. I don't know if that made it sweeter to some people who were opposed to the bill before, but that bill got through at the last minute by tacking that on. So it's going to be interesting to see how. all of this plays out. I've asked Democrats, are you planning on, is there anything you could do? They really haven't given me an answer as to whether or not they'll try to call this bill back

or do something that will negate this bill in the 2026 session. They have called this a witch hunt. Senate majority leader, Harold Jones, told me yesterday, he says, I really hate that we're not focusing on affordability and we're still kind of talking about this case. We've heard that phrase witch hunt before, haven't we? I know. Usually from the other side, though. I thought it was interesting. that that was his words yesterday to me. Yeah, that is interesting. What about Fulton County?

What's their play on this? Well, Luton County's got a lot of problems. Right now, they are working on their budget. They had a meeting yesterday where they're talking about this, what's going to happen. They are under a consent decree to fix their jail because their jail has multiple problems. They're looking at an additional $30 to $60 million, according to what they're saying now. They're now kind of saying it's going to be on the jail. the lower end, just to kind of meet some of those federal standards that were in that federal

dissent decree that they agreed to back in January. It was brought up during yesterday's budget meetings, like, hey, we know we're going to be, we're probably going to be on the hook for this. Why is this not in the budget? Are we not putting it in the budget? And Chairman Rob Pitt said very quickly, we need to discuss that in executive session. I'm going to talk to them more to see if I could get some definite answers, but has it right now, it's not in the Fulton County budget. Fulton County had already asked departments to cut back by one percent. We know they're having some struggles. Even the Fulton County Board of Education, they were talking about millions of dollars of shortfalls or closing a couple of schools.

So, I mean, honestly, what county would have however many millions of dollars sitting around for something like this? But Fulton County already facing some challenges, it's going to be interesting in January when they go seriously into budget negotiations to see how is this money going to play into their final budget. Very good. Coast to coast, border to border, TCS is your one-stop source for education knowledge on taxpayer issues. We cover it all. Go to thecentersquare.com for more on this story and others. For Kim Jared, I'm Alan Wooden. Thank you for joining us on America's Talking.