Trump's Trials - Judge dismisses six counts in Georgia election interference case

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

For this episode of Trump's Trials, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Georgia politics reporter Sam Gringlas.The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case has dismissed six criminal counts against former President Donald Trump and his co-defendants. Three of those counts specifically apply to Trump. They all involve alleged attempts to solicit public officials to violate their oaths of office. An example of that is the telephone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, during which Trump asked the secretary to find him 11,780 votes to overturn the election.Trump's now facing 10 criminal counts instead of 13. Prosecutors can re-file the dropped charges but it's unclear if they will. Topics include:- Possible new indictment - What comes next for the caseFollow the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify for new episodes each Saturday.Sign up for sponsor-free episodes and support NPR's political journalism at plus.npr.org/trumpstrials.Email the show at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

It's Trump's Trials. I'm Scott Detrow. This is a persecution. He actually just stormed out of the courtroom. Innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Today, the judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case threw out six charges against former President Donald Trump and his allies. The charges surround alleged attempts to solicit public officials to break the law by violating their oaths of office.

A notable example of this was the most high-profile evidence in the case, that recorded phone call where Trump pressured Georgia's Secretary of State to find enough votes so that Trump would be the Georgia winner. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. The judge determined the prosecutors had not been specific enough about what violations Trump and others were pressuring officials to make. Now, Trump still faces 10 criminal charges in this case, and prosecutors can refile the charges that were dropped, but it's unclear if they will. And it's another political blow to a case that at one point had been seen as perhaps the strongest against Trump. WABE's Sam Greenglass tells us about it when we come back. This message comes from NPR sponsor, Solgar.

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We're back. Here's All Things Considered host Mary Louise Kelly and WABE's Sam Greenglass. This is a sweeping, racketeering case. There are a lot of alleged crimes tied to attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Tell me, what are the counts that the judge says should not stand? So all six of these counts in question have to do with soliciting public officials to violate their oaths, like when Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, pressured state lawmakers to help overturn the election, or when Trump called Georgia's Secretary of State and asked him to find votes. Now, Judge Scott McAfee said he doesn't doubt that crimes may

have been committed here. What he's saying is that prosecutors failed to specify how. What Trump and his allies were asking these officials to do would have violated their oaths. And without those specifics, McAfee said the defendants wouldn't be able to mount their defense. So is that it? Is this final? Those counts just go away? Well, prosecutors can appeal. But when I called up Georgia State Law Professor Anthony Michael Christ, he said what's more likely is that they just go back to a grand jury for another indictment. She really just has to button up the constitutional theory that says this is why if Donald Trump got his way, the individuals who he was discussing

overturning the election with would have violated their oath to uphold the constitutions of the United States and of Georgia. So if the Secretary of State went along with Trump, would he have violated the Georgia Constitution's guaranteed right to vote or the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause? Okay. And again, there's still, I think, 35 other crimes that are still up for prosecution. So how likely is it for prosecutors to try to resurrect these ones that have been thrown out, or are they more likely just to let them go? Well, as one former prosecutor noted to me today, going back to a grand jury is a relatively easy fix. But with so many other charges still on the books here,

he said he might have just moved on if this was his case. Professor Christ, though, points out one reason DA Fannie Willis might want to fight for these six counts. I think Fannie Willis was really trying to tap into a theme that what Donald Trump and his allies were allegedly trying to do here in Georgia was upend the constitutional order and violate the heart of our democracy. And so these charges spoke to that in a way that some of these other ones don't. And so I think she'll probably be loathe to let this go. Either way, the underlying acts, the phone call, the legislative testimony, they don't

just disappear. All can still be used to support perhaps the central charge in this case, and that is racketeering. Sam, speaking of Fannie Willis, the district attorney, the judge has also got that on his plate this week. We're waiting to hear whether Fannie Willis may be removed from this case entirely. That's right. Judge McAfee is expected to rule really any day now on whether Willis's romantic relationship with a special prosecutor she hired for the case created a disqualifying conflict of interest. But Mary Louise, it's looking doubtful anyways

whether this case gets to trial this year, given delays in that federal case also focused on Trump's efforts to undermine the 2020 election. Thank you, Sam. Thanks, Mary Louise. W.A.B.E.'s Sam Greenglass in Atlanta. Thanks for listening to Trump's Trials from NPR.

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