Georgia prosecutor drops 2020 election interference case against Trump and 18 others
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The news: Georgia prosecutor Peter Skandalakis has dropped the state’s 2020 election interference case against Donald Trump and his allies. That effectively closes the high-profile criminal prosecution that once posed a major legal threat to the US president’s political future.
The case, originally filed in August 2023, accused Trump and 18 others of joining a conspiracy to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.
Skandalakis, who took over after Willis was disqualified in December 2024 over a personal relationship with a special prosecutor she hired, said the case was “on life support” and pursuing it would be “unduly burdensome and costly” for the state and county. He wrote that, even with every legal issue resolved in the State’s favour, getting the case to trial before 2029, 2030 or even 2031 would have been “a remarkable feat.”
Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow said “this case should never have been brought” and declared the “political persecution” of Trump was “finally over”.
The context: The charges were filed in August 2023 by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, following a 2021 phone call in which Trump urged Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes”.
Brought under Georgia’s racketeering law, typically used against organised crime, the indictment named 19 defendants. Four of the 19 defendants, including attorneys involved in efforts to unlawfully change the election outcome, later accepted plea deals.
Trump was booked at the Fulton County Jail that August, where he had his mugshot taken for the first time. The case stalled after Willis was removed in late 2024 over a relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, and her appeal was rejected by the Georgia Supreme Court in September 2025.
Skandalakis, executive director of the nonpartisan agency Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia, took over after other prosecutors declined the case and issued the final order to dismiss it.
