The long, arduous road of lawfare against President Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Fulton County, Ga., has come to an end. Prosecutor Peter Skandalakis, who took over the racketeering case that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis tried to pin on the president for supposedly attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, has dropped all of the charges.
Skandalakis, director of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council of Georgia, a bipartisan collaboration of six district attorneys and three solicitors general from across the state, assigned the case to himself earlier this month after he was unable to find another prosecutor willing to take it on.
Willis made a circus of trying to pin Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) charges on Trump and over a dozen other individuals in 2023 after nearly two years of investigation. The case took on a bizarre turn when Willis hired her lover, Nathan Wade, as a special counsel, despite his having no experience with RICO cases.
The revelation that Willis and Wade were carrying on an affair led to an investigation and surreal court testimony that revealed details of their trysts and Willis’ odd habit of stashing cash in her home and taking it with her everywhere she went. Willis grandstanded at a historic black church in Atlanta and haughtily refused to cooperate with congressional inquiries into her corruption.
Willis had other conflicts of interest as well. A judge barred her from investigating then-State Sen. Burt Jones, now Georgia’s lieutenant governor, because she fundraised for Jones’ Democratic opponent in the 2022 election for lieutenant governor. A member of her staff was shacking up with and later married that Democrat as well.
The Georgia Supreme Court eventually ruled that Willis couldn't continue prosecuting the case, which put the case in the hands of Skandalakis, who took the case on himself when no other prosecutor would touch it.
Legal expert Phil Holloway noted on X that Skandalakis made eligible Trump and his co-defendants for “record restriction,” which is basically an expungement of the arrest record.
This is a developing story, and we’ll have more information as it becomes available.