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The Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump appears to live on after the head of a nonpartisan state agency appointed himself the new prosecutor in the case.
Peter J. Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, will take over the case from embattled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Skandalakis announced Friday.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee had tasked Skandalakis with finding a replacement for Willis by Friday or he would allow the case to be dismissed.
Skandalakis said he contacted “several” other prosecutors who declined to take up the case.
“The decision to assume responsibility for this matter was reached only after careful and deliberate consideration,” Skandalakis wrote. “While it would have been simple to allow Judge McAfee’s deadline to lapse or to inform the Court that no conflict prosecutor could be secured—thereby allowing the case to be dismissed for want of prosecution—I did not believe that to be the right course of action.”
Skandalakis said he recently received 101 banker boxes of documents related to the Trump investigation and an 8-terabyte hard drive containing the complete investigative file.
“Since receiving these materials, I have diligently worked to familiarize myself with the record and the status of the proceedings,” he said. “Additionally, I have attempted to review the evidence gathered and the hours of interviews and proffers of witnesses and former codefendants. Unfortunately, I have not had sufficient time to complete my review. With Judge McAfee’s deadline now upon us and my review still ongoing, I have determined that the best course of action is to appoint myself to the case. This will allow me to complete a comprehensive review and make an informed decision regarding how best to proceed.”
A Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump in 2023 when he was out of office along with 18 others who allegedly formed a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, which Trump narrowly lost to President Joe Biden.
Following the loss, Trump had famously called Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and asked him to “find” the missing votes he would have needed to win. The alleged scheme also involved plans to submit a bogus slate of electors to falsely certify that Trump had won the election, a harassment campaign against Fulton County poll workers and a voting systems breach in Coffee County.
Four of the alleged co-conspirators pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Trump and the other defendants, who maintained their innocence.
But the beginning of the case’s end came when an attorney for defendant Michael Roman, a former Trump campaign aide, introduced evidence that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had been involved in a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor she hired for the case with a lucrative contract, creating a potential conflict of interest.
After dramatic testimony including descriptions of vacations and cruises the two had taken together, a judge ordered that either Wade or Willis’ office needed to step aside from the case.
Wade resigned from the case, but Willis was ultimately disqualified from pursuing the charges against Trump by the Georgia Court of Appeals because of the “significant appearance of impropriety” stemming from their relationship. The Georgia Supreme Court declined to hear Willis’ appeal in September, leaving the case officially in need of a new prosecutor.
Georgia’s case is the last criminal case still pending against Trump.
Prosecution against Trump himself may stall while he is serving as president, but the cases against other alleged co-conspirators could move forward. That could represent a stumbling block for the president after other legal developments have gone his way.
U.S. Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith dropped a federal election interference case as well as a case alleging Trump mishandled classified documents after Trump’s 2024 election victory because it would be illegal to continue prosecuting him after taking office.
A New York state appeals court overturned a nearly $500 million civil penalty Trump was ordered to pay in a case involving fraudulent loan applications, though the judges left the fraud finding in place.
Trump is appealing a New York conviction involving hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, which gave him the status of being the only felon elected president, and he’s seeking Supreme Court intervention in a civil case over a claim that he sexually abused and defamed writer E. Jean Carroll.
This is a developing story, check back for updates.
by Ross Williams, Georgia Recorder
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jill Nolin for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.
