The election conspiracy case has been languishing for months after an appeals court disqualified Fani Willis from prosecuting Trump.
The head of an association representing state prosecutors in Georgia announced Friday that he will take over a criminal case charging President Donald Trump with conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.
The decision by longtime prosecutor Peter Skandalakis to essentially refer the case to himself comes after he struggled for months to get another district attorney in the state to agree to take over the high-profile case. The latest development has the potential to reinvigorate the long-stalled prosecution of numerous Trump allies, including former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, but likely means little for Trump in the short term due to protections the courts are likely to grant a sitting president.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis brought the case in August 2023, charging Trump and 18 co-defendants with involvement in a wide-ranging conspiracy to corruptly persuade George Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” about 12,000 votes in order to declare Trump the winner, to advance a slate of Trump electors despite his loss, and to tamper with election equipment. The case, in which Trump pleaded not guilty, produced Trump’s infamous mugshot.
Four Trump allies pleaded guilty early in the case, but it bogged down in early 2024 over Willis’ romantic relationship with a special prosecutor she hired to join her office’s trial team, Nathan Wade. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee found that relationship created the appearance of a conflict of interest. The judge said Willis could stay on the case if Wade stepped off, which he did.
But defense lawyers appealed that decision and a higher court ruled last December that the case needed to be assigned to another prosecutor.
The Friday announcement comes a day after the Nevada Supreme Court revived a criminal case against six Republicans who falsely claimed to be presidential electors for Trump in 2020, part of the same push by Trump to subvert the election that led to his charges in Georgia.
On a court-imposed deadline Friday for a new prosecutor in the Georgia case, the head of the state’s Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council said he was reluctantly taking on the task himself.
“The filing of this appointment reflects my inability to secure another conflict prosecutor to assume responsibility for this case. Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment,” Skandalakis said in a statement, declining to elaborate on precisely who was asked and why they demurred.
“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 added. “The public has a legitimate interest in the outcome of this case. Accordingly, it is important that someone make an informed and transparent determination about how best to proceed.”
Skandalakis, a Republican, served for more than 25 years as the district attorney for Coweta County in the southwest Atlanta suburbs. He said Friday he would approach the politically charged election case without bias.
“My only objective is to ensure that this case is handled properly, fairly, and with full transparency discharging my duties without fear, favor, or affection,” he said.
Trump’s lead defense lawyer in the case, Steve Sadow, expressed guarded optimism that the new prosecutor would end the case.
“This politically charged prosecution has to come to an end. We remain confident that a fair and impartial review will lead to a dismissal of the case against President Trump,” Sadow said.
The announcement of the new prosecutor for the long-stalled 2020 election case came in the same week that Trump announced pardons for all of his co-defendants in that case, as well as similar criminal cases in other states where Trump was not charged. Trump’s pardons apply only to potential federal charges, which have never been filed and seem unlikely to arise, but supporters of the pardons said they hoped the Georgia defendants and others would argue that the president’s move undercuts the state cases.
In 2021, Skandalakis was appointed to take over the prosecution of two Atlanta police officers charged in connection with the killing of Black motorist Rayshard Brooks in an altercation that stemmed from a complaint he was asleep in a car in a Wendy’s drive-through lane. Skandalakis wound up dismissing the criminal cases against both officers.