Fani Willis asks appeals court to reinstate charges against Trump
Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis (D) has asked a Georgia appeals court to reinstate six charges in her 2020 election subversion prosecution of former President Trump and several of his allies, including three against Trump.
Judge Scott McAfee dismissed the counts, which all relate to alleged efforts to solicit Georgia officials to violate their oaths of office, in March after finding they lacked sufficient detail about the underlying crime being solicited by the defendants.
The charges dropped against Trump notably included his pressure campaign on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), including the infamous call in which the former president asked Raffensperger to “find” enough votes — exactly 11,779 — to overturn President Biden’s victory in the state.
The Fulton County district attorney's office wrote in its appeal that the judge "erred" in his decision.
"The indictment more than sufficiently placed Cross-Appellees on notice of the conduct at issue and allowed them to prepare an intelligent defense to the charges," Assistant District Attorney Alex Bernick wrote in the 38-page filing.
Five other defendants, including ex-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and longtime Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, saw charges dropped, as well.
Several counts involved December 2020 state Senate hearings where Trump’s allies promoted unfounded claims of election fraud to encourage lawmakers to convene a special session or help send a slate of pro-Trump electors to Congress.
McAfee wrote in his spring ruling that the charges did contain the “essential” elements of each crime but failed to provide enough detail for the defendants to mount their defenses. The defendants could have violated the law in “dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways" under the current charges, he said.
“The Court’s concern is less that the State has failed to allege sufficient conduct of the Defendants – in fact it has alleged an abundance,” McAfee wrote at the time. “However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned’s opinion, fatal.”
In the district attorney's appeal, Bernick argued that the "abundance" of detail in the indictment is its strength, not its finishing blow.
"These details, which amount to far more than a barebones recitation of the statutory elements for the crime of solicitation, clearly gave Cross-Appellees enough information to prepare their defense intelligently by telling them precisely what they were alleged to have done, when, and to whom," he said.
In March, McAfee said Willis's office could seek reindictment after supplementing the charges he deemed insufficient. He granted the office permission to appeal and extended a deadline to resubmit its case to a grand jury.
Despite dismissing several charges, McAfee's ruling did not inhibit the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act charges underpinning Willis's case, which each defendant faces. That charge serves to connect all the alleged conduct in the case, meaning prosecutors still can tie in the Trump-Raffensperger call as part of the overarching theory of the case.
Trump attorney Steve Sadow called Willis's brief "simply incorrect on the law" in a statement.
“The trial court’s dismissal order properly decided that the State failed to sufficiently plead the allegations in the dismissed counts under Georgia law," he said.
Trump's Georgia criminal case has been on pause for months as the Georgia appeals court separately considers an effort from Trump and his co-defendants to boot Willis from the case over her romantic relationship with a former special prosecutor on the case. Arguments on the matter are expected to take place in December.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.