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the historic racketeering case against President Donald Trump is over (Image: Getty)
Fox News ground to a halt on Wednesday (November 26) as breaking news emerged that the historic racketeering case against President Donald Trump in Georgia had been officially dropped. The move, confirmed by a Georgia prosecutor, brings an abrupt end to a legal battle once viewed as one of the most serious threats to Trump’s political future. The dismissed case centred on allegations that Trump and others attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state. By dropping the charges, prosecutors have effectively removed the possibility of criminal legal jeopardy for Trump over his efforts to reverse his defeat to President Joe Biden.
Prosecutor Peter Skandalakis explained the decision in a detailed written statement, pointing to the sheer scale of the legal hurdles involved. He wrote: “Given the complexity of the legal issues at hand — ranging from constitutional questions and the Supremacy Clause to immunity, jurisdiction, venue, speedy-trial concerns, and access to federal records and even assuming each of these issues were resolved in the State’s favor, bringing this case before a jury in 2029, 2030, or even 2031 would be nothing short of a remarkable feat.”
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Fani Willis launched a lengthy investigation into Trump’s alleged interference (Image: fox news)
He revealed that one option on the table had been to sever Trump’s case from that of his 18 codefendants and attempt to try the others first, while waiting for a potential second Trump term to conclude.
However, he said such a strategy “would be both illogical and unduly burdensome and costly for the State and for Fulton County.”
Skandalakis added that continuing the case would not serve the citizens of Georgia.
The state racketeering charges were originally filed on August 14, 2023, by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, an elected Democrat who launched an expansive probe into Trump’s alleged interference in Georgia’s 2020 vote count.
Her investigation began shortly after the now-infamous phone call in which Trump urged Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the state.
Willis was later removed from the case following a protracted legal battle over her authority, and Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election placed further pressure on the prosecution.
On Wednesday, Skandalakis — director of the Prosecuting Attorney’s Council of Georgia — issued the final order bringing the case to an end.
The high-profile case peaked in dramatic fashion when Trump surrendered in the Atlanta jail for a little over 20 minutes in August 2023, where he was forced to provide his mug shot for the first time.
The case was seen as the most likely of the various criminal charges surrounding Trump to go to trial because it was a state case handled by a local Georgia prosecutor, rather than federal charges that could be pardoned.
The high-profile case reached its peak in dramatic fashion when Trump surrendered at the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta in August 2023.
In a scene that dominated global headlines, the then presidential candidate spent just over 20 minutes inside the facility to be formally booked, fingerprinted and processed like any other defendant.
It was the first time in American history that a former or sitting president had been required to pose for a mug shot, and the image — a scowling, defiant glare — became one of the most circulated political photographs of the decade.
English (US) · 