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Georgia prosecutor Pete Skandalakis, who took over the 2020 election interference case, announced that he's dropping criminal charges against President Donald Trump and his co-defendants in a statement obtained by NBC News on Wednesday (November 26).
"In my professional opinion, the citizens of Georgia are not served by pursuing this case in full for another five to ten years," Skandalakis wrote, claiming he made his decision to end the case "to serve the interests of justice and promote judicial finality."
In August 2023, Trump was among 19 defendants who pleaded guilty to all charges of a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia, which were brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. The charges followed a phone call in which Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" the votes needed to win the state on January 2, 2021, with Willis alleging that the Republican defendants solicited state leaders throughout the country, harassed and misled a Georgia election worker and made false claims that the election was stolen in an effort to keep Trump in office despite his election loss to former President Joe Biden.
Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro and Scott Hall were among the defendants who testified against other defendants as part of plea deals. Willis was later disqualified from the case due to accusations of impropriety regarding her relationship with a fellow prosecutor, with a council of Georgia attorneys assigning Skandalakis, an independent prosecutor, to ultimately take over and determine the fate of the case.