What Just Happened With Fani Willis's Georgia Trump RICO Case, And Should You Freak Out? An Explainer!

Spoiler: Probably fine. Might even be a loss for Trump in the grand scheme of things.

News came down this morning in the Georgia RICO election-stealing case against Donald Trump and everyone he’s ever met. Charges dismissed, but just some of them? Seems like important charges? Is this bad? And does it say anything about the likelihood the same judge, Scott McAfee, will remove District Attorney Fani Willis from the case for aggravated workplace romance?

Here’s Some Legal Shit

Most of the case is fine. But McAfee threw out six charges, three of which include Trump, which he found to be too vague, to the point of being “fatal” — as in, they wouldn’t be likely to win at trial because of flaws in the charges. Of course, this now means Trump is only facing 88 felony charges across all his cases, which means he is even more exonerated than he was yesterday! You betcha.

These are the counts McAfee threw out:

• Against “multiple defendants” for hitting up members of the Georgia state Senate to violate their oaths of office and appoint fake electors, on two occasions (two counts);

• Against Trump for hitting up the Georgia state House speaker to violate his oath of office and call a special session to appoint fake electors;

• Against Rudy Giuliani and another defendant, Ray Stallings, for hitting up members of the Georgia state House to violate their oaths of office and appoint fake electors;

• Against Trump and Mark Meadows, for trying to get Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to violate his oath of office and find him 11,780 votes;

• Against Trump for, many months later, in September 2021, hitting up Raffensperger to violate his oath office and decertify the election in Georgia.

Note that each one specifically mentions defendants soliciting officials to “violate their oath of office,” because that’s precisely what McAfee’s ruling — and the filings from the Trump side that brought this on — hinge on. You can read the ruling and wade as deeply into the legalese as you’d like, but in general, McAfee found that the charges that defendants solicited these people to violate their oaths of office — both to the Georgia and United States Constitutions — were not specific enough to allow defendants to prepare an adequate defense.

Here is McAfee, with some of our own emphasis added:

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. However, the lack of detail concerning an essential legal element is, in the undersigned’s opinion, fatal. As written, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission, i.e., the underlying felony solicited.

If that’s confusing, please don’t let it derail your day. He’s saying the indictment just wasn’t written good and smart enough, legal words-wise, on these counts — i.e., that Willis didn’t outline well enough how defendants were asking these officials to violate their oaths to state and federal constitutions. On these grounds, defense lawyers asked for what’s called “special demurrers” on these counts, and McAfee granted them.

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So What’s That Mean?

Well, the RICO conspiracy case is still intact, for one. That’s count one of the indictment, which isn’t remotely affected by this, as McAfee makes excessively clear. (Notably, though, the count McAfee dismissed that includes Mark Meadows leaves Meadows only charged in the RICO.) Remember, the RICO count involves what are called “overt acts,” which are not the same as these other individual counts, and Willis only has to prove one of them. (She listed 161.)

Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, said that the ruling does not weaken the state racketeering charge that remains, and that is central to the case. That charge is based on “overt acts” that are detailed in the indictment, and the judge was explicit in stating that Wednesday’s order does not affect these acts.

Ten of the charges against Trump are still intact, and that includes all kinds of conspiracy and false statements charges, on top of the RICO.

Willis could appeal this ruling or, if she wants to, she’s free to correct the problems laid out by the judge with these six counts, and refile them. She has six months to do so, if she wants. That would, of course, cause delays, but she might decide it’s worth it for one reason or another. (The trial probably wasn’t going to happen until 2025 anyway.)

This also suggests, according to several smart lawyers on Twitter, whose logic seems pretty solid, that McAfee may not be likely to remove Willis, since that decision is also in front of him. “Here, take six months to fix this if you want and also I fire you?” Psssssssh.

So that’s what happened. This is some technical shit, but it’s shit that, left unresolved, would provide loopholes for Trump’s counsel to drive a few Mack trucks though, at least on those counts.

So Should We Freak Out?

Dunno, are you feeling jumpy? Go outside and play with some dogs or something.

[New York Times / McAfee order / indictment]

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Evan Hurst on Twitter right here. 

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