ATLANTA — A Fulton County Superior Court judge is allowing evidence that was shielded from public view in 2020 election interference case can now be made public.
Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee reversed an order he first issued in Nov. 2023, which prevented President Donald Trump and the 18 other co-defendants in the case from publicly disclosing evidence against them that prosecutors said was sensitive.
Now that the case has ended, McAfee said there is no reason to shield anything.
“The justifications for the protective order no longer exist. The smooth functioning of the discovery process and shielding of potential jurors from inadmissible evidence are no longer valid concerns,” McAfee wrote.
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According to the court document, Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia Executive Director Pete Skandalakis, who took over the case after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and her office were removed from the case, took no position on whether the protective order should stand.
Skandalakis announced in November that he would not pursue charges against Trump and the other co-defendants after inheriting the case.
“There is no realistic prospect that a sitting president will be compelled to appear in Georgia to stand trial on the allegations in this indictment,” Skandalakis wrote in a 22-page memo at the time.
He also said pursuing charges would be “unproductive” and that the case was on life support.
Trump and 18 defendants were indicted under the state’s racketeering statute in August 2023, alleging they tried to overturn Joe Biden’s narrow win in Georgia in 2021.
As for the infamous phone call Trump made with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him “to find” more than 11,000 votes, Skandalakis wrote that Trump never explicitly solicited the secretary to violate his oath of office.
And with the 16 Republican electors, he wrote that nothing in the evidence suggests they conspired to overturn the election.
Skandalakis said to try the other defendants in the case would be “unduly burdensome and costly for the state.”
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