New prosecutor tapped to take over Georgia election interference case against Trump

Peter J Skandalakis Photo via Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia The Georgia electoral process interference episode against President Donald Trump appears to live on after the head of a nonpartisan state agency appointed himself the new prosecutor in the development Peter J Skandalakis executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys Council of Georgia will take over the matter from embattled Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis Skandalakis communicated Friday Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee had tasked Skandalakis with finding a replacement for Willis by Friday or he would allow the development to be dismissed Skandalakis mentioned he contacted several other prosecutors who declined to take up the affair The decision to assume responsibility for this matter was reached only after careful and deliberate consideration Skandalakis wrote While it would have been simple to allow Judge McAfee s deadline to lapse or to inform the Court that no conflict prosecutor could be secured thereby allowing the matter to be dismissed for want of prosecution I did not believe that to be the right class of action Skandalakis stated he in the last few days received banker boxes of documents related to the Trump study and an -terabyte hard drive containing the complete investigative file Since receiving these materials I have diligently worked to familiarize myself with the record and the status of the proceedings he commented Additionally I have attempted to review the evidence gathered and the hours of interviews and proffers of onlookers and former codefendants Unfortunately I have not had sufficient time to complete my review With Judge McAfee s deadline now upon us and my review still ongoing I have determined that the best program of action is to appoint myself to the affair This will allow me to complete a comprehensive review and make an informed decision regarding how best to proceed A Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump in when he was out of office along with others who allegedly formed a conspiracy to overturn the vote which Trump narrowly lost to President Joe Biden Following the loss Trump had famously called Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and urged him to find the missing votes he would have needed to win The alleged scheme also involved plans to submit a bogus slate of electors to falsely certify that Trump had won the referendum a harassment campaign against Fulton County poll workers and a voting systems breach in Coffee County Four of the alleged co-conspirators pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Trump and the other defendants who maintained their innocence But the beginning of the episode s end came when an attorney for defendant Michael Roman a former Trump campaign aide introduced evidence that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis had been involved in a romantic relationship with Nathan Wade a special prosecutor she hired for the occurrence with a lucrative contract creating a likely conflict of interest After dramatic testimony including descriptions of vacations and cruises the two had taken together a judge ordered that either Wade or Willis office needed to step aside from the circumstance Wade resigned from the development but Willis was ultimately disqualified from pursuing the charges against Trump by the Georgia Court of Appeals because of the considerable appearance of impropriety stemming from their relationship The Georgia Supreme Court declined to hear Willis appeal in September leaving the circumstance officially in need of a new prosecutor Georgia s matter is the last criminal matter still pending against Trump Prosecution against Trump himself may stall while he is serving as president but the cases against other alleged co-conspirators could move forward That could represent a stumbling block for the president after other legal developments have gone his way U S Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith dropped a federal voting interference matter as well as a incident alleging Trump mishandled classified documents after Trump s polling preeminence because it would be illegal to continue prosecuting him after taking office A New York state appeals court overturned a nearly million civil penalty Trump was ordered to pay in a episode involving fraudulent loan applications though the judges left the fraud finding in place Trump is appealing a New York conviction involving hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels which gave him the status of being the only felon elected president and he s seeking Supreme Court intervention in a civil incident over a claim that he sexually abused and defamed writer E Jean Carroll This is a growing story check back for updates The post New prosecutor tapped to take over Georgia voting interference matter against Trump appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta