The decision not to proceed with the case against the US president was no surprise. The high-profile trial had already been effectively dropped in December last year, after a Georgia appeals court decided to remove prosecutor Fani Willis from the process.
Successor Pete Skandalakis writes in a statement that the process falls under federal law and not state law, and that his office will therefore not continue to pursue it.
“The people of Georgia are not served by (us) continuing to pursue this case for another five to 10 years,” he continues, according to NBC News .
The indictment would likely never have reached a court as long as Trump is in the White House, but the decision does not only apply to him. The charges against 14 other people, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, are also being dropped.
The case in the state was considered one of the clearest legal proceedings against the then-president-to-be, as there is evidence in the form of a recorded phone call in which Trump asks the state's election official to "find" votes for him to win.
Fani Willis herself has found herself in a storm due to her previous relationship with a special investigator in the case. The Trump side has claimed, among other things, that Willis benefited financially from the romance and that it undermines her credibility.
The decision to dismiss the case comes almost a year after the federal indictments against Trump on criminal charges linked to the 2021 storming of the Capitol and the indictment for handling classified documents were also dropped.
