A dollop of sour sauce on your Wednesday came courtesy of Judge Scott McAfee down in Fulton County in Georgia. From the Washington Post:
In a nine-page order issued Wednesday morning, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee dismissed six charges alleging Trump and five co-defendants had illegally urged elected officials in Georgia to violate their oaths of office in their attempts to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss in the state. 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,” McAfee wrote. But, the judge, added, “This does not mean the entire indictment is dismissed.”
In a technical legal sense, this isn't remotely fatal to Fani Willis' conspiracy-to-ratfck case going forward. But, as Rep. Adam Schiff forcefully reminded former special counsel Robert Hur on Tuesday, there are political ramifications to all of this that go far beyond the pages of the law books. Any news coverage that contains the words "Trump" and "dismissed" changes the political calculus out in the world. To the casual political observer, the latest news from Fulton County is that Willis is under investigation and that charges were "dismissed" against Trump, and those two things are all that matters in the casual political mind. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
In a nine-page ruling, McAfee dismissed counts lodged against Trump, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, lawyer Charles Eastman, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and attorneys Ray Smith and Bob Cheeley...All of the charges that were dismissed relate to allegations that defendants illegally urged Georgia elected officials, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, then-House Speaker David Ralston and members of the General Assembly to violate their oaths of office by convening a special session of the Legislature to appoint pro-Trump electors.
Neither does this relate in the faintest to where, when, and with whom Willis might have enjoyed sexytime a while back. McAfee's next big decision will be whether or not to disqualify Willis based on some dumpster-dive charges on that score from one of the former president's ratfcking co-defendants. Logically, nothing in McAfee's order on Wednesday has anything to do with the facts of that particular ginned-up fiasco. Logic, however, took a lovely cruise for parts unknown somewhere around January of 2017.
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has three children.
