Judge Quashes Six Counts in Trump's Georgia Election Interference Case

Judge Scott McAffee today quashed six of the 41 counts against Trump and his cooperators in the Georgia election-interference case. Judge McAffee's order preserved the remaining counts, and invited the government to refile the six quashed counts or to seek immediate review of the order.

In short, the order requires the government to charge with greater specificity, but otherwise doesn't change much in the case.

The court quashed the counts alleging that defendants solicited various officials to violate their oaths of office "by requesting or importuning [the officials] to unlawfully appoint presidential electors," among other, related crimes. The oaths, in turn, include "a provision that the oath-taker will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Georgia."

Here's the problem: "When charging compound crimes, such as felony murder, precedent is clear that the allegations must either include every essential element of the predicate offense or charge the predicate offense in a separate count." But here the charges didn't specify how the defendants violated their oaths (the underlying, or predicate, offense), because they didn't specify which portions of the constitutions the officials violated. Here's how the court put it:

this Court finds that the incorporation of the United States and Georgia Constitutions is so generic as to compel this Court to grant the special demurrers. . . .

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 [court'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. They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct way.

The court went on to note, however, that the government can "seek a reindictment supplementing these six counts" within six months of the order (irrespective of any statute of limitations). The court said that the state could alternative "request a certificate of immediate review . . . which the Court would likely grant due to the lack of precedential authority."