A Georgia prosecutor has formally shut down what remained of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ racketeering case against President Donald Trump, marking an unceremonious end to the long-stalled prosecution.
In a brief, one-page filing on Wednesday, District Attorney Pro Tempore Peter Skandalakis moved to dismiss the case, saying that after fully reviewing the file, examining the law, and before any jury could be empaneled, the state was seeking a nolle prosequi “to serve the interests of justice and promote judicial finality.”
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee wasted no time agreeing. In his own one-page order, he granted the motion and wrote that, with the state asking for nolle prosequi as to all remaining defendants, “this case is hereby dismissed in its entirety.”
The move represents a final, public setback for Willis, who was formally removed from the Trump election-interference case in late December 2024. In practice, however, the case had been bogged down long before that point.
Real momentum for the prosecution largely stalled in January 2024, when defense attorneys alleged that Willis’ romantic relationship with then–lead prosecutor Nathan Wade created a financial conflict of interest. That dispute triggered a prolonged disqualification fight.
In March 2024, Judge McAfee partially granted the disqualification motion, ruling that either Willis or Wade had to exit the case. Prosecutors opted to remove Wade and attempted to press on, but the case never truly recovered.
Both the prosecution and defense then appealed different parts of McAfee’s order. In June 2024, the Georgia Court of Appeals effectively froze the case, putting it on hold while the challenges played out. Months later, the appellate court voted 2–1 to remove Willis herself, while leaving the indictment technically intact, pending her rapid appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court. The high court ultimately declined to take up the matter, sidelining Willis but keeping the charges hanging in procedural limbo.
That’s when Skandalakis entered the picture — reluctantly.
Earlier this month, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia announced that he would assume responsibility for the case after failing to find another conflict prosecutor willing to take it on. He explained that multiple prosecutors had been approached and each declined for their own reasons, which he said he would not disclose out of respect for their privacy and discretion. Still, he concluded it would be wrong simply to let a critical deadline lapse or inform Judge McAfee that no prosecutor could be secured.
Even so, his involvement ultimately amounted to a last, formal review.
In a 23-page exhibit filed alongside the dismissal motion, Skandalakis leaned heavily on a medical analogy to describe the state of the prosecution, writing that the case was effectively “on life support” and that the decision about whether to continue rested with him alone. Unlike family members facing heart-wrenching end-of-life choices, he noted that he had no emotional tie to the case and framed his decision as rooted in his legal judgment, not political motives. He emphasized his background as a former elected official who has run as both a Democrat and a Republican and now leads a nonpartisan agency.
Skandalakis cited his broader prosecutorial philosophy, quoting from a 1940 address by U.S. Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, who later served on the U.S. Supreme Court and as chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Jackson warned that while a prosecutor can be a powerful force for good, one acting from malice or improper motives can become a serious danger.
From there, Skandalakis revisited the facts underlying the sprawling 98-page, 41-count indictment, including the widely scrutinized post-2020 election phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The exhibit emphasized how much time has elapsed since that call and since the grand jury first charged Trump and 18 others, and questioned the feasibility of ever actually trying a sitting president in Georgia.
He noted that Trump’s current term does not end until January 20, 2029 — eight years after the phone call at the heart of the case — and argued that even in the unlikely event Trump appeared in Georgia immediately after leaving office, an instant trial would be impossible. He pointed out that litigating presidential immunity issues identified in Trump v. United States could take months or years, assuming the state even prevailed at the state-court level.
Skandalakis also considered and rejected the idea of moving forward against the remaining co-defendants separately from Trump. He wrote that severing Trump’s case and trying others alone, while simultaneously waiting out his presidency and tackling complicated immunity questions, would be illogical, overly burdensome, and too expensive for the state and Fulton County.
Ultimately, the decision, he said, came down to realistic use of limited resources.
Skandalakis concluded that continuing the litigation under these circumstances would not serve Georgia’s citizens or the statutory responsibilities of his agency. He wrote that his office simply does not have the capacity to manage a massive, years-long RICO prosecution of this kind while also fulfilling its core duties under its current — or any plausible — budget. In his professional judgment, keeping the Trump RICO case alive for another five to ten years would not be in the public interest, and so he chose to end it.
