Updated November 26, 2025 at 3:24 PM CST
The historic Georgia criminal case against President Trump and more than a dozen of his allies for their efforts to try to overturn the 2020 election result has officially come to an end.
"The case is hereby dismissed in its entirety," Fulton Superior Judge Scott McAfee ordered Wednesday.
Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys' Council of Georgia, moved to end the prosecution against the remaining defendants after he assumed the case from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was disqualified by a court late last year.
"The criminal conduct alleged in the Atlanta Judicial Circuit's prosecution was conceived in Washington, D.C., not the State of Georgia," Skandalakis wrote in his motion to dismiss. "The federal government is the appropriate venue for this prosecution, not the State of Georgia."
The prosecution was the last outstanding criminal case against Trump, after a pair of federal prosecutions — one focused on efforts to overturn the 2020 election and another related to the handling of classified documents — were dropped after Trump returned to the White House earlier this year.
Trump cheered the ruling on social media, writing that "LAW and JUSTICE have prevailed in the Great State of Georgia, as the corrupt Fani Willis Witch Hunt against me, and other Great American Patriots, has been DISMISSED in its entirety."
The Fulton County DA's office has not responded to a request for comment.
The historic indictment
In Georgia, a Fulton County grand jury indicted Trump and 18 others, including former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, in August 2023 in a sweeping racketeering case alleging a conspiracy to overturn Joe Biden's 2020 victory in Georgia.
The case was spurred in part by a January 2021 recorded phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in which he asked him to "find" 11,780 votes, one more than the margin of Trump's loss in Georgia.
The Georgia case also focused on an alleged scheme to submit a slate of Trump electors despite Biden's victory, to access sensitive voting machine data and an unsuccessful campaign to pressure state officials to interfere with the election result.
After the grand jury indictment, Trump and his codefendants were booked at the Fulton County Jail — with Trump's mug shot becoming a lasting image of the case. Most defendants, including Trump, pleaded not guilty to the charges. Four accepted plea deals — and those remain binding.
The sprawling case was winding its way to trial when attorneys for one of Trump's codefendants filed a motion to dismiss the case premised on a stunning claim: The district attorney had been engaged in an improper personal relationship with a special prosecutor she hired for the case.
Willis acknowledged the relationship had existed, but asserted it had no bearing on the case.
Judge McAfee ultimately ruled that Willis could continue on if the special prosecutor, Nathan Wade, resigned. But a few months later, the Georgia Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, removing Willis and her office from the case. The Georgia Supreme Court later declined to hear an appeal, letting the removal stand.
Skandalakis, a nonpartisan official who Georgia law charged with appointing a special prosecutor, announced in November that he would take the case himself after he was unable to recruit anyone else to assume the case.
"It's important that someone makes a decision on this case," Skandalakis said in a September interview. "It's important for the public, frankly for the nation, for the defendants, for all the interested parties."
That did not mean his decision would be to proceed with the prosecution. While the state charges were insulated in ways that the charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice were not, Trump's lawyers had argued that the case could not continue until he left office in 2029.
The decision now to drop the charges entirely means the case will not proceed even then.
"This decision will not be universally popular"
Skandalakis said in making the decision, he would meticulously review the indictment, the law and the case files, including 101 banker boxes of documents and an 8-terabyte hard drive containing the complete investigative file.
Among the options Skandalakis could have considered included dropping the charges against Trump but continuing the case against some or all of his codefendants, or going back to a grand jury for a superseding or updated indictment. The statute of limitations for most felony charges in Georgia is four years and five years for racketeering charges.
Skandalakis stressed that it would be impractical to continue the prosecution. He did say that charges related to Ruby Freeman, a Georgia election worker who faced threats and harassment after being falsely accused of fraud, could continue — but should be brought in Cobb, not Fulton, County.
While cases against some Trump allies involved in efforts to overturn the election continue in other state courts, the Georgia decision brings to a close one of the most high-profile and wide-reaching prosecutions.
"I recognize that, given the deep political divisions in our country, this decision will not be universally popular," Skandalakis wrote, saying that his family received threats after he took over the case.
"The role of a prosecutor is not to satisfy public opinion or achieve universal approval; such a goal is both unattainable and irrelevant to the proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion," he continued. "My assessment of this case has been guided solely by the evidence, the law, and the principles of justice."
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