ATLANTA — The only lawmaker among the group of co-indictees with President Donald Trump who were dismissed from the election fraud prosecution this week lashed out at the Fulton County district attorney who brought the charges more than two years ago.
“I genuinely believe that Fani Willis knew from the beginning that there was no evidence of any criminal intent on my part,” Sen. Shawn Still, R-Johns Creek, said in a statement after a judge in Fulton County dismissed all defendants Wednesday at the request of a special prosecutor.
Still was among three of 16 Republican electors whom Willis indicted in her election conspiracy case. Still said he got nothing out of joining with them and voting for Trump and never thought he was doing anything wrong.
He also said he never got an explanation for why 13 of the other electors were not indicted along with him and two others — former Republican state Sen. David Shafer and GOP activist Cathy Latham.
They had met at the state Capitol a month after the 2020 election and had cast electoral votes for Trump in an election that was decided for Joe Biden.
“I relied on the legal advice of a qualified elections attorney in the meeting, and did what he advised me and the other electors to do,” Still said. “I thought I was fulfilling my duties as an elector.”
Peter Skandalakis, who took over the prosecution this month after Georgia courts sidelined Willis on ethical grounds, used the same logic for recommending dismissal in the portion of the conspiracy case involving Still and the other two electors.
Skandalakis, who is the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, wrote in his motion Wednesday that the trio voted on the advice of an attorney to “preserve” electoral votes for Trump, without intent to overturn the election.
He pointed to what he identified as a similar situation observed by U.S. Special Counsel Jack Smith who had brought a different election-related case against Trump.
Skandalakis quoted Smith who wrote that co-conspirators deceived Trump’s elector nominees, deliberately withholding information about how their votes would be used. This “deception was crucial” to engaging the participants as “fraudulent electors,” Smith wrote.
Skandalakis wrote that it is not illegal to challenge election results and that he was “loath to use
the criminal justice system to pursue law-abiding citizens who, in good conscience and upon the advice of counsel, were asked to perform certain tasks in connection with the litigation of an election challenge.”
He wrote that Still, Shafer and Latham acted on the advice of an attorney they thought to be an expert in election law, adding that “they genuinely and sincerely believed that their actions were a lawful component of the election contest process.”
The decision to dismiss the charges left one Still colleague “deeply disappointed” though.
Sen. Harold Jones, II, of Augusta, the ranking Senate Democrat as the chamber’s minority leader, said in a statement that the dismissal let Trump “evade accountability for his clear violations of Georgia law,” enabling him “and his co-conspirators to avoid responsibility for their coordinated effort to overturn Georgia’s election results and steal the 2020 election.”
Jones called it a “setback for justice.”
Still said he was relieved that the case was no longer hanging over his head and said Willis had charged an innocent man.
ATLANTA — Nearly half a decade after it started, the election fraud case against Donald Trump and his fellow indicted allies has ended, with a Fulton County judge on Wednesday granting a special prosecutor’s request for dismissal of the conspiracy case against the president and his 14 remaining co-defendants.
Peter Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, wound up in charge of the case after the Georgia courts removed Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over ethical concerns.
Skandalakis, who formally took over as the prosecutor less than two weeks ago, concluded that many of the charges would not stand up under free speech grounds. But he also offered pragmatic reasons, such as the fact that Trump would not be exposed to criminal prosecution again until after leaving office in 2029.
Realistically speaking, a trial could not begin for a decade until after the 2021 events that led to the indictments against Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators, and it would likely take many years to conduct, Skandalakis observed.
“Continuing this litigation under these circumstances would neither serve the citizens of Georgia nor fulfill our statutory obligations,” Skandalakis wrote in his motion to dismiss the case Wednesday morning. “Our agency is simply not equipped to carry out this case while meeting the essential duties required under the current budget—or under any realistically conceivable budget the State could provide.”
He added that he did not think Georgia citizens would be served by pursuing the prosecution for another five to 10 years.
Fulton County superior Court Judge Scott McAfee immediately issued an order granting the motion to dismiss, ending a case that started in February 2021 when Willis announced her investigation.
Her case was grounded in two main events: Trump’s phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to find enough votes so he could be declared the winner in Georgia, and the convening of Trump allies who positioned themselves as alternative electors to those who cast their votes for Joe Biden.
Skandalakis detailed his reasoning in each of the charges. In some cases, free speech was a core issue. For instance, he wrote that Rudy Giuliani had told lawmakers “wrong and baseless” things about the election during unsworn testimony, but he did not think the cirumstances merited prosecution.
“Criminalizing such unsworn testimony would have a chilling effect on witnesses appearing before the Legislature on important issues,” Skandalakis reasoned.
In the case of David Shafer, accused of false statements to a prosecutor working for Willis, Skandalakis determined that Shafer had not said anything false or misleading.
In the events surrounding the breach of election equipment in Coffee County, Skandalakis noted that two participants had already pleaded guilty to misdemeanor counts. One of them, Sidney Powell, an attorney, had advised others under indictment that it was legal to access the election machines to gather evidence for a lawsuit. Another who pleaded guilty, Scott Hall, had arrived by chartered plan to supervise the work, conveying “the appearance of acting under the color of law,” Skandalakis wrote.
He decided it would be an “inefficient” use of state resources to prosecute the others after those two had already resolved their cases “favorably” through negotiations with Willis.
Then, there was incident at the center of everything that unfolded in Georgia: Trump’s call to Raffensperger.
Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff at the end of his first term, was also among those charged due to his involvement in arranging that call and in observing election verification processes.
“The White House Chief of Staff’s job duties are varied and fluid. We could have a debate if arranging phone calls, observing the signature-verification audit, or messaging an investigator to expedite the vote audit process falls within Mark Meadows’s duties,” Skandalakis wrote.
“While the call is concerning, reasonable minds could differ as to how to interpret the call,” he concluded. Trump could have been trying to get Raffensperger to commit fraud or he could have believed he was a victim and was just asking Raffensperger to investigate.
“When multiple interpretations are equally plausible, the accused is entitled to the benefit of the doubt and should not be presumed to have acted criminally,” Skandalakis wrote.
He wrote that he was persuaded by events outside Georgia, writing that the alleged criminal conduct in Georgia “was conceived in Washington, D.C.” and that Special Counsel Jack Smith had been in the best position to prosecute Trump.
Smith, a federal prosecutor, had pursued criminal charges against Trump related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity led Smith to move for dismissal.
If Smith, with all the resources of the federal government behind him, “concluded that prosecution would be fruitless, then I too find that, despite the available evidence, pursuing the prosecution of all those involved in State of Georgia v. Donald Trump, et al. on essentially federal grounds would be equally unproductive,” Skandalakis concluded.
ATLANTA — Electric vehicle owners will eventually have another 26 places to recharge when motoring through Georgia after the state awarded $24.4 million in federal funding to build chargers along highways and interstates.
“This investment will help further secure our status as a national leader in innovation and infrastructure for years to come,” Gov. Brian Kemp said of the money from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The Act, which took effect in 2021 during the administration of President Joe Biden, allocated $5 billion nationwide over five years to foster a network of electric vehicle charging stations.
Georgia’s share was $135 million.
The money is awarded in public-private partnerships and covers up to 80% of project costs.
Six winning bidders were announced last week by the Georgia Department of Transportation. This was the second round of contracts, with the first issued last year.
The chargers — four at each site — must be installed and maintained for around the clock operation for at least five years. They must be equipped with Direct Current Fast Charging ports, which can fully recharge a vehicle battery in as few as 20 minutes.
A Georgia Congressman who voted for legislation last week mandating the release of documents connected with child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein said on Monday that it does not go far enough and that he wants further investigation.
The Epstein Files Transparency Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives last week with votes in favor by all 14 members of Georgia’s Congressional delegation, including Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican from Tifton.
House Resolution 4405 became law the next day after the Senate passed it and President Donald Trump signed it, and on Monday Scott issued a statement saying the language did not achieve everything he felt was needed.
“I maintain concerns that the Epstein language, as drafted, did not provide enough protections for victims and witnesses,” Scott said. He said he wants the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to continue investigating to uncover “the extent of these crimes and who was involved.”
The law gave the U.S. Department of Justice 30 days to release its records, documents, communications and investigative materials concerning the deceased sex offender Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison for conspiring with him to sexually abuse minors.
The law says the agency cannot withhold information just because it is politically sensitive or causes embarrassment or reputational harm to a government official, public figure or foreign dignitary. But it allows Attorney General Pam Bondi to withhold information for a variety of other reasons.
She can deny the release of records that she thinks would jeopardize an active federal investigation or prosecution. She can keep records that are declared a national defense or foreign policy secret by executive order. And she can hold back records that she deems to be a “clearly unwarranted” invasion of privacy when they contain “personally identifiable information of victims or victims’ personal and medical files and similar files.”
The American Conservative published a piece last week that suggested Bondi could misuse her discretion with the privacy provision.
“It is not difficult to imagine such unilateral power being abused to protect administration officials from scrutiny,” the story said.
The legislation apparently widened a rift between Trump and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Rome Republican who was once among his biggest supporters.
She announced Friday that she would resign effective Jan. 5, blaming Trump for turning against her, in part, due to her pressure to release the Epstein files.
“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked and used by rich, powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States whom I fought for,” Greene said in a video she posted online.
Greene serves on the committee that Scott wants to continue investigating the Epstein case.
Scott did not offer specifics about his concerns with the Act beyond what he said about the protections for victims and witnesses, but his statement suggested that the controversy over the Epstein files is not over.
Marjorie Taylor Greene at the Georgia Republican Party convention in Dalton on June 7, 2025. (Ty Tagami/Capitol Beat)
ATLANTA — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who forged a political brand as a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and his political base, announced on Friday that she had had enough of Washington — and of Trump himself — and will resign.
The Rome Republican said in a nighttime post on X that she was disgusted with what she described as a takeover of her party by wealthy elites. She said she was quitting after the president threatened to back a challenger in her GOP primary next year.
Greene predicted that Republicans would be routed by Democrats in next year’s election, losing control of Congress. She also predicted that she would win re-election herself after enduring “a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president” and then “be expected to defend the president against impeachment after he hatefully dumped tens of millions of dollars against me and tried to destroy me.”
Greene said in a 10-minute video that industry insiders, elite donors and “the MAGA political machine” had cast her aside.
She acknowledged breaking with Trump over a handful of issues, including her support for preserving states’ rights to impose a moratorium on artificial intelligence, her opposition to military engagement overseas and her demand for the release of the Epstein files.
But, she said, “loyalty should be a two-way street” and that she should be allowed to vote her conscience.
“Standing up for American women who were raped at 14 years old, trafficked and used by rich, powerful men should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the president of the United States whom I fought for,” Greene said.
She said her last day in Congress will be Jan. 5.
“It’s all so absurd and completely unserious,” she said. “I refuse to be a battered wife, hoping it all goes away and gets better.”
