The Latest: Prosecutor declines to pursue Georgia election case against Trump

A judge on Wednesday dismissed the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and others after the prosecutor who recently took over the case said he would not pursue the charges.

The case’s abandonment ends the last effort to punish the president for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, took over the case earlier this month from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was removed over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she chose to lead the case.

Willis’ 2023 indictment against Trump and 18 others alleged a wide-ranging conspiracy to illegally overturn Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in Georgia.

It was unlikely that legal action against Trump could have moved forward while he is president. But other defendants, including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, still faced charges.

Here’s the latest:

A coalition of current, former and retired employees at the National Park Service is denouncing a plan by the Trump administration to charge international tourists an extra $100 to enter some of the most popular U.S. parks, on top of the normal entrance fee. Fees for an annual park pass will also jump to $250 for international visitors.

“In a year where national park staff have already been cut by nearly 25%, we worry this will be yet another burden for already overworked employees,″ said Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

Parks attract millions of international visitors every year who are “an important economic driver for our parks and for gateway communities around the U.S., and this could end up negatively impacting them,” Thompson added.

“National parks should be available and accessible to all, or America’s best idea will become America’s greatest shakedown,″ she said.

Although a series of cases once threatened to imperil Trump’s political career and personal liberty, the abandonment of the Georgia case is the latest reflection of how he has emerged mostly unscathed.

Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who had charged Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election and hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, dropped both cases after Trump won the White House last year. He cited longstanding Justice Department policy against the indictment of a sitting president.

And though Trump was convicted of felony charges in New York in connection with hush money payments during the 2016 election, he was sentenced in January to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

The nonpartisan Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia was tasked with replacing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case after she was disqualified over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she’d chosen to lead the case.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set a Nov. 14 deadline for the appointment of a new prosecutor, so Pete Skandalakis, executive director for the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia chose to appoint himself rather than allowing the case to be dismissed.

“Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment,” Skandalakis said in an emailed statement.

The prosecutor who recently took over the Georgia election interference case against Trump and others said in a court filing Wednesday that he has decided not to pursue the case further.

Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, took over the case last month from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was removed over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she chose to lead the case.

It was unlikely that legal action against Trump could have moved forward while he is president. But 14 other defendants still faced charges, including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.

Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead attorney in Georgia, applauded the case’s dismissal.

A senior Kremlin official confirmed Wednesday that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to visit Moscow next week as efforts pick up speed to find a consensus on ending the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.

But Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, insisted that Kremlin officials haven’t officially received the initial U.S. peace proposal, although they have acknowledged that they have seen a copy obtained through back channels. Representatives of the United States, Russia and Ukraine held talks earlier this week in the United Arab Emirates.

“Contact is ongoing, including via telephone, but no one has yet sat down at a roundtable and discussed this point by point. That hasn’t happened,” Ushakov told Russian state media.

Trump’s chief interlocutor with the Russian government last month advised a senior aide to Vladimir Putin on how the Russian leader should go about pitching the U.S. president on a Ukraine peace plan.

That’s according to a transcript of the Oct. 14 call published Tuesday by Bloomberg News. The news agency said it reviewed a recording of the call.

It said Trump envoy Steve Witkoff advised Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov that Putin should call the U.S. leader to congratulate him and praise Trump for the Gaza peace deal. Trump described Witkoff’s approach as “standard” in negotiations.

▶ Read more about the peace plan

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This story has been corrected to show that Pete Skandalakis took over the case earlier this month.