Donald Trump's Charges Being Dismissed May Actually Be Bad News

Former President Donald Trump had some of the Georgia charges against him dismissed Wednesday, but it might be too soon for him to celebrate.

Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over Trump's election interference case, killed six of the charges in the sweeping RICO case against the former president and his allies on Wednesday.

But the new order suggests that McAfee plans to keep Trump's rival, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, on the case, legal analysts said. Willis' office is waiting for McAfee to decide whether or not he will disqualify them from the prosecution based on misconduct allegations filed by Trump's co-defendants.

Norm Eisen, a former White House ethics czar who was counsel to the Democrats in Trump's first impeachment, called Wednesday's ruling "a hint that he will not disqualify Willis."

Eisen told Newsweek that if McAfee had been planning to remove Willis from the case, he wouldn't have taken the time to write such a detailed order because her disqualification would have effectively halted the prosecution.

"This is NOT the ruling from Judge McAfee that Donald Trump wanted. Seems like Fani Willis will NOT be removed from the case. More on that, soon. Good news for democracy and those who value the rule of law," commentator Russell Drew agreed in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Eisen added that the decision to strike down the counts against Trump and his co-defendants may also help him "balance the scales" if he wants to keep Willis on the case.

"That's not to say that today's order is a definite sign that he's leaning one way or the other, but it does slightly reinforce my view that the applicable law and the evidence do not support disqualification and the judge will say so," Eisen said.

Wednesday's order also kept many of the other charges in the indictment, including the conspiracy charges against Trump. The six charges that were squashed were related to efforts to solicit Georgia officials into violating their oaths of office by unlawfully appointing presidential electors.

Trump was facing three of the dropped charges for allegedly soliciting former Georgia House Speaker David Ralston and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to violate their oaths of office. Eisen noted that the infamous phone call in which Trump asked Raffensperger to "find" the votes that would allow him to win Georgia was not entirely thrown out of the case.

"It remains as Act 112 of the RICO conspiracy although the freestanding charge (Count 28) was struck," Eisen said.

McAfee also wrote in the ruling that prosecutors could seek a new indictment on the charges he dismissed, writing: "Even if the statute of limitations has expired, the State receives a six-month extension from the date of this Order to resubmit the case to a grand jury."

Legal analyst Katie Phang posted on X: "In Footnote 8, Judge McAfee makes it clear that the entire indictment is NOT dismissed and that Willis can seek reindictment on these counts."