In great news for former President Donald Trump, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee threw out two charges brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis against former President Donald Trump, ruling in his decision that Willis had no legal authority to bring the charges against Trump for allegedly filing false documents in federal court.
Steve Sadow, the former president’s legal counsel, posted the good news to X (formerly Twitter), saying, “My comment as Lead Counsel for President Trump in the Fulton County GA case: President Trump and his legal team in Georgia have prevailed once again. The trial court has decided that counts 15 and 27 in the indictment must be quashed/dismissed.” Though he didn’t mention it, count 14 was dismissed as well.
Describing Team Trump’s arguments in his ruling, Judge McAfee said, “The Defendants seek dismissal of the indictment under the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.1 U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. They argue the indictment is preempted by federal statute, that presidential electors fall outside the State’s Appointment Power and Police Power, and that state action is prohibited because the subject of the indictment is inseparably connected to the functioning of the national government.”
Continuing, Judge McAfee argued, “the Court finds the indictment is not barred entirely. However, because the Court also finds that the United States Supreme Court’s decision of In re Loney, 134 U.S. 372 (1890)
preempts the State’s ability to prosecute perjury and false filings in a federal district court, Counts
14, 15, and 27 must be quashed.”
Later in the ruling, Judge McAfee explained what the Trump legal team had to show to get the charges struck down on Constitutional grounds, saying, “Therefore, in asserting that the statutes cited in the indictment are preempted, Defendants must show that the challenged laws are preempted in all of their applications toward presidential electors, or those purporting to be presidential electors.”
Noting that express preemption, or when the federal statute explicitly provides that the state must not conflict with it, does not apply given the way the statute is written, Judge McAfee added, “While Defendant Cheeley claims the ECA expressly preempts state law through its acknowledgement of alternate slates of electors, such a mere reference does not meet the standard for express preemption. Instead, a federal law must contain a provision that expressly preempts state law in some area, and the ECA plainly does not.”
Then, noting that another type of preemption, conflict preemption, which is “where compliance is impossible or the purposes and objectives of Congress are hindered,” does not apply in this case, Judge McAfee said, “In short, the function of the ECA is to prescribe Congress’ process of counting electoral votes, and this indictment does not impact how electoral votes were or will be counted by Congress. Thus, the Court concludes that the State’s prosecution is not barred by conflict preemption because it does not impair congressional vote counting as prescribed by the ECA or conflict in any other way with the ECA.”
Finally, Judge McAfee noted that field preemption does not apply to the charges either. He first described that type of preemption, saying, “Field preemption occurs when the ‘scheme of federal regulation may be so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the States to supplement it’ or where ‘the federal interest is so dominant that the federal system will be assumed to preclude enforcement of state laws on the same subject.’”
Explaining why it does not apply, he said, “In summary, the Court finds that the State’s indictment is not preempted by the ECA because (1) the ECA does not expressly preempt state law, (2) the indictment does not create an impossibility of compliance with both state and federal law, (3) the indictment does not obstruct the fulfilment of Congress’ purpose in enacting the ECA, and (4) the ECA does not exclusively occupy the relevant field. And to the extent that the Defendants seek the Court to dismiss the indictment against them on the grounds that their acts were lawful under the ECA, such a determination is not suitable for a demurrer or other pretrial motion.”
However, the three charges that were thrown out, 14, 15, and 27, fell afoul of a different rule, the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. Judge McAfee noted, “the Defendants argue that because the election of the President of the United States is inseparably connected to the functioning of the national government, the Supremacy Clause bars the State’s criminal indictment.”
Then, describing why the charges ran afoul of that rule, Judge McAfee noted, “Because the statutory reach of O.C.G.A. § 16-10-20.1 provides a criminal sanction for verified false statements made under oath in federal court, the undersigned concludes that the Defendants’ quasi-facial challenge succeeds. This charge must be quashed” and “Counts 14 and 15, as alleged here, interfere with the District Court’s ability to do just that by imposing a state sanction when a federal sanction is already in place. For these reasons, the undersigned believes that Counts 14 and 15 must also be quashed as beyond the jurisdiction of this State.”
Watch testimony about Fani Willis before the Georgia legislature here:
Fani featured image credit: Fani for DA Campaign site
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