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A Georgia judge has dismissed the high-profile racketeering case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants after the prosecutor who took over the matter moved to drop it, bringing an abrupt end to a politically charged prosecution that has hung over American politics for years. Peter Skandalakis, tapped to replace Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after she was disqualified, concluded that the overt acts alleged were insufficient to sustain a RICO case and asked the court to dismiss the indictment. The judge complied, and what looked for a time like the last major legal weapon aimed at a political rival is now gone.
This outcome is the predictable result of a case built more on political theater than prosecutorial rigor. Willis announced the indictment in August 2023 and pursued expansive charges under Georgia’s racketeering statute, but the prosecution was derailed when it was revealed she had a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she hired. Courts repeatedly rebuked that arrangement as creating an appearance of impropriety, and ultimately removed her from the case — a sanitation the case could not survive.
Skandalakis’s candid assessment that the alleged conduct did not meet the legal threshold for racketeering is damning for the entire enterprise of this prosecution. When the best argument left is that state-level racketeering can somehow capture political disagreement about an election, the system has been weaponized. That a nonpartisan prosecutor concluded federal avenues, not a politically fraught county RICO charge, were the proper forum underscores how flimsy the Fulton County theory had become.
The political theater around the case produced real damage: reputations smeared, civic trust corroded, and precious public resources diverted into a partisan crusade. Trump’s legal team rightly called the dismissal a vindication, and many conservatives see this as confirmation of what they argued all along — that a faction of prosecutors used the law as a political bludgeon. Whether one cheers the man involved or not, the deeper danger is clear: when prosecutors see politics instead of justice, everyone loses.
The larger lesson here should be about accountability and the integrity of the justice system, not partisan score-settling. Elected prosecutors must be held to strict ethical standards, outside counsel relationships must be transparent and free from conflicts, and appellate review should act swiftly when misconduct or appearances of impropriety arise. If our legal institutions are to command respect, they must be insulated from the very partisan impulses that produced this spectacle.
Finally, while conservatives are right to celebrate the dismissal as a check against lawfare, this moment must also be a wake-up call to preserve fair, impartial prosecution going forward. The American people deserve a justice system that enforces the law without playing favorites or seeking political retribution. Restoring that confidence will take reforms, clear rules, and a renewed commitment to equal justice under the law.
