The Georgia Election Interference Case Against Trump Gets a New Prosecutor: What to Know About Where Things Stand

The long-stalled Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump is being taken over by a new prosecutor, months after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from prosecuting it. But what that change will mean for the case—and whether it will actually move forward—is as yet unclear. Peter Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, was tasked with finding a new prosecutor for the case after Willis’s disqualification in December 2024 by a state appeals court, which found that her relationship with the special prosecutor she appointed to the case created the appearance of a conflict of interest.  Now, nearly a year after Willis was disqualified, Skandalakis has assigned the case to himself. The veteran prosecutor pointed to difficulties in finding another attorney who would be willing to take it on.  “Several prosecutors were contacted and, while all were respectful and professional, each declined the appointment. Out of respect for their privacy and professional discretion, I will not identify those prosecutors or disclose their reasons for declining,” Skandalakis said in a Friday statement. “I have determined that the best course of action is to appoint myself to the case.” Willis initially brought charges against Trump and 18 of his associates over their alleged role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election in August 2023. Here’s what to know about what’s happened in the case since then—and about Skandalakis, as he steps in to oversee it moving forward.  Who is Peter Skandalakis? Skandalakis is a longtime Georgia prosecutor who served as the district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit, southwest of Atlanta, for more than a quarter-century before taking on his current role as head of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council in 2017.  Skandalakis began working as an assistant district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit in 1984 before being appointed as the interim district attorney in the 1990s, according to the Newnan Times-Herald. He was later elected, and re-elected, to the position many times over. During his tenure, Skandalakis received multiple accolades, including the 2007 Georgia District Attorney of the Year Award and a 2015 Governor’s Public Safety Award.  Skandalakis said he decided to take on the role of prosecutor in the case against Trump due to the public’s “legitimate interest in the outcome of this case.”  “While it would have been simple to allow Judge McAfee’s deadline to lapse or to inform the Court that no conflict prosecutor could be secured—thereby allowing the case to be dismissed for want of prosecution—I did not believe that to be the right course of action,” Skandalakis wrote.  What’s happened in the case so far? The Georgia election interference case, State of Georgia v. Donald J. Trump, et al., is one of several that were levied against Trump prior to his victory in the 2024 presidential election.  Prosecutors in the Georgia case accused the president and more than a dozen of his allies of participating in a plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in the state.  The case focuses on Trump and his associates’ actions in Georgia, where he lost the state’s 16 electoral votes by a fraction of a percentage point. Though several recounts affirmed that former President Joe Biden won the state, Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger during a January 2021 phone conversation that it was “not possible” that he lost and asked the state elections official to “find 11,780 votes” in his favor. Willis notified Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that she had opened an investigation into the matter the following month.    Two years later, Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating state racketeering laws, conspiring to commit forgery, and making false statements. Eighteen others were charged alongside him. Trump pleaded not guilty, while some of his co-defendants have entered plea deals.  Trump and others charged in the case made multiple efforts to get it dismissed. But the prosecution continued to move forward before the revelation, in early 2024, of Willis’s relationship with fellow prosecutor Nathan Wade. The case has since languished as the prosecution suffered a series of blows amid the allegations. In March 2024, Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee dismissed multiple counts in the indictment against Trump and his allies—a ruling that has since been upheld by an appeals court. Days after that decision, McAfee ruled that Willis or Wade had to step aside, and Wade resigned. But later in the year, the appeals court ruled that Willis could also not prosecute the case. Willis appealed her removal to the state Supreme Court, but the court this September declined to review the decision.