A Georgia court on Thursday dropped three of the allegations in an indictment alleging former US President Donald Trump and co-defendants of attempting to reverse the 2020 election results in the southern state.
Two of the three charges dismissed by Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee included Trump, who now faces eight felony counts in Georgia.
McCabe, however, declined to dismiss the full indictment, which charges the Republican presidential nominee and his aides with racketeering and other crimes.
The three dismissed allegations concerned his filing false elector certificates with a federal court claiming to have won the Georgia race but losing by almost 12,000 votes to Democrat Joe Biden.
According to McAfee, under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, state prosecutors cannot launch a prosecution for federal crimes.
“The Supremacy Clause declares that state law must yield to federal law when the two conflict,” the judge stated in his order.
The former US president was accused of filing fake filings and conspiring to file false records.
An appeals court has halted the Georgia case until it hears Trump and his co-defendants’ motion to dismiss Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who filed the charges.
In March, McAfee rejected a request to disqualify Willis when it was revealed she had a romantic involvement with the man she hired as a special prosecutor.
Trump and his co-defendants have appealed the decision, and the Georgia Court of Appeals will hear arguments in December.
Because the case has been postponed, the two counts against Trump for filing false documents will not be dropped until the appeals court rules.
The evidence in the case includes a taped phone call in which Trump instructed a top Georgia election official to “find” enough votes to overturn the results.
Along with Trump, eighteen co-defendants were accused in Georgia of racketeering and other charges, including his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
Four of Trump’s original co-defendants, including three former campaign lawyers, pleaded guilty to lesser crimes in exchange for reduced prison sentences.
In May, Trump was found guilty in a separate criminal case in New York of manipulating business documents to conceal a hush money payment made to a porn star who claimed they had a sexual encounter.
Trump is also facing federal accusations of conspiracy to change the 2020 election results, though no trial date has been scheduled.
