Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger testifies in 2022 before a U.S. House of Representatives committee on the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol. On Wednesday, a Georgia prosecutor dropped all charges against President Donald Trump and others accused of election interference based on a call that Trump made to Raffensperger. File Photo by Tasos Katopodis/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 26 (UPI) — The prosecutor in the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump dropped the charges on Wednesday.

Pete Skandalakis, executive director of Georgia’s Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council, who took over the case when Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis was disqualified, filed a motion Wednesday saying that he’s dropping the case “to serve the interests of justice and promote judicial finality”

“[The case] is on life support and the decision what to do with it falls on me and me alone. But unlike family members who must make the emotional decision to withdraw loved ones from life-sustaining treatment, I have no emotional connection to this case. As a former elected official who ran as both a Democrat and a Republican and now is the Executive Director of a non-partisan agency, this decision is not guided by a desire to advance an agenda but is based on my beliefs and understanding of the law,” he wrote.

Trump and 18 others pleaded not guilty in August 2023 to a racketeering indictment in their alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Willis brought the charges after a phone call from Trump to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger asking him to “find” the votes needed to give the state’s electoral votes to Trump.

Skandalakis addressed the call to Raffensperger in his motion.

“While the call is concerning, reasonable minds could differ as to how to interpret the call. One interpretation is that President Donald J. Trump, without explicitly stating it, is instructing the Secretary of State to fictitiously or fraudulently produce enough votes to secure a victory in Georgia. An alternative interpretation is that President Donald J. Trump, genuinely believing fraud had occurred, is asking the Secretary of State to investigate and determine whether sufficient irregularities exist to change the election outcome. When multiple interpretations are equally plausible, the accused is entitled to the benefit of the doubt and should not be presumed to have acted criminally.”

Willis was eventually disqualified because of a romantic relationship with a special prosecutor on the case. After she was disqualified, Skandalakis was tasked with finding another prosecutor to handle the case. When none was found, on Nov. 14 he took on the case himself.

Some defendants in the case — Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, Kenneth Chesebro and Scott Hall — took plea deals after agreeing to testify. Trump later gave them all federal pardons.