A state judge in Fulton County, Georgia, has issued a ruling in a case to dismiss charges against former Trump attorney Sydney Powell following a heated hearing on Thursday.
As reported by The Messenger, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee refused to grant Powell’s request “but did agree with her defense attorneys that prosecutors should be ordered to thoroughly ensure they turned over any exculpatory evidence as required by law.”
“Just purely on procedural grounds I don’t believe that this motion to dismiss for misconduct…I don’t see that as clearing, just a procedural bar (or) being something that’s under the court’s authority,” McAfee said towards the end of the hearing, according to the outlet.
The Messenger reported:
Thursday’s hearing was held in response to two pre-trial motions filed by Powell arguing that the case should be dismissed due to “prosecutorial misconduct” and that prosecutors should produce additional potentially exculpatory evidence–referred to in legal terms as “Brady material.”
Although Powell’s motion to dismiss was a more extensive document, totaling more than 200 pages including exhibits, most of Thursday’s 80-minute hearing centered on the motion regarding evidence.
Brian Rafferty, Powell’s attorney, briskly argued that the prosecution was withholding exculpatory evidence or that they had hidden it in a massive amount of discovery that they previously turned over, citing a “needle in a haystack” defense.
When prosecutors said they had turned over all evidence to Powell’s team, McAfee asked Rafferty to be more specific about what he was demanding.
“I need to hear more exactly about what it is concretely that the state needs to be doing,” the judge said.
At one point, McAfee agreed to be more open to asking the prosecutorial team to double-check to see if more materials needed to be handed over to Powell’s team, but “that motion to dismiss just isn’t going to have much legs.”
The judge did warn the district attorney’s prosecutors, however, that if subsequent trials in the 19 cases filed by DA Fani Willis ultimately show any exculpatory evidence was not previously turned over, they would be “setting themselves up” for reprimands.
“We can file an order… the state would have the obligation to double check, triple check, and during the second or however many trials we have, something else comes up, then the state is really setting itself up,” McAfee said.
The Messenger added: “Powell, a former election attorney for former President Donald Trump, has been charged with seven state felony counts and faces trial beginning Oct. 20 alongside fellow Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro. Both have pleaded not guilty.”
Earlier, a former prosecutor and legal expert stated that the indictment of Trump in Georgia was unnecessary and contributed to the claims of a “pile on” by the Democratic Party.
CNN analyst Elie Honig made his remarks after Willis filed charges against Trump, Newsweek reported.
According to Honig, Trump has already been indicted on federal charges for allegedly plotting to steal the 2020 election in seven states, one of which is Georgia.
Willis released a 98-page indictment in August, charging Trump and 18 others with a total of 41 felonies. All the accused were hit with the maximum 20-year sentence for racketeering. After having his mugshot taken at an Atlanta jail in late August, Trump pleaded not guilty.
Speaking on the legal podcast “Cafe”, Honig said the Georgia charges are “unnecessary and, if anything, lend fuel to Trump’s claims…that this is just a Democratic Party pile on.”
Honig said that Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed by the Department of Justice, has already charged Trump with an “effort to steal the election nationwide and in seven states in particular, including Georgia.
“So why is [the Atlanta indictment] in the greater good, and why is it promoting public confidence in the fairness of this [process] to have one of those seven state prosecutors pile on with a charge of her own? I don’t think it serves any greater good,” he said.
He claimed it was a partisan indictment by Willis.
“I disagree with the exercise of prosecutorial discretion by an elected county prosecutor, a partisan, with a D [for Democrat] next to her name. I think it makes Trump’s chances of being convicted and punished higher if that’s the only goal here. If that’s the only goal, all seven states: Michigan, New Mexico, and on down the line, should be charging him too but that would be ludicrous,” Honig said.
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