For the second time this year, the judge in Donald Trump's Georgia criminal case is throwing away some of the charges.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee dropped three of the charges in Fani Willis' sweeping "election interference" case, including two counts against Trump for forgery.
The judge ruled that Willis did not have the authority to charge Trump with filing false documents in federal court.
Eight of the original 13 counts against Trump remain.
"President Trump and his legal team in Georgia have prevailed once again," Trump's lead lawyer in the case, Steve Sadow, said.
Willis charged Trump and 18 other defendants, including his lawyers, in a sweeping conspiracy last summer to "overturn" the 2020 election in Georgia.
The case has been derailed by Willis' own incompetence and poor judgment.
In January, one of Trump's co-defendants alleged that Willis was profiting from an affair with a prosecutor she hired to work on the case, Nathan Wade.
Willis and Wade defended the affair at an explosive hearing in February, where they claimed the relationship did not constitute a conflict of interest.
McAfee declined to disqualify Willis in March as long as Wade left the case, which he promptly did. That same month, McAfee dropped six counts against Trump and his allies for a "fatal" lack of detail.
“They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitutions and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways," McAfee wrote at the time.
Beside her alleged conflict, Trump's lawyers have also challenged Willis over her racially inflammatory comments outside of court, which they say prejudiced potential jurors.
The case has been stalled indefinitely by Trump's appeal of McAfee's disqualification ruling.
An appeals court will hear arguments in December, ensuring the case won't be resolved until after the presidential election.
All of Trump's criminal cases are in limbo, in a major setback for Democrats who had once hoped to derail his presidential campaign with lawfare.
A federal case dealing with "election interference" has been bogged down in appeals, and a separate case over classified documents was thrown out by the judge.
Trump was convicted for "falsifying business records" in the spring, but the judge recently bumped the sentencing past the election.
