New prosecutor named to replace Fani Willis in Georgia election interference case against Trump

On Nov. 14, 2025, Peter J. Skandalakis, executive director of the Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys Council, was appointed as special prosecutor to take over the Georgia RICO case against Trump and 18 co-defendants after a years-long search failed to find a sitting district attorney willing to assume the politically exposed role. Skandalakis appointed himself to the case — a legally available but procedurally unusual step — after multiple prosecutors declined.

The case had been leaderless since December 2024, when Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee disqualified District Attorney Fani Willis following findings of an 'appearance of impropriety' stemming from her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, the special prosecutor she had appointed to lead the case. Willis had spent three years and an estimated $15 million building the RICO case, which named Trump and 18 co-defendants in connection with efforts to overturn Georgia's 2020 presidential election results.

Skandalakis moved quickly after his appointment. On Nov. 26, 2025 — just 12 days after taking the case — he filed to dismiss all charges, calling the evidence insufficient to sustain RICO charges and saying the prosecution had been 'selective' and 'politically motivated.' His dismissal motion did not address the underlying factual record in detail; it framed the entire case as a prosecutorial overreach.

The decision to dismiss left four co-defendants in a legally ambiguous situation. Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell had already pleaded guilty to lesser charges in October 2023 under plea agreements with Willis's office, and Jenna Ellis had pleaded guilty separately. The dismissed case resolved Trump's exposure, but the plea agreements from Chesebro, Powell, and Ellis remained in place — they had already admitted to elements of the alleged scheme.

Trump faced four separate criminal indictments simultaneously at the peak of his legal exposure in 2023-2024: the federal January 6 case, the federal classified documents case, the Manhattan hush-money case, and the Georgia RICO case. By the time Skandalakis dismissed the Georgia case, only the Manhattan hush-money conviction remained legally active — Trump had been convicted on 34 counts in May 2024, with sentencing delayed pending post-conviction motions.

Georgia's RICO statute — the law at the heart of Willis's prosecution — is modeled on the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act but is broader in scope, covering a wider range of predicate offenses. Willis's theory was that Trump and his co-defendants formed a criminal enterprise to overturn the 2020 election through multiple coordinated acts, including false electors, pressure on election officials, and the January 6 effort. Skandalakis said that theory did not hold up as RICO.

The case's collapse came after Trump's return to the presidency made federal intervention in the Georgia prosecution politically toxic. The DOJ under AG Pam Bondi had declined to assist Georgia prosecutors seeking to locate federal witnesses. Georgia's Republican-controlled legislature had repeatedly attempted to create a commission to review and remove locally elected prosecutors — a direct structural threat to Willis's authority that she fought in court for over a year.

Skandalakis's role as executive director of the Georgia Prosecuting Attorneys Council is normally administrative — he runs the professional association for Georgia's district attorneys and solicitors general. Appointing himself as special prosecutor in the highest-profile case in state history was an extraordinary use of a procedural option that existed precisely because no sitting prosecutor was willing to take the assignment.