Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee on Thursday rejected Trump co-defendant Sidney Powell’s motion to dismiss her indictment on alleged 2020 election interference in Georgia.
“Dismissing an indictment is also something where you have to show prejudice,” said McAfee. “It’s something that’s not done lightly and it has to be something that’s done with a concrete reason.”
On Thursday in court Powell’s attorney, Brian Rafferty, had argued that she had nothing to do with the breach of an elections office in Coffee County that is related to the charges against her.
Powell, along with former President Trump, is among 19 co-defendants who were indicted by a grand jury on racketeering and other charges related to attempts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election.
Along with racketeering, Powell faces six other counts in connection with the January 2021 election equipment breach at an office in rural Coffee County south of Atlanta.
She and another former Trump attorney, Kenneth Chesebro, have had their cases severed from the other co-defendants and are slated to go on trial October 23. Each had requested a speedy trial.
On Wednesday Chesebro had also filed a motion to have his indictment dismissed.
In court Thursday McAfee said that he didn’t see Powell’s motion to dismiss for misconduct “as clearing just the procedural bar of being something that’s under the court’s authority.”
Powell attorney Rafferty had argued that prosecutors had committed “troubling and unethical conduct” in charging Powell, because she had “nothing to do” with the Coffee County breach. He further asserted that the breach wasn’t even a crime because local officials had extended an invitation to visit to the office.
Rafferty also filed a separate motion accusing prosecutors of failing to turn over exculpatory evidence.
Fulton County Deputy District Attorney Will Wooten called the misconduct accusations “absurd” and “unsupported.”
Another co-defendant, Atlanta bail bondsman Scott Hall, last Friday entered a guilty plea deal with prosecutors related to his role in the Coffee County breach. He’s been charged with conspiring to unlawfully access voter data and ballot counting machines.
According to one of Chesebro’s attorneys, prosecutors have provided a list of some 174 witnesses for his and Powell’s upcoming trial.
