法官撤销佐治亚州选举案中针对特朗普的六项指控
【中美创新时报2024年3月14日讯】（记者温友平编译）周三（3月13日），亚特兰大的一名法官出人意料地撤销了对前总统唐纳德·特朗普及其盟友在 2021 年 1 月佐治亚州选举干涉案中提出的六项指控，其中一项与特朗普早些时候向佐治亚州国务卿施压的电话有关。对此，《纽约时报》记者理查德·福塞特（Richard Fausset）和丹尼·哈基姆（Danny Hakim）作了如下报道。
富尔顿（Fulton）高等法院法官斯科特·麦卡菲（Scott McAfee）原封不动地保留了敲诈勒索起诉书的其余部分，其中最初包括针对 19 名共同被告的 41 项罪名。自八月份大陪审团提交起诉书以来，其中四人已认罪。
虽然这一裁决对检察官来说无疑是一个挫折，但几位法律观察人士周三表示，它并没有削弱案件的核心，即对所有被告提出的国家敲诈勒索指控。
这项指控是基于起诉书称各被告为推进敲诈勒索阴谋而采取的“公开行为”。法官明确表示周三的命令不适用于这些行为。
该裁决与取消主导此案的佐治亚州富尔顿县地区检察官法尼·威利斯（Fani Willis）资格的辩方努力无关。在威利斯与另一名检察官发生恋爱关系的消息被披露后数周内，此事一直成为头条新闻，预计将在本周末做出裁决。
周三这份长达九页的裁决针对的是指控特朗普和其他被告煽动公职人员违反就职誓言而违法的指控。例如，一项针对特朗普的指控称，他“非法招揽、要求和强求”佐治亚州国务卿布拉德·拉芬斯佩格(Brad Raffensperger)违反其就职誓言，取消选举资格。
法官表示，检察官对于被告向公职人员施压实施哪些违法行为的情况不够具体。
麦卡菲在裁决中写道：“这六项罪名包含了犯罪的所有基本要素，但未能就其犯罪性质提供足够的细节。” “他们没有向被告提供足够的信息来明智地准备辩护，因为被告可能以数十种（如果不是数百种）不同的方式违反了宪法和法规。”
地方检察官办公室发言人拒绝对裁决发表评论。
检察官可能会寻求以解决法院担忧的方式再次提起已被撤销的指控，但目前尚不清楚他们是否会这样做。
特朗普的律师史蒂文·H·萨多(Steven H. Sadow)在一份声明中表示：“这一裁决是对法律的正确运用，因为检方未能就这些指控提出任何不当行为的具体指控。” 对特朗普总统的整个起诉都是政治性的，构成了选举干涉，应该被驳回。”
被撤销的六项指控之一，即第 28 项指控，与特朗普 2021 年 1 月 2 日给拉芬斯佩格的电话有关，他在电话中向国务卿施压，要求他“找到”足够的选票来推翻总统选举。
另一项指控第 38 项指控与特朗普于 2021 年 9 月致拉芬斯佩格的一封信有关，信中要求他取消佐治亚州总统选举结果的认证，或寻求类似的“法律补救措施”并“宣布真正的获胜者”。
法官撤销的其他罪名也与试图向公职人员施压有关。起诉书中列出的第 2、6 和 23 项罪名是三项罪名，指控几名被告在乔·拜登赢得该州后敦促佐治亚州议员任命支持特朗普的选举人时违反了法律。
第 5 条涉及特朗普给时任佐治亚州众议院议长戴维·罗尔斯顿 (David Ralston) 的电话。在那次谈话中，特朗普敦促罗尔斯顿召开特别立法会议来任命新的选举人。
特朗普和他的前私人律师鲁迪·朱利安尼（Rudy Giuliani）面临的指控最多，各有 13 项。 他们现在在佐治亚州案件中每人面临 10 项指控。
其他四名被告现在面临的指控也减少了。其中包括前白宫办公厅主任马克·梅多斯（Mark Meadows）和约翰·伊士曼（John Eastman），后者是在特朗普输掉的摇摆州部署假选举人的阴谋的法律设计师。
与特朗普团队结盟的两名佐治亚州律师雷·史密斯三世（Ray Smith III）和罗伯特·奇利（Robert Cheeley）也发现他们面临的指控数量有所减少。
佐治亚州立大学法学教授安东尼·迈克尔·克雷斯（Anthony Michael Kreis）指出，检察官可以对法官的命令提出上诉，或者他们可以向大陪审团提出更详细的受质疑指控，大陪审团可能会发布替代起诉书。
出于这个原因，并且由于敲诈勒索指控不受影响，克雷斯将法官的命令描述为“一个小插曲，而不是针对唐纳德·特朗普及其盟友的案件的一场重大灾难”。
在特朗普第一次弹劾期间担任众议院司法委员会特别顾问并表示支持佐治亚州起诉的诺曼·艾森（Norman Eisen）对此表示同意。 “我认为这是关于该案 RICO 部分的全面推进信号，”艾森说，他使用了佐治亚州版本《诈骗影响和腐败组织法》的缩写。
然而，辩护律师认为这一裁决是他们一方的重大胜利。史密斯的律师唐·塞缪尔（Don Samuel）将法官的举动描述为“我们相信雷·史密斯（Ray Smith）所有罪名完全无罪的第一步”。
本文最初发表于《纽约时报》。
题图：富尔顿（Fulton）高等法院法官斯科特·麦卡菲（Scott McAfee）撤销了佐治亚州选举干涉案中针对前总统唐纳德·特朗普及其盟友的六项指控。POOL/GETTY
附英文原文报道：
Judge quashes six charges in Georgia election case against Trump
By Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim New York Times,Updated March 13, 2024
ATLANTA — In a surprise move Wednesday, a judge in Atlanta quashed six of the charges against former president Donald Trump and his allies in the sprawling Georgia election interference case, including one related to a call that Trump made to pressure Georgia’s secretary of state in early January 2021.
Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton Superior Court left intact the rest of the racketeering indictment, which initially included 41 counts against 19 codefendants. Four of them have pleaded guilty since the indictment was handed up by a grand jury in August.
While the ruling was certainly a setback for prosecutors, several legal observers said Wednesday that it did not weaken the core of the case, the state racketeering charge that was brought against all of the defendants.
That charge is based on “overt acts” that the indictment says various defendants took in furtherance of the racketeering conspiracy. The judge was explicit in stating that Wednesday’s order does not apply to those acts.
The ruling was not related to a defense effort to disqualify Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Georgia, who is leading the case. A ruling on that matter, which has made headlines for weeks after it was revealed that Willis had engaged in a romantic relationship with another prosecutor, is expected by the end of the week.
The nine-page ruling Wednesday took aim at charges asserting that Trump and other defendants had solicited public officials to break the law by violating their oaths of office. For example, one count against Trump said that he “unlawfully solicited, requested and importuned” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to violate his oath of office by decertifying the election.
The judge said that prosecutors were not specific enough about what violations the defendants were pressuring public officials to commit.
“These six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission,” McAfee wrote in his ruling. “They do not give the Defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, as the Defendants could have violated the Constitution and thus the statute in dozens, if not hundreds, of distinct ways.”
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office declined to comment on the ruling.
Prosecutors could potentially seek to bring the quashed charges again in a way that addresses the court’s concerns, but it was not immediately clear if they would do so.
In a statement, Steven H. Sadow, a lawyer for Trump, said: “The ruling is a correct application of the law, as the prosecution failed to make specific allegations of any alleged wrongdoing on those counts. The entire prosecution of President Trump is political, constitutes election interference, and should be dismissed.”
One of the six charges that was quashed, Count 28, relates to Trump’s telephone call to Raffensperger on Jan. 2, 2021, in which he pressured the secretary of state to “find” him enough votes to overturn the presidential election.
Another charge, Count 38, related to a letter that Trump sent to Raffensperger in September 2021, asking him to decertify the Georgia presidential election results or seek similar “legal remedies” and “announce the true winner.”
Other counts quashed by the judge also related to attempts to pressure public officials. Three counts — listed as Nos. 2, 6, and 23 in the indictment — allege that several defendants broke the law when they urged Georgia lawmakers to appoint pro-Trump electors after Joe Biden won the state.
Count 5 concerned a call that Trump made to David Ralston, who was then the speaker of the Georgia House. During that conversation Trump pressed Ralston to call a special legislative session to appoint new electors.
Trump and his former personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, had faced the most charges, at 13 apiece. They now each face 10 charges in the Georgia case.
Four of the other defendants also face fewer charges now. They include Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, and John Eastman, a legal architect of the plot to deploy fake electors in swing states that Trump lost.
Two Georgia lawyers allied with the Trump team, Ray Smith III and Robert Cheeley, also saw a reduction in the number of charges they faced.
Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University, noted that prosecutors could appeal the judge’s order, or they could put more detailed versions of the challenged charges before a grand jury, which could issue a superseding indictment.
For that reason, and because the racketeering charges are not affected, Kreis characterized the judge’s order as “a small blip, as opposed to a major catastrophe for the case against Donald Trump and his allies.”
Norman Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during the first Trump impeachment and has voiced support for the Georgia prosecution, agreed. “I think this is a full-steam-ahead signal about the RICO portion of the case,” Eisen said, using the acronym for Georgia’s version of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Defense lawyers, however, saw the ruling as a significant victory for their side. Smith’s lawyer, Don Samuel, described the judge’s move as “the first step in what we believe will be the complete exoneration of Ray Smith on all counts.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
