In a surprise move on Wednesday, a judge in Atlanta quashed six of the charges against former President Donald J. Trump and his allies in the sprawling Georgia election interference case, including one related to a call that Mr. Trump made to pressure Georgia’s secretary of state in early January 2021.
The judge, Scott McAfee of Fulton Superior Court, left intact the rest of the racketeering indictment, which initially included 41 counts against 19 co-defendants. 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 on 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 T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., who is leading the case. A ruling on that matter, which has made headlines for weeks after it was revealed that Ms. Willis had engaged in a romantic relationship with another prosecutor, is expected by the end of the week.
The nine-page ruling on Wednesday took aim at charges asserting that Mr. Trump and other defendants had solicited public officials to break the law by violating their oaths of office. For example, one count against Mr. Trump said that he “unlawfully solicited, requested and importuned” the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to violate his oath of office by decertifying the election.
