Georgia’s lieutenant governor won’t be charged in 2020 election interference case

ATLANTA (AP) — A special prosecutor has decided not to pursue charges against Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones over efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss in the state.

Pete Skandalakis, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia on Friday announced that he had decided not to bring the matter to a grand jury. Skandalakis appointed himself to handle the matter in April, nearly two years after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was barred from prosecuting Jones as part of her election interference case against former Trump and others.

Jones was one of 16 state Republicans who met at the Georgia Capitol in December 2020 to sign a certificate stating that Trump had won Georgia and declaring themselves the state’s “duly elected and qualified” electors even though Democrat Joe Biden had been declared the state’s winner.

A state senator at the time, Jones signed a call for a special session of Georgia’s legislature aimed at overturning Biden’s narrow win in the state. He joined 26 other Georgia state lawmakers in a court brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to agree with a request from Texas to throw out election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

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