Pete Skandalakis: Career, Trump Case, and Fee Dispute

Pete Skandalakis is the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia and the prosecutor who, in November 2025, first appointed himself to take over the Fulton County election interference case against Donald Trump and then moved to dismiss it less than two weeks later. Before that, he spent roughly a quarter century as the elected district attorney for Georgia’s Coweta Judicial Circuit. His current job gives him an unusual power in Georgia: when a local district attorney is disqualified from a case, he decides who prosecutes it next.

From the Coweta Circuit to Statewide Office

Peter John Skandalakis graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1984 and joined the Coweta Judicial Circuit as an assistant district attorney the same year.¹²³ At the end of 2017, he left the DA’s office to lead the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia.

What the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council Does

The Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, often shortened to PAC or PACGA, is a nonpartisan judicial-branch agency based in Morrow, Georgia. It trains Georgia prosecutors, distributes state funding for assistant DAs and victim advocates, reviews criminal justice legislation, and appoints substitute prosecutors when a local DA’s office has a conflict of interest.⁴

As executive director, Skandalakis runs the agency’s daily operations and manages both its budget and the budgets of Georgia’s district attorneys.⁵ When a district attorney is disqualified from a case, it falls to him to determine whether a conflict exists and to appoint a replacement.⁴ He also sits on Georgia’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council and its grants committees.⁶

That conflict-appointment role has placed him at the center of three high-profile matters originating from the Fulton County DA’s office. Each ended without charges.

The Rayshard Brooks Case

In July 2021, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr appointed Skandalakis as the special prosecutor in the case over the fatal police shooting of Rayshard Brooks at an Atlanta Wendy’s drive-through on June 12, 2020.⁷ Fulton County DA Fani Willis had asked to recuse her office, pointing to a conflict inherited from her predecessor Paul Howard, who had already filed charges against officers Garrett Rolfe and Devin Brosnan.⁸

Working with former Gwinnett County DA Danny Porter, Skandalakis announced on August 23, 2022, that no charges would be pursued against either officer. He concluded that Rolfe’s use of deadly force was “objectively reasonable” given the rapidly changing circumstances.⁷ He also filed paperwork to dismiss the felony murder and aggravated assault warrants Howard had issued.⁹

The Burt Jones Investigation

Skandalakis also led the investigation of Georgia Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones over his role in the alternate elector scheme following the 2020 presidential election. A Fulton County judge had disqualified Willis from investigating Jones in 2022 because she had headlined a campaign fundraiser for his political opponent Charlie Bailey.¹⁰ The investigation sat dormant for nearly two years before Skandalakis formally took it on April 11, 2024.¹¹

On September 13, 2024, he closed the investigation, concluding Jones’s conduct was “reasonable and not criminal in nature.”¹² Skandalakis found that Jones had acted within his duties as a state senator responding to constituents and that his participation in the December 14, 2020, alternate elector vote reflected reliance on advice of counsel.¹¹

Taking Over the Georgia Case Against Trump

In August 2023, a Fulton County grand jury returned a sweeping indictment charging Trump and 18 co-defendants with running a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn Georgia’s 2020 presidential election results.¹³ Willis prosecuted the case until the Georgia Court of Appeals disqualified her, citing an “appearance of impropriety” from her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. On September 16, 2025, the Georgia Supreme Court declined 4-3 to overturn that disqualification, handing responsibility for finding a new prosecutor to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council.¹⁴

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set November 14, 2025, as the deadline for a replacement, warning that otherwise the case would be dismissed for “want of prosecution.”¹⁵ Skandalakis contacted several prosecutors around the state. Each declined. He did not name them or share their reasons, citing “respect for their privacy and professional discretion.”¹⁶

With the deadline at hand, he appointed himself district attorney pro tempore on November 14, 2025. In a public statement, he said that while it “would have been simple to allow Judge McAfee’s deadline to lapse,” the public had “a legitimate interest in the outcome of this case” and that someone should make “an informed and transparent determination about how best to proceed.” He acknowledged he had not yet reviewed the full case file, which filled 101 banker boxes and an eight-terabyte hard drive.¹⁷

The empty bench of willing prosecutors drew comment. Willis described a “culture of fear,” saying Trump had been “threatening anyone that would dare to prosecute” and that “prosecutors, citizens and even judges” were afraid.¹⁸ Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis said it was “incredibly unlikely that the charges against Donald Trump will ever see the light of day in a courtroom.”¹⁵ Trump attorney Steve Sadow said he was confident “a fair and impartial review will lead to a dismissal of the case.”¹⁶

The Dismissal

Twelve days later, on November 26, 2025, Skandalakis filed a 22-page motion to dismiss the entire case. Judge McAfee granted it the same day, ordering: “The case is hereby dismissed in its entirety.”¹⁹ The dismissal covered Trump and the remaining co-defendants, including Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows.²⁰

His motion rested on several grounds. On venue and jurisdiction, he wrote that the alleged conduct “was conceived in Washington, D.C., not the State of Georgia” and that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s federal investigation had been the “most appropriate avenue” for the prosecution.¹⁹ On logistics, he wrote that there was “no realistic prospect that a sitting President will be compelled to appear in Georgia to stand trial,” noting Trump’s term runs until January 20, 2029, and that eight years would have passed since the underlying events by then.²¹ He also cited the Supreme Court’s 2024 presidential immunity ruling as a source of further delay.²² Getting the case to trial by 2031 would be a “remarkable feat,” he wrote, and further delay would infringe on the co-defendants’ speedy trial rights.

On the evidence, he described the phone call between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as not a “smoking gun,” arguing that because “multiple interpretations are equally plausible,” the accused should receive the “benefit of the doubt.”²³²⁴²⁰ He added that his agency was “simply not equipped to carry out this case while meeting the essential duties required under the current budget.”²²

Skandalakis declined to sever the co-defendants’ cases from Trump’s, reasoning that as the “lead defendant,” Trump “bears the responsibility for any conspiracy” and that severing would be “illogical and unduly burdensome and costly.”²¹ He said he reviewed the case “with an understanding of the grave seriousness with which many citizens view the events discussed in this case” and that the indictment “alleges a compelling set of acts” that, if proven, “would establish a conspiracy undertaken by multiple individuals” to overturn the election.²⁵ His decision, he said, was “based on my beliefs and understanding of the law” rather than any political agenda.

The Fight Over Legal Fees

The dismissal ended the last outstanding criminal case against Trump tied to the 2020 election, after Jack Smith’s two federal cases were terminated when Trump returned to the White House.¹⁹ Trump subsequently issued pardons to Giuliani and others involved in the election-overturn efforts.²⁰

A 2025 Georgia law, Senate Bill 244, lets defendants seek reimbursement of legal costs when a prosecutor is disqualified for improper conduct and the case is later dismissed.²⁶ Trump filed a motion seeking roughly $6.2 million in fees from the Fulton County DA’s office, and total claims from defendants reached nearly $17 million. Willis moved to block the claims, arguing the statute requires “actual improper conduct” rather than an “appearance of impropriety,” that many of the billed expenses (luxury hotel stays and private security among them) were ineligible, and that some fees had been paid by political entities rather than by the defendants themselves.²⁷ Skandalakis himself argued the law is likely unconstitutional because it denies county governments due process.²⁸ As of early 2026, the dispute was headed to the Georgia Court of Appeals after Judge McAfee granted Willis’s office a certificate of immediate review.²⁹

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17
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WABE. Official Says Law Trump Is Using to Seek Legal Fees in Georgia Election Case Likely Unconstitutional
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CBS News Atlanta. Trump Legal Fees Dispute Heads to Georgia Court of Appeals