Scott McAfee: the young judge in Trump’s Georgia case

September 8, 2023

Updated 5 hours ago

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Judge McAfee is hearing submissions from attorneys Ken Chesebro and Sidney Powell, co-defendants of former US President Donald Trump

Judge Scott McAfee is only 34 years old and has only been in office for six months. He is leading the trial against a former US president.

The prosecution of Donald Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators for election interference in Georgia is by far the most legally and logistically complex of four blockbuster cases against the Republican. To add to the pressure, it will be televised.

But at the opening hearing of the Georgia trial on September 6, Judge McAfee certainly wasn’t acting for the camera.

He occasionally frowned or folded his arms as he heard motions from lawyers for two of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants, but did not appear to express an opinion beyond his final verdict for the day. To the uninformed observer, it might have looked like just another day for him in court.

Judge McAfee has built an impressive resume over the course of his relatively short career. He served as a local and federal prosecutor. He has worked with both Fani Willis, the Democratic prosecutor against Mr. Trump, and the state’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp. Anyone who knows the lawyer describes him as a tough but level-headed personality.

His behavior, coupled with his conservative adherence to the law, could make it far harder for Mr. Trump and his allies to accuse him of bias, as they have done with other judges and prosecutors overseeing cases against the former president. And it makes him a man to watch as the case unfolds.

“Although Scott McAfee has only been a judge for about six months, his experience to date suggests that he is extremely competent and well qualified for the challenge of leading the extensive prosecution that puts Donald Trump at the head of an alleged criminal enterprise that “The goal is to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia,” Clark Cunningham, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law, told the BBC.

Conservative references

Judge McAfee’s resume meets many of the usual criteria for an aspiring lawyer, but also contains a few interesting features.

He studied both politics and music at Emory University in Atlanta and played cello in the school’s symphony orchestra. He is also a volunteer diver at the Georgia Aquarium, the facility confirmed, where his work could include “a few different things like cleaning exhibits, safety dives, etc.”

His legal career began at the University of Georgia Law School. There he joined the Federalist Society, a prominent conservative legal group that serves as an incubator and pipeline for lawyers and judges on the right, and the Law Republicans.

Judge McAfee interned for Justices David Nahmias and Keith Blackwell on the Georgia Supreme Court while in law school, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported.

“What really stands out is his temperament — he’s not excitable, he’s even-keeled,” Blackwell, now senior counsel at the law firm Alston & Bird, told the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

After graduating in 2013, Judge McAfee worked as both a local prosecutor and in private practice before ultimately accepting a position as a prosecutor in Fulton County in 2015. There he worked with Ms. Willis, who was then a prosecutor in New York, the Times reported.

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Ms. Willis was elected Fulton County district attorney in 2020 and began her investigation into Mr. Trump’s attempts to influence Georgia election results in his favor shortly after taking office.

According to the Georgia governor’s office, while working in Fulton County, he prosecuted “hundreds of crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.”

A year into his Fulton County tenure, Judge McAfee was named Trial Attorney of the Year, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported. The award was “a testament to his competence as a litigator,” Mr Cunningham told the BBC.

In 2018, Judge McAfee became a federal prosecutor and served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Atlanta. He eventually caught the attention of Governor Kemp, who appointed him to Georgia’s Office of Inspector General in 2021.

“His experience as a tough prosecutor enables him to uncover fraud, waste, abuse and corruption and bring to justice those who break the law,” Mr. Kemp said in a statement at the time.

Just two years later, Judge McAfee rose again when Mr. Kemp appointed him to the bench in February 2023.

And six months later, the court system randomly assigned him the case of the decade.

It is unclear whether Judge McAfee will take on Mr. Trump’s case long-term, as the former president and some of his co-defendants have indicated they may seek to take their case to federal court.

This legal maneuver appears to have been unsuccessful so far; A separate judge ruled Friday against Mark Meadows, one of the co-defendants, who asked to have his case moved from Georgia state court.

For now, America’s eyes will be on Judge McAfee.