Two Georgia counties are seeking nearly $20,000 in attorney fees from former President Trump and the head of the Georgia GOP as compensation for a fruitless lawsuit seeking to overturn President Biden’s victory in the state.
In court filings, DeKalb County called for $6,105 in compensation, while Cobb County asked for $10,875, according to CNN. Trump and Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer sued in Fulton County Superior Court in December, naming 15 county election supervisors, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) and the state election board as defendants.
“Petitioners apparently believed that they could file their baseless and legally deficient actions with impunity, with no regard for the costs extracted from the taxpayers’ coffers or the consequences to the democratic foundations of our country,” Daniel White, who represents the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration and Janine Eveler, the director of the Cobb County Elections Department, said in the filing.
The DeKalb motion claims Trump and Shafer “continued to pursue this litigation after the election contest became moot, all without legal justification.”
White told CNN that thus far only DeKalb and Cobb counties are seeking compensation for legal fees but that others are considering similar filings.
Trump repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of election theft in the Peach State, which Biden was the first Democrat to carry in a presidential election since the 1990s. In a Jan. 2 call to Raffensperger’s office, Trump demanded the secretary of state “find” 11,780 votes for him. After multiple recounts, Raffensperger certified Biden the winner in December.
“We have now counted legally cast ballots three times, and the results remain unchanged,” he said at a December news conference at the state capitol in Atlanta.
The Hill has reached out to the office of the former president and the Georgia Republican Party for comment.