With help from Republican presidential candidates, the state GOP wound up spending more than $1.3 million on legal fees in 2023, most of it to represent electors for former President Donald Trump, three of whom were indicted in August.
That’s 15 times what the Republican Party spent on legal fees in 2021.
About $150,000 of what the party raised during the final six months of 2023 to help defray the cost of defending the Trump electors in the Fulton County election interference case came from Republican presidential candidates, according to a review by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Before he left office as chairman of the state GOP in 2023, David Shafer pledged the party’s help in defraying the legal costs of the 16 electors who met in mid-December 2020 to cast votes as if Trump had won Georgia during his failed reelection bid.
He didn’t, losing the state to Democrat Joe Biden by about 12,000 votes. Democrats were meeting at the Capitol the same day to cast legitimate electoral votes for Biden.
The GOP electors submitted to state and federal authorities documents that claimed they were the “duly elected” electors from the state, which they said Trump won.
At least eight of the 2020 Trump electors accepted immunity deals with the Fulton County district attorney’s office in exchange for their testimony, according to the lawyer representing the group.
Shafer, state Sen. Shawn Still and onetime Coffee County Republican Party Chairwoman Cathy Latham were indicted in the Trump election interference case. The three tried unsuccessfully to have their case transferred from state court to federal court, driving up the legal costs. They have since appealed to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Newly filed campaign disclosures show that the Georgia Republican Party raised $530,000 during the final six months of 2023 and spent $1.34 million. Of that, about $850,000 went for legal fees, on top of $520,000 in the first half of the year.
Josh McKoon, the current chairman of the Georgia GOP, said: “When I ran for chairman, I committed myself to making sure the Georgia Republican Party put our presidential nominee and other Republicans in the best position to win in 2024 and to defend our electors until the case against them was dismissed.
“The news this week that suggests there may have been ulterior financial motives for prosecuting our electors ... only confirms the wisdom of our position to defend the electors.”
The AJC reported earlier this week that a court motion filed Monday accused Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, without providing concrete evidence, of improperly hiring an alleged romantic partner to prosecute Trump and having financially benefited from their relationship.
One of the firms representing the eight Republican electors who ultimately accepted immunity deals, Strickland Debrow, was paid about $329,000 in 2023, according to the disclosures. That’s on top of $170,000 in 2022.
Holly Pierson of Pierson Law was paid at least $125,000 in attorney fees by the Georgia GOP during 2023. She was paid at least $52,000 in attorney fees by the party in 2022.
Craig Gillen, who is representing Shafer along with Pierson, was paid nearly $400,00 by the Republican Party in 2023. Smith, Gambrell & Russell, which represents Still, was paid about $250,000 last year by the party, according to disclosures.
TNS
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