The governor of Wisconsin filed two different lawsuits to recover over $250,000 in legal fees related to unsuccessful efforts against the state brought by former President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Democrat Tony Evers is looking to get $145,174 from one lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign and $106,780 in fees incurred from a suit brought against the state by a GOP official.
He and his attorneys wrote Wednesday that there was “no doubt that Trump and his attorneys brought and litigated this lawsuit in bad faith.”
“Unconscionably, they did so for the purpose of sowing doubt about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election,” they maintain, “with a goal of disenfranchising nearly 3.3 million Wisconsin voters in order to secure the presidency contrary to majority will.”
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Evers wants to recover fees from Trump and from William Feehan, the chairman of a local Republican Party in his state, and Evers is seeking $106,780 from Feehan’s case. Former Trump attorney Sidney Powell has also be named as a defendant in that suit.
Wisconsin is not the first state to file for the recovery of legal fees in Trump’s failed lawsuits. Arizona’s Republican Party was ordered to pay $18,000 to the state’s election head. Georgia’s DeKalb and Cobb counties have also filed suits seeking to recover $20,000 in legal monies.
“Simply put, a message must be sent that this type of behavior cannot be tolerated in the judicial system, and that attorneys should avoid these types of frivolous attempts to disenfranchise voters in the future,” Evers’ lawyers argued.
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An attorney who represented Trump in the case told Reuters they deny the claims that their lawsuit was frivolous. “They’re attacking in the pleadings my motives and the motives of my partners, of which they know nothing,” said William Bock. “The statements made about our motives were absolutely false.”
Trump sued Wisconsin last year after the state flipped blue for now-President Joe Biden. The state conducted two recounts that showed that Biden won Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes.
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