Georgia Elections Officials Recover Legal Fees In Trump Suit Over 2020 Results | Talking Points Memo

Elections officials in two Georgia counties sued by former President Donald Trump after the 2020 election have recovered legal fees, which they say came from the plaintiffs in the case: Trump, his campaign and Georgia’s Republican Party chair.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1378567

The Journal-Constitution reported that the payments came out to $15,554 for Cobb County’s legal costs. DeKalb sought $6,105.

No word apparently as to who put up the money, just that they have been paid. Also, they were lucky the fees were based on salaried government attorneys, not private sector billers by the hour.

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I wish it were MORE money so that it could act as a deterrent to other fraudulent BS that Republicans sue over…

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Well, it does say this:

White said the money came from Squire Patton Boggs, the firm of the attorney representing Trump and Shafer, Randy Evans.

A law firm that was probably stiffed by Trump to begin with, then volunteered to pay the expenses themselves? Sounds like too much even for Trump-worshippers, but who can say these days?

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“The Journal-Constitution reported that the payments came out to $15,554 for Cobb County’s legal costs. DeKalb sought $6,105.”

So, Trump won. Everyone agrees.

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I think that just means the money was routed through Squire Patton Boggs, not that they dug into the partners’ golf fund to bury this.

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Mark this day on the calendar. That grifter finally paid a bill. More likely, his lawyer paid for him, but plenty of other stiffed entities would be very happy to get the compensation owed to them.

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The payoffs only satisfy the former issue but the charge for the latter is incalculably greater and requires more than money.

We needed a court judgement so the payment was effectively hush money: Par for the Trumpian course one could say.

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Good question. Did the firm decide that they were better off taking the loss and maintaining some kind of credibility in the community (although we would probably say that ship has sailed), or did the firm act as a conduit of some type? Did some other group pay the firm and the fees? It’s notable that there was no admission of wrongdoing, which is the expected response from TFG. I have to wonder who signed off on paying the fees.

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This is just the griftees getting grifted some more. But the courts are sending the right message.

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Trump is cheap, so going after his money is a decent strategy. An even better strategy is for Georgia to criminally indict Trump for his many election related crimes.

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“There was no settlement agreement,” Evans told the Journal-Constitution. “The taxpayers in DeKalb and Cobb have been fully reimbursed. There are no other details because there are no other details.”

The “details” are that they all colluded to settle the issue in an abnormal manner because the last thing any of the GQPers in GA want is a court decreeing that the suits were so utterly frivolous that attorneys fees and costs had to be reimbursed (or that certain attorneys needed to have their names referred to the Bar). This keeps up their stupid illusion of the Big Lie having been an arguably legit basis for a lawsuit.

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Wait what!?!
The party of tort reform does fraudulent litigation!?!

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Unless the law firm is itself named as a party to the action to collect attorney’s fees, without getting assent from its client, I do not believe the law firm ethically could, on its own, pay the fees.

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The consequences for corrupt misbehavior must be made to sting. There is sting to this, but seemingly not enough. One would hope that the sting factor increases and becomes more widespread. The spoiled child known as Donnie needs to face the music.

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The [Trump] lawsuit… falsely alleged that tens of thousands of illegal votes had been cast in Georgia in the 2020 election

“I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.” --Donald Trump

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SPB did not participate in any of the post-election litigation, so far as I can tell. Trump’s ambassador to Luxemburg joined the firm sometime in the past few months, made an appearance in the attorney fees dispute last month, and fixed the situation by paying off the paltry amount of fees claimed in the motion. It’s highly unlikely that it was personal or firm money, and it’s incredibly unlikely that any of it would have been permitted to happen if Trump had any unpaid bills with the firm. Big Law does not work like that.

Notably, SPB was where Michael Cohen set up office space for a time when he was trying to cash in as a lobbyist after Trump entered office. It led to them getting hit with a search warrant, IIRC. Why they would want to get tangled up with TrumpWorld again is a mystery to me.

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Probably came from another one of those pre-checked boxes that MAGAts love to let clean out their bank accounts.

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This is the key point of this story. Trump never ever, pays for anything when he loses a law suit, if he can help it. The “Buck” never stops with him.

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I’ve know guys that married a woman for the second and third time.

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