The Georgia GOP has spent more than$ 1. 7 million on legal costs since 2022 after promising to help cover the page for the party ’s former president and other officers targeted in Fulton County’s election meddling situation.
The state group tallied$ 237,000 in legal costs in March atop more than$ 1. 5 million in past court costs , according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution assessment of newly released financial records.
The disclosures show the legal fees are the party ’s largest category of expenditures this election cycle, far surpassing the more than$ 400,000 spent last year to organize a state convention that featured former President Donald Trump.
Georgia GOP seat Josh McKoon has made clear the state party ’s best interests are financing the constitutional protection and helping Trump recreate Georgia four centuries after President Joe Biden just won the state.
The big courtroom expenses have caused a rift with some older Republicans who say the group should instead be channelling its contributions toward helping vote state GOP candidates.
Gov. Brian Kemp is among the provincial officials who have steered clear of the Georgia GOP, rather boosting his own democratic organization’s efforts to help congressional and local applicants “from the bottom upwards. ”
McKoon has huge framed the group ’s choice as a prerequisite after his father, David Shafer, and 15 other votes cast votes after Trump’s 2020 battle as if he won. Their seats took position as Democrats met at the same time in the state Capitol to count reasonable electoral vote for Biden.
The GOP delegates submitted to state and federal government documents that claimed they were the “duly elected ” votes from the condition, which they said Trump won. They claimed at the time they did but to keep Trump’s constitutional rights in case his fight was reversed.
While some of the GOP delegates afterwards struck immunity bargains with prosecutors, Shafer, condition Sen. Shawn Still and Cathy Latham were all charged in Fulton County’s criminal situation. They are among the 15 co-defendants whose claims are still pending.
The legal costs have drawn powerful emphasis from the group. The Georgia GOP has helped coordinate efforts to fly their legal costs and promoted fundraising activities around the state that have drawn leading Trump loyalists.
McKoon, meanwhile, has chastised Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as a “blindly partisan, power-mad ” prosecutor, and has outlined plans to sue her to recoup the legal fees if an appeals court disqualifies the DA’s office from pursuing the case.
And he said the three officers facing fees, along with other Democratic electors who accepted exemption deals with prosecutors in exchange for their testimony, would have “been financially ruined ” if not for the party ’s decision to pick up the tab.
“ I am individually grateful for the huge financial aid that has allowed the Georgia Republican Party to fulfill these obligations while preparing to move an extreme 2024 battle up and down the vote, ” he said.
The legal fees have strained the party ’s coffers at a crucial political moment. Both campaigns see Georgia as a top battleground target in the White House race, and polls show Biden and Trump are locked in a tight rematch. State Republicans are also trying to defend a handful of competitive legislative districts after a court-ordered redrawing of state political maps.
The party ended March with$ 450,000 in cash on hand. That’s far ahead of the roughly$ 140,000 the party had in the bank at this stage in the 2016 race, but lags behind the nearly$ 1. 3 million in cash the party boasted at this time in the 2020 contest.
The party ’s coffers were boosted by an influx of qualifying fees for contenders seeking state and congressional office, along with a wave of donors.
The party held a recent gala with U. S. Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican. And it reported receiving$ 10,000 checks last month from Arkansas real estate investor John Bailey and his wife Patricia; billionaire casino mogul Steve Wynn and his wife Andrea; and John J. Ricketts, the former chief executive of TD Ameritrade.
“We’re seeing very good support from our donor community, ” McKoon told the “Politically Georgia” podcast this month. “ I feel very good that we’re going to have the resources that we’re going to need to win in November. ”
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