Two Georgia counties are demanding that former president Donald Trump and David Shafer, the head of the Georgia GOP, pay nearly $20,000 in attorney fees as compensation for Republicans’ election-fraud lawsuits in the state.
In court filings, DeKalb County called for $6,105 in compensation, and Cobb County asked for $10,875, according to CNN.
Daniel White, who represents the Cobb County Board of Elections and Registration, and Janine Eveler, the director of the Cobb County Elections Department, released the filings this week.
They called Trump’s voter-fraud allegations “baseless” and accused him of wasting county officials’ time in an effort to overturn President Joe Biden’s declared win in Georgia.
“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,” the attorneys wrote.
Trump and Shafer “continued to pursue this litigation after the election contest became moot, all without legal justification,” the filing continued.
Trump’s campaign filed a lawsuit in December against the Georgia State Election Board, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, and 15 county election supervisors.
Only DeKalb and Cobb counties have issued a formal response, but CNN reported several other counties are considering similar actions.
Georgia election officials also recently opened an investigation into Trump, specifically in regards to his phone call with Raffensperger, which was later leaked to the Washington Post.
During the phone call on Jan. 2, Trump pressured Raffensperger to continue investigating voter fraud, pointing to multiple avenues through which Democrat operatives allegedly undermined election integrity to secure a Biden win.
“The ballots are corrupt, and they’re brand new, and they don’t have seals, and there’s a whole thing with the ballots. But the ballots are corrupt,” Trump said during the hourlong phone call, citing one of the many examples of inconsistencies that were reported by election watchers.
After Raffensperger resisted the request, Trump implied that he, too, may be implicit in the cover up, since it reflected poorly on his office.
“It is more illegal for you than it is for them because, you know, what they did and you’re not reporting it—that’s a criminal offense,” Trump said. “And you can’t let that happen.”
Despite the evidence flooding in from witness affidavits, investigative reporting and the efforts of Trump’s own legal team, he said it was not necessary for Raffensperger to investigate every single example of election malfeasance.
“All I want to do is this,” he said. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.”
