In 2018, Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald appeared in Las Vegas. A judge on Friday dismissed criminal indictments against six Republicans, including McDonald, who were accused of submitting a certificate to Congress that falsely declared Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election .
Lebaskov/AP
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Lebaskov/AP
LAS VEGAS — A Nevada court judge on Friday dismissed a criminal indictment against six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to Congress falsely claiming that Donald Trump was the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election. Winner, the state prosecutor chose the wrong venue, which could have ended the case.
Shortly after Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus issued the ruling, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford stood in a Las Vegas courtroom and announced that he would take the case directly to the state’s top court. court.
Ford later told reporters: “The judge got it wrong and we will appeal immediately.” He declined to make any additional comment.
Defense attorneys bluntly declared the case dead, saying taking the case now to another grand jury in another location, including Carson City, Nevada’s capital, would violate the three-year statute of limitations that expired in December.
“They’re done,” said Margaret McClatchy, an attorney for Clark County Republican Party Chairman Jesse Lowe, one of the defendants in the case.
The judge canceled a trial scheduled for January for the defendants, including state Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald. National Party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan; and party member Eileen Rice from the Lake Tahoe area. Each was charged with furnishing a false instrument to file and utter a forged instrument, felonies punishable by up to four to five years in prison.
Defense attorneys argued Ford improperly moved the case to Las Vegas instead of Carson City or Reno in northern Nevada, near where the crime occurred. They also accuse prosecutors of failing to present exculpatory evidence to the grand jury and say his client did not intend to commit the crime.
All but Meehan have been nominated by the state to serve as Nevada delegates to the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next month.
Meehan’s defense attorney, Sigal Chattah, said her client “chose not” to seek the position. Chata ran for state attorney general in 2022 as a Republican but lost to Ford, a Democrat, with just under 8% of the vote.
After the court hearing, Hindle’s attorney, Brian Hardy, declined to comment on the calls his client faces from advocacy groups that he should resign as election supervisor in Story County, northern Nevada. position, the jurisdiction has more than a few electors. The calls included calls from leaders of three organizations at a news conference outside the courthouse on Friday.
Nevada is one of seven presidential battleground states where a large number of fake electors mistakenly certified Trump as the winner in 2020 instead of Democrat Joe Biden.
Other states include Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Criminal charges have been filed in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona.
In 2020, Trump lost Nevada by more than 30,000 votes, and the state’s Democratic electors were certified in the presence of Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican result. Her defense that the results were reliable and accurate led the state Republican Party to denounce her, but a later Chegavsk investigation found no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.
