Nevada attorney general revives 2020 fake electors case

By RIO YAMAT The Associated Press

FILE - Nevada GOP chair Michael McDonald, right, shakes hands with Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump at a campaign event, Jan. 27, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/John Locher]

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A slate of six Nevada Republicans have again been charged with submitting a bogus certificate to Congress that declared Donald Trump the winner of the presidential battleground’s 2020 election.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford announced Thursday that the state’s fake electors case had been revived in Carson City, the capital, where he filed a new complaint this week charging the defendants with “uttering a forged instrument,” a felony. The original indictment was dismissed earlier this year after a state judge ruled that Clark County, the state’s most populous county and home to Las Vegas, was the wrong venue for the case.

Ford, a Democrat, said the new case was filed as a precaution to avoid the statute of limitations expiring while the Nevada Supreme Court weighs his appeal of the judge’s ruling.

“While we disagree with the finding of improper venue and will continue to seek to overturn it, we are preserving our legal rights in order to ensure that these fake electors do not escape justice,” Ford said. “The actions the fake electors undertook in 2020 violated Nevada criminal law and were direct attempts to both sow doubt in our democracy and undermine the results of a free and fair election. Justice requires that these actions not go unpunished.”

Officials have said it was part of a larger scheme across seven battleground states to keep Trump in the White House after losing to Democrat Joe Biden. Criminal cases have also been brought in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona.

Trump lost in 2020 to Biden by more than 30,000 votes in Nevada. An investigation by then-Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, found no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.

The defendants are state GOP chair Michael McDonald; Clark County GOP chair Jesse Law; national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan; Storey County clerk Jim Hindle; and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area.

In an emailed statement to The Associated Press, McDonald’s attorney, Richard Wright, called the new complaint a political move by a Democratic state attorney general who also announced Thursday he plans to run for governor in 2026.

“We will withhold further comment and address the issues in court,” said Wright, who has spoken often in court on behalf of all six defendants.

Attorneys for the others did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

Their lawyers previously argued that Ford improperly brought the case before a grand jury in Democratic-leaning Las Vegas instead of in a northern Nevada city, where the alleged crimes occurred.

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Associated Press writer Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.