(PresidentialInsider.com)- Michigan officials are asking that lawyers for former President Donald Trump pay all legal fees and costs they incurred for defending the challenges to their state’s 2020 presidential election results.
This week, the officials filed the request to seek reimbursement for the approximately $200,000 they say they spent defending their election results in court. Trump ultimately lost to President Joe Biden in Michigan’s election.
Following the election’s conclusion, lawyers either representing Trump, or backing his position, filed multiple lawsuits to challenge the results. All of them were unsuccessful in court.
The office of Dana Nessel, the Democratic attorney general of New York, confirmed that it filed the official request Wednesday. They are seeking almost $22,000 in reimbursements for attorney’s fees that were incurred.
The request is being done on behalf of Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, and Gretchen Whitmer, the state’s governor. Both of those people were defendants in the lawsuits that were filed.
At the same time, the city of Detroit has also requested roughly $18,000 in fees be reimbursed to them. They used that money to hire a private law firm to fight lawsuits that were claiming there was election fraud in the city.
In August, Linda Parker, a U.S. District Judge, put sanctions on some of the pro-Trump lawyers in the case. In the process, she ordered both Lin Wood and Sidney Powell to pay all legal fees for state and city election officials who were involved in those cases.
Parker was also the judge who dismissed the lawsuit in December. She was appointed to her position by former President Barack Obama.
At the time of her decision, Parker didn’t specify an amount of the reimbursement. She’s now expected to hear the case for the approximately $200,000 request.
In her ruling, Parker said the lawyers “abused the well-established rules applicable to the litigation process by proffering claims not back by law” or evidence. In her ruling, she wrote:
“This case was never about fraud — it was about undermining the People’s faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so.”
The judge also requested various disciplinary agencies investigate if the two lawyers should have their licenses to practice law revoked.
The lawsuits claimed that election officials manipulated the ballots in various districts illegally, and they did so to help Biden win Michigan. It was one of the few battleground states in the 2020 presidential election that ultimately helped tip the victory to Biden’s side.
Both lawyers participated in a virtual hearing on the matter in August. Wood argued that he was only minimally involved in the case in Michigan. Powell, meanwhile, defended the claims that she and her legal team presented in the case.
At the time, Powell said:
“I have practiced law for 43 years and have never witnessed a proceeding like this. I take full responsibility for the pleadings in this case.”
She also said she “had a legal obligation to the country and to the electors to raise these issues.”
