A nonprofit group affiliated with former President Trump has paid $100,000 in legal fees to six so-called “fake electors” in Nevada, according to a person familiar with the payment.
Personnel policy affairs,or PPOThe Nevada attorney general’s office paid to support pro-Trump electors who were being prosecuted for falsely claiming that Trump won the state in the 2020 presidential election. The case was dismissed on Friday after a judge ruled that the Nevada attorney general’s office filed the lawsuit in the wrong place.
“There is a strong and widespread network of America First patriots doing all they can to support one another and prevent the unjust weaponization of our legal system,” Joshua Whitehouse, the nonprofit’s strategic director, told The Hill. “PPO serves as one of the bases for this network.”
PPO is aligned with the Reagan-era adage that “personnel is policy” and says its purpose is to provide support and resources to “conservative, America First public servants and their advisors.” Its mission overlaps with that of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a broad effort to promote right-wing policies and prepare for President Trump’s reelection.
Troup Hemenway, chairman of the group, said:Participate in Project 2025She became senior adviser and deputy director for personnel last fall after previously working in the Presidential Personnel Office (the same acronym as the legal fundraising group) in the Trump White House. Others in leadership positions at the PPO, including in the White House, also worked for former presidents.
Hemenway said the PPO does not provide funding to defendants but pays their costs directly, and confirmed the group has donated “a significant six-figure amount to support the legal defense of Nevada Patriots.”
“We will continue to help fight the legal wars in this country as we seek to restore American greatness,” he added.
The funding came from the group’s Courage Under Fire Legal Defense Fund, which has lent money to a number of Trump aides, including John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark, in various legal matters, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Washington Post First reported The fund’s existence was revealed in May.
The Hill has reached out for comment to Brian Hardy, an attorney for Durand James Hindle III, one of the pro-Trump electors who helped arrange the payments.
The Silver State’s alternate electors were scheduled to go on trial in January, but the lawsuit was dismissed on Friday, marking the first time a lawsuit against pro-Trump electors has been dismissed.
John Sadler, a spokesman for the Nevada attorney general’s office, told The Hill on Friday that the agency plans to appeal the decision “immediately.”
The five electors indicted — Hindle, Michael McDonald, Jesse Law, Jim DeGraffenried, Sean Meehan and Eileen Rice — are each charged with felony counts of filing a forged document and publishing a forged document, which carry a prison sentence of four to five years.
Now-President Biden won Nevada by more than 33,000 votes in 2020, but Trump’s lawyers spearheaded a plan to have former Vice President Mike Pence certify the battleground state’s slate of electoral votes in favor of Trump, rather than the actual electoral votes cast for Biden.
Pence refused to officially certify the election on January 6, 2021, and then a mob stormed the Capitol as the certification process was underway.
Fake electors in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona also face criminal charges for their participation in the conspiracy.
Several of Trump’s lawyers have been indicted for their roles, and the former president himself faces federal and state charges in connection with efforts to tilt the 2020 election in his favor. He has pleaded not guilty to both charges.
