A Nevada judge has dismissed charges against six Republicans who falsely declared that Donald Trump won the 2020 election in the battleground state, after ruling that the case was brought in the wrong jurisdiction.
Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus on Friday sided with the defense attorneys’ argument that Las Vegas was the wrong venue for the case. Holthus scrapped the trial, which was slated to begin in January.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said his office will take up the case with the state Supreme Court. “The judge got it wrong and we’ll be appealing immediately,” he said in a statement.
In December, a grand jury in Clark County indicted six Republicans who participated in the so-called fake electors scheme: state GOP Chairman Michael McDonald; national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; Clark County Republican Party Chairman Jesse Law; national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan; Storey County Clerk Jim Hindle; and Eileen Rice, a Republican from the Lake Tahoe area. (McDonald and DeGraffenreid last year also appeared before a Washington, D.C., grand jury investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.) All pleaded not guilty.
Defense attorneys had argued that the case should have been brought in Carson City or Reno, where the alleged crimes occurred, rather than in Las Vegas, the bluest city in the state and where several of the defendants live.
Attorneys Monti Levy and Richard Wright, who represent McDonald and Rice, cheered the judge’s ruling on Friday, telling NBC News they are “confident” that Holthus’ ruling will be upheld by the Nevada Supreme Court. The state cannot bring the case before a grand jury in a different county now because the three-year statute of limitations expired in December, defense attorneys also said, according to The Associated Press.
Nevada is one of several swing states in which Republicans filed false certificates declaring Trump the winner of the 2020 election instead of Joe Biden. Charges have also been brought against fake electors in Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona.