A Nevada judge has dealt a blow to the state’s Democratic attorney general, Aaron Ford, by shutting down a trial against six grassroots conservatives charged with felony forgery counts for serving as contingent electors for then-President Donald Trump in the 2020 election. Clark County District Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled that prosecutors erred in choosing Clark County as the venue for the trial, agreeing with the defendants’ attorneys that a northern venue would have been more appropriate.
The defendants, Jim DeGraffenreid, Durward James Hindle III, Jesse Law, Shawn Meehan, Michael McDonald, and Eileen Rice, were charged with forgery counts for serving as alternate electors in the disputed 2020 election. The judge’s decision means that the case cannot be taken up in a northern jurisdiction, as the three-year statute of limitations has expired.
Ford has vowed to appeal the ruling to the Nevada Supreme Court, claiming that the judge “got it wrong.” However, constitutional law expert Hans von Spakovsky, manager of The Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, believes that Ford’s prosecution is politically motivated and will ultimately be unsuccessful. “It’s a political persecution,” von Spakovsky said. “The only reason he would file this now after all these years is because he wanted to interfere in the upcoming election.”
Von Spakovsky also noted that similar politically driven prosecutions are underway in Arizona, Georgia, and Michigan, all led by Democrat prosecutors. In each case, the alternate electors have argued that they were not breaking the law, but rather protecting Trump’s rights should his campaign prevail in legal challenges.
The Nevada prosecution is just the latest example of the political persecution of Trump supporters, von Spakovsky said. “There are federal Civil Rights statutes that the Justice Department has the ability to enforce, to go after state judges and state prosecutors and others who are abusing the legal process to interfere with individual civil rights and others under the constitution,” he said.
