MADISON, Wis. — The cities of Green Bay, Kenosha and Racine are asking a federal judge to make former President Donald Trump pay more than $42,000 in legal fees in a case he brought challenging Wisconsin’s presidential election results.
The request for legal fees comes just days after Gov. Tony Evers asked a court to award the state more than $145,000 in legal fees from Trump related to the same lawsuit, the Wisconsin State Journal reported on Monday.
Trump lost to President Joe Biden by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin.
Trump had sought to have the Republican-controlled Legislature decide how to award the state’s 10 electoral votes instead of voters, arguing that long-standing voting practices in Wisconsin were improper.
U.S. District Judge Brett Ludwig said letting state lawmakers decide the outcome of the election would have resulted in “probably the most remarkable ruling in the history of this court or the federal judiciary.” Ludwig, who was put on the bench by Trump, ruled against him in December.
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case in March.
“The objective bad faith of plaintiff’s counsel in filing and litigating this action is evidenced by the scope of the relief sought and their relentless pursuit of it all the way to the United States Supreme Court, well after the election results in Wisconsin had been determined and certified,” wrote Daniel Lenz, attorney for the cities. “In essence, plaintiff’s counsel sought to disenfranchise every Wisconsin voter.”
