By Sara Merken and Mike Scarcella
NEW YORK, Jan 7 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump asked a Georgia state court on Wednesday to order prosecutors to reimburse him for more than $6.2 million in legal fees he said he spent on fighting criminal charges of interfering in the 2020 presidential election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump’s lawyers said in a filing that he is entitled to the fees under a law Georgia passed last year, after Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was disqualified from prosecuting Trump and several of his allies. Prosecutors dropped the case filed in Superior Court of Fulton County in November.
“In accordance with Georgia law, President Trump has moved the Court to award reasonable attorney fees and costs incurred in his defense of the politically motivated, and now rightfully dismissed, case brought by disqualified DA Fani Willis,” Trump lawyer Steve Sadow said in a statement.
The Fulton County District Attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Georgia enacted a new law in May that requires courts to award reasonable attorney fees and costs to any defendant whose charges are dismissed after the prosecuting attorney is disqualified for improper conduct.
Willis charged Trump and 18 co-defendants with a sweeping criminal conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results after a recording surfaced in the media of Trump, a Republican, asking its top electoral official to “find” him enough votes to win. All for the defendants pleaded not guilty.
An appeals court removed Willis, an elected Democrat in Atlanta, from the case in 2024. The court said she had created an “appearance of impropriety” by having a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she hired to lead the case.
At least two other defendants – former Trump lawyers John Eastman and Robert Cheeley – have also asked the court to award them fees. Lawyers for Eastman and Cheeley did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Sara Merken in New York; editing by Diane Craft)
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