LAS VEGAS (AP) 鈥� The top prosecutor in Nevada is asking the state Supreme Court to uphold the indictments of six Republicans to Congress that declared Donald Trump the winner of the presidential battleground's 2020 election.
Officials have said it was part of a larger scheme across seven battleground states to keep the former president in the White House after losing to Democrat Joe Biden. Criminal cases have also been brought in , and .
Meanwhile, the fate of Nevada's so-called fake electors case .
Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus issued a written order Friday night affirming her ruling from the bench last month that Las Vegas was the wrong venue for the case and therefore the charges must be dismissed.
A spokesperson for Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, confirmed Saturday in a statement that the office formally filed its appeal shortly after the judge issued her written order.
鈥淲e remain confident in our case and look forward to bringing these individuals to justice and holding them accountable for their actions,鈥� the statement says.
The defendants are ; Clark County GOP chairman Jesse Law; national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan; Storey County clerk Jim Hindle; and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area.
They were indicted by a grand jury in Las Vegas last December, just before a three-year statute of limitations expired. Each was charged with offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument 鈥� felonies carrying a penalty of up to four or five years in prison.
Monti Levy, one of the defense lawyers, said Saturday they 鈥渁re confident that Judge Holthus made the correct decision and that her order granting the motion to dismiss will be upheld.鈥�
The defense attorneys had argued that Ford improperly brought the case against their clients before a grand jury in Democratic-leaning Las Vegas instead of in a northern Nevada city, where the alleged crimes occurred.
Ford鈥檚 office, meanwhile, argued that 鈥渘o one county contains the entirety of these crimes.鈥�
It wasn鈥檛 clear Saturday from court records whether oral arguments had been scheduled before the Nevada Supreme Court. The court鈥檚 clerk also did not respond to an emailed message seeking more information.
Trump in Nevada. An investigation by then-Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, found no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state.
Rio Yamat, The Associated Press
