Georgia GOP spends more than $1.7 million in legal fees linked to Trump court fight

McKoon, meanwhile, has chastised Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as a “blindly partisan, power-mad” prosecutor, and has outlined plans to sue her to recoup the legal fees if an appeals court disqualifies the DA’s office from pursuing the case.

And he said the three officials facing charges, along with other Republican electors who accepted immunity deals with prosecutors in exchange for their testimony, would have “been financially ruined” if not for the party’s decision to pick up the tab.

“I am personally grateful for the tremendous financial support that has allowed the Georgia Republican Party to meet these obligations while preparing to run an aggressive 2024 campaign up and down the ballot,” he said.

The legal fees have strained the party’s coffers at a crucial political moment. Both campaigns see Georgia as a top battleground target in the White House race, and polls show Biden and Trump are locked in a tight rematch. State Republicans are also trying to defend a handful of competitive legislative districts after a court-ordered redrawing of state political maps.

The party ended March with $450,000 in cash on hand. That’s far ahead of the roughly $140,000 the party had in the bank at this stage in the 2016 race, but lags behind the nearly $1.3 million in cash the party boasted at this time in the 2020 contest.

The party’s coffers were boosted by an influx of qualifying fees for contenders seeking state and congressional office, along with a wave of donors.

The party held a recent gala with U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican. And it reported receiving $10,000 checks last month from Arkansas real estate investor John Bailey and his wife Patricia; billionaire casino mogul Steve Wynn and his wife Andrea; and John J. Ricketts, the former chief executive of TD Ameritrade.

“We’re seeing very good support from our donor community,” McKoon told the “Politically Georgia” podcast this month. “I feel very good that we’re going to have the resources that we’re going to need to win in November.”