A supporter of US President Donald Trump who donated US$2.5 million to help expose and prosecute claims of fraud in the presidential election wants his money back after what he said are “disappointing results.”
Fredric Eshelman, founder of Eshelman Ventures LLC, a venture capital company, said that he gave the money to True the Vote, a pro-Trump “election ethics” group in Texas that promised to file lawsuits in seven swing states as part of its push to “investigate, litigate, and expose suspected illegal balloting and fraud in the 2020 general election.”
Yet according to a lawsuit Eshelman filed this week in Houston, first reported on by Bloomberg, True the Vote dropped its legal actions and discontinued its Validate the Vote 2020 campaign, then refused to return his calls when he demanded an explanation.
Photo: AP
Eshelman said that he asked “regularly and repeatedly” for updates, the lawsuit says, but his “requests were consistently met with vague responses, platitudes, and empty promises.”
The lack of success of True the Vote’s efforts to challenge the outcome appears to mirror that of the president himself, whose team has lost 38 court actions since the Nov. 3 election.
True the Vote did not immediately return an e-mail from the Guardian seeking comment.
True the Vote did not respond to Bloomberg’s request for comment, but posted a statement on its Web site attributed to group founder and president Catherine Engelbrecht, seeking to blame outside forces for the failure of its efforts.
“While we stand by the voters’ testimony that was brought forth, barriers to advancing our arguments, coupled with constraints on time, made it necessary for us to pursue a different path,” the group said, announcing that it had withdrawn legal filings in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
All four states were won by US president-elect Joe Biden.
“Our mission is much bigger than just one election. It is about repairing the system for all future elections,” the group said.
However, like the Trump campaign’s own legal filings, which have been based on scant evidence, the True the Vote statement did not detail any of the proof it claimed it had to support the allegations of election fraud.
Eshelman, the former chief executive of a pharmaceutical company, said in his lawsuit that the non-profit offered to refund him US$1 million if he dropped his plan to sue the group.
He is seeking the return of the full US$2.5 million that he says he wired on Engelbrecht’s instructions in chunks of US$2 million and US$500,000 on Nov. 5 and 13.
Young Chinese, many who fear age discrimination in their workplace after turning 35, are increasingly starting “one-person companies” that have artificial intelligence (AI) do most of the work. Smaller start-ups are already in vogue in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, with rapidly advancing AI tools seen as a welcome teammate even as they threaten layoffs at existing firms. More young people in China are subscribing to the model, as cities pledge millions of dollars in funding and rent subsidies for such ventures, in alignment with Beijing’s political goal of “technological self-reliance.” “The one-person company is a product of the AI era,” said Karen Dai
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS