Friday, July 15, 2022

BREAKING: Rep. Biggs' Campaign Spends $92,000 On Legal Fees (READ Campaign Finance Report)

UPDATE, 10:25pm: Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar's campaign paid $55,000 in legal fees during the 2nd quarter. $45,000 was paid to Alex Kolodin's New Orleans-based firm, and another $10,000 to Tim LaSota. Gosar filed his report moments ago, after the midnight EDT deadline.

Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs has spent $92,000 in legal fees since March 2022. Most of those fees were paid in May and were likely related to the unsuccessful challenge to his nomination by Democratic-related groups. However, that was also the month the January 6 Select Committee issued a subpoena to Biggs and he objected to it.

The noteworthy expenses were disclosed today in the Biggs' campaign finance report filed with the FEC today. Arizona's Law has reached out to the Biggs campaign for comment, and will update this report as necessary.

Biggs retained Arizona political law attorneys Kory Langhofer and Tom Basile (Statecraft), and began paying them in March. Langhofer has represented former President Donald Trump committees and many other Republican candidates and groups.

For example, Rep. Debbie Lesko's campaign also retained Statecraft and paid them $7,000 on June 1. (Rep. Paul Gosar's campaign has not yet filed.)

In March, Biggs - more accurately, Biggs' contributors - paid $4,215 (noted in the previous report). The following month, $7,000 was paid. The Biggs campaign sent Statecraft $66,996 on May 17 and another $13,987 on June 14.

The Democratic challenge to Biggs, Gosar and Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem was based on their participation in planning the January 6 insurrection. The cases were filed on April 7 and were finally decided by the Arizona Supreme Court on May 9.

Biggs' campaign finance filing shows that legal fees were incurred and/or paid both before and after the nomination challenge.

But for the legal fees, Biggs' campaign brought in nearly the exact amount of contributions as they paid in expenses, and their cash on hand dropped to $777,000. Biggs has no primary election competition, but an independent (Clint Smith) and Democrat (Javier Ramos) will be on the general election ballot.

For perspective, the legal fees paid to date by Biggs' campaign is dwarfed by the $1.1M spent by Arizona colleague Rep. David Schweikert  during his long-running ethics probe.

This article was reported by AZ Law founder Paul Weich. Paul is currently running for a seat in Arizona's House of Representatives.

"AZ Law" includes articles, commentaries and updates about opinions from the Arizona Supreme Court, U.S. Supreme Court, as well as trial and appellate courts, etc. AZ Law is founded by Phoenix attorney Paul Weich, and joins Arizona's Politics on the internet. 

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