A pharmaceutical millionaire who donated $2.5 million to a pro-Trump group promising to expose election fraud has sued over the group’s “empty promises,” Bloomberg News reports.
Fred Eshelman, a money manager and former head of Pharmaceutical Product Development and Furiex Pharmaceuticals, filed a lawsuit against True the Vote Inc. In a federal court in Houston on Wednesday.
True the Vote promised to “investigate, litigate, and expose suspected illegal balloting and fraud in the 2020 general election,” according to the complaint.
But Eshelman says he “regularly and repeatedly” asked for updates on the effort but his “requests were consistently met with vague responses, platitudes, and empty promises,” the suit said.
True the Vote dropped its lawsuits:
True the Vote filed four separate lawsuits challenging the election results but dropped all of the suits last week.
“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 last week.
Despite rampant allegations of fraud by President Donald Trump and his allies, neither the Trump campaign nor any of the groups backing his baseless attack on the election have produced any evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in court or otherwise.
Group offered partial refund:
True the Vote promised donors that it would file lawsuits in seven swing states and present whistleblower complaints and “sophisticated data modeling and statistical analysis to identify potential illegal or fraudulent balloting,” according to the complaint.
Eshelman said he agreed to donate $2 million to the group two days after the election and another $500,000 the following week.
After the group failed to provide any updates, Eschelman asked for his money back.
The group offered him $1 million to drop his plans to sue, according to the lawsuit.
