- A venture capitalist who gave $ 2.5 million to a pro-Trump group trying to find evidence through election fraud is now looking for a refund.
- According to the lawsuit, Fred Eshelman gave huge sums to Texas-based True the Vote Inc., but was soon disappointed with his efforts.
- It is true that the Vote filed lawsuits in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but later dismissed them. He claims he is still investigating allegations of fraud nonetheless.
- Eshelman said he pressed True the Vote for details on how he spends his money, but instead received “commonplaces and empty promises.”
- Visit the Business Insider website for more news.
A venture capitalist who offered $ 2.5 million to a pro-Trump group trying to find evidence of fraud in the U.S. election wants a refund after being disappointed in the group’s efforts.
Fred Eshelman is suing the Houston-based supervisory organization True Vote Inc. to get the money back.
According to the lawsuit, Eshelman sent $ 2 million to True the Vote on Nov. 5, two days after election day.
No winner had yet been called at the time, but Joe Biden was ahead of President Donald Trump by most people, who had long argued without evidence that the election was subject to fraud.
The lawsuit, first reported by Bloomberg, said Eshelman sent an additional $ 500,000 to True the Vote a week later, by which media, including Insider, had long announced Biden’s election.
Business Insider also obtained a copy of Eshelman’s complaint.
Eshelman is the founder of Eshelman Ventures LLC and the company said he was previously a leader in the pharmaceutical industry.
Trump continued to claim the election was stolen and made a separate legal effort to challenge the outcome. By Friday morning, he still wouldn’t let go.
The lawsuit wrote that Eshelman “regularly and repeatedly” requested updates on how Vote Vote used his money, and that he “sought specific and actionable updates” through True the Vote’s alleged investigation, litigation, and communication efforts. States “.
But he said he was “consistently faced with vague answers, clichés and empty promises of follow-up that never happened.”
The lawsuit accuses True Vote of breach of contract and “transformation,” a legal concept related to the misuse of the property of others.
He wrote that he was asking for a refund, at which point True the Vote offered a $ 1 million refund if he did not sue the group.
According to the lawsuit, True the Vote has promised to launch lawsuits in the swing states, collect abuse complaints about election issues, and “perform sophisticated data modeling and statistical analysis to identify possible illegal or fraudulent voting.”
It is true that the Vote announced on November 17 that it would discontinue the lawsuits it had filed in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
In Eshelman’s lawsuit, they claimed that “they did not receive specific information about the background or strategy of the cases.”
The group’s president and founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, “hinders the advancement of our arguments, coupled with time constraints”.
He said the group would continue to investigate issues in the U.S. electoral system, arguing that the lawsuits were just a “fraction of his work.”
Business Insider contacted True the Vote for comment. He did not respond to Bloomberg’s request.
The Trump campaign has launched its own lawsuit in battlefield states, though it has yet to win either.
He also launched a hotline for people to share testimony about election fraud, but was eventually covered in prank calls.
Trump said on Thursday he would “definitely” leave the White House if Joe Biden wins the Electoral College, which is scheduled to vote formally on Dec. 14.
This was the closest time to the election, though later through Twitter, he insisted that he win.
