A Nevada judge on Friday dismissed a case against six false electors who declared former President Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Clark County District Court Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled from the bench that the state had filed the case in the wrong jurisdiction, the state attorney general's office confirmed to NBC News.
A spokesperson for the office said the state’s top prosecutor “will be appealing immediately.”
The judge's decision comes after a grand jury in December indicted six Republicans as part of a probe into the 2020 presidential election on a pair of felony charges that included offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument.
Among those charged included Nevada State Party GOP chair Michael McDonald and vice chair and national committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid, who have both previously appeared before a criminal grand jury investigating the Capitol riot.
Attorneys for McDonald, and Eileen Rice, a Douglas County Republican Party board member, told NBC News that they believed the judge had made the correct decision, since the alleged acts hadn't occurred in Clark County, they said.
"We're happy that our clients, you know, their charges have been dismissed, and we are confident that the Nevada Supreme Court will uphold the dismissal," said attorneys Monti Levy and Richard Wright.
Wright had argued in the motion on behalf of the defendants on Friday that Las Vegas was the wrong venue for the case.
Slates of fake electors for the former president were also organized and charges have been brought in other battleground states like Michigan and Georgia.
Earlier this month three Trump allies were charged in Wisconsin in the fake electors scheme to keep Trump in office, including campaign official Mike Roman and attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and James Troupis.
A state grand jury in Arizona also indicted former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and other Trump aides in April, along with a series of false electors, in connection with an investigation into alleged efforts by the former president and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s electoral victory in that state in 2020.
The Trump team also helped prepare fake certificates in New Mexico and Pennsylvania, but false electors in those states haven't been charged. False electors in both states had added language stipulating that their certificates were submitted in the event that they were later recognized as duly elected, qualified electors.
