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- A venture capitalist who gave $ 2.5 million to a pro-Trump group that said it was trying to find evidence of electoral fraud is now seeking a refund.
- A lawsuit said Fred Eshelman donated huge sums to Texas-based True the Vote Inc. but was quickly disappointed in his efforts.
- It is true that the vote mounted lawsuits in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but then dropped them. He says he’s still investigating allegations of fraud.
- Eshelman said he pressed True the Vote for details on how he was spending his money, but instead had “platitudes and empty promises.”
- Visit the Business Insider homepage for more stories.
A venture capitalist who donated $ 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 by the group’s efforts.
Fred Eshelman is suing True the Vote Inc., a Houston-based watchdog organization, to recover the money.
The lawsuit says that Eshelman sent $ 2 million to True the Vote on November 5, two days after election day.
At this point, no winner had been called, but Joe Biden was far ahead of President Donald Trump, who had long argued without evidence that the election was vulnerable to fraud.
The lawsuit, first reported by Bloomberg, said that Eshelman sent an additional $ 500,000 to True the Vote a week later, when the media, including Insider, had long called for Biden to be elected.
Business Insider also obtained a copy of Eshelman’s complaint.
Eshelman is the founder of Eshelman Ventures LLC and was previously a pharmaceutical executive, according to the company.
Trump continued to claim the election was stolen, mounting a rambling legal effort to challenge the result. He still had not conceded Friday morning.
The lawsuit said that Eshelman “regularly and repeatedly” requested updates on how True the Vote was using its money and sought “specific and actionable updates” on “the alleged efforts of True the Vote’s investigation, litigation and communications in key states ”.
But he said he was “constantly greeted with vague answers, platitudes and empty promises of follow-up that never happened.”
The lawsuit accuses True the Vote of breach of contract, as well as “conversion”, a legal concept related to the misuse of other people’s property.
He said he asked for a refund, at which point True the Vote offered to return $ 1 million until he sued the group.
According to the lawsuit, True the Vote vowed to launch lawsuits in dynamic states, collect complaints from whistleblowers about election-related issues, and conduct “sophisticated data modeling and statistical analysis to identify illegal votes. or potential fraudulent “.
It is true that the vote announced on Nov. 17 that it was dropping lawsuits it had brought in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Eshelman’s lawsuit said he had “not received any specific update on the status or strategy behind these cases.”
The president and founder of the group, Catherine Engelbrecht, questioned “the obstacles to the advancement of our arguments, coupled with time constraints”.
She said the group was continuing to investigate problems with the US electoral system and argued that prosecutions were only a “fraction” of its work.
Business Insider has reached out to True the Vote for comment. He did not respond to a Bloomberg request.
The Trump campaign has filed its own lawsuits in the battlefield states, although it has yet to win any of them.
He also started a hotline for people to share election fraud testimonials, but ended up inundated with prank calls.
Trump said Thursday that he would “certainly” leave the White House if Joe Biden wins the Electoral College, which is due to officially vote on December 14.
It was the closest he had come to conceding the election, although he later insisted via Twitter that he won.
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