Far-right attorney Lin Wood, who has made a name for himself with his promotion of lies regarding the integrity of last year’s presidential election, has revealed that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) apparently owes him thousands of dollars for legal work completed last year — and these seemingly unpaid debts on Greene’s part could land the Congresswoman in legal trouble, as explained by a report from The Daily Beast.
Specifically, Wood’s legal services were provided on behalf of the Greene campaign, and he claims that he’s still owed $5,000 in connection to his legal work on two defamation suits, with one of the cases having been filed by the Greene campaign and the other filed against the campaign. The Greene-backed effort targeted an ad released by a Republican primary challenger, while the case challenging Greene’s campaign was tied to claims it made regarding the controversial firing of an employee at an Atlanta-area mortgage company. (Read more here.) It appears as though Greene did not report Wood’s work, meaning that she failed to report what seems to have amounted to an in-kind — meaning non-cash — contribution to her campaign.
As Brett Kappel, who works as a campaign finance specialist at the law firm Harmon Curran, put it, Greene is clearly on shaky ground here. He explained as follows:
‘If [Wood] sent an invoice for legal services, this wouldn’t fit under the category of legal services lawyers can provide for free. So the Federal Election Commission would say that these costs must be reflected on her reports. It could be what’s called a ‘disputed debt,’ but you still have to report that, along with who did the work and what it was for. A worse interpretation for Greene would be that the campaign accepted an illegal corporate contribution. But at the end of the day, a campaign can’t have someone do this kind of legal work without it being disclosed.’
Wood has not indicated that he intends to pursue a claim against Greene in connection to her supposedly unpaid debts, although that wouldn’t resolve the problem with the federal finance reports filed by her campaign. Notably, though, The Daily Beast observes how Wood had already maxed out his legal contribution limit to Greene before billing her for these uncompensated legal services, so the legal work that he provided could not have legally been accepted as an in-kind contribution. Greene needed to pay for it. Check out more at this link.
