The RNC is rebuilding its legal operations after Trump allies’ failed attempt to overturn the 2020 race

WASHINGTON (AP) — The last time Donald Trump ran for president, the lawyers were most directly involved in his efforts to overturn the election sanctioned, criminally prosecuted or even sued for millions of dollars.

This time, Republican party leaders are working to present a more organized, competent legal operation, even as Trump continues to deny losing the 2020 election and cast doubt on the integrity of the upcoming election.

“It has been very important to ensure that we have a completely professional operation in every aspect,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley told The Associated Press.

If Republicans and Democrats are fighting in court over election rulesthe Trump team is under an especially intense microscope given the aftermath of the 2020 race, when meritless legal efforts to challenge the results repeatedly rejected by judges appointed by the presidents of both political parties. Try to undo the results, Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. in a violent confrontation with the police.

The chaotic lawsuits were led by a loosely organized group of lawyers who rose within Trump’s inner circle after experienced, established lawyers who had advised the then-president during the campaign backed away from his false claims of widespread fraud. This year, the Republican National Committee has launched a coordinated “election integrity” initiative that will require thousands of lawyers, poll observers and polling stations, and officials insist they will operate within the law.

“What we’ve seen in court over the last six months and now that we’ve ramped up to more than 130 lawsuits is evidence that we’re making sure we work with the states and with the courts to find a solution. really, a responsible program to use,” Whatley added.

But there is no guarantee that a well-credentialed team will achieve better results if the arguments are again rooted in unsubstantiated claims, or that the effort won’t be co-opted by various advocates after the election, as in 2020.

A new legal team is taking shape

Among the attorneys with prominent roles are Steven Kenny, the RNC’s senior counsel, who worked at the powerful law firm Jones Day; Gineen Bresso, who was nominated by then-President George W. Bush to serve on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and later became chairman; and Josh Helton, general counsel for Mike Huckabee’s 2016 presidential campaign.

David Warrington, who represented Trump during the January 6 congressional investigationhas also been involved in lawsuits, including a lawsuit in Michigan challenging the designation of voter registration offices.

The RNC’s lawsuits to date have focused on ensuring voter identification requirements are met; claiming that non-citizens are voting improperly; and challenging what they see as lax rules for mail-in and absentee voting.

Democrats have sounded the alarm about the election integrity initiative, calling it an attempt to sow distrust in the process and pave the way for them to cry foul if Trump loses, and have warned that election deniers installed in voting-related positions could refuse to certify legitimate results certify. . They have assembled a team of experienced lawyers, including longtime Democratic attorney Marc Elias, and have filed their own lawsuits, including challenging Georgia rules that they fear could be used by Trump allies to delay certification or to prevent. Last week a judge invalidated seven of the rules.

The flurry of lawsuits is hardly surprising in a competitive election between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, which could turn about a half-dozen battleground states against him.

Familiar figures from 2020 have resurfaced

Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who participated in a January 2021 phone call in which Trump implored officials in Georgia to “find” enough votes to declare him the winnerhas advocated lawsuits challenging rules on how foreign voters, including military members abroad, cast their ballots. (On Monday, judges in North Carolina and Michigan rejected efforts to disqualify ballots from certain overseas voters.)

The RNC named Christina Bobb as head of its election integrity division earlier this year. Bobb is a former reporter for the conservative One America News Network sued by the Arizona Attorney Generalaccused of participating in an effort to promote a range of Trump voters after the 2020 election, even though Democrat Joe Biden won the state. Her attorney, Thomas Jacobs, said Bobb “was not involved in the arrangements to select or propose these alternate electors” and would seek to dismiss the charges.

Trump says there is no evidence of cheating in 2024 so far

Trump has been criminally charged with attempting to overturn the 2020 election, but his continued insistence that the contest was marred by fraud has been echoed by many within the party, even as judges, election officials and Trump’s own attorney general found no evidence of this.

It has also created ongoing divisions within the party.

In May, Charlie Spies, a veteran election lawyer with ties to Mitt Romney and Ron DeSantis, resigned as the RNC’s chief counsel after about two months. He made waves at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference by saying there was “zero evidence” that a software error in the voting machine had led to thousands of votes being switched in the 2020 election.

Watley said a radio interview in the weeks following the 2020 election, there was “mass fraud.” But he has largely avoided using Trump’s characterization of Biden’s victory said in a 2021 interview that Biden was “absolutely” legitimately elected.

Trump was in North Carolina on Monday and praised Whatley for placing “very high importance on stopping the steal” in 2020. Although Trump has said he has seen no evidence of cheating in 2024, he has repeatedly cast doubt on the process and told fellow supporters they need to make the outcome “too big to rig.”

Among the establishment Republican political lawyers who opposed the legal challenges in 2020 was Justin Riemer, a lawyer for John McCain’s 2008 campaign who later served as chief counsel to the RNC but clashed with Trump after the election allies. He warned an RNC colleague in a November 2020 email that the legal efforts of attorneys including Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis were being “laughed out of court.”

“It sets us back in our fight for election integrity and deceives millions of people who have the wishful thinking that the president will somehow win this case,” Riemer wrote in the email about Giuliani and Ellis, both of whom are key played a role in engineering Trump’s failed attempts to overturn the election.

Implications for Trump-affiliated lawyers

Giuliani was suspended in New York and Washington; Ellis lost her law license in Colorado. The two, along with Sidney Powell, another lawyer who was crucial in advancing Trump’s claims, were among 19 people charged in Fulton County, Georgia, with conspiring to overturn the election.

Both Powell and Ellis pleaded guilty.

Giuliani was ordered to pay $148 million to two former poll workers in Georgia who sued him over lies he spread about them in 2020. their lives turned upside down. He subsequently filed for bankruptcy.

“All of that,” said Rick Hasen, a law professor at UCLA, “should be a deterrent to any thinking lawyer who would want to replicate something like that.”