RNC leads legal charge against Trump amid echoes of 2020 election chaos

WASHINGTON — When a local Republican official in Georgia filed a lawsuit this year saying election boards were not required to certify the results, the attorney she turned to was part of the legal team that filed there in 2020 on behalf of former President Donald Trump worked.

Atlanta-based attorney Alex Kaufman, whose name appears on the lawsuitwas one silent listener about the infamous January 2021 call in which Trump pressured Georgian Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn his loss there. He was too part of the legal team who attempted to present an alternative list of voters in the state.

Kaufman’s involvement in the lawsuit filed this year by Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections member Julie Adams shows how even as the Republican National Committee mounts a more disciplined legal effort than in 2020, reminders of the chaos of four years. suffered when Trump tried to hold on to power.

Several of the attorneys involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 election faced legal consequences for their actions, including disbarment and criminal charges, in what was seen as an effort to discourage similar actions in the future .

The RNC was not involved in the most recent lawsuit in Georgia. It has teamed up with some high-powered outside law firms, filed more than 100 of its own lawsuits and won some victories, including over the rules used in some states for counting absentee ballots and other election procedures.

“What we saw in 2020 was very responsive, maybe a little improvisational, and less of a structured plan,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, elections attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, describing her frequent Republican opponents. “What we are seeing now is a strategic effort.”

A source close to the Trump campaign said that in 2020, a consent decree that restricted Republican “voter security” activities had hampered their ability to build a comprehensive program in time for the election, as they continued to gain ground. got land.

The 2020 campaign may also have suffered from a lack of imagination about how big the turnout would be and what Democrats did in the courts to expand the vote, a Trump campaign adviser said. “They were caught flat-footed,” the person added.

But while there’s no Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman or Sidney Powell this time — three of the lawyers who actively tried to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and were criminally prosecuted as a result — there are still some returning players like Kaufman involved in lawsuits. the country.

In fact, the latest challenge in Georgia, which failedwas linked to Cleta Mitchell, a key 2020 player who was also on Trump’s call with Raffensperger.

Kaufman did not respond to messages seeking comment on his role in 2020. Mitchell said in an email that the RNC and the Trump campaign are “much better situated this year than they were four years ago for the simple reason that they are not wait until after the 2020 elections.” election to think about these issues.”

Neither Kaufman nor Mitchell were charged in Georgia as part of the election scheme investigation that included Giuliani, Eastman and Powell, as well as Trump himself. However, the grand jury has recommend that they will both be charged. Powell is one of four people, including attorneys Jenna Ellis and Kenneth Chesebro, who have pleaded guilty in the Georgia case.

Mitchell reiterated in her email her belief that there was a “solid case” about election irregularities in Georgia four years ago that had not been properly adjudicated.

This year too, other well-known names from the 2020 election cases have been spotted.

One lawsuit in Pennsylvania, filed by Republican members of Congress questioning the validity of foreign votes, was filed by two attorneys involved in the 2020 election challenges. One is Karen DiSalvo, who helped after the 2020 election force an audit in Lycoming County, PA. The other is Erick Kaardal, who filed a lawsuit in 2020 to prevent Biden’s victory from being certified. It was quickly rejected.

Another 2020 veteran is Kurt Olsen, who in August has filed a lawsuit in Georgia on behalf of the DeKalb County Republican Party, which is questioning the certification of Dominion voting machines. In 2020, he played a role in a long-running effort led by Texas to sue directly in the Supreme Court to overturn the election results in key swing states won by Biden. The effort failed.

Separately Bruce Castor and Michael van der Veen, who represented Trump during his second impeachment trial, over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, he filed lawsuits on behalf of a conservative group called United Sovereign Americans questioning the integrity of the election process in several states.

These lawyers work largely independently of the RNC and the Trump campaign, but not exclusively. Kaufman, for example has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Fulton County Republican Party and the RNC, they are pushing to hire more Republican poll workers.

Meanwhile, Christina Bobb, who was criminally charged in Arizona for her alleged role in undermining Biden’s 2020 victory there, is an employee of the RNC. She has pleaded not guilty.

A Republican election attorney said the RNC’s “election integrity unit,” in which attorney Gineen Bresso is a key player, has performed well so far, noting that it is important to focus only on the cases the unit has filed and not on the cases filed by outsiders. groups.

For example, he pointed to lawsuits in Michigan, including one in state court knocked down the state’s guidelines for verifying signatures on absentee ballots.

“You have a strong litigation effort,” the lawyer said.

The RNC and Trump campaign have focused what they call their election integrity efforts on 18 states, including key swing states. A central part of the plan is training poll workers and employees who can liaise with attorneys to identify potential legal issues.

“This will help ensure fair, accurate, secure and transparent elections for the American people,” Gates McGavick, senior adviser to Michael Whatley, the RNC chairman and veteran elections attorney, said in a statement.

Bresso said in a separate statement that the RNC and Trump campaign are “fighting to fix the problems in the system, hold election officials accountable, protect election safeguards and defend the law.”

Republicans have recruited more than 220,000 poll workers and poll workers and about 5,000 volunteer lawyers ready to deploy through early voting and Election Day, according to a source close to the Trump campaign, describing the operation as a parallel arm for the political breakout of the campaign. -the-vote program, which aims to increase voter turnout. It is a priority for Trump, the source said.

Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the UCLA School of Law and a contributor to NBC News, said the RNC “has been on much more offense this time around” but that its record in court so far has been mixed is, with some of its lawsuits focusing more on political messages than on the law.

In recent days, the RNC lost a case in Michigan questioning how the state manages voter rolls, and other cases in Michigan and North Carolina that sought to restrict voting abroad.

It has Also touted victories in recent weeks on those same battlefields.

The RNC is working with attorneys across the country, with the firms Consovoy McCarthy, Jones Day and the Dhillon Law Group among the major players, according to an NBC News analysis of reports filed with the Federal Election Commission detailing expenditures related to legal matters and compliance are made public. In August alone, the companies received $300,000, $731,000 and $415,000 respectively.

Consovoy McCarthy has become an influential conservative firm in recent years that has worked on culture war issues, including the successful effort to end affirmative action in college admissions, and has represented Trump himself.

One of the cases the company is involved in is one originated in Mississippi in which the RNC attempts to disrupt normal practices in many states by requiring absentee ballots received after Election Day to be thrown out, even if they were mailed before the deadline. This case is currently on appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where a decision could be made at any time. However, the case is unlikely to affect this year’s elections.

Jones Day, where Trump’s former White House counsel Don McGahn is a prominent figure, was involved an RNC case in Pennsylvania, where state rules for fixing problems with defective mail-in ballots were unsuccessfully challenged.

The Dhillon firm is led by Harmeet Dhillon, a Trump ally who recently became a important role on the ground in Arizona after a local attorney resigned. Another of the firm’s attorneys, David Warrington, is the Trump campaign’s top lawyer.

Challenging an RNC lawsuit in Michigan voter registration procedures is one of the things the company has been working on.

Representatives from all three companies did not respond to messages seeking comment on their legal work.

Even if they wanted to, the RNC and the campaign have no control over lawsuits filed by outside groups or individuals, just as they did in 2020 when some of the more bizarre claims were filed by attorneys with no official connection to the national party apparatus .

“I don’t know if they can control some of the outside lawyers,” said another Republican attorney involved in election litigation. “You would have to put your head in a paper bag not to know what happened to some of those lawyers after 2020.”

Marc Elias, the go-to election lawyer for Democrats, including the Harris campaign, declined to comment on the Republican legal team. But he has previously said he expects that “more skilled” than in 2020.

But the ACLU’s Lakin said competent lawyers may be better at packaging weak claims in a way that could advance a false narrative of election fraud that could ultimately lead to a repeat of the violent scenes at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“It’s a recipe for very disturbing actions in the future,” she added.