RNC Paying Legal Costs For Trump, But Not For GOP Fake ‘Electors’ Who Did His Bidding

SALT LAKE CITY — The Republican National Committee, which has so far approved paying $1.6 million for legal bills resulting from former President Donald Trump’s business practices unrelated to his presidency, has no plan to help pay legal costs for dozens of local and state party activists who falsely claimed to be Trump’s “electors” following the 2020 election.

Dozens of these Trump supporters — who include state lawmakers, local party officials and even six RNC members — could wind up facing five-figure lawyers’ fees to deal with the various investigations into the scheme.

Four of those RNC members have already been subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol that Trump incited, and have been commanded to turn over relevant documents and appear in Washington, D.C., for depositions later this month.

One of the six RNC members, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he has not asked the RNC for help paying bills, and that he was not aware of any movement by the committee to do so.

An aide to a second one, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were not worried about any actual charges resulting from the investigations, but were cognizant of and concerned about the legal bills.

In contrast, the party has made multiple payments to lawyers defending the former president for his business activities unrelated to his four years in office, and, in many cases, preceding them. Trump is under investigation by both the New York attorney general and the Manhattan district attorney for various accounting and tax arrangements used by the Trump Organization, his closely held family business.

Trump has for decades claimed to be a multi-billionaire and has already collected $122 million from his followers since November 2020 for his “leadership” political committee. He could use that money for virtually anything because of the loose regulation of such entities.

The RNC has justified its financial support of Trump by calling the investigations into him “politically motivated” and part of a continuing “witch hunt.” RNC officials would not respond to whether the group plans to similarly assist the 84 party activists who claimed to be his electors, even though their states voted for Democrat Joe Biden.

Trump is also currently under investigation by the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, for his attempts to coerce state officials into overturning his election loss there, while the overall scheme to use the fake electors is being investigated by the Department of Justice.

The RNC did not respond to multiple queries about whether it plans to pay for Trump’s lawyers in these probes, as well.

Most RNC members interviewed by HuffPost at the committee’s winter meeting in Salt Lake City declined to comment on the payments to Trump’s lawyers, which as of November had totaled $699,958, according to the committee’s filings with the Federal Election Commission.

Bill Palatucci, one of the few outspoken critics of Trump on the RNC, said the committee should not be paying Trump’s legal bills unrelated to his term in office.

“It’s unprecedented for the RNC,” he said, adding that the money the committee has already spent could have been better used in his home state of New Jersey in November 2021, where the Republican candidate for governor performed better than expected. “We sure as hell could have used that money in New Jersey.”

But Palatucci is among the minority of members whose loyalties lie with the party, not the former president. Multiple RNC members told HuffPost on the condition of anonymity that about 70% of their committee colleagues are loyal primarily to Trump, thanks to his campaign’s success in purging “establishment” Republicans from the committee.

“It’s a cult of personality,” said one member, who added that while the committee may try to help RNC members who are called as witnesses or charged with crimes themselves, the false electors who aren’t on the RNC are likely on their own and almost certainly unprepared. “Most of these people have no idea what it’s like to be called in front of a grand jury.”

A total of 84 Republicans signed paperwork claiming to be Trump electors (as opposed to the Biden electors chosen by the voters in their states), although 25 of them — 20 from Pennsylvania and five from New Mexico — made clear in their attestations that they would only be “duly elected and qualified” electors if the election results in their states were reversed by court order or other legal proceeding.

The verbiage included in Pennsylvania’s document was enough for the state attorney general to conclude that they had not done anything illegal, even if it was “misleading.”

The remaining 59 GOP officials, though, included no such qualifiers in their paperwork, and instead claimed to be their states’ legal electors.

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said that action was clearly a crime. “This is election fraud, and it’s many other crimes as well, both, I believe, at the state and the federal level,” she said during a news conference last month.

Because the electors used the United States Postal Service to deliver their documents, their actions could also constitute mail fraud, according to former federal prosecutors.

Palatucci said he would oppose spending committee money for the legal defense of those participating in Trump’s attempt to overturn the election. “This entire scheme was orchestrated by people at the very highest levels,” he said. “Maybe they want to appeal to their own state parties for help.”

Trump himself has been unrepentant about his actions to effectively overthrow the republic and retain power despite losing his election by 7 million votes nationally and 306-232 in the Electoral College.

In a speech Saturday night at a Texas rally, Trump advocated for unrest across the country if prosecutors went after him. “If these radical, vicious, racist prosecutors do anything wrong or illegal, I hope we are going to have in this country the biggest protests we have ever had in Washington, D.C., in New York, in Atlanta and elsewhere, because our country and our elections are corrupt,” he said.

A few minutes later, he said that the over 700 of his supporters who have so far been arrested for storming the Capitol — a number of whom assaulted police officers in the process — have not been treated fairly, and offered pardons to them should he regain the White House.

And on Sunday, Trump said in a statement what a number of his former White House aides have been describing for a year: that former Vice President Mike Pence “could have overturned the election” for him and let him remain in office.

Trump became the first president in more than two centuries of elections to refuse to hand over power peacefully. Five people died in connection to the Capitol riot, four police offices committed suicides in the weeks and months following the assault, and another 140 officers were injured.

Despite this, Trump remains the dominant figure in the Republican Party and is openly speaking about running for the presidency again in 2024.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.