After Trump indictment, Ashcroft dodges how he would handle interference in Missouri

As former President Donald Trump faces an indictment for attempting to interfere in Georgia’s 2020 election, Missouri’s top election official dodged how he would have handled the situation in Missouri.

When asked specifically by The Star on Tuesday whether Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft would have resisted Trump’s attempts to overturn an election result in Missouri as Georgia officials did in their state, Ashcroft’s campaign side-stepped the question.

“As Secretary of State, Jay has prioritized election integrity, and demonstrated a commitment to running credible elections. As a result, Missouri now ranks third in the nation for election integrity and is a model for other states,” spokesperson Jason Cabel Roe said in an email, citing a report from the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based conservative think tank.

“Jay has demonstrated a willingness to listen to all Missourians and will always take a fact-based approach to investigating election irregularities.”

Ashcroft, a Republican, is running for governor in 2024.

Monday’s indictment against the former president offers an interesting case study for Ashcroft, who is in charge of running Missouri’s elections. Ashcroft holds the same office as Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who Trump allegedly attempted to pressure to overturn the election results in Georgia.

The statement from Ashcroft’s team illustrates how the Republican is walking a fine line between not supporting the former president’s actions while also refusing to criticize Trump, who is now facing his fourth indictment as he mounts another campaign for the White House.

Spokespeople for Missouri Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican who is running for governor against Ashcroft, did not respond to questions asking whether Kehoe would have resisted Trump’s demands.

In contrast to Ashcroft and Kehoe, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, strongly applauded the way Georgia officials handled Trump’s pressure campaign that followed the election.

“I do think they handled it appropriately, they were doing their job,” Kelly said. “So yeah, if something like this were to happen in Kansas I would hope that our election officials would do likewise.”

In a separate statement from Ashcroft’s official office, spokesperson JoDonn Chaney touted Missouri’s “safe and accurate elections.”

“Secretary Ashcroft took an oath to follow the constitution, which he takes very seriously,” Chaney said. “He abides by Missouri statute and will continue to do so in all circumstances.”

However, Ashcroft has taken steps that critics argue have elevated debunked claims of election fraud.

In January, The Star revealed that Ashcroft met with right-wing conspiracy theorist and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell in Jefferson City. Lindell played a major role in promoting baseless lies about the 2020 election and has continued to elevate claims in the years that have followed.

In the months following the November 2020 vote, Trump attempted to push officials in Georgia, including Raffensperger, to overturn their official vote counts. The Republican resisted the former president.

In a 2021 telephone conversation, Trump pushed Raffensperger to overturn the state’s election results by finding enough votes to declare him the victor. This act led Fani Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, to charge Trump with felony charges for soliciting a violation of oath by a public officer and making false statements and writings.

“What I want to do is this,” Trump said in the phone call. “I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes.”

Ashcroft’s stance on the indictment is on par with his decisions as secretary of state. Following Trump’s debunked theories after the 2020 presidential election, Ashcroft said he was confident that Missouri’s elections were secure. But, at the same time, the Republican has taken an approach that some say supports unproven claims about the elections in which he runs.

In April, The Guardian reported that Ashcroft was among 10 state election officials who attended a secret February conference held by three groups that spread election denial lies and advocate for stricter voting laws.

Kehoe’s unwillingness to weigh in on the indictment comes as Georgia’s former lieutenant governor was a witness against the former president in the Georgia election case.

Trump on Monday went on his social media site Truth Social and said Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, a Republican who served from 2019 to January 2023, should not testify.

“Republicans should never let honesty be mistaken for weakness,” Duncan posted Saturday on the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, confirming that he had been called to testify. Current Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, also a Republican, is listed as one of nearly three dozen unindicted co-conspirators in the indictment against Trump.

After Monday’s indictment, Missouri Republicans, who typically have been quick to defend the former president and have painted his previous charges as politically-motivated, were largely silent.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, one of the few officials to weigh in on social media, attempted to paint the indictment as a First Amendment violation, using the charges to promote the state’s lawsuit alleging that the White House violated the First Amendment by working with social media companies to suppress conservative speech.

“Leftists seriously just indicted President Trump for tweeting and Mark Meadows for texting. This is precisely why Missouri is taking Joe Biden to task over his censorship regime,” Bailey posted, referring to Trump’s former chief of staff who was also indicted. “If the First Amendment goes, it all goes.”

Missouri Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, both ardent Trump supporters, did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday and neither posted about the indictment on social media.

However, just hours before the indictment, Schmitt posted photographs on social media at the Iowa State Fair with Trump supporters and Matthew Whitaker, who was acting U.S. attorney general under Trump.

“In Iowa. For Trump. For America,” Schmitt posted.

The Star’s Katie Bernard contributed to this report.