By the second week of December 2020, the presidential election was decided and headed for formal voting in the Electoral College. Like President Trump, Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was not willing to concede.
“Every illegal vote is stealing a valid vote,” McDaniel told Fox News' Sean Hannity on Dec. 8. “Every illegal vote is stealing a valid vote. Every state that conducted a fraudulent election was stolen from a state that conducted a fair election. I'm stealing,” he said.
At the time, key campaign aides had already announced that Trump had lost. The advisers had found no credible evidence of fraud or wrongdoing that could reverse the results. The Electoral College was scheduled to confirm the winner of Joseph R. Biden six days later.
But McDaniel's appearance on Hannity's show was part of her concerted effort to help Trump contest his election loss.
Among the key figures involved in keeping Trump in power, McDaniel has remained relatively unnoticed. She is now under intense scrutiny after NBC journalists, who objected to the network's decision to hire her as an on-air contributor, abruptly ended her relationship with the network after several days. has been done.
Ms. McDaniel had recently tried to downplay her role. But a review of her record shows that she was at times closely involved in Trump's legal and political machinations ahead of Congress' violent attempt to block Biden's victory on January 6. It can be seen that they were involved and supported.
Mr. McDaniel was not the most aggressive or eccentric member of Mr. Trump's team. In fact, her former aides say, she failed to live up to Trump's demands and expectations and faced calls from her allies and grassroots activists to be more aggressive. And in the days leading up to Jan. 6, when the RNC was focused on Georgia's Senate runoffs at the time, her involvement — at least publicly — appeared to have significantly diminished.
Later, after courts, Republican election officials and state investigators all rejected Mr. Trump's claims of fraud, Mr. McDaniel faced controversy over the election, especially from Trump supporters who still considered him the rightful winner. was deemed insufficiently dedicated to the cause of overturning the .
But before that, Mr. McDaniel, who declined to comment for this article through an intermediary, had done more to challenge legitimate election results than any other chair of a major U.S. political party in modern history.
Early days: “It’s stealing.”
Days after the 2020 election, the RNC, led by McDaniel, worked with the Trump campaign and its legal team in an early effort to tilt the outcome in Trump's favor.
The party set up a hotline to collect information on alleged suspicious activity, held a White House meeting with Trump's legal team, and McDaniel later investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Testified before a House committee.
At a press conference in Michigan on Nov. 6, the day before news organizations declared Biden the winner, he announced that the RNC was sending legal teams to four states to investigate “misconduct.” . She listed allegations in Michigan that she claims are evidence of underlying and broader problems, possibly including questionable election machine software. The allegations were disputed by election officials, but were later debunked.
On his Nov. 10 Fox show, McDaniel repeated unsubstantiated and soon-to-be-debunked claims about “dead voters” and “spoiled votes” and declared, “It's theft.” .
And on social media, McDaniel questioned election “fraud”, posted fundraising appeals and pushed for hearings in states where Trump allies had presented false evidence of election fraud. . She vowed that the RNC would “pursue this process to its end.”
The RNC also distanced itself from legal involvement with Trump's team after Trump changed his legal team and brought in outside lawyers led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. Of the 65 lawsuits filed by Trump and his allies after the 2020 election, the RNC was named in only four, according to the Democracy Docket, which tracks lawsuits.
Still, on November 19, Mr. McDaniel allowed Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Powell to hold a press conference at RNC headquarters. With black liquid dripping down his face, Mr. Giuliani touted outlandish theories about Dominion voting machines and late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.
McDaniel later told the Times that she regretted her decision. “When I saw some of the things Sydney said without any evidence, I was certainly concerned that it was happening in my building,” she said.
After the press conference, party lawyers told McDaniel not to repeat conspiracy theories about election machines and told RNC aides to use terms like “voter fraud” instead of “voter fraud.” He urged people to be careful when talking about the election. According to House committee testimony.
Late November: Intervening in Michigan
Behind the scenes, Mr. McDaniel also played a more direct role, including assisting Mr. Trump in his attempt to block the certification of Mr. Biden's victory in Michigan.
On Nov. 17, two Republicans on the recruiting board for Wayne County, which includes Detroit, initially voted against certifying the county's results, stalling the board until they backed down amid angry protests.
Shortly after, Republican board members Monica Palmer and William Hartman received a call from Trump. McDaniel also answered the phone.
According to The Detroit News, which reviewed the audio of the call, Trump told the two men that “it would be terrible” if they signed official voting documents, adding, “We have to fight for our country. No,” he added.
“If you can go home tonight, please don't sign,” McDaniel told them, adding, “I'll get a lawyer.”
Certification proceeded because there was no legal means to cancel the vote.
Appearing on Sunday's “Meet the Press,” McDaniel recalled that he never pressured them, but simply urged them to “vote their conscience.” She regretted the threats of violence against them, one of which led to an arrest in New Hampshire, and said the two officials had the right to seek further audits of the county's results. Ta. (This result was confirmed by a post-election audit.)
Supreme Court challenge
Mr. McDaniel also helped Mr. Trump rally state attorneys general to join the Supreme Court lawsuit originally filed by Texas to challenge the results in four states. Considered bizarre by legal experts, the court aimed to effectively invalidate all votes in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by leaving the results up to Republican legislatures.
Mr. McDaniel was a sponsor of the bid. “I'm very happy with this Texas lawsuit,” she told Fox's Hannity, adding that “more states will join this lawsuit.”
In the background, she took part in a call with Trump and urged Jonelle Fulmer, the chairman of the Arkansas Republican Party, to include the state's attorney general, Leslie Rutledge. “The president asked me to tell her attorney general that he wanted her to join her case, and she complied right away,” Fulmer said in the Arkansas, which first reported on her call. He told the Democrat Gazette.
The Supreme Court dismissed the Texas case a few days later.
electors
But McDaniel still continued to support the overall effort to overturn the results. In December 2020, she spoke by phone with Trump and John Eastman, a law professor who supports the effort, to discuss plans to use primary electors to make Trump the winner. McDaniel agreed to work with the Trump campaign to carry out the plan, but was told it was only an emergency in case a Republican lawsuit invalidated the results, she testified. she said.
The federal indictment against Trump, filed by special counsel Jack Smith, also alleges that McDaniel was misled into believing that unless his campaign was successful in court, the electorate would not be exploited.
Trump's plan includes forcing a vote on the electors on January 6th, with the support of Vice President Mike Pence, who the president and his allies were counting on to block the certification of Biden's victory. It was included.
Mr. McDaniel also testified that the plan to pressure Mr. Pence was “out of the question.”
On the night of January 6, she deplored the riot at the Capitol, saying in a statement: This is shameful and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms. ”
In the months following Biden's inauguration, McDaniel continued to oversee a significant expansion of the party's election integrity team. The team is a state group that often works with activists who are still professing falsehoods about the 2020 election.
“He won fair and square,” McDaniel admitted in an interview on “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
However, he added, “I don't think it's an exaggeration to say there were problems in 2020.”
Jonathan Swan Contributed to the report.