House GOP committee that oversees elections hired two former Trump officials involved in 2020 fake elector scheme

CNN
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House Republicans on the committee with broad jurisdiction over national elections have hired at least two former Donald Trump campaign officials involved in the 2020 fake electors scheme as the GOP-led panel gears up to take center stage in an unknown post-election landscape when Congress returns in November.

The overlap between Trump’s 2020 team and the GOP-led committee in charge of overseeing elections indicates that the same cast of characters involved in the Trump legal ploys are being stationed in key positions on Capitol Hill ahead of Congress’ crucial, yet mostly ceremonial, role of certifying the 2024 election on January 6, 2025.

The hirings also signal that the House, currently under GOP control, is well-positioned to flood the zone with Trump’s new series of lies about ballots, vote-counting and the election process, and is laying the groundwork to challenge a potential defeat in November.

The Committee on House Administration, which usually flies under the radar, also plays an important role on January 6 when Congress certifies the election. If Republicans maintain control of the House, the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, is expected to be one of the four lawmakers sitting at the dais reading electoral votes, and his staff will be advising members about the procedures taking place.

Earlier this month, committee Republicans hired former Trump campaign lawyer Joshua Findlay to serve as a consultant on election law matters through the end of this Congress, according to the consultant contract obtained by CNN. They previously hired Thomas Lane, another Trump official who served as a backup fake elector in Arizona in 2020, to lead their investigation into elections.

Over the last year, according to committee records, the House Administration elections subcommittee has met with groups like the Republican National Committee, now under the control of Trump and his campaign; the Conservative Partnership Institute, a group affiliated with Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows; and the Election Integrity Network, which is run by Cleta Mitchell, who was on the phone with Trump in January 2021 when Trump urged Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” the votes he needed to win the 2020 presidential election.

The committee confirmed the hirings to CNN. “Chairman Bryan Steil is committed to strengthening our nation’s election integrity and increasing Americans’ confidence in our elections,” a spokesman said.

Findlay participated in phone calls and meetings about fake electors through at least mid-December 2020, specifically in Georgia, according to sources familiar with the discussions and deposition transcripts obtained by CNN. He went on to serve as the Republican National Committee’s national director of election integrity.

In an email chain with Trump lawyers and campaign officials discussing how to move forward with the alternate slate of electors, Findlay gave the group an update on the status of electors and litigation with each battleground state.

“I have also attached drafts of voting instructions, ballots, and Certificates of Vote for each state. These documents will need to be reviewed to make sure they conform to state and federal law” Findlay wrote on December 11, 2020, according to emails obtained by CNN.

According to his consultant contract, Findlay will be advising GOP members and staffers the panel deployed as election observers in key battleground states about election laws and intervening if observers are denied access to election sites.

A committee spokesperson told CNN Findlay’s contract ends on November 30 and is only related to the Election Observer Program.

Findlay has worked closely with Mitchell, who helped Trump try to overturn the 2020 election.  He eventually told the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, that he never found evidence to back up the fraud allegations in Georgia.

“I think there were a lot of justifiable complaints about election administration generally. But, you know, the big complaints that you would hear about, you know, massive vote flips and things like that, we just didn’t ever – at least in Georgia, we did not ever find any evidence of that,” Findlay said in May 2022.

Republicans on the committee previously hired another Trump official who served as a backup fake elector in Arizona in 2020, to lead their investigation into elections. Emails obtained by CNN show that Lane was involved in the planning of who would serve as fake electors in Arizona, collecting contact information and discussing where the fake electors would meet. Lane was slated to be a substitute elector if there were absences on the day the fake electors in Arizona met, documents obtained by CNN show.

Lane, who is currently listed as the Elections Counsel & Director of Elections Coalition on committee records, was also subpoenaed by the Department of Justice as part of the federal probe into the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“I’m here to do everything I can to make this work,” Lane wrote in an email chain on December 12, 2020, with then-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro and then-Arizona state party chair Kelli Ward, one of the most publicly vocal members advocating for the scheme in the state, discussing fake elector logistics.

Should the Republicans maintain control, the panel’s chairman, Steil, who is in a competitive race for re-election, will be center stage on January 6, 2025.

Putting the role of Steil and his committee in context, a GOP source familiar with the process told CNN, “the people directing traffic are the Rules Committee, the people driving cars are the members, but the people explaining that you need gas in your car, that you should use your turn signal, and your brake light is out, that’s House admin’s role. And so, I don’t think it can be overstated the role that they play in the day of.”

Steil, who voted to certify the 2020 presidential election, must contend with competing forces as the former president and his allies, who maintain the 2020 presidential election was stolen, are looking to Steil to carry the torch this time around, specifically through his investigation into ActBlue, the Democratic online fundraising platform.

At a rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, earlier this month, Trump said of Steil, “you have a young, brilliant congressman and he’s on a committee and it’s a very important committee, and he’s studying fraud and the fraud within the Democrat Party and what they’re doing in terms of campaign contributions. And it’s a tremendous scandal.”

Steil, praising Trump, outlined how he turned over his panel’s investigation into ActBlue to five Republican attorneys general.

“They’re digging into this information, Mr. Trump. I think they’re going to find a lot of answers very soon for you,” Steil said.

Steil’s legal team has been investigating ActBlue’s donor verification policies and procedures for nearly a year, but expanded the probe in August, calling on the FEC to immediately intervene and require ActBlue to verify the credit card information of donors who contribute online.

As part of his referral to the five Republican attorneys general in September, Steil referenced “reports received from whistleblowers” and provided “detailed donor records” based on “extensive data analysis, reviewing over 200 million FEC records spanning the last 14 years.”

Democrats on the committee have not been provided with any of this information, a source familiar with the process told CNN. (Republicans, since they are in the majority, are not required to share their findings.)

The timing of the committee’s escalation of its probe also raised questions. ActBlue told Steil in November 2023 that the company did not require donors to verify their information online before paying, but Steil waited nine months until formally requesting the FEC to intervene in August, Steil’s own recounting of events shows.

In light of the recent push from the panel to publicize its work, one senior GOP aide told CNN that “we did our best to bring these points up in the non-election sphere, and we got literally no coverage at all.”

The House Administration panel is historically seen as an extension of the House speaker and minority leader, because unlike other committees, the party leaders choose all of the committee members and are deeply involved in decisions made.

The two sides aspire to operate in a bipartisan fashion. But that’s less the case now, particularly when it comes to elections, one source familiar with the committee’s work said.

“It’s now just like this pure partisan, throwing rotten fruit at each back and forth,” the person said. “It has become that. It wasn’t that until recently.”

CNN’s Marshall Cohen, Zachary Cohen and Paula Reid contributed to this report.