A federal judge has ruled that the Jan 6 committee has the authority and legal reasoning to get the RNC’s fundraising emails.
In a landmark ruling rejecting an RNC lawsuit, U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly said the select committee had demonstrated its need for the party’s data on its fundraising emails between Nov. 3, 2020, and Jan. 6, 2021 — when the RNC and Trump campaign sent supporters messages falsely suggesting the election was stolen. The committee contends those emails helped sow the seeds of the violence that erupted on Jan. 6.
“[T]he Select Committee seeks reasonably relevant information from a narrow window during which the RNC sent emails promoting claims that the presidential election was fraudulent or stolen,” Kelly, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote in the 53-page ruling.
Kelly issued an injunction to allow the RNC to appeal his ruling by May 5.
The decision is a major victory for the select committee and could open the doors to reams of internal RNC data held by Salesforce, a third-party vendor that the RNC used to run email fundraising campaigns and analyses. The select committee subpoenaed Salesforce for the records in February and the RNC filed suit soon after, seeking to block Salesforce from complying.
In a letter accompanying the subpoena, the select committee noted that Salesforce raised concerns within days of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol that some of the fundraising campaigns the RNC and Trump campaign ran through its systems may have played a part in stoking the unrest that led to violence at the Capitol. The select committee is seeking Salesforce records that support the company’s analysis of those fundraising efforts, as well as data about how many RNC supporters viewed those messages and which RNC staffers logged into Salesforce’s system to deliver them.
The RNC argued that a legal victory for the select committee could grant Democrats access to the sensitive secrets of their political rivals, shedding light on internal RNC digital strategies that the party has spent years crafting. That argument was joined by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which submitted its own brief comparing the select committee’s subpoena to Watergate.
But Kelly rejected the notion that sensitive GOP data was at risk, describing it as “speculative” and suggesting any competitive disadvantage that results pales compared to the committee’s legitimate need for the documents at issue.
“Nothing suggests that the Select Committee is demanding, or that Salesforce is preparing to produce, internal RNC memoranda laying out its digital strategy,” Kelly ruled. “Obviously, information that shows which email campaigns attracted more attention, and which attracted less, has some strategic value. But on the record here, whatever competitive harm may come to the RNC from disclosure of the actual material at issue is too ‘logically attenuated’ and ‘speculative’ to defeat the Select Committee’s weighty interest.”
Read the judges rulling on the Jan 6 committee subpoena here:
jan 6 committee
The RNC argued that a legal victory for the select committee could grant Democrats access to the sensitive secrets of their political rivals
Honestly, it’s not a secret how much they love to lick Trump’s boots.Report
Nothing to see here, just another day in a totally normal liberal democracy:
Militia group leader tried to ask Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power
The justice department has alleged that Oath Keepers leadership called the president’s confidant to allow them to use force
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/04/trump-oath-keepers-capitol-attack
Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers militia group leader charged with seditious conspiracy over the January 6 attack on the Capitol, asked an intermediary to get Donald Trump to allow his group to forcibly stop the transfer of power, the justice department has alleged in court papers.
The previously unknown phone call with the unidentified individual appears to indicate the Oath Keepers had contacts with at least one person close enough to Trump that Rhodes believed the individual would be a good person to consult with his request.
Once the Oath Keepers finished storming the Capitol, Rhodes gathered the Oath Keepers leadership around 5pm and walked down a few blocks to the Phoenix Park hotel in Washington DC, the justice department said on Wednesday in a statement of offense against Oath Keepers member William Wilson.
The group then huddled in a private suite, the justice department said, where Rhodes called an unidentified person on speakerphone and pressed the person to get Trump to authorize them to stop the transfer of power after the Capitol attack had failed to do so.Report