Almost immediately after Donald Trump’s handpicked team took the reins at the Republican National Committee — a team that includes his daughter-in-law — the party’s new leaders got to work making significant staffing changes. In fact, in mid-March, the RNC hired two new lawyers to oversee the party’s election-year legal efforts.
Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be especially notable, but nearly two months later, it’s worth checking in on the duo.
One of the attorneys hired at the RNC was Christina Bobb, who was tapped to serve as the party’s senior counsel for election integrity. It wasn’t long, however, before an unfortunate problem emerged: Bobb was recently indicted for alleged election-related crimes.
The other attorney was longtime Republican lawyer Charlie Spies, who was hired to serve as the RNC’s chief counsel. At least, that was the idea two months ago. NBC News reported over the weekend:
Republican National Committee chief counsel Charlie Spies is parting ways with the party apparatus just months after stepping into the role. He was “pushed out,” according to a source familiar with the move.
After the news was made official, Trump turned to his social media platform to celebrate the developments. “Great news for the Republican Party. RINO lawyer Charlie Spies is out as Chief Counsel of the RNC,” the former president wrote, denouncing the experienced Republican lawyer who’d been hired by his own RNC team.
At first blush, Spies appeared to bring an impressive partisan resume to the table. The attorney has worked for a variety of prominent Republican officials and party entities, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Jeb Bush’s super PAC, and Mitt Romney’s 2008 presidential campaign.
But that’s not the kind of experience Team Trump finds impressive. In fact, Spies’ recent history related to the former president helps explain his brief RNC tenure.
NBC News’ report added, for example, that in 2021, Spies publicly contradicted false claims about voting machines switching votes. When asked during a Conservative Political Action Conference panel what he’d do about voting machines switching votes, he pushed back against the false conspiracy theory that has been backed by Trump allies.
“I may get booed off the stage for this, but I have to say that’s simply not true. There is just zero evidence that’s true,” Spies said at the time. Indeed, a Washington Post report over the weekend noted that the lawyer’s RNC career was cut short, at least in part, because Trump “grew angry about his criticism of the former president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.” When the former president recently sat down with Time magazine, he said he’d have a problem hiring someone who rejected his ridiculous election lies. Evidently, this attitude extends to the RNC, too. All was not well at the RNC before its new leadership team took over. Recent developments suggest the party’s troubles persist.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
Latest Post
Recommended
