Report: RNC chief counsel called 2020 Trump legal efforts ‘a joke’

A top lawyer for the Republican Party warned in late November against continuing to push the baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen, calling efforts from former President Trump’s lawyers a “joke” that could give false hope to Trump supporters, The Washington Post reported on Monday

According to emails obtained by the Post, chief counsel for the Republican National Committee (RNC) Justin Riemer sought to discourage a party staffer from sharing unfounded claims of voter fraud through RNC accounts after the election was called for President Biden.

“What Rudy and Jenna are doing is a joke and they are getting laughed out of court,” Riemer wrote in a Nov. 28 email to former RNC official Liz Harrington, referring to Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis.

“They are misleading millions of people who have wishful thinking that the president is going to somehow win this thing,” Riemer continued.

According to the Post, Riemer wrote that the efforts to challenge the results by Giuliani and Ellis were harming the Republican Party’s push for “election integrity.”

Sources close to the matter told the Post that Giuliani sought to have Riemer fired after he learned of the emails, though Riemer has remained with the party.

Harrington, now working as Trump’s spokeswoman, told the Post on Monday, “The only thing that’s a joke is the idea that Joe Biden got 81 million votes.”

The Hill has reached out to the RNC for comment.

“I led the RNC legal team in over 55 lawsuits on behalf of the President’s reelection, winning a majority of them, including the only successful post-election lawsuit. Any suggestion that I did not support President Trump or do everything in my power to support the RNC’s efforts to reelect President Trump is false,” Riemer told the Post in a statement.

“I will say publicly now what I then said privately: I take issue with individuals who brought lawsuits that did not serve President Trump well and did not give him the best chance in court,” he added.

Trump and his team alleged without evidence that widespread voter fraud had cost him multiple states on Election Day. More than eight months later, he has yet to acknowledge that the vote was free and fair. 

The former president’s baseless claims have been called an inciting factor of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which left multiple people dead as his supporters stormed the building in an effort to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote.