Chris Wallace spars with RNC chair over 2020 fake electors drama

CNN anchor Chris Wallace harshly questioned GOP chairwoman Ronna McDaniel over her participation in the scheme to use fake electors in the 2020 election Electoral College on his show Friday.

In her deposition for the House investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection, McDaniel admitted that the Republican Party helped put together a list of substitute electoral college voters for select disputed states at former President Trump’s request.

Trump’s lawyer at the time, John Eastman, reached out to McDaniel to organize the scheme, which could have effectively overturned the election results in key battleground states if it had gone forward.

Wallace pressed McDaniel on why she participated in the plot, which she refused to describe as using “fake electors.”

“There were still legal challenges going through the courts,” she argued. “And they said if a state was overturned, these would be contingent slates if the state result changed. That’s all it was.”

“It was not to be fake electors or replace the electors. It was contingent based on a legal challenge changing the outcome of a state,” McDaniel added “I think that’s very reasonable.”

The scheme has been at the center of multiple investigations, including one by federal special counsel Jack Smith. Multiple fake electors have already been offered immunity to assist Smith’s investigation.

Wallace shot back, claiming that McDaniel indeed understood the true intent of the move, to overturn the result of the presidential election.

“But you understand that’s what they ended up wanting to do was to tell Mike Pence, ‘Don’t accept the electors for Joe Biden in states that he won, but instead take these fake electors that the RNC was part of putting together,’” he said.

McDaniel refused to answer whether she had been questioned by Smith’s investigation into Jan. 6, despite being asked by Wallace multiple times.

She won reelection in January as chair of the Republican National Committee — which she has led since 2017.