President Donald Trump’s legal advisers ’revolving door has been turning faster than ever in recent weeks as his attempts to cancel the 2020 election have become more desperate. And in a recording released Sunday, a now infamous conference between Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger revealed that Conservative star lawyer Cleta Mitchell had apparently joined as the president’s last free attorney.
Throughout the phone call, first posted by The Washington Post, Mitchell could be heard beating for the anti-democratic interests of the Trump team.
“I think what the president is saying and what we have tried to do is say, look, the court is not acting on our request. They haven’t even assigned a judge, “Mitchell told Raffensperger after a Trump footprint about the Secretary of State’s unwillingness to change election results.” But the people of Georgia and the people of Georgia America has a right to know the answers and you have data and records to which we have no access. And keep telling us and making public statements that you have investigated this and, you know, nothing to do here. “
Until his name appeared on the Publication history, Mitchell had directed his legal work for Trump and his team almost completely out of public view, rather than opting to appear sporadically in Trump-compatible media, mostly without revealing his own role. In a little-noticed podcast appearance, she described herself as a “volunteer” with Trump’s long, long campaign. long legal shooting battle. While the scope of his current role in the Trump case had not been widely known before this week (not even by his own law firm, it appears), informed sources say he was on the move before of Thanksgiving.
In addition, Mitchell had previously eliminated Trump in a 2011 affair, according to official documents and contemporary accounts.
He was not a large media presence officially representing the president’s post-election legal team, unlike Trump’s lawyers like Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis or Trump’s adviser Sidney Powell, and his name has been absent from the last two months of legal proceedings or court filings that the Trump team has filed during the president’s effort to undo Joe Biden’s decisive victory in the 2020 presidential election, according to a review of Daily Beast records.
But Mitchell’s involvement with Trump, his senior staff and his legal team to unfoundedly challenge Biden’s victory dates back to about two months, according to two sources who know of his presence on the team, as well as text messages. reviewed by The Daily Beast. Behind the scenes and legal formalities, he has become the one-time person on the Trump team to try to undo the results of the vote in Georgia and has been in contact with Trump and the White House several times in these efforts. since November. She is seen by other members of Trump’s legal team and staff as an ally of Mark Meadows, Trump’s White House chief of staff.
It’s unclear why Mitchell’s role remained largely silent the entire time, though she wouldn’t be the only lawyer who has worked with Trump’s legal team who has also maintained a great deal of silence about it. In late November, The Daily Beast reported that Christina Bobb, a live host of Trump-endorsed One America News Network, had been quietly doing legal work for the so-called “elite attack force.” of the president and had been showing at the campaign headquarters. He did so without revealing it on his television coverage of the same legal efforts.
Mitchell, the White House spokesman for the Trump campaign, and Giuliani did not respond to messages or phone calls seeking comment on the story. But on Monday, Mitchell’s own law firm issued a statement reacting to Sunday’s news about his role in President Trump’s anti-Democratic mission ahead of Biden’s inauguration in Washington, DC, on Jan. 20.
The company did not seem satisfied.
“Foley & Lardner LLP does not represent any party that wants to challenge the results of the presidential election,” the statement said. “In November, the firm made a political decision not to assume any representation from any party in relation to issues related to the results of the presidential election. Our policy allowed our lawyers to participate in election count observation. and similar actions voluntarily on an individual basis as private citizens, provided they do not act as legal advisers.We are aware of Ms. Mitchell’s participation in the January 2 conference call and are concerned and are working to understand her deeper participation “.
Arriving this Monday afternoon, the firm’s spokesman, Dan Farrell, said they had “nothing more to share beyond” this official statement at the time.
Prior to Sunday’s call, Mitchell’s public participation was primarily advocating for pro-Trump media. He made two appearances on Fox Business with Maria Bartiromo to complain about (unjustified) allegations of election fraud after the November 10 election. “I’ve been in Georgia since midnight,” he mentioned unfamiliarly and said, “I look forward to talking today with Mayor Giuliani about what we’re seeing in Georgia.”
In a separate appearance on Fox News with host Sandra Smith, Smith was caught by a hot microphone rolling his eyes at Mitchell’s allegations of fraud and muttering:What is happening?”
In a Nov. 30 podcast interview with Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, Mitchell said, “I’ve been volunteering with the Trump campaign and Georgia’s legal team.”
In a separate interview a week later, he told Perkins, “I’m a volunteer. We have other volunteers helping because we only need to include so many things. The goal was to create a public record that would demonstrate the extent of the violations and the illegality. ”.
In his podcast interviews, Mitchell claimed that thousands of ineligible voters had voted in the election and blamed Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “This election was not valid. These results are invalid. What someone says is invalid. The secretary of state has a lot to answer for, “he said.
Over the years, Mitchell earned a reputation as a top-level campaign finance lawyer for conservative candidates and activist groups with legal issues before the IRS and the Federal Electoral Commission.
During Obama’s presidency, Mitchell was a leading advocate for the Tea Party movement and the candidates it generated. When Nevada state lawmaker Sharron Angle ran against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on a Tea Party platform, he hired Mitchell, who attacked the top Senate Democrat in a fundraising letter background for allegedly trying to “steal these elections if he can’t win them.” through the alleged use of free food at campaign rallies.
In recent years, Mitchell has represented who is the prominence of Trumpworld, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Steve Bannon, and prominent conservative activist groups such as the NRA and the Super PAC Rebuilding America Now, founded by the former Trump campaign president Paul Manafort. in 2016.
When the IRS investigated and delayed the granting of tax-exempt status to a number of conservative nonprofits following the decision of Citizens United, Mitchell represented True the Vote, a group of Conservative activists focused on election law, in a lawsuit alleging that the IRS was unfairly targeting the group based on its ideological affiliation.
Mitchell’s relationship with Trump dates back at least to 2011, when he sued him against a later-rejected Federal Electoral Commission complaint alleging that Trump and his attorney, Michael Cohen, violated campaign finance laws with illegal contributions in kind when Trump pondered president in 2012.
Shawn Thompson, a former campaign aide to then-Representative Ron Paul, “filed a FEC complaint against me for using Trump’s 727 planes to go to Iowa in 2011,” Michael Cohen, a former personal lawyer, told The Daily Beast and Trump repairman. Monday. Cohen said she sought out Mitchell to combat the complaint because of the strength of her reputation as a campaign finance lawyer.
At the time, she did not have a close working relationship with Trump, Cohen said, but her victory in rejecting the complaint created an impression. When the 2016 campaign began, “Donald Trump already saw her as the winner,” according to Cohen’s account.
The two have seemed to get closer in recent years. Trump invited Mitchell to a White House ceremony to commemorate the centenary of women’s suffrage in August 2020 and chose her to be praised as “a great lawyer … beyond a lawyer.”
—With additional reports from Justin Baragona