Trump RNC ‘purge’ has some committee members nervous about party footing his legal bills:-Former President Donald Trump is about to take over the Republican National Committee. This could give him access to a lot of new cash at a time when he has a lot of court bills, which is making some committee members nervous.
Trump RNC ‘purge’ has some committee members nervous about party footing his legal bills
Putting limits on Trump’s access to the RNC’s funds is a touchy subject, and an attempt to put pressure on his team to support spending limits failed. It is, however, another example of the Trump opponents who still exist in the GOP.
Trump asked RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel to step down after seven years on the job. He now wants his daughter-in-law Lara Trump and Michael Whatley, the chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, to be co-chairs. Top Trump campaign assistant Chris LaCivita would be in charge of running the business.
Members of the RNC are getting together in Houston on Friday to talk about the new leadership.
The RNC is often very close to the campaign of the Republican presidential candidate. Trump became the nominee after Nikki Haley dropped out of the race on Wednesday. But some Republicans are still worried about Trump’s campaign because of some strange things going on with it.
The fact that Trump’s legal bills keep going up and whether he can try to get the party to pay for them is a major worry. Some committee members backed a failed motion that would have stopped the RNC from paying for Trump’s legal fees.
Some people are also against changing the head of the RNC.
Paul Dame, RNC member and Vermont GOP Chair, said, “I’ve been told that it’s pretty common for a presidential candidate and the RNC to work together. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening right now; I think it’s something between a purge and a takeover, and that worries me.”
Trump moves to put Lara Trump, other loyalists in key roles
In both business and politics, Trump is known to hang out with family members. His daughter Ivanka Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner were two of the people he put in charge of important jobs during his first term in the White House.
It’s the only way for Trump to be sure of their complete loyalty.
Dame doesn’t like how one person controls the party’s national organisation. He says he’s worried about what will happen after Trump leaves office and how the RNC will take on some of Trump’s traits that bother him, like being spiteful.
“One of my worries is that Trump’s ability to work with other Republicans has depended on how loyal he thinks they are to him, and that’s something that will be hard to work with if it gets into the RNC,” he said.
Also Read:-President Biden faces pivotal 2024 State of the Union, chance to reset race against Trump
Dame said it should be easy for people to not pay Trump’s court bills.
Dame said that the RNC usually pays for a lot of things that help all Republican candidates, like getting “low propensity” people to the polls. He also said that he thinks this is what most donors want. He said that making Trump’s lawyers pay their bills would only help Trump.
Trump is being sued in several civil cases and is being charged with 91 felonies in four separate criminal cases. Trump’s campaign and political committees that work with it have already spent tens of millions of dollars on lawyers to protect him. In a defamation case made by writer Jean Carroll, he had to pay $83.3 million. In a business fraud case, he had to pay $453.5 million, plus interest.
LaCivita has said many times that Trump’s legal fees will not be paid for with RNC money.
Trump held an election night party in Palm Beach on Tuesday, and LaCivita spoke there. “I’ve made it perfectly clear… we would not be paying legal bills,” Trump said.
But some RNC members wanted the promise to be in writing.
Henry Barbour, a Republican national committeeman from Mississippi, pushed for the motion that says the RNC can’t pay a candidate’s legal fees. He said it would have made donors feel better.
Barbour said, “I think people might be less likely to give to the RNC if they thought their money was going to legal bills that have nothing to do with the 2024 cycle.”
RNC discussion of legal bills ‘still very much alive’
Barbour’s motion needed 10 states, with two co-sponsors from each, to get a vote on Friday, but it only got eight. It didn’t bind anyone. The Republican National Convention in July would have to agree to an official change to the rules.
Even though it didn’t pass, Barbour said, “the discussion is still very much alive.”
Barbour said, “The RNC’s only job is to win elections.” He also said that paying a candidate’s court bills was part of that job. It “has nothing to do with winning elections.”
Concerns about Trump’s takeover of the RNC are another sign of how uneasy some members of the party are with his campaign. For example, Nikki Haley got a lot of GOP primary votes through Super Tuesday, even though polls had been showing for months that Trump would almost certainly be the nominee.
A lot of Republicans are still upset about Trump’s campaign, and they showed their displeasure by voting “protest” in primary after primary. There were a lot of places where Haley got more than 30% of the vote. In Vermont and the District of Columbia, she won the primary. Some states are still going through the ballots from Super Tuesday.
Most Republicans, on the other hand, don’t agree with Trump, and his choices for RNC leadership are likely to easily win the race.
A lot of people who back Trump are happy about his takeover of the RNC. GOP members have been criticising McDaniel for a long time.
Steve Bannon, who has been close to Trump for a long time and was his chief strategist in the White House, said this week on his show that Barbour’s resolution was “spitting in President Trump’s face.”
“This is another outrage at the RNC and we thought the whole thing was dealt with,” Bannon stated. “We gotta see the building purged… all the building’s gotta be purged – 100% purged.”
The New Jersey Republican national committeeman, Bill Palatucci, said that he doesn’t mind if the winner “puts their mark on the committee.”
In an email, Palatucci said, “The important thing is senior staff, and Chris LaCivita is a pro who knows the role of the RNC in the presidential cycle.” “After that, the Executive Committee and the Budget Committee are in charge of making sure the money is spent wisely.”
Stan Pate, an Alabama Trump fan who gave six-figure sums to the main Trump super PAC, said that McDaniel’s resignation will make him more likely to back the RNC, and he doesn’t mind if his money is used to pay Trump’s legal fees.
“To be honest, I’m about to write him another big cheque,” Pate, an investor and real estate developer, said. “I can tell you this: We’re all in trouble if he doesn’t win, so I have a chance to hopefully make a difference.”