A Republican Party lawyer who advised former President Donald Trump in his campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 elections is now playing a central role in coordinating the Republican effort to tighten voting laws across the country.
Cleta Mitchell, a longtime Republican lawyer and advocate for conservative causes, was among Trump’s advisers in a phone call in January in which Trump asked Georgia election officials to “find” enough votes to declare him, not Democrat Joe Biden, the winner of the battlefield state.
Mitchell has now taken charge of two separate efforts to push for stricter state election laws and to fight Democratic efforts to expand access to voting at the federal level. It is also advising state legislators in drafting proposals to restrict voting. And, she said Friday, she is in regular contact with Trump.
“People are really interested in getting involved and we have to take advantage of all that energy,” said Mitchell in an interview. “There are many groups that have projects on electoral integrity that they have never had before.”
Mitchell’s new prominence tightens ties between the former president, who falsely insisted that he lost the election due to fraud, and the reform of the state vote led by the Republican Party that helped turn a fundamental principle of democracy into a party battleground. .
Trump’s false allegations of fraud have fueled a wave of new voting restrictions. More than 250 proposals for voting restrictions have been proposed this year by most Republican lawmakers, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. On Thursday, the Republican governor of Georgia signed in law a measure that requires voters to present identity documents in order to vote by mail, it gives the Republican-controlled state legislature new powers over local electoral boards and prohibits the provision of food or water to people waiting in line to vote. Biden on Friday condemned him as “Jim Crow in the 21st Century”.
In response, Democrats have stepped up pressure for a major federal election reform project. This proposal, known as HR 1, would effectively neutralize voter identification laws at the state level, allow anyone to vote by mail if they wanted to, and automatically register citizens to vote. Republicans see this as a usurpation of state control over elections and say it was created to give Democrats an advantage.
“The left is trying to dismantle 100 years of advancement in the electoral administration,” said Mitchell, expressing perplexity at Democrats’ accusations that Republicans are trying to suppress votes. “We are watching two different films now.”
Mitchell’s most public involvement in the electoral wars came in participation in Trump’s call to Georgia’s Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, January 2. During that call, Mitchell insisted that she had evidence of electoral fraud, but officials in the Secretary of State’s office told her that the data was incorrect.
The call is part of an investigation by the Fulton County District Attorney’s office to find out whether Trump or others have wrongly tried to influence election officials. Mitchell would not discuss the connection or the investigation.
Mitchell’s involvement caused protests in the legal community and led her to leave her former job at the law firm Foley & Lardner. But Mitchell says it was a blessing.
“One of the great advantages of quitting my law firm is that I can dedicate all my time to something I love,” she said.
Mitchell has two new roles in an emerging conservative voting operation. She is running a $ 10 million initiative in the FreedomWorks government’s limited group to push for new voting restrictions and help train conservatives to get involved in the nuts and bolts of local elections. She is also a senior jurist at the Conservative Partnership Institute, an organization run by former Republican senator Jim DeMint. She says she will use this function to “coordinate” conservative voting positions, especially in opposition to HR 1.
A former Oklahoma state legislator, Mitchell, 70, has connections with other influential players in the conservative movement. She also serves as an external consultant to the American Legislative Exchange Committee, a conservative group that provides model legislation for state legislators and has organized a call with state legislators and Texas Senator Ted Cruz about opposition to HR 1.
And Mitchell said he has been talking regularly with state Republican lawmakers about the need for new electoral laws. She did not identify with whom she spoke, but said it is a long-standing passion.
“I have been working with state legislatures for several years to get them to pay attention to what I call the political process,” said Mitchell. “I love legislatures and I work with legislators.”
She likewise did not detail her conversations with Trump or say whether they involved the new voting struggles. “I’m in contact with the president quite often,” she said of Trump.
Repeated audits showed no significant problems with the 2020 elections. Trump and his supporters lost more than 50 lawsuits contesting their results.
Mitchell says he believes the courts have used legal tricks to avoid actually addressing Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud.
That evidence has prompted some conservative groups to be careful not to echo Trump’s baseless allegations about electoral fraud, even when they advocate stricter restrictions on who Americans vote for.
Mitchell’s role can complicate this effort to keep his distance.
“I’m concerned about the election, but I don’t think the election was stolen,” said Noah Wall, executive vice president at FreedomWorks. However, Wall said he saw no conflict in working with Mitchell. “When we talk about what we’re going to focus on, I don’t see any daylight between her problems and ours,” said Wall.
Mitchell has a long history in the conservative movement, with positions on the boards of the National Rifle Association and the Bradley Foundation. She represented the head of Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, and was a campaign attorney for several Republican senators. She is also president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative electoral bill that she says may be involved in litigation against HR 1, if passed, or in support of new laws like Georgia’s.