WASHINGTON – Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers sent cease and desist letters on Friday to three Republican organizations asking them to stop using the former president’s name and image in fundraising and merchandise appeals, said one Trump adviser on Saturday.
The letters were sent to the National Republican Committee, the National Republican Congress Committee and the National Republican Senate Committee – arms of the party charged with raising money and shaping messages, among other things, for midterm elections and beyond.
The committees did not immediately respond to NBC News’s request for comment. Politico was the first to break the news.
Since Trump stepped down, committees have repeatedly referred to him in emails asking for donations, hoping to use the president’s popularity among some segments of the party to bolster his war chest as they work to regain control of the House and Senate in 2022.
Trump, however, has been reluctant to offer his support to the party establishment after he lost the presidency and suffered a second impeachment. Ten House Republicans voted with Democrats for Trump’s impeachment, and seven Senate Republicans voted to condemn him for allegedly inciting the deadly crowd that attacked the Capitol on January 6 with the intention of interrupting the counting of electoral votes by formalizing victory. of Joe Biden before a joint session of Congress. While this is by far the most bipartisan support for the conviction in the history of impeachment, the final vote was 57 to 43, 10 less than the 67 votes needed to secure a conviction.
After visiting Trump at his resort in Mar-a-Lago in January, minority leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Told reporters that Trump has not pledged to stay out of the House Republican primaries.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend in Florida, Trump listed the names of Republicans in Congress who voted to impeach or condemn him and said, “Get rid of them all.”
He also told participants that “there is only one way to contribute to our efforts” to elect Trump Republicans: donating to their PAC or through their website.