President Donald Trump’s revolving door of legal advisers has been spinning faster than ever in recent weeks as his efforts to stop the 2020 election have become more desperate. And in a poll released Sunday, a now-infamous conference call between Trump and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger revealed that star Conservative lawyer Cleta Mitchell has apparently joined the president as the latest free lawyer of the president.
During the call, first published by The Washington Post, Can be heard how Mitchell is going to bat for Team Trump’s anti-democratic interests.
‘I think what the president is saying and what we are trying to do is to say: look, the court is not acting on our petition. They did not even appoint a judge, ‘Mitchell told Raffensperger after a scathing chase from Trump over the foreign minister’s unwillingness to change the outcome of the election. ‘But the people of Georgia and the people of America have the right to know the answers, and you have data and records that we do not have access to. And you keep telling us and declaring in public that you have investigated it, and you know nothing to see here. ‘
Until her name in the Post story, Mitchell led her legal work for Trump and his team almost entirely out of the public eye, but rather chose to appear sporadically on Trump-friendly media, mostly without revealing her own role. In one little-noticed podcast appearance, she describes herself as a “volunteer” with the Trump campaign’s long, long, tall shot legal battle. Although the extent of her current role in Trump’s case was not known this week – apparently not even to her own law firm – expert sources say it was going on before Thanksgiving.
In addition, Mitchell previously withheld Trump in a 2011 case, according to official documents and temporary accounts.
She was not a major media presence who officially represented the president’s legal team after the election, unlike Trump lawyers like Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, or the up-and-coming Trump adviser Sidney Powell, and her name was absent from the past two months of legal paperwork or court documents Trump’s team filed during the president’s shaky attempt to undo Joe Biden’s decisive victory in the 2020 presidential election, according to a Daily Beast- report.
But Mitchell’s involvement with Trump, his senior staff and his legal team to unequivocally challenge Biden’s victory dates back about two months, according to two sources with knowledge of her presence on the team, as well as text messages provided by The Daily Beast was assessed. In the back of the job and legal paperwork, she has become the Team Trump point person for an attempt to overthrow the voting results in Georgia and has been in contact with Trump and the White House several times since November over these efforts. She is considered by others in the legal team and Trump’s staff to be an ally of Mark Meadows, Trump’s White House chief of staff.
It is unclear why Mitchell’s role was largely kept quiet as long as it was, although she would not be the only lawyer to have worked with Trump’s legal team, who also mostly kept quiet about it. In late November, The Daily Beast reported that Christina Bobb, an air host on the Trump-backed One America News Network, had quietly done legal work for the president’s so-called ‘elite strike force’, and that he had pointed to the headquarters of the campaign. She did so without disclosing it in her TV coverage of the same legal efforts.
Mitchell, the White House, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, and Giuliani did not respond to messages or calls for comment on this story. But on Monday, Mitchell’s own law firm issued a statement in response to Sunday’s news about her role in President Trump’s anti-democratic mission in the run-up to Biden’s inauguration in Washington, DC, on January 20.
The firm does not sound satisfied.
“Foley & Lardner LLP does not represent any parties wishing to challenge the outcome of the presidential election,” the statement said. ‘In November, the firm made a policy decision not to take over any representation from a party in matters related to the presidential election results. Our policy has allowed our attorneys to voluntarily participate in the repetition of elections and similar actions in their individual capacity as private citizens, provided they have not acted as legal counsel. We are aware of and concerned about the participation of Ms. Mitchell to the January 2 conference call and is thoroughly understanding her involvement. ”
The firm’s spokesman, Dan Farrell, was reached Monday afternoon and said they currently have no more than the official statement.
Prior to Sunday’s call, Mitchell’s public involvement was mostly an advocate in Trump – friendly media. She appeared twice with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business and complained about (unfounded) allegations of voter fraud after the November 10 election. “I’ve been in Georgia since the middle of the night,” she said of herself, “I hope to talk to Mayor Giuliani today about what we’re seeing in Georgia. ”
In a separate appearance on Fox News with presenter Sandra Smith, Smith is caught by a hot microphone rolling her eyes over Mitchell’s fraud allegations and muttering:What happens?”
In a November 30 podcast interview with Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, Mitchell said, “I work as a volunteer with the Trump campaign and the legal team in Georgia.”
In a separate interview a week later, she told Perkins: ‘I’m a volunteer. We have a few other volunteers helping because there are just so many that needed to be included. The purpose was to set a public record covering the extent of the offenses and the illegality. ”
In her interviews with podcasts, Mitchell claims that thousands of ineligible voters voted in the election and put the blame at the feet of Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. “This election was not valid. These results are not valid. Whatever someone says, it is not valid. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has a lot to answer for, ”she claims without a reason.
Over the years, Mitchell has gained a reputation as a top-level finance campaign for conservative candidates and activist groups with legal issues before the IRS and the Federal Electoral Commission.
During the Obama presidency, Mitchell was an attorney for the Tea Party movement and the candidates that gave rise to it. When Sharon Angle, state legislator in Nevada, took action against a tea party platform against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, she hired Mitchell, who blew up the top Senate Democrat in a fundraising letter for allegedly trying to steal election if he can not win it straight ‘by the alleged use of free food during campaign rallies.
Over the past few years, Mitchell has established a who’s who represents prominent Trumpworld people, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Steve Bannon, and prominent conservative activist groups such as the NRA and the Rebuilding America Now Super PAC, by the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in 2016.
When the IRS investigated and granted tax exemption status to a series of conservative non-profit organizations in the wake of the Citizens United decision, Mitchell represented True the Vote, a conservative activist group focused on election law, in a case claiming that the IRS is unfairly targeting the group based on its ideological commitment.
Mitchell’s relationship with Trump dates back at least to 2011, when she represented him against a complaint from the Federal Election Commission, which was subsequently dismissed, alleging that Trump and his attorney Michael Cohen violated campaign funding laws with illegal contributions in natura when Trump ran for president in 2012.
Shawn Thompson, a former associate of the then rep. Ron Paul, “filed a FEC complaint against me for using Trump’s 727 aircraft to go to Iowa in 2011,” Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and fixer, told The Daily Beast. Monday. Cohen said he was seeking Mitchell to fight the complaint based on her reputation as a competent campaign finance attorney.
At the time, she did not have a close working relationship with Trump, Cohen said, but her victory in dismissing the charge did make an impression. By the start of the 2016 campaign, ‘Donald Trump already saw her as a winner’, according to Cohen’s report.
The two seem to be growing closer in recent years. Trump invited Mitchell to a White House ceremony commemorating the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in August 2020 and singled her out as a great lawyer … outside of a lawyer. ‘
—With additional reporting by Justin Baragona