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A GOP lawyer who advised former President Donald Trump on his campaign to overturn the 2020 election results now plays a central role in coordinating Republican efforts to tighten election laws in the country.
Longtime Republican lawyer and conservative advocate Cleta Mitchell was among Trump’s advisers in a January phone call in which Trump asked election officials in Georgia to “find” enough votes to say so, and not Democrat Joe Biden, the state winner of the battlefield.
Now Mitchell has taken the lead in two separate efforts to push for stricter state voting laws and to fight democratic efforts to expand access to the ballot at the federal level. She also advises state legislators in the development of voting restriction proposals. And, she said on Friday, she is in regular contact with Trump.
“People are genuinely interested in getting involved and we have to harness all that energy,” Mitchell said in an interview. “There are a lot of groups that have electoral integrity projects that have never done so before.”
Mitchell’s new prominence strengthens ties between the former president, who falsely insisted he lost the election due to fraud, and the overhaul of the GOP-led state vote that has helped transform a fundamental principle of democracy into a partisan battleground.
Trump’s bogus fraud claims have fueled a wave of new voting restrictions. More than 250 proposed voting restrictions have been proposed this year by mostly Republican lawmakers, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Georgia GOP Governor signed on Thursday in the law a measure obliging voters to present an identity document to vote by mail, gives the GOP-controlled state legislature new powers over local electoral councils and outlaws providing food or water to people waiting in line to vote. On Friday, Biden condemned him as “Jim Crow in the 21st century.”
In response, Democrats have stepped up their efforts to support a federal election redesign bill. This proposal, known as HR 1, would effectively neutralize state-level voter identification laws, allow anyone to vote by mail if they so chose, and automatically register citizens to vote. Republicans see this as an encroachment on state control over elections and say it is designed to give Democrats an advantage.
“The left is trying to dismantle 100 years of progress in election administration,” Mitchell said, expressing bemusement at Democrats’ accusations that Republicans are trying to suppress votes. “We are currently watching two different films.”
Mitchell’s biggest public involvement in the election wars came from participating in Trump’s appeal to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2. During that call, Mitchell insisted she had evidence of voter fraud, but officials in the Secretary of State’s office told her the data was incorrect.
The appeal is part of an investigation by the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office to determine whether Trump or others improperly attempted to influence election officials. Mitchell did not want to discuss the appeal or the investigation.
Mitchell’s involvement sparked an uproar in the legal community and prompted her to quit her longtime job with the law firm Foley & Lardner. But Mitchell says it’s been a blessing.
“One of the great benefits of resigning from my law firm is that I can devote all of my time to something that I love,” she said.
Mitchell has two new roles in an emerging Conservative election operation. She is leading a $ 10 million initiative within the small government group FreedomWorks to both push for new voting restrictions and help train Tories to get involved in the inner workings of local elections. She is also a senior legal researcher at the Conservative Partnership Institute, an organization led by former Republican Senator Jim DeMint. She says she will use this role to “coordinate” conservative voting positions, especially in opposition to HR 1.
Former Oklahoma state lawmaker Mitchell, 70, has ties to other influential players in the conservative movement. She is also an external lawyer with the American Legislative Exchange Committee, a conservative group that provides model legislation to state lawmakers and has organized an appeal with state lawmakers and Texas Senator Ted Cruz on opposition to HR 1 .
And Mitchell said she speaks regularly with lawmakers in Republican states about the need for new election laws. She didn’t want to identify who she was talking to, but said it was a long-standing passion.
“I’ve been working with state legislatures for several years to get them to pay attention to what I call the political process,” Mitchell said. “I love legislatures and working with legislators.”
Likewise, she wouldn’t detail her conversations with Trump or say whether they involved the new election fights. “I’m in contact with the president quite frequently,” she said of Trump.
Repeated audits have revealed no significant issues with the 2020 election. Trump and his supporters have lost more than 50 court cases challenging his results.
Mitchell says she believes the courts used legal deception to avoid giving a real answer to Trump’s allegations of electoral fraud.
This evidence had led some conservative groups not to echo Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud, even though they advocated tighter restrictions on Americans voting.
Mitchell’s role could complicate this effort to keep a distance.
“I’m concerned about the election but I don’t think the election was stolen,” said Noah Wall, executive vice president of 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 light of day between his issues and ours,” Wall said.
Mitchell has a long history in the Conservative movement, with positions on the boards of the National Rifle Association and the Bradley Foundation. She has represented Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt and has served as a campaign advocate for several Republican senators. She is also chair of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a conservative election bill that she says could be involved in litigation against HR 1, if passed, or in favor of new laws like Georgia’s.
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