RNC Begins Spending Money on Legal Challenges

Under its new leadership, the Republican National Committee has started spending its resources on a new legal challenge.

Since Lara Trump, Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, was elected co-chair of the RNC on March 8—while Michael Whatley, a longtime Trump supporter, was elected chair—there have been numerous changes at the Republican Party's governing body.

Lara Trump pledged Tuesday to pivot the RNC's resources, telling Fox News' Sean Hannity the RNC had created an "election integrity division" to oversee elections across the country.

Using the new division, the RNC filed a voter-roll lawsuit Wednesday against Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over her office's failure to "keep their rolls accurate and up-to-date," Whatley said in a statement to The Washington Times.

Under the National Voter Registration Act, states must maintain an accurate and current voter registration roll for federal elections. The RNC has alleged that 76 of Michigan's 83 counties have inflated voter rolls, and that 53 counties have more active registered voters than adult citizens over age 18.

"Jocelyn Benson has failed to follow the [National Voter Registration Act], leaving Michigan with inflated and inaccurate voter rolls ahead of the 2024 election," Whatley said.

In a statement to Newsweek, Benson said: "In Michigan, we have done more in the last five years than was done in the previous two decades to remove deceased voters and ineligible citizens from our voting rolls and ensure their accuracy. Federal data shows Michigan is the fifth most active state in the nation in removing the registrations of voters who have died. Since I took office, we have cancelled more than 700,000 voter registrations and identified an additional 520,000 slated for cancellation in 2025.

"Let's call this what it is: a PR campaign masquerading as a meritless lawsuit filled with baseless accusations that seek to diminish people's faith in the security of our elections. Shame on anyone who abuses the legal process to sow seeds of doubt in our democracy."

Whatley has previously indicated his propensity to use lawyers to challenge elections. Speaking at a Conservative Political Action Conference in 2021, he outlined his use of law firms in North Carolina when he was the state's Republican Party chairman.

"Our legal budget was three-quarters of our operating annual budget," he said, while discussing the Democrats' challenges to elections in the state. He added: "It is worth every penny."

"This is going to have to be part of the Republican establishment going forward," he said, and he called on the wider RNC to increase its legal resources to contest elections.

Christopher Phelps, a professor of modern American history at the University of Nottingham, told Newsweek in February there could be more lawsuits under Whatley if he became chair of the RNC.

"Whatley was an election denier, based on Trump's disproven claims of fraud in 2020, and loyalty on that point is what matters most to Trump in supporting him for RNC chair," he said. "That Whatley is a lawyer with a penchant for legal spending probably means we'll see more baseless lawsuits—Trump's campaign lost many dozens after the 2020 election—that seek to pursue such claims."

While it pursues legal action, the RNC is also contending with financial issues. At the end of November, the GOP governing body reported its lowest bank balance at that point in any year since 2016, disclosures by the Federal Election Commission showed. With $9.96 million in spending money, the RNC had less than half the $21.35 million it reported in 2016 after Donald Trump won the presidential election.

Reports of layoffs at the RNC have surfaced since the election of Lara Trump and Whatley.

Following her election as co-chair, Lara Trump said, "Everything I do at this committee will have one focus: re-electing Donald Trump, flipping the Senate, and expanding the House this November."