GOP lawyer for 'election integrity' charged in fake electors scheme. That's just so Trump.
I had to ask. Does getting indicted on election fraud charges cause any conflicts at work for an attorney purportedly tasked with keeping elections free and fair?
Even for Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee, the latest legal mess involving their 2020 election lies is a little too on the nose.
Christina Bobb, the RNC's new senior counsel for election integrity, is likely one of 18 Trump aides and supporters swept up in an Arizona indictment, charged with felonies like fraud, forgery and conspiracy for trying to push a fake slate of electors after Trump lost that state in the 2020 election.
For his part, the former president was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.
I had to ask: Does getting indicted on election fraud charges cause any conflicts at work for an attorney purportedly tasked with keeping elections free and fair?
The RNC predictably donned the rhetoric of victimhood, responding to my question with a statement from Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, noting that Bobb previously served in the U.S. Marines and then served Trump "with distinction."
“Another example of Democrats’ weaponization of the legal system," Cheung wrote to me. "The Democrat platform for 2024: if you can’t beat them, try to throw them in jail.”
That's a standard refrain from the Trump victimization hymnal. Any enforcement of state or federal laws that hurts Trump or his crew is somehow proof of an overarching Democratic enterprise to weaponize prosecutions.
That was the underlying foundation of the legal argument Trump's lawyers made Thursday in front of the U.S. Supreme Court while seeking to convince the often-skeptical justices that his former job title of president grants him immunity in a federal indictment for his actions before, during and after the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The Arizona indictment and the Trump federal indictment, among other charges, cite the failed attempt to replace the state's legitimate electors for Joe Biden after the 2020 election with "fraudulent slates of electors."
The Democratic National Committee on Thursday celebrated the new Arizona indictment while casting Bobb as the "RNC in-house conspiracy theorist."
Trump wants 'election integrity.'It's the same nonsense he spouted in 2020.
Christina Bobb went from partisan pundit to Trump lawyer
Never heard of Bobb? She's been a bit player, first as Trump's biggest fan during the 2020 election when she was a partisan pundit on the conservative One America News cable channel, then as a lawyer for the former president in cases like his federal indictment related to hoarding classified documents after leaving office.
Fun fact in the classified documents case: Bobb signed a statement attesting that Trump's attorneys found a small batch of documents at his Florida home and private club, Mar-a-Lago, two months before the FBI searched it and found thousands of documents.
Bobb was hired last month after Trump installed his daughter-in-law, Lara, as RNC co-chair. Lara Trump's first move was to purge the staff and then ask anyone applying for a job if they believed the 2020 election was "stolen."
Bobb clearly passed that test.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced the indictments Wednesday, naming 11 in "the fake elector scheme," while shielding for now the identities of seven more defendants from out of state who will be revealed once they are served with their indictments.
It didn't take long to connect the dots and spot some big names who appear to be among the unidentified defendants, including Mark Meadows, Trump's former chief of staff, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who tried to help Trump overturn the 2020 election in several states. Meadows and Giuliani, along with three other defendants in the Arizona case, face similar charges in Georgia, where Trump also was indicted.
While those names are redacted, Bobb's name appears twice in the indictment about the Trump camp's attempt to overturn the election in Arizona − in a December 2020 social media post she made about that effort and in a text message a Trump adviser sent to White House and campaign staffers about Giuliani coordinating with her.
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Trump's lawyers have history of legal problems
Bobb is just the latest Trump lawyer to face the consequences of serving him in a way that allegedly broke the law.
Giuliani was recommended for disbarment last year based on his actions in trying to have Pennsylvania's 2020 presidential electors thrown out. John Eastman, a Trump White House attorney who helped devise plans to overturn the 2020 election, is one of the redacted names in the Arizona indictment, according to news reports. He was recommended for disbarment in California last month.
News reports indicated that Jenna Ellis, a former Trump lawyer who worked closely with Giuliani, also is among the redacted names in the new Arizona indictment. Ellis pleaded guilty last October in the Georgia fake elector case to a felony charge of aiding and abetting false statements and writings.
Sentenced to five years of probation, Ellis told a judge in Georgia: "If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse."
Ellis crowdsourced her efforts to pay her legal bills, complaining that Trump offered her no financial support after she was indicted with him.
I suspect Christina Bobb is about to learn the Jenna Ellis lesson about Trump's one-direction approach to loyalty − his team must be devoted to him, but he can cut them lose as soon as they're no longer useful.
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan