COLUMBIA, S.C. – At least one member of the Republican National Committee is running to gradual Donald Trump’s attempted takeover of the organization through pushing to stay the committee impartial till Trump is formally the presidential nominee and keep away from choosing up his legal bills.
Two draft resolutions are being circulated through Henry Barbour, a countrywide committeeman from Mississippi, for attention at the RNC’s upcoming March assembly in Houston. Barbour mentioned make stronger for the resolutions amongst RNC individuals is rising however he does no longer but have the wanted cosponsors, and any resolutions would in the end be nonbinding.
The effort comes after Trump final week publicly referred to as to exchange the RNC’s present leaders and set up one in all his senior marketing campaign advisors and his daughter-in-law Lara Trump in best roles. Lara Trump suggested earlier in the week that GOP electorate would make stronger the committee paying her father-in-law’s legal bills as he faces a raft of felony and civil indictments.
Trump senior marketing campaign adviser Chris LaCivita, whom the former president needs to set up as the party’s leader working officer, advised newshounds Friday evening that the RNC would no longer pay Trump’s legal bills.
One of Barbour’s proposed resolutions says that the RNC and its management will keep impartial right through the presidential number one and no longer tackle further personnel from any of the lively campaigns till a candidate has the wanted delegates to be the nominee.
The 2nd solution says the group won’t pay the legal bills of any candidate for federal or state place of work however will as an alternative focal point its spending on efforts immediately comparable to the 2024 election.
“The RNC has one job. That’s winning elections,” Barbour mentioned. “I believe RNC funds should be spent solely on winning elections, on political expenses, not legal bills.”
The RNC was once paying a few of Trump’s legal bills for New York circumstances that began whilst he was once president, the Washington Post reported, however present Chair Ronna McDaniel mentioned in November 2022 that the RNC would stop paying as soon as Trump was a candidate once more and began operating for the 2024 presidential election.
Trump is spending millions on lawyers in civil circumstances and 4 felony circumstances, however he additionally has legal money owed that high half a billion dollars.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who is Trump’s final primary challenger in the GOP number one and going through him in her house state’s contest Saturday, mentioned a circle of relatives member or marketing campaign supervisor will have to no longer be main the RNC.
“I would hope that the people in the RNC know that they have a responsibility, a responsibility to put in people in the RNC who are going to look out in the best interest of all of the Republican Party, not just one person,” Haley mentioned.
The resolutions had been first reported through The Dispatch on Saturday.
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Columbia, South Carolina, and Meg Kinnard in Kiawah Island, South Carolina, contributed to this document.
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