ALARMS RAISED ABOUT TMAGAC FUNDRAISING CONTENT
ALARMS RAISED ABOUT TMAGAC FUNDRAISING CONTENT
¶A number of individuals and entities associated with the TMAGAC fundraising campaign raised concerns about the dangerous and inflammatory language used in the emails issued for this campaign.
Concerns Raised in Internal RNC Review
¶Evidence obtained by the Select Committee shows that the RNC knew that President Trump’s claims about winning the election were baseless and that additional donations would not help him secure an additional term in office. They walked as close to the line as they dared—making several changes to fundraising copy that seemingly protected the RNC from legal exposure while still spreading and relying on President Trump’s known lies and misrepresentations.
¶The Select Committee did not interview a member of the RNC legal team due to concerns surrounding attorney-client privilege, but the Select Committee nonetheless got insight into their role from documents produced by Campaign and RNC staff, as well as interviews with staffers. As detailed below, the RNC lawyers were the only individuals who even attempted to walk back the fundraising emails.
¶Allred and Katz both received direction from the RNC’s lawyers shortly after the election to not say “steal the election” and instead were told to use “try to steal the election.”94 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Hanna Allred, (Dec. 1, 2021), p. 4 (“Similarly, they could say the Democrats were trying or tried to steal the election, but not state that they were or had.”); Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Nov. 3, 2021), p. 2 (“KATZ recalled that Allred told him to say the Democrats were “trying to” steal the elections. He added that he did not have any discussions about why “trying to” was important, but his impression was that it was used to give some legal wiggle room and make the statement about stealing the election to be ‘less false.’”). Allred also recalled that, at some point, the RNC legal team directed the copywriters not to use the term “rigged.”95 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Hanna Allred, (Mar. 30, 2022), p. 75, (“I do remember at some point we were told we could no longer use the word ‘rigged.’”).
¶After the media called the election for former Vice President Joe Biden on Saturday, November 7, 2020, the RNC began to quietly pull back from definitive language about President Trump having won the election and instead used language of insinuation. For example, on November 10, 2020, Justin Reimer, RNC’s then-chief counsel, revised a fundraising email sent to the Approvals Group to remove the sentence that “Joe Biden should not wrongfully claim the office of the President.”96 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013714, (Nov. 3, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: FOR APPROVAL: Pennsylvania & Election Poll”). Instead, Reimer indicated the email should read, “Joe Biden does not get to decide when this election ends. Only LEGAL ballots must be counted and verified.”97 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013714 (Nov. 3, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: FOR APPROVAL: Pennsylvania & Election Poll”). Both Alex Cannon and Zach Parkinson signed off on Reimer’s edits.98 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013714 (Nov. 3, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: FOR APPROVAL: Pennsylvania & Election Poll”).
779¶On November 11, 2020, Reimer again revised a fundraising email sent to the Approvals Group. This time, he revised a claim that “President Trump won this election by a lot” to instead state that “President Trump got 71 MILLION LEGAL votes.”99 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013757 (Nov. 10, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: [External]Re: FOR APPROVAL: Defend the Election & Vaccine”); Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Kevin Zambrano, (Apr. 27, 2022), p. 106 (Zambrano concedes that the revision “creates a new sentence” that means something different.); Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of A. Zachary Parkinson, (May 18, 2022), p. 109 (In response to whether fair to say that that this was a substantive change, Parkinson states, “You could characterize it as that, I guess, yeah.”). Once again Cannon and Parkinson signed off on Reimer’s edits.100 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013757 (Nov. 10, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: [External]Re: FOR APPROVAL: Defend the Election & Vaccine”).
¶Also on November 11, 2020, Jenna Kirsch, associate counsel at the RNC, revised a fundraising email sent to the Approvals Group to, among other things, remove the request “to step up and contribute to our critical Election Defense Fund so that we can DEFEND the Election and secure FOUR MORE YEARS.”101 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013863 (Nov. 11, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: [External]Re: FOR APPROVAL: Alaska & Election Defense”) (emphasis in original). Instead of “secure FOUR MORE YEARS,” Kirsch’s revised version stated a contribution would “finish the fight.”102 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013863 (Nov. 11, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: [External]Re: FOR APPROVAL: Alaska & Election Defense”). Once again Cannon and Parkinson signed off on these edits for the Trump Campaign.103 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013863 (Nov. 11, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: [External]Re: FOR APPROVAL: Alaska & Election Defense”). Regarding the change to finish the fight, Zambrano conceded, “I would say this a substantive change from the legal department.”104 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Kevin Zambrano, (Apr. 27, 2022), p. 101. Kirsch made numerous edits like this, in which she removed assertions about “four more years.”105 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013891 (Nov. 12, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: FOR APPROVAL: NC, GA Election Defense” at 3:08 a.m.); Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013928 (Nov. 12, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: FOR APPROVAL: NC, GA Election Defense” at 4:49 a.m.); Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0014006 (Nov. 13, 2020, Fundraising email approval chain, “Re: [External]Re: FOR APPROVAL: Defense Fund & GA/NC Victory”). Such edits continued into late November 2020.
¶Further, Boedigheimer stated that he took questions to RNC legal in the post-election period about TMAGAC fundraisers using the “steal the election” language.106 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Austin Boedigheimer, (Apr. 20, 2022), pp. 84, 137. The RNC was clearly aware that President Trump’s claims regarding the election were not true and tried to have it both ways.
¶The private split between the RNC and the Trump Campaign became even more pronounced when President Trump decided to double down on his false election fraud claims and chose Rudolph Giuliani to lead his legal efforts to overturn the election.107 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Ahrens, (Sep. 1, 2022), pp. 14-15. On November 19, 2020, Giuliani held a press conference at the RNC’s headquarters in which he falsely suggested that the Biden Campaign orchestrated an elaborate nationwide voter-fraud scheme.108 Jane C. Timm, “Rudy Giuliani baselessly alleges ‘centralized’ voter fraud at free-wheeling news conference,” NBC News (Nov. 19, 2020), available at https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/rudy-giuliani-baselessly-alleges-centralized-voter-fraud-free-wheeling-news-n1248273. Cassie Docksey, a senior RNC staffer at the time, recalled that she spoke that day with Michael Ahrens, then the RNC’s communications director, about the diverging from the Trump Campaign.109 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Cassie Docksey, (Aug. 25, 2022), p. 37. Ahrens told her that the RNC would no longer automatically amplify or replicate statements from the Trump Campaign or President Trump’s legal team.110 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Cassie Docksey, (Aug. 25, 2022), p. 37 (“So on that press conference day, which I think is November 19th, Michael and I talked after that where he was generally telling me, ‘Hey, we don’t need to be out there. It’s not automatic that we’re just going to go out there and parallel or mimic what the campaign or what Rudy Giuliani or that legal team might be saying. Don’t feel the need to put that through on the GOP social channels.’”). Docksey understood Ahrens to be relaying a decision made at the most senior levels of the RNC.111 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Cassie Docksey, (Aug. 25, 2022), p. 38.
¶Ahrens asserted that the RNC was unwilling to adopt the wide-ranging, baseless assertions President Trump’s legal team was making and quietly decided to focus its communication strategy elsewhere.112 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Ahrens, (Sep. 1, 2022), pp. 15-16. Ahrens thought this press conference was “embarrassing” and that other members of the RNC leadership team shared his view. Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Ahrens, (Sep. 1, 2022), pp. 28-29. Distancing the RNC from President Trump’s false statements was a “regular course of the job before the election,” and it “carried through after the election” in relation to President Trump’s false claims about the election.113 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Ahrens, (Sep. 1, 2022), pp. 19-20. Starting at or before the November 19, 2020, press conference, the RNC senior leadership was in agreement that they would not claim that President Trump had won the election,114 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Ahrens, (Sep. 1, 2022), pp. 21-22. although the RNC “frequently” had to have internal discussions about President Trump’s false statements about the election.115 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Ahrens, (Sep. 1, 2022), pp. 25-27.
780¶According to Michael Reed, then the RNC’s deputy chief of staff for communications, “there were conversations amongst [RNC] legal and comms and digital to ensure that anything that was being written by the digital team based off of something President Trump or the Campaign said was something we all were more comfortable with.”116 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Reed, (July 20, 2022), pp. 56, 58 (“[T]here was a conversation at some point in November, December with either colleagues of mine or the legal team at the RNC” about the messaging that was coming out of TMAGAC.”); Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Reed, (July 20, 2022), p. 65, Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Reed, (July 20, 2022), p. 66 (recalling “that there were conversations at some point that the RNC was more comfortable with more toned-down emails”). RNC Chairwoman McDaniel was a part of these conversations.117 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Reed, (July 20, 2022), pp. 85, 86 (“I generally remember in regards to these emails in the post-election period conversations to make sure that the legal team and the chairman’s office or whatever else was comfortable with the language that was going out of the JFC.”).
¶RNC leadership knew that President Trump was lying to the American people. Yet, they did nothing to publicly distance themselves from his efforts to overturn the election. The RNC’s response was merely to tinker around the edges of the fundraising copy but never to fundamentally challenge the one message that remained present in TMAGAC’s post-election fundraising copy—President Trump’s Big Lie.
¶In the end, multiple senior RNC staffers approved fundraising emails raising questions about the election results even though they did not know of any evidence about fraud impacting the winner of the 2020 Presidential election. For example, Cassie Docksey stated that she was not aware of any fraud that impacted the results of the Presidential election.118 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Cassie Docksey, (Aug. 25, 2022), p. 45. Ahrens conceded that “there was not evidence that we [the RNC] had seen that he [President Trump] won the election, that Biden had not won the election.”119 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Michael Ahrens, (Sep. 1, 2022), p. 22.
¶Similarly, Justin Clark was “not aware of [fraudulent activity . . . to like defraud voters] by an individual or an entity that would have [changed the outcome of an election].”120 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Justin Clark, (May 17, 2022), p. 202. Alex Cannon “did not find or see, in [his] limited ability as one individual . . . evidence that would be sufficient within the time period to change any sort of election results in any of the States.”121 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alexander Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), p. 183.
¶Nonetheless, the RNC and the Trump Campaign continued to send out hundreds of emails, spreading the Big Lie to and fundraising off of millions of supporters. Even though the RNC had closely held reservations about repeating the most extreme and unsupportable claims of fraud, the RNC stayed the course with a coordinated, single fundraising plan with the Trump Campaign. The RNC privately and quietly softened the most blatantly egregious claims written by its own copywriters but publicly stood shoulder to shoulder with President Trump and his Big Lie.
781¶This is clearly evidenced by multiple TMAGAC emails in late December 2020 that asserted that former Vice President Joe Biden would be an “illegitimate President” when he took office.122 Trump Fundraising Emails (@TrumpEmail), Twitter, Dec. 20, 2020 12:20 p.m. ET, available at https://twitter.com/TrumpEmail/status/1341433522331017217; Trump Fundraising Emails (@TrumpEmail), Twitter, Dec. 27, 2020 3:23 p.m. ET, available at https://twitter.com/TrumpEmail/status/1343291529943781378. These emails came after December 14, 2020, the day electors from each State met to cast their votes for President and Vice President. These emails came after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear that he accepted the electoral college’s certification of Biden’s victory. These emails came after President Trump and his allies had lost all but one lawsuit challenging the election.123 William Cummings, Joey Garrison and Jim Sergent, “By the numbers: President Donald Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the election,” USA Today, (Jan. 6, 2021), available at https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/elections/2021/01/06/trumps-failed-efforts-overturn-election-numbers/4130307001/. None of this made a difference to TMAGAC. When asked why TMAGAC would repeatedly send these emails stating that former Vice President Biden would be an illegitimate President, Hanna Allred, the chief copywriter, stated that it would be because the emails were “effective” for fundraising.124 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Hanna Allred, (Mar. 30, 2022), pp. 117-118.
Trump Campaign Discussions
¶Alex Cannon was so bothered by the emails he was reviewing as a member of the Approvals Group that he took his concerns to Justin Clark, the campaign’s deputy campaign manager. Cannon explained that he had discussions with Clark about the problematic tone of the post-election TMAGAC emails and noted to Clark that the emails “seemed a little over the top to [him].”125 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alexander Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), p. 144; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Justin Clark, (May. 17, 2022), pp. 177-178 (“[I]n terms of people raising concerns about it, Alexander Cannon, at one point, came into my office and said something to the effect—and he was just doing legal reviews. It was like, I can’t believe we’re sending this stuff out, or something to that effect. I said—I told him he should go talk to Gary and speak to him about it, and I told him you don’t need to do legal reviews on these anymore. . . It was just about information that he knew wasn’t correct.”). Cannon raised those concerns because, after spending weeks researching which fraud claims were verifiable and which were not, Cannon saw that the TMAGAC emails were inconsistent with the fact that systemic fraud did not exist.126 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alexander Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), p. 178. Cannon also recalled that he may have expressed concern to Matt Morgan, the campaign’s general counsel, regarding the difference between claims of election fraud made in the TMAGAC fundraising emails and his conclusion that there was not fraud that impacted the election results.127 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alexander Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), p. 180. Cannon was not aware of any actions taken to address the concerns he had with this inconsistency.128 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alexander Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), p. 180.
¶Justin Clark could not recall whether he looked at any fundraising emails after Cannon raised these concerns or whether Cannon spoke to Gary Coby about the substance of the fundraising emails.129 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Justin Clark, (May. 17, 2022), p. 178.
Challenges From Within the Digital Team
¶In the days after the election, one junior copywriter presented senior Campaign staffers with a template for a more honest approach. Shortly after election night, Coby led a meeting of the entire Trump digital team, which included individuals from the Campaign, the RNC, Opn Sesame, Direct Persuasion, and others. In that meeting, as Coby addressed the staff and expressed that the digital team would continue to work, Ethan Katz, an RNC staffer in his early twenties, rose to ask a question:130 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Nov. 3, 2021), p. 2; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Jan. 21, 2022), p. 1. How were staffers supposed to tell voters that the Trump Campaign wanted to keep counting votes in Arizona but stop counting votes in other States (like Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan)?131 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Nov. 3, 2021), p. 2; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Jan. 21, 2022), p. 1.
782¶Katz said that Coby provided an answer without substance, which caused Katz to reiterate his question. His question made clear that the Campaign’s position was wildly inconsistent.132 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Nov. 3, 2021), p. 2; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Jan. 21, 2022), p. 1. Allred and Boedigheimer corroborated that Katz confronted leadership.133 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Hanna Allred, (Mar. 30, 2022), p. 69; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Austin Boedigheimer, (Apr. 20, 2022), p. 89.
¶Katz also recalled that, shortly after the election, Allred directed him to write an email declaring that President Trump had won the State of Pennsylvania before anyone had called Pennsylvania for either party.134 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Nov. 3, 2021), p. 2; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Jan. 21, 2022), p. 1. Katz believed the Trump Campaign wanted to send this email out to preempt a potential call that was likely to be in former Vice President Biden’s favor.135 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Nov. 3, 2021), p. 2; Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Jan. 21, 2022), p. 1. He refused to write the email. Allred was stunned, and instead assigned it to another copywriter.136 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Nov. 3, 2021). Allred confirmed that Katz expressed discomfort at writing such an email and that she relied on another copywriter.137 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Hanna Allred, (Mar. 30, 2022), pp. 83-86. (Allred confirmed that Boedigheimer would have given the directive to draft this email); Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Hanna Allred, (Mar. 30, 2022), p. 86. On November 4, 2020, the Trump Campaign sent out an email preemptively and falsely declaring that President Trump won Pennsylvania.138 Trump Fundraising Emails (@TrumpEmail), Twitter, Nov. 4, 2020, 9:42 a.m. available at https://twitter.com/TrumpEmail/status/1324180321676546050.
¶Katz was fired approximately three weeks after the election.139 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Ethan Katz, (Nov. 3, 2021), p. 3. In an interview with the Select Committee, when Allred was asked why Katz, her direct report, was fired, she explained that she was not sure why because TMAGAC was raising more money than ever after the election, but that the decision was not hers to make.140 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Informal Interview of Hanna Allred, (Dec. 1, 2021), p. 7.
Concerns Raised by Trump Campaign Vendor Iterable
¶The Trump Campaign knew that emails that the Approvals Group had blessed were being rejected by another email service provider. After the election, the Trump Campaign attempted to expand the reach of their false voter fraud emails. The Trump Campaign formed a company named DataPier, owned by Cannon and Sean Dollman.141 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alexander Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), p. 176. DataPier hired an outside company named Iterable to deliver its emails.142 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alexander Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), pp. 116-117. Cannon tried to send “toned-down RNC emails,” through Iterable, but they still had to be “further toned [] down through [an] iterative process[.]”143 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alexander Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), p. 137. Similarly, on January 6th, DataPier stopped sending emails, and the list went cold, and, therefore, DataPier is now defunct; see Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Transcribed Interview of Alexander Cannon, (Apr. 13, 2022), p. 122. For example, on November 7, 2020, Seth Charles, who was then Iterable’s principal email deliverability and industry relations manager, said that there was an issue with the TMAGAC copy and offered line edits.144 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0002048 (Nov. 7, 2020, email from Seth Charles to Darren Centinello, Alexander Cannon, Sean Dollman, and Sarah Grounder, “FW: [PROOF] Michael – increase your impact NOW”). (“Again this comes in chorus with less inflammatory language that could be misleading as accusatory or assuming intent upon a particular population.”). Two days later, Charles recommended to the Trump Campaign staffers that they look for “modified copy there [from TMAGAC emails] to be a little less threatening.”145 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0004724 (Nov. 9, 2020, email from Seth Charles to Darren Centinello, Alexander Cannon, Sean Dollman, and Sarah Grounder, “Re: FW: [PROOF] Hanna – I need you.”). Charles claimed that some TMAGAC copy “obviously insinuates the so far unsubstantiated theory of voter fraud, as well as contributions and legal actions will result in some sort of different outcome.”146 Documents on file with the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (Alexander Cannon Production), AC-0013741 (Nov. 11, 2020, email from Seth Charles to Darren Centinello, Alexander Cannon, Sean Dollman, and Sarah Grounder, “Re: FW: [PROOF] BIG NEWS”).
¶But Salesforce, TMAGAC’s original email service provider, continued sending millions of Trump Campaign emails up until January 6th.
Internal Complaints at Salesforce
¶The Trump Campaign knew that emails that the Approvals Group had blessed were being rejected by Iterable. However, the RNC continued to send millions of Trump Campaign emails through Salesforce, TMAGAC’s original email service provider, up until January 6th. Evidence uncovered by the Select Committee shows that there were internal concerns at Salesforce regarding the content of the TMAGAC emails.
783¶The Select Committee interviewed an individual (“J. Doe”) who worked at Salesforce during the post-election period during which TMAGAC was sending out the fundraising emails concerning false election fraud claims.147 J. Doe expressed safety concerns and a fear of retaliation for cooperating with the Select Committee. Accordingly, the Select Committee has not revealed their identity. Doe worked for Salesforce’s privacy and abuse management team, colloquially known as the abuse desk.148 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of J. Doe, (May 20, 2022), pp. 7-8. An abuse desk is responsible for preventing fraud and abuse emanating from the provider’s user or subscriber network.
¶Doe indicated to the Select Committee that, as soon as early 2020, they recalled issues arising with the RNC’s use of Salesforce’s services and that a “deluge of abuse would’ve started in June-ish.”149 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of J. Doe, (May 20, 2022), p. 30. Doe noted that Salesforce received a high number of complaints regarding the RNC’s actions, which would have been primarily the fundraising efforts of TMAGAC.150 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of J. Doe, (May 20, 2022), pp. 30-31. In the latter half of 2020, Doe noticed that the emails coming from the RNC’s account included more and more violent and inflammatory rhetoric in violation of Salesforce’s Master Service Agreement (“MSA”) with the RNC, which prohibited the use of violent content.151 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of J. Doe, (May 20, 2022), pp. 42-43. Doe stated that, near the time of the election, they contacted senior individuals at Salesforce to highlight the “increasingly concerning” emails coming from the RNC’s account.152 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of J. Doe, (May 20, 2022), p. 46. Doe explained that senior individuals at Salesforce effectively ignored their emails about TMAGAC’s inflammatory emails153 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of J. Doe, (May 20, 2022), p. 47. and Salesforce ignored the terms of the MSA and permitted the RNC to continue to use its account in this problematic manner.154 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of J. Doe, (May 20, 2022), pp. 49-50. Doe said, “Salesforce very obviously didn’t care about anti-abuse.”155 Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, Deposition of J. Doe, (May 20, 2022), p. 25.
¶Ultimately, the Trump Campaign and the RNC let the Big Lie spread because they were making hundreds of millions of dollars from President Trump’s supporters who believed that lie. The Big Rip-off needed the Big Lie to motivate unsuspecting individuals to donate their money to a lost cause, and it worked.