A man currently in a relatively high-ranking role at the Republican National Committee (RNC) is among those whose potential communications the Justice Department is seeking amid its grand jury investigation into certain elements of the pro-Trump election subversion efforts after the last election.
That individual is Joshua Findlay, who used to work on the Trump team and is now a so-called national director for election integrity at the RNC. According to a POLITICO report, at least three subpoenaed witnesses in the Justice Department’s probe into the scheme to falsify electoral votes for Trump were directed to provide any communications within a certain time period to and from Findlay. Following the 2020 Republican National Convention, which Findlay helped deal with for the Trump campaign, Findlay joined the campaign’s legal team. The time period covered by the demands in the subpoenas — two of which went to witnesses in Arizona and a third that targeted a Georgia witness — is from October 2020 onward. The subpoenas also deal with potential communications involving other people and related materials.
Findlay’s name briefly surfaced in recent public proceedings of the House committee investigating the Capitol riot. Matt Morgan, who led the Trump campaign’s legal team, explained in taped testimony to the panel how he at one point had Findlay get in touch with lawyer Kenneth Chesebro about the fake electoral votes scheme. Morgan evidently wasn’t supportive of the plot: “At that point, I had Josh Findlay email Mr. Chesebro politely to say: ‘This is your task. You are responsible for the Electoral College issues moving forward.’ And this was my way of taking that responsibility to zero,'” Morgan said. Findlay, though, was tied to the fake electoral votes scheme beyond that point. He received an email on December 12, 2020, indicating Georgia GOP chairman David Shafer pointed someone under him to get in touch with Findlay about the electoral votes plot.
One would have to assume Findlay potentially provided some reason for Shafer to take him as a useful point of contact about the matter. The fake electoral votes scheme appears to be a key focus of Justice Department investigators so far, as department personnel examine post-election subversion attempts beyond the Capitol riot and its most immediate corollaries. It’s that particular context of the electoral votes plot in which the Justice Department was recently reported to be asking questions about actions Trump himself took in the aftermath of the election, although the department’s reported interest in Trump’s conduct didn’t end there. Department personnel are reportedly preparing for potential court fights over executive privilege amid their effort to get info from people around Donald.
RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told the House panel in taped testimony later revealed publicly that Trump at one point called her up to put attorney John Eastman on the phone to discuss the whole alternate electoral votes scheme, which had no legal foundation. The Georgia arm of the scheme is one of the key areas of focus for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in her ongoing criminal investigation into pro-Trump election subversion efforts. A Georgia judge recently ruled against most of the Georgian fake electors’ attempts to get out of grand jury subpoenas demanding their testimony as the Willis probe moves forward.
