A federal judge late Sunday rejected the Republican National Committee’s bid to block its mass email marketing vendor from releasing records to the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack as it probes whether President Donald Trump’s campaign spread false claims of fraud after the 2020 election through fundraising appeals that also stoked violence.
U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly of Washington delivered a thorough victory to the House select committee, tossing out the RNC’s claims that its and the Trump campaign’s information was protected on grounds including the First Amendment and ruling that under the Constitution’s grant of legislative powers to Congress and the speech-or-debate clause, judges cannot interfere with how lawmakers obtain and use information.
Kelly also dismissed the RNC’s claims against Salesforce — the business software giant used by the RNC and Trump’s reelection campaign — after the company and committee significantly narrowed the list of disputed records at issue, for example, dropping demands for any information that would reveal the identities of individual political donors. Kelly temporarily barred Salesforce from releasing any records to the House before Wednesday to give the national GOP committee time to appeal.
“It is hard to imagine a more important interest for Congress than to preserve its own ability to carry out specific duties assigned to it under the Constitution,” Kelly wrote in a 53-page opinion issued shortly before midnight. “To repeat: according to the Select Committee, its investigation and public reporting suggest that claims that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent or stolen motivated some who participated in the attack, and emails sent by the RNC and the Trump campaign using Salesforce’s platform spread those claims.”
Read the opinion here
The Republican National Committee sued on March 9 after the House panel issued a subpoena to Salesforce on Feb. 23 and said it was investigating whether the RNC and Trump campaign solicited campaign donations from Nov. 3, 2020, to Jan. 6, 2021, by pushing false and inflammatory claims of election fraud. The select committee said it wanted to understand the flow of funds and whether they went to their stated purpose.
Salesforce publicly announced that it had “taken action” against the RNC, a longtime customer, to “prevent its use of our services in any way that could lead to violence” after the Jan. 6 rioting against Congress as lawmakers met to certify President Biden’s election victory.
In court, House General Counsel’s Office attorney Eric Columbus argued, “Salesforce had reason to believe its platform had been used to fan the flames that generated January 6. … The committee wants to know what work product led them to believe that.”
The joint effort by the RNC and Trump campaign sent hundreds of emails between Election Day and Jan. 6 to hundreds of thousands of recipients, typically repeating unfounded claims that Democrats had stolen the election and urging donors to contribute, the committee said. For example, an email sent an hour before police lines at the Capitol were breached that day urged supporters to “FIGHT BACK,” under another header stating, “This is our LAST CHANCE.”
The RNC urged the judge to toss the subpoena, blasting the requests as overbroad, without valid legislative purpose and a thinly veiled attempt at political espionage.
RNC attorney Christopher O. Murray asserted that the national GOP’s greater effectiveness at digital fundraising in recent years comes from how it breaks down and organizes how groups of email recipients perform, and that such closely held proprietary information would quickly be leaked by Congress to its national Democratic counterparts.
For a congressional committee controlled by one of the nation’s two major political parties to use its legislative power to reveal the strategies and internal deliberations of the other party, Murray said, “Candidly, Your Honor, that’s a scandal.”
“Our trade secrets are how we effectuate our First Amendment rights” of free speech and political association, Murray said in fast-tracked oral arguments April 1, adding, “How we try to win elections is our secret sauce. … That’s what I think the congressional committee truly wants.”
In his opinion, Kelly, a 2017 Trump appointee, ruled that under the required balancing test, the subpoena was narrowly tailored to meet Congress’s “uniquely weighty” and “vital interest” in a thorough investigation of the Jan. 6 attack, and he called many of the RNC’s concerns overstated or speculative.
U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly of Washington delivered a thorough victory to the House select committee, tossing out the RNC’s claims that its and the Trump campaign’s information was protected on grounds including the First Amendment and ruling that under the Constitution’s grant of legislative powers to Congress and the speech-or-debate clause, judges cannot interfere with how lawmakers obtain and use information.
Kelly also dismissed the RNC’s claims against Salesforce — the business software giant used by the RNC and Trump’s reelection campaign — after the company and committee significantly narrowed the list of disputed records at issue, for example, dropping demands for any information that would reveal the identities of individual political donors. Kelly temporarily barred Salesforce from releasing any records to the House before Wednesday to give the national GOP committee time to appeal.
“It is hard to imagine a more important interest for Congress than to preserve its own ability to carry out specific duties assigned to it under the Constitution,” Kelly wrote in a 53-page opinion issued shortly before midnight. “To repeat: according to the Select Committee, its investigation and public reporting suggest that claims that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent or stolen motivated some who participated in the attack, and emails sent by the RNC and the Trump campaign using Salesforce’s platform spread those claims.”
Read the opinion here
The Republican National Committee sued on March 9 after the House panel issued a subpoena to Salesforce on Feb. 23 and said it was investigating whether the RNC and Trump campaign solicited campaign donations from Nov. 3, 2020, to Jan. 6, 2021, by pushing false and inflammatory claims of election fraud. The select committee said it wanted to understand the flow of funds and whether they went to their stated purpose.
Salesforce publicly announced that it had “taken action” against the RNC, a longtime customer, to “prevent its use of our services in any way that could lead to violence” after the Jan. 6 rioting against Congress as lawmakers met to certify President Biden’s election victory.
In court, House General Counsel’s Office attorney Eric Columbus argued, “Salesforce had reason to believe its platform had been used to fan the flames that generated January 6. … The committee wants to know what work product led them to believe that.”
The joint effort by the RNC and Trump campaign sent hundreds of emails between Election Day and Jan. 6 to hundreds of thousands of recipients, typically repeating unfounded claims that Democrats had stolen the election and urging donors to contribute, the committee said. For example, an email sent an hour before police lines at the Capitol were breached that day urged supporters to “FIGHT BACK,” under another header stating, “This is our LAST CHANCE.”
The RNC urged the judge to toss the subpoena, blasting the requests as overbroad, without valid legislative purpose and a thinly veiled attempt at political espionage.
RNC attorney Christopher O. Murray asserted that the national GOP’s greater effectiveness at digital fundraising in recent years comes from how it breaks down and organizes how groups of email recipients perform, and that such closely held proprietary information would quickly be leaked by Congress to its national Democratic counterparts.
For a congressional committee controlled by one of the nation’s two major political parties to use its legislative power to reveal the strategies and internal deliberations of the other party, Murray said, “Candidly, Your Honor, that’s a scandal.”
“Our trade secrets are how we effectuate our First Amendment rights” of free speech and political association, Murray said in fast-tracked oral arguments April 1, adding, “How we try to win elections is our secret sauce. … That’s what I think the congressional committee truly wants.”
In his opinion, Kelly, a 2017 Trump appointee, ruled that under the required balancing test, the subpoena was narrowly tailored to meet Congress’s “uniquely weighty” and “vital interest” in a thorough investigation of the Jan. 6 attack, and he called many of the RNC’s concerns overstated or speculative.