RNC Trying To Hide Trump Campaign Data From January 6 Probe

Short of a court order stopping the transfer, the Jan. 6 committee could soon receive a trove of key records that investigators argue may show how the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) promotion of former President Donald Trump’s election fraud conspiracies to fundraisers and other party supporters heightened the prospects for disarray at the Capitol last year.

The RNC and the select committee have been going head to head in federal court for weeks as the congressional panel has pushed to obtain RNC records held by software vendor Salesforce. The vendor, according to investigators, provided a platform for “inflammatory” disinformation to be sent to the masses, including fundraising email blasts sent right up to 30 minutes before the assault began.

The next steps will be determined at a federal court late Wednesday in Washington. According to the RNC’s amended lawsuit, since Salesforce attorneys have now indicated the company will comply with the document request, the RNC will sue Salesforce, too.

In an update this afternoon about an hour before the status conference:

Adding Salesforce as a defendant in its complaint, the RNC slammed the committee’s demand as a dire violation of its constitutional rights and dangerous overreach that could expose data belonging to millions of RNC supporters and partners as well as “internal deliberations and digital strategy” coveted by political opponents.

The subpoena, according to the RNC, requested detailed metrics from their organization as well as the Trump campaign and the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, including data on engagement rates or “login sessions” by Trump campaign or RNC officials using Salesforce’s cloud platform.

According to the RNC’s complaint, the committee also seeks records from each day in January 2021 that involved any discussion or investigation or analysis on protests, rallies, speeches, or marches in D.C. on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6.

Older data reaching back from Election Day 2020 through Jan. 31, 2021 involving internal analysis by Salesforce about the use of its platform with the RNC and Trump campaign is also demanded.

The RNC vehemently maintains that it had “nothing to do with the violence that occurred at the Capitol,” according to a press release found on its website announcing the lawsuit.

Adding Salesforce as a defendant, RNC Chief Counsel Justin Riemer said, was meant to expedite their fight to keep the documents private while also “[protecting] the constitutional rights of the Republican Party and its millions of supporters.”

RNC Motion for Prelim Injunction by Daily Kos on Scribd

Though the RNC insists the “breadth and invasiveness of the Salesforce subpoena is astounding,” investigators insist that their latest demand is essential to examining and understanding how Jan. 6 came to be, in its entirety.

Salesforce Subpoena From Ja... by Daily Kos

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos