RNC's new election integrity counsel Christina Bobb pushed false 2020 Wisconsin false claims

MADISON – The Republican National Committee has hired an attorney to work in its legal unit focused on elections who has falsely claimed Wisconsin's 2020 election to be "fraudulent" and publicly pressured state GOP leaders to act on baseless conspiracy theories.

Christina Bobb, a former reporter for the conservative One America News Network and attorney for the Trump campaign, was hired by RNC officials in recent days as the senior counsel on election integrity. The hiring was announced after the RNC merged with the Trump campaign as Trump secured the GOP presidential nomination.

The hiring raises questions about how Trump and national Republicans will respond to the outcome of the 2024 election in Wisconsin if Biden again wins the state's 10 electoral votes, especially as the RNC plans to hold its national convention in the state's largest city this summer. In 2020, Wisconsin was central to Trump's effort to stay in power through an unsuccessful plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence accept slates of false GOP electors and refuse to certify the election for Biden.

In a memo released this week, RNC chairman Michael Whatley said the GOP's election priorities this cycle "will include a broader effort over the coming months to challenge voter identification and signature verification rules which were put into place for the 2020 election."

"The RNC’s new posture as it relates to this litigation will be an aggressive, proactive effort to ensure that it will be easy to vote and hard to cheat," Whatley wrote. A spokeswoman for the RNC did not respond to questions about what the efforts would entail.

The RNC's election integrity unit will be led by longtime Republican attorney Charlie Spies, who in 2021 pushed back against false claims of voting machines switching votes from Trump to President Joe Biden.

"I may get booed off the stage for this, but I have to say that's simply not true," Spies said at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference while participating in a panel discussion. "There is just zero evidence that's true."

Bobb took a different stance on the 2020 election and in 2021 and was sued by Dominion, a voting machine software manufacturer that was the most prominent target of false election conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, Bobb also pushed false claims about Biden's victory in the Badger State and took aim at Wisconsin's Republican lawmakers for not doing more to litigate Trump's loss.

"The Wisconsin Election Commission intentionally orchestrated a criminal and fraudulent election. WEC needs to be dissolved immediately," Bobb posted on the social media X, then known as Twitter, in October 2021.

Recounts, court rulings, state audits and a study by a prominent conservative group have confirmed Biden won Wisconsin in 2020 by nearly 21,000 votes.

An RNC spokeswoman did not answer questions about whether Bobb still believes Wisconsin's 2020 election was fraudulent and whether the RNC also holds that position.

In a public back-and-forth with Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in 2022 on X, Bobb accused Vos of being either corrupt or an idiot for backing legislation to allow election clerks to begin processing ballots the day before Election Day to prevent the posting of voting totals late at night. She also called Vos a "lying snake" in the exchange.

Vos, who has been speaker for 10 years and represented the southeastern Wisconsin 63rd Assembly District since 2005, is the most effective Republican in the GOP-controlled state Legislature but has faced fierce criticism from members of his own party — especially from Trump — in recent years over his rejection of calls to decertify the 2020 election, which has been impossible for as long as supporters of Trump have called for the idea.

A group is trying to force a recall election of Vos this year.

"You have done nothing to secure the elections and are making it easier for Dems to cheat. You’re either an idiot or corrupt. Why are you pushing this?!" she wrote to Vos.

In an Oct. 6, 2021, appearance on WTAQ, Bobb said she asked Vos in an interview for OANN why he hadn't reviewed voting machines, ballots and other election materials used during the 2020 election.

And in January 2023, Bobb called Vos "an impish little coward" for not doing more to litigate the 2020 election.

Vos did not respond to a request for comment on Bobb's hiring by the RNC. But in a post on the social media platform X, Vos said Monday "Since most of (Bobb's) 'reporting' at OAN was going after conservatives who didn't agree with her, let's hope she doesn't do the same thing at the RNC hurting conservatives chances to win in 2024."

A group headed by Bobb also paid for a group of Wisconsin Republicans to travel to Arizona in 2021 to observe a controversial ballot review in Maricopa County. The group included state Rep. Janel Brandtjen of Menomonee Falls, who has been the state Legislature's most prominent proponent of false election claims. Reps. Rachael Cabral-Guevara of Appleton, Dave Murphy of Greenville and Chuck Wichgers of Muskego also made the trek to Phoenix that year.

Molly Beck can be reached at molly.beck@jrn.com.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: RNC hire Christina Bobb pushed Wisconsin false election claims