digital team.[13] Zambrano explained, "The majority of the staff was at the RNC doing both RNC and TMAGAC work."[14] This work was focused squarely on fundraising.[15]
The RNC digital team included Austin Boedigheimer, who, starting in January 2019, was the RNC's digital deputy director[16] and technically served as Zambrano's deputy.[17] In reality, Boedigheimer reported to both Zambrano and Coby.[18] Boedigheimer also led the TMAGAC digital fundraising team, which was comprised of all online fundraising efforts, including fundraising emails and text messages.[19] At the end of the 2020 cycle, that team had 20 or 30 people within smaller teams, such as the copy team, the text message team, the data team, the advertising team, and the graphics team.[20]
The RNC digital team also included a team of copywriters, who were responsible for writing the fundraising emails and text messages to solicit small-dollar donations through TMAGAC.[21] These copywriters reported to Hanna Allred, the RNC's Chief Copywriter.[22] By mid-2020, there were three copywriters who reported to Allred: Alex Murglin,[23] Ethan Katz,[24] and Alex Blinkoff.[25] Blinkoff and Katz worked in that role from June 2020 until they were fired approximately three weeks after the 2020 election, while Murglin remains a copywriter at the RNC.
Although the TMAGAC team consisted of both Trump Campaign and RNC staffers, TMAGAC operated as one entity working towards one goal— raising as much money as possible.[26]
B. The Fundraising Assembly Line
The copywriting process worked like an assembly line, where different individuals performed a task and passed on the work product to someone else, including for internal approval.[27] To generate content for fundraising communications, Allred explained, the copywriting fundraising team was "watching the messaging coming out of the committee [RNC] and the campaign and from the President himself and what his family was talking about."[28] For example, in a November 2020 email, Boedigheimer stated to Allred, "Good to include lines like [']we need the resources to make sure they don't try to steal this election. We saw what happened on election night, we can't let them take the senate too.[']"[29]
It was evident that the copywriters "would draft a lot of the content based on . . . what the President was saying."[30] And there was no mistaking it, President Trump "was providing us [the copywriters] with a lot of content online."[31] Allred said Boedigheimer was encouraging her to use this language because it would cause President Trump's supporters to donate by "giving a purpose to their donation"[32] and that they used this repeatedly because it worked.[33] Boedigheimer did not dispute this, and reaffirmed that such language had been successful at fundraising.[34]
