review the emails from a "legal perspective" by "essentially making sure that there's no legal issues with the content."[49]
Regarding communications, Boedigheimer stated that the communications staffers in the Approvals Group were reviewing the content and "[m]aking sure that it's on message and good from a comms perspective."[50]
Lastly, Boedigheimer explained that the research team was "looking for . . . things that are inaccurate."[51]
Although Boedigheimer provided only a vague explanation of the role of the Approvals Group, he emphasized that he had to "trust that the research, the comms, and the legal team are going to do their processes to make sure it's [the TMAGAC fundraising copy was] accurate."[52] He further noted, "[I]t was the approval chain's job to see what the accuracy of the email is and whether it's true or not. . . . We were sending information and then leaning on our approval chain to make sure that it's accurate."[53]
The Select Committee's investigation revealed that the Approvals Group did not operate that way, however. The Select Committee interviewed members of the Approvals Group handling the communications, research, and legal functions and confirmed that members of the Approvals Group typically engaged only in cursory reviews of the fundraising messages and did not review substantive claims of election fraud for accuracy.
Zach Parkinson, the Trump Campaign's Deputy Director of Communications and Research Director, represented the Trump Campaign's communications and research functions in the Approvals Group. Parkinson made clear, "Generally, our role when it came to fundraising emails and texts was to approve them for the communications team."[54] Parkinson noted that that he was typically the person who weighed in on behalf of the Trump Campaign's communications and research team.[55] He added, "we would review them for messaging consistency, sometimes we would review them for factual accuracy, and then we would provide the communications approval for those."[56]
Parkinson clarified that the scope of review for "factual accuracy" was limited. Specifically, his review of fundraising emails and text messages for accuracy was limited to questions concerning items such as time and location.[57]
Critically, Parkinson did not review statements regarding election fraud in the fundraising copy for accuracy because "most political text messages and fundraising emails are political rhetoric, and so a lot of them don't necessarily require fact checking."[58] He added that "political rhetoric," such as "Democrats are trying to steal the election," was not something he and his team were "necessarily tasked to say no to."[59] Parkinson made clear that he thought the legal department, namely Alex Cannon, would
