instead used language of insinuation. For example, on November 10, 2020, Justin Reimer, RNC's then-chief counsel, revised a fundraising email sent to the Approvals Group to remove the sentence that "Joe Biden should not wrongfully claim the office of the President."[96] Instead, Reimer indicated the email should read, "Joe Biden does not get to decide when this election ends. Only LEGAL ballots must be counted and verified."[97] Both Alex Cannon and Zach Parkinson signed off on Reimer's edits.[98]
On November 11, 2020, Reimer again revised a fundraising email sent to the Approvals Group. This time, he revised a claim that "President Trump won this election by a lot" to instead state that "President Trump got 71 MILLION LEGAL votes."[99] Once again Cannon and Parkinson signed off on Reimer's edits.[100]
Also on November 11, 2020, Jenna Kirsch, associate counsel at the RNC, revised a fundraising email sent to the Approvals Group to, among other things, remove the request "to step up and contribute to our critical Election Defense Fund so that we can DEFEND the Election and secure FOUR MORE YEARS."[101] Instead of "secure FOUR MORE YEARS," Kirsch's revised version stated a contribution would "finish the fight."[102] Once again Cannon and Parkinson signed off on these edits for the Trump Campaign.[103] Regarding the change to finish the fight, Zambrano conceded, "I would say this a substantive change from the legal department."[104] Kirsch made numerous edits like this, in which she removed assertions about "four more years."[105] Such edits continued into late November 2020.
Further, Boedigheimer stated that he took questions to RNC legal in the post-election period about TMAGAC fundraisers using the "steal the election" language.[106] The RNC was clearly aware that President Trump's claims regarding the election were not true and tried to have it both ways.
The private split between the RNC and the Trump Campaign became even more pronounced when President Trump decided to double down on his false election fraud claims and chose Rudolph Giuliani to lead his legal efforts to overturn the election.[107] On November 19, 2020, Giuliani held a press conference at the RNC's headquarters in which he falsely suggested that the Biden Campaign orchestrated an elaborate nationwide voter-fraud scheme.[108] Cassie Docksey, a senior RNC staffer at the time, recalled that she spoke that day with Michael Ahrens, then the RNC's communications director, about the diverging from the Trump Campaign.[109] Ahrens told her that the RNC would no longer automatically amplify or replicate statements from the Trump Campaign or President Trump's legal team.[110] Docksey understood Ahrens to be relaying a decision made at the most senior levels of the RNC.[111]
Ahrens asserted that the RNC was unwilling to adopt the wide-ranging, baseless assertions President Trump's legal team was making and quietly
