A member of the Republican National Committee who circulated two draft resolutions opposing picking up former President Donald Trump’s legal bills said the organization’s job is to win elections.
“We should spend our finite resources on political operations and actually winning elections, and paying any candidate’s legal fees — or frankly, any other outside fees or expenses — is not the RNC’s job,” Henry Barbour, a national committeeman from Mississippi, told CNN’s Dana Bash on Inside Politics on Monday.
Barbour’s effort comes after Trump called to change the RNC’s leadership, endorsing current North Carolina GOP Chairman and RNC general counsel Michael Whatley to replace Ronna McDaniel. Trump also backed daughter-in-law Lara for RNC co-chairwoman and senior campaign adviser Chris LaCivita to be RNC’s chief operating officer.
Speaking at Trump’s South Carolina campaign headquarters last week, Lara Trump said she thought Republican voters would be open to the RNC paying the former president’s legal fees. In 2021, the party’s executive committee agreed to pay $1.6 million in legal bills as Donald Trump battled investigations into his private businesses.
In a statement Saturday, the Trump campaign opposed Barbour’s resolution to block the RNC from engaging in such a practice.
“The primary is over and it is the RNC’s sole responsibility to defeat Joe Biden and win back the White House,” LaCivita said. “Efforts to delay that assist Joe Biden in the destruction of our nation. Republicans cannot stand on the sidelines and allow this to happen.”
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In response, on Monday, Barbour called LaCivita “a good man” and a “good operative” but added, “He just happens to be wrong.”
“I respect LaCivita. He’s very good at what he does, and a lot of the Trump campaign is very talented. So I appreciate that, but they need to respect the rules of the RNC,” Barbour said. “That No. 1, we have to be neutral, and No. 2, we should spend our resources on winning elections and not on legal fees for candidates of any type.”
