Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and anti-Trump delegates traded blows on Tuesday in anticipation of a potential rules fight later this week.
Anti-Trump delegates earned a qualified victory in a Virginia court on Monday that effectively eliminated enforcement of a state law’s delegate-binding provision for residents of the commonwealth. The legal challenge brought by Virginia GOP delegate Beau Correll may have opened up the likelihood that similar state laws elsewhere face similar challenges, but it did nothing to expressly change the way the national Republican Party will write its nominating rules.
On a press call organized by Delegates Unbound, an organization looking to unbind GOP delegates from Trump, Correll’s attorneys looked to celebrate their win with some shots at Trump. The attorneys took aim at a Trump campaign press release issued on Monday arguing that the court had dealt a “crippling blow” to the anti-Trump movement.
“The Trump campaign has put out a press release that claims that they won in the district court case. Some people, I think, a fair way to describe this would be that it’s delusional. You could also say that it’s desperate,” said Andrew Grossman, a partner at Baker Hostetler. “The Trump campaign’s Virginia chairman as well as a number of other supporters of his campaign actually came into District Court and opposed Beau Correll’s request for relief… Needless to say they lost.”
The Trump campaign disputes any suggestion that they lost. Donald McGahn, a Trump campaign lawyer, told the Washington Examiner that court’s decision did not portend good news for anti-Trump delegates.
“The Court could have not been clearer that RNC rules bind delegates, could not have been clearer that this unbound theory that is spearheaded by Curly Haugland has no basis in the text of the rule,” McGahn said. “So if that’s a symbolic victory, I’d hate to see what a symbolic defeat looks like.”
The Trump campaign and anti-Trump delegates will likely lock horns later this week when the rules committee meets in Cleveland. The chain of events that would set any coup at the convention in motion would likely spawn from this week’s meetings.
David Drucker contributed reporting from Cleveland.
