A “fake elector” who backed former President Donald Trump’s failed plan to reclaim the White House in 2020 is being ridiculed for calling his part in the plot “civic engagement.”
Arizonan conservative activist Tyler Bowyer took to X Thursday to ask the Republican National Committee to pay the legal fees of people prosecuted for following Trump’s “contingent elector plan.”
“With all of the problems ahead, we need to send a clear signal that the RNC will defend those who serve as electors against Democrat radicals trying to criminalize civic engagement,” Bowyer wrote.
“Civic engagement?” responded Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts. “That’s what we’re calling it now, when people sign legal documents and send them to Congress, avowing that they were ‘duly elected’ to cast Arizona’s electoral votes for the guy who didn’t win?”
While Bowyer argues the fund would fight “civil and criminal claims that aim to disrupt and dissuade our party’s most loyal activists and leaders from participating in normal election proceedings,” Roberts suggests he’s hoping they’ll “bail him out of jail.”
Roberts notes Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes is investigating Bowyer and other electors with help from a former Trump lawyer who pleaded guilty in Georgia’s criminal fake elector case.
“I’m guessing Mayes may be inching ever closer to indictments,” writes Roberts, “having interviewed Trump-aligned lawyer Kenneth Chesebro in December.”
Bowyer’s suggestion wasn’t met with much more enthusiasm on X, where users roasted him for his actions in 2020.
“Seriously, the guy who was an AZ fake elector and is facing potential criminal charges wants the RNC to defend this illegal behavior?” replied talk radio host Barry Markson.
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“How about just don't break the law and stop propagating fake conspiracy theories? Never in the history of the country has a political party needed a resolution to ‘defend our Electors.’ Because electors never did this illegal stuff.”
“Tyler and other TPUSA [Turning Point USA] grifters are responsible for pushing Trump into the Stop the Steal rally, eating up so much of time and money that leaves the GOP broke ahead of the election,” argued self-described Ron DeSantis supporter Stinson Norwood.
Floridian Chris Nelson sent Bowyer an image of a Raw Story report detailing Trump’s PAC funding of Melania’s $18,000-a-month stylist.
He asked, “You going to call out Trump for wasting money that can be used to beat Biden?”