Fingered: Meet the notorious Trump operative who delivered the false elector lists
Politico on Friday identified the Donald Trump aide who delivered lists of fake electors in a bid to get them to Mike Pence.
"Mike Roman, then Trump’s 2020 director of Election Day operations, delivered those false elector certificates — signed by pro-Trump activists in Michigan and Wisconsin — to Rep. Mike Kelly’s (R-PA) chief of staff at the time, both people told Politico," Kyle Cheney and Nicholas Wu reported. "Kelly was a Trump ally in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, and his then-top aide received the documents from Roman before deputizing a colleague to disseminate copies on Capitol Hill, according to both people."
Roman was subpoenaed in February by the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
"The origin of the false elector lists, which never got to Pence before he presided over certification of Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, has become an enduring subplot in the select panel’s investigation of the Capitol attack designed to disrupt that day," Politico reported. "After the committee revealed the role of a top aide to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) in the episode during a hearing last month, Johnson said the false elector lists came from Kelly — who has repeatedly denied any involvement by his office in their distribution."
Kelly chief of staff Matt Stroia was reportedly the intermediary.
The Trump White House did not announce Roman's hiring.
"Mike Roman, a longtime Republican opposition researcher who worked for billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch before joining the Trump campaign, is now the White House’s director of special projects and research," ProPublica reported in May of 2017. "He is one of a half-dozen unannounced hires the White House has made since President Trump took office. Roman, who led the Kochs’ surveillance and intelligence-gathering unit before it was disbanded in April 2016, is best known for promoting a video showing members of the New Black Panthers allegedly intimidating voters outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008."
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"ProPublica noted "Roman, who made roughly $246,000 in salary from the Koch-backed Freedom Partners, according to his financial disclosure, was also a contributor to the conservative news site Breitbart and was tapped to run Trump's 'election protection' poll-watching efforts this November."
Roman would again run Trump's election day operation in 2020 and has a long history of election activism.
"A veteran Republican operative who got his start in politics by helping to persuade a judge to throw out hundreds of mail-in ballots is organizing an 'army' of volunteers for President Donald Trump’s campaign to monitor voting in Democratic-leaning areas on Tuesday," the AP reported on election day. "Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day Operations, is a former White House aide from Pennsylvania who gathered claims in 1993 of voter fraud, resulting in a court ruling overturning election results and getting his candidate seated in the Pennsylvania State Senate. It’s a strategy that Trump has been advocating on Twitter and on the stump."
In 2015, Politico reported on Roman under the heading, "The Koch intelligence agency."
"The political network helmed by Charles and David Koch has quietly built a secretive operation that conducts surveillance and intelligence gathering on its liberal opponents, viewing it as a key strategic tool in its efforts to reshape American public life," Kenneth Vogel reported. "The competitive intelligence team has a staff of 25, including one former CIA analyst, and operates from one of the non-descript Koch network offices clustered near the Courthouse metro stop in suburban Arlington, Va."
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A former official with the group described Roman, who was paid $286,000 the previous year.
“They act all cloak and dagger – like the CIA. There was a joke about how hardly anyone ever met Mike Roman. It was like, if you wanted to find him, he’d be in a trench coat on the National Mall,” said the former official.
The select committee subpoena says, "it appears" Roman "helped direct" Trump staffers on the phony electors scheme.
Watch Alex Wagner report on Mike Roman below or at this link.
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