Embattled Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel may have played one of the larger roles in getting Donald Trump charged with crimes for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
McDaniel has been an outspoken Trump defender despite his electoral drag on GOP candidates, which now threatens her leadership after a lackluster midterm showing, but the House select committee highlighted her testimony as key in establishing proof the ex-president conspired to make a false statement in the fake elector plot, reported MSNBC's Ja'han Jones.
"Thanks to previous hearings, we already knew some of the details McDaniel told the committee’s investigators about Trump’s role in organizing people nationwide to submit false Electoral College slates to Congress declaring Trump the winner in their states," Jones writes. "In this video [shown in public hearings], for example, you’ll see her testify that Trump put her on the phone with John Eastman to discuss obtaining assistance from the RNC, on a call made from the White House switchboard."
That phone call, as McDaniel described, was determined by the committee to provide proof of “an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy,” and that played a key role in their decision to refer Trump to the Department of Justice for prosecution.
"McDaniel, as RNC chair, kicked off the year excusing and obscuring some of Trump’s worst election misconduct," Jones writes. "At year’s end, he could be facing criminal charges — and McDaniel is one of the reasons why."
