In response to a Trump ally pushing for “the January 6 movement” to be a part of the GOP convention just a day after reporting that Trump wants convicted felon Paul Manafort to help with the convention, DNC Rapid Response Director Alex Floyd released the following statement:

“This year’s Republican National Convention is shaping up to be a giant stage for Donald Trump’s soft-on-crime agenda. From pushing pardons for violent insurrectionists to elevating convicted tax cheats and fraudsters like Paul Manafort, Trump’s GOP is quickly becoming the ideal spot for anyone convicted of a felony.”

January 6 lawyer and Trump ally Joseph McBride has made it clear he wants “the January 6 movement” to be a part of the Republican National Convention.

Semafor: “In early 2022, Joseph McBride, a lawyer for multiple January 6 defendants, went to Mar-a-Lago to speak with members of Trump’s team. Since that first meeting, McBride says he’s spoken with people across Trump’s orbit — even meeting with Trump’s legal team on occasion — and that January 6 events have grown organically over time.”

“McBride told Semafor he’d like the January 6 movement to have a presence at the Republican National Convention this summer.”

Despite Manafort’s multiple convictions for fraud, Donald Trump is pushing to bring him on to help run the Republican convention. 

New York Times: “Paul Manafort, a top adviser to Donald J. Trump’s 2016 campaign who was pardoned by the former president at the end of his White House term, is in discussions to return to help with the Republican National Convention, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.”

“Mr. Manafort was found guilty in late August 2018 of a range of financial crimes, including tax and bank fraud.

“In September 2018, Mr. Manafort pleaded guilty to additional charges brought by Mr. Mueller and agreed to cooperate. But as the case proceeded, Mr. Mueller said that Mr. Manafort had not been truthful in his cooperation, breaching that plea deal.”

Washington Post: “Former president Donald Trump is expected to enlist Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager he pardoned, as a campaign adviser later this year, according to four people familiar with the talks.

“The job discussions have largely centered around the 2024 Republican convention in Milwaukee in July and could include Manafort playing a role in fundraising for the presumptive GOP nominee’s campaign, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. While no formal decision has been made, the four people described the hiring as expected and said Trump was determined to bring Manafort back into the fold.”

Manafort would join recent GOP hires like Christina Bobb, a self-described “conspiracy theorist” who had a role in the fake electors scheme.

CNN: “[Bobb] also played a key role in the Trump campaign’s fake electors scheme after he lost the 2020 election, working closely with Trump advisers to organize the plan in seven battleground states. The scheme formed the basis of parts of Smith’s election subversion indictment against the former president, which says Trump and his allies created ‘fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding’ in Congress on January 6, 2021, and ‘disenfranchise millions of voters.’”

CNN: “Bobb was also a correspondent during the 2020 election for the fringe pro-Trump network OAN, where she promoted false claims that the election was rigged. The voting technology company Dominion sued Bobb and OAN for defamation in 2021. Some of her on-air segments were also referenced in a separate defamation case against OAN filed by Smartmatic, another aggrieved voting company. OAN and Bobb have denied wrongdoing in these civil cases.”

New York Times: “A self-described conspiracy theorist and election denier, Ms. Bobb will take on a role overseeing Republican election integrity efforts — after years of aggressively promoting false claims about the 2020 election. Her appointment reflects the ascendant role of election deniers in Republican leadership and in Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.”

As the RNC merges with the Trump campaign and continues their extreme MAGA rebrand, the roster of MAGA extremists and conspiracy theorists among their leadership only continues to grow. 

New York Times: “Mr. Trump likes Mr. Whatley for one overwhelming reason, according to people who have discussed him with the former president: He is ‘a stop the steal guy,’ as one of the people described him. He endorses Mr. Trump’s false claims about mass voter fraud … Mr. Whatley has baselessly claimed that election security efforts from Republicans in North Carolina stopped Democrats from cheating.”

CNN: “Likely frontrunner for RNC chair parroted Trump’s 2020 election lies”

“Michael Whatley, the chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, shared false claims that Republican observers were prevented from accessing polling locations and repeatedly said Democratic cities in swing states were engaged in ‘massive fraud.’”