Full Answer
Cleta Mitchell, who was on the phone with Trump in January when he urged Georgia's secretary of state to "find" the votes Trump needed to win the 2020 presidential election, was quietly appointed to the board of advisors for the Election Assistance Commission, which was created in 2002 to help states meet federal voting requirements.
Opinion: A Trump lawyer has finally been held accountable. She shouldn’t be the last. Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer at the law firm Foley & Lardner, testifies on Capitol Hill on Feb. 6, 2014. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Mitchell quietly joined Trump's post-election efforts in Georgia, helping prepare the Trump campaign's December court case to contest Georgia's presidential election results, making debunked claims there were "literally tens of thousands of illegal votes" in Georgia. "We called ourselves team deplorables," she said on her podcast.
The call from Meadows led to a series of events that have now put Mitchell squarely in the middle of congressional efforts to investigate the events leading up to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
The controversial phone call Saturday between President Donald Trump and Georgia election officials brought a new name to light: conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell, who has quietly been aiding President Donald Trump in his push to overturn the election for weeks, according to the New York Times —a notable addition to his campaign legal team because she is a partner at a major law firm, which has stated it is “ concerned” by her participation in the phone call.
. . happy to be considered a nut job because I believe in the rule of law.”
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said at the beginning of the call, which Mitchell was included in, that although she “is not the attorney of record,” that she “has been involved” in the campaign's legal maneuverings to try to overturn Joe Biden's victory in the state of Georgia.
Mitchell was a registered Democrat when she was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in her 20s and unsuccessfully ran for lieutenant governor of Oklahoma in 1986. Ten years later, she moved to Washington, D.C., after changing her party affiliation. According to the Times, Mitchell established herself as one of the GOP’s leading election and nonprofit lawyers. According to the Daily Beast, prior to the release of the much-publicized phone call, Mitchell had “conducted her legal work for Trump and his team almost entirely out of the public eye, instead opting to appear sporadically on Trump-friendly media,” but her involvement with the campaign dates back “roughly two months.” On a podcast, she described herself as a “volunteer” with the Trump campaign. Mitchell previously served on the board of the NRA and recently represented the nonprofit foundation of Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon, who’s been charged by federal prosecutors with defrauding donors.
Mitchell has worked as a lawyer on elections and campaign finance issues in Republican politics for several decades in Washington, though her political career began as a Democrat. Mitchell won a seat in the Oklahoma state legislature in 1976 and served for eight years.
Mitchell remained under the radar outside of Washington circles until the audio of Trump's hourlong January 2 call with Raffensperger was leaked -- and she was featured prominently.
It didn't take long for Mitchell to jump back into the fight over the 2020 election and Republican efforts to restrict voting.
The Post reports: “Republican lawyer Cleta Mitchell, who advised President Trump during his Saturday phone call with Georgia’s secretary of state in an effort to overturn the election, resigned on Tuesday as a partner in the Washington office of the law firm Foley & Lardner.”.
There is no attorney-client privilege to protect a conspiracy to engage in illegal activity. Former congressman Tom Coleman (R-Mo.) asks the right question: Beyond the criminal law, Mitchell has ethical obligations. As a lawyer, she is an officer of the court.