Thread by @j2dumfounded

One year ago today, rightwing attorney Cleta Mitchell resigned from her law firm, Foley & Lardner, after new reports revealed she had been on Trump’s shakedown call to Georgia

So buckle up, buckaroos, it’s time for a long thread on this legal eagle at the GQP nexus.

January 5, 2021, Tea Party lawyer Cleta Mitchell announced she was leaving Foley & Lardner after 20 years. News reports revealed her role in Trump’s call to Brad Raffenberg, Georgia’s Secretary of State.
Now Mitchell is suing to block her J6C subpoenas.
thedailybeast.com/cleta-mitchell…

Cleta Mitchell’s lawsuit against the J6C subpoenas appear to be fishing for information on what the J6C knows, to my eyes. And we could discuss that, but what I’m really curious about is this woman herself, who among the GOP is almost a cipher.
politico.com/f/?id=0000017d…

We know oodles about Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, John Pierce, Sidney Powell, Roger Stone, & Lin Wood. But what do we know about Cleta Mitchell, other than her friendship with Mrs. Ginni Thomas and her role on the Board of Governors at the Council for a National Policy?

“Mitchell jokingly characterized herself as “the consigliere of the vast right-wing conspiracy.”

opensecrets.org/news/2011/04/t…

But what if, it’s true? Looking at her many affiliations, one might be inclined to believe this assessment.

A newly baked mind map for your enjoyment ⬇

Hers is a most extraordinary story, from ERA advocate to Tea Party consigliere. One that deserves telling. And Ms. Mitchell, if you’re reading this, I hope you’ve warmed up after your chilling experience on Highway 95, south of Spotsylvania, closer to Charlottesville than DC.

Born in mid-century Oklahoma, Mitchell grew up Cleta Deatherage. She got her BA & JD at U of Oklahoma. She married. Elected as a Democrat to the Oklahoma legislature in 1976, shortly after earning her law degree, she supported the Equal Rights Amendment.

By 1980, Cleta was making a name for herself as an Outstanding Female Attorney. She taught at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Getting mentioned ahead of Ann Richards in a 1984 Time article as an up & coming female Dem is notable. content.time.com/time/subscribe…

Her first marriage went south; her husband Duane Draper later died from AIDS. She divorced in ‘82, then married Dale Mitchell, Jr., chairman of Fidelity National Bank in March 1984. He said he’d become a Dem, and she took his last name, Mitchell.
oklahoman.com/article/206049…

Now Mrs. Cleta Mitchell, she was briefly a visiting professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma.

She didn’t run for re-election to the legislature in 84.

She had a baby girl, Margaret, in 1985. Ooo, coochie coo. 👩🏼‍🍼

digital.libraries.ou.edu/sooner/article…

Mitchell went to work as a Vice President at Citizens National Bank, where her husband had returned following the merger of FNB with BancOklahoma. oklahoman.com/article/207502…

However, politics still held its lure. In 1986, Cleta ran for lieutenant governor, losing in the primary.

In 1991, she began work for the DC-based Term Limits Legal Institute as its executive director.

Oklahoma was an economic dust bowl. Money talks.

washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/l…

The honeymoon ended in 1992. Dale Mitchell, Jr. was found guilty of five felony counts related to bank fraud & ordered to pay $3 million in restitution. After his conviction, Cleta Mitchell became first an independent & then a Republican, citing overreaching gov’t regulation.

Term limits were a thing by 1995, with Cleta making the case on MacNeil Lehrer. americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aa…
Yet by 1997, the movement was dead, killed off by infighting among its proponents.
americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aa…

In 1998, she started a law firm, Sullivan & Mitchell. She was working for Steve Forbes’ defense against the FEC, challenging ballot access in New York, and supporting Bradley Smith’s FEC nomination, as counsel for First Amendment Project of Americans Back in Charge Foundation

She testified before House Ways & Means on the role of Form 990s, opposing laws that would force tax-exempt groups to reveal who was paying for political ads & activities.

As an advisor, she would tell 527s to do what was necessary to avoid reporting.
govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CH…

Sullivan & Mitchell merged with Foley & Lardner in 2001, with her as a partner. Her career took off. A fellowship at GWU. House hearings. Lobbying. Emceeing for an ACU event honoring Tom DeLay, with glowing solidarity for the soon-to-be-indicted Speaker.
nytimes.com/2005/05/12/pol…

A true loyalist, she defended the disclosure of Republican Congressman Mark Foley’s emails to underage pages by attacking Democrats.

Deny, distract, deflect.

It is tried-and-true recipe she would go on to use repeatedly.

Still, I like watching this.

In 2008, Mitchell would defend Ayer’s attack ads, which falsely claimed Obama had close ties to the Weather Underground.

npr.org/templates/stor…

Experts would go on to question why the 501c4 had not filed FEC disclosures.
huffpost.com/entry/experts-…

And then, our nation had its first black president.

January 20, 2009 must have been rough for the Republicans.

Also in 2009, Cleta Mitchell “spearheaded an initiative to overturn the legalization of gay marriage” in DC. At least, that’s what her NRA board member bio says. The news report has itself vanished.

But that’s OK, we have the case law.
caselaw.findlaw.com/dc-court-of-ap…

Oopsie, here’s the NRA bio.
I wonder how many other links have been scrubbed since last week… but no time for that now!

nraontherecord.org/cleta-mitchell/

She got involved in Citizens United, filing an amicus brief as it was argued before SCOTUS.

When asked to opined, she called Obama the “New Populist in Chief” & cited the Sierra Club.

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content…

The Tea Party sprang to life. Mitchell was its go-to lawyer. She helped senators get elected, people like Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, & Mike Lee. She became legal counsel for the NRA & Wellspring.
opensecrets.org/news/2013/11/w…

As president of the American Conservative Union, she led its charge against the LGBT Republicans, GOProud, banning them from CPAC.

Why the 🏳️‍🌈 hatred?

Was it her first husband, or Foley, or something else?

We will likely never know.
washingtonblade.com/2015/02/19/cpa…

As president of the Republican National Lawyers Association, Mitchell began stoking fears of “election fraud” prior to the 2012 vote, a claim chorused by Judicial Watch, ALEC, and really all the usual suspects .

rollcall.com/2012/09/25/con…

In 2012, Mitchell formed the ActRight Legal Foundation (which transformed to the Public Interest Legal Foundation), with J. Christian Adams & John Eastman.

PILF specializes in voter suppression lawsuits, among other things.

A recent landing page screenshot, to catch you up.

The Marshall McLuhan moment came for Mitchell in 2013, when The Atlantic published her bio, which is well-worth reading. theatlantic.com/politics/archi…

In 2014, Mitchell sued the IRS for delaying its tax-exempt status for King Street Patriots/True the Vote. The Tea Party Patriots filed for a FOIA from the IRS. She testified before Congress that the IRS commissioner had lied to Congress.
c-span.org/video/?317634-…

"In 2014, she told a House oversight panel that Congress ought to abolish the IRS, saying the agency “is so corrupt and so rotten to the core that it cannot be salvaged.” washingtonpost.com/investigations…

Why these many attacks on the IRS?

Her clients were extremely worried about pending IRS regulations that would force them as political donors to disclose money routed to 501c4s via LLCs, hiding the true origins.

Whitehouse called it “secret spending.”

public.cq.com/docs/weeklyrep…

Mitchell also took on abortion rights with an amicus brief in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt.

Her clients, Texas Values & 3801 Lancaster Film Project, sought to limit abortions by restricting it to doctors with hospital admitting privileges.
americanbar.org/content/dam/ab…

Helping Marco Rubio with his campaign finances led to a CREW complaint against the Conservative Solutions Project, where she was board secretary.

Slush fund or 501c4?

Who can say?
littlesis.org/org/211734-Con…

citizensforethics.org/wp-content/upl…

Busy as a bee, still Mitchell took time to pen an opinion piece for the NYT, gloating at the defeat of the Senate’s gun control bill in 2016.
nytimes.com/roomfordebate/…

When Trump won the electoral college, but not the popular vote, things started hopping. Stephen Miller asked PILF president Adams for help.
The next day, Trump tweeted “I I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
snopes.com/news/2020/10/1…

OK, we’re 35 tweets in and I need to take a little break to do some more writing. BRB. Please feel free to pop some corn, meantimes.

Or watch Cleta Mitchell at the Leadership Institute’s in June 2017, where she discusses Trump Derangement Syndrome, cops to begging McGahn for a campaign job, and applauds dropping out of the Paris climate accords after quoting Morton Blackwell.

Alright, intermission is over. Let’s cover 2017-2020 and then finish up 2021-22 tomorrow, on the first anniversary of the insurrection.

2017 brought challenges and triumphs. The Texas Supreme Court shot down True the Vote’s case against the Democratic Party, upholding restrictions on corporate contributions. ADF won a small legalistic triumph in Limmer v. Ritchie.

Mostly for Mitchell, 2017 was a banner year.

The IRS flailed, hampered by insufficient staffing.

Her reach grew. She filed for tax-exempt status for Neil and Anne Corkery’s Tea Party Patriots.

Read this for context in the J6 landscape.

motherjones.com/politics/2021/…

Trump named Mitchell and fellow CNP member Marjorie Dannenfelser to a commission planning events for the 100th anniversary of women’s sufferage, events the pandemic essentially prevented.
rightwingwatch.org/post/activist-…

2018 was a downer. House Intelligence Select Committee Dems Want to Talk to NRA Lawyer Who Had Concerns About Group’s Ties with Russian, Torshin, Report Says.

lawandcrime.com/high-profile/d…

Source: intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/…

As if Cleta would sing. Puhleez.

In any case, the idea that she had any concerns about the NRA’s ties to Russia or the NRA itself in the last six years.

“Any suggestion she has concerns about the NRA's Russia connections is a "complete fabrication."

mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-…

In 2018, Cleta Mitchell also faced the unpleasant task of defending Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator under a “cloud of ethics scandals” for deleting from his calendar meetings with disgraced Cardinal Pell. Her efforts were to no avail.
Pruitt resigned.
cnn.com/2018/07/05/pol…

She then went on to call the Mueller investigation a partisan witchhunt, calling out Glenn Simpson in particular. Hmm.
nationalreview.com/2018/08/campai…

What I find most notable about 2018, in light of Merrick Garland’s comments today, is the fact that Mitchell was a panelist in a discussion of Shelby County v. Holder as part of the assessment of minority voting rights access.
usccr.gov/files/calendar…

This is the US Commission on Civil Rights’ final report on Assessment of the Minority Voting Rights Access of the United States from later on that year.
usccr.gov/files/pubs/201…

2019 saw an uptick in Mitchell’s trajectory. The Bradley Foundation gave PILF 340K for their Election Integrity project, Cleta told CNP that Dems are registering the disenfranchised, and Bannon hired her to represent his We Build The Wall Inc. nonprofit.
cnbc.com/2019/06/25/ban…

2020 Ah. The pandemic began. We all knew it was a matter of weeks if not days when the news of COVID19 came from China. But the Conservative Action Project, a CNP #ShadowNetwork effort, opposed lockdowns in mid-April. conservativeactionproject.com/stop-spending-…

Not much to see here, either, LOL, unless Ginni Thomas, Project Veritas, ALEC & that moonied-up geezer Vigs and the 7Mountain folks involved in anti-voter fraud campaigns to protect Trump float your boat.
rightwingwatch.org/post/ginni-tho…

In August 2020, Mitchell used the dog days to attack mail-in voting under the guise of protecting “election security” from “leftist groups.” If you can watch this all the way through, my hat is off.
c-span.org/video/?474525-…

Then came the Rose Garden superspreader on September 26. Cleta had joined a new Trump PAC, Moms for Safe Neighborhoods board. washingtontimes.com/news/2020/sep/…

Whoopsidoodle

October 4, 2020
“No one was “being cavalier about Covid,” said Cleta Mitchell, a political law attorney and partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Foley & Lardner.

"We were outside."
 
Read more at:  bloombergquint.com/politics/trump…

“Weaponizing Misleading Narratives About Voting: Lessons from Trump-Linked PILF Playbook”
Using internal emails, sworn testimony, & other documents, Snopes broke down exactly how PILF generated, created, organized & weaponize" misleading narratives.
snopes.com/news/2020/10/1…

“ November 4, 2020: Call from Mark Meadows”

https://twitter.com/rgoodlaw/status/1424440718471348226?s=20

Mark Meadows was still Chief of Staff. Ms. Mitchell was still presumably a super PAC employee.

How could she say no? Why would she?

I can’t think of a reason. Can you?

November 7, 2020:
"On Nov. 7, the day that major media organizations projected Joe Biden had won the presidency, Republican attorney Cleta Mitchell appeared on Fox News with her own projection: The election was far from over."
washingtonpost.com/politics/mitch…

November 9, 2020: Appears on Fox News

https://twitter.com/bubbaprog/status/1325812962259570690?s=21

November 13, 2020 tweet

https://twitter.com/CletaMitchell/status/1327299772877828098?s=20

The tweet

December 4, 2020: filed Georgia lawsuit

December 30:
Mitchell signed a Dec. 30 letter from right-wing movement leaders urging Senate Republicans to “protect the republic” by contesting electoral votes from battleground states won by Biden.
Source rightwingwatch.org/post/new-right…

Tomorrow, 1/6/22, this thread will reach Phase 3, encompassing 2021 and 2022 anticipated actions. Godspeed, y’all.

So the fateful call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger took place on January 2, 2021.

Here is the transcript as well as the audio.

This is my gift to those of you without WaPo subscriptions.

wapo.st/33cCMkk

Mitchell is on a fishing trip, for records & reports.
She makes claims.
She’s seen the full tape, the “State Farm” video that SOS says Rudy doctored. She says 18,000 ballots were improperly processed, another 4,500 votes were from people who’d moved.
Trump cuts her off.

Let’s put it this way, it’s not her finest hour.

It’s pretty cheeky, telling the general counsel and SOS, “And you can keep telling us and making public statement that you investigated this and nothing to see here. But we don’t know about that. All we know is what you tell us.”

January 4, 2021, the WaPo releases a story on Mitchell headlined “Cleta Mitchell, a key figure in president’s phone call, was an early backer of Trump’s election fraud claims.

They point out she is using an old playbook, the one she used in Nevada.

washingtonpost.com/politics/mitch…

When Angle ran against Harry Reid in 2010, Mitchell wrote a fundraising letter “alleging that “Reid intends to steal this election if he can’t win it outright....Understand, EVERYTHING we have worked for in the last year could be destroyed by dirty tricks & criminal acts.””

She had defended her November 7, 2020 appearance on FOX with this tweet, that alleges she is so committed to the rule of law that if people want to think she is a nut job that’s dandy.

But apparently, her colleagues at Foley & Lardner felt that the January 2 call to Georgia was a bridge too far. She resigned from the firm on January 5.

Generally speaking, a partner quitting is a big deal. Quitting after a news story that involves the president is even bigger.

Now, January 6 was a day that shall forever be remembered as the day Trump and his many cronies in the vast rightwing conspiracy tried to usurp our democracy.

https://twitter.com/JudiciaryDems/status/1479169714991554561

January 7 was the day Trump publicly admitted he had lost the 2020 election. It was also the day that the Trump lawsuits against the State of Georgia were dropped.

(Don’t hold your breath on court sanctions.)

washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…

And January 8 was the day Cleta woke up a bigly loser.

Her candidate had failed.

The insurrection had failed.

Her scheme had failed.

Her job was gone.

And January 9 was the day her old hometown paper published a perspective, headlined “Cleta Mitchell’s journey from progressive Oklahoma lawmaker to Trump lawyer.”

normantranscript.com/news/cleta-mit…

This quote: “Walters described Mitchell as someone who was for “every liberal and progressive cause that came along.””

🤯

But if we have gleaned anything about Ms. Mitchell by now, it is that she is smart as a whip, wildly ambitious, and nothing and nobody is going to keep her down.

And sure enough, by March she had landed not one but two gigs!

On March 15, she launched an election integrity project with FreedomWorks, appearing with Adam Brandon on Newsmax.

rightwingwatch.org/post/new-right…

She told viewers that the 2020 election had caused Americans to lose confidence in the nation’s elections and would lead to a totalitarian government.

Not like she’d had a hand in that or anything. Not like that’s not the outcome we would have had if the coup had succeeded.

The very next day, March 16, she started a new job at the Conservative Partnership Institute, as leader of their Election Integrity Coalition.

CPI is run by Jim DeMint, and is where Mark Meadows had gone to work in January after Trump’s defeat.

“According to the Examiner, the Conservative Partnership Institute, or CPI, referred to Mitchell, with her history of high-ranking positions in multiple right-wing organizations, as the “consigiliere to the vast right-wing conspiracy.””

Their words.

rightwingwatch.org/post/another-r…

Two weeks later, in an interview, she finds the silver lining to leaving Foley & Lardner, LOL.

““One of the great advantages of resigning from my law firm is that I can devote all my time to something I love,” she said.”

apnews.com/article/joe-bi…

Wait, hours of research & I am just seeing this now.

“A onetime Oklahoma state legislator, Mitchell, 70, has links to other influential players in the conservative movement. Until recently she served as outside counsel to the American Legislative Exchange Committee.”

#Kochtopus

In April she was up & running & peddling cow patties, subtly entitled, “Democrats are cheaters.”

She says the new Georgia law makes it easier to vote. It requires that mail-in votes be received by Election Day. Who votes mail-in? Mostly Dems. Who slowed down the Post office?

Well, it’s the same old song & dance she’s been peddling with her PILF, and with her VRWC buddies.

Things heat up in June, when the House Committee on Oversight & Reform releases “Selected Documents: President Trump Pressure Campaign on Department of Justice.”

Here’s the reporting.

missoulacurrent.com/government/202…

Here’s a link to the actual documents, some 232 pages.
courthousenews.com/wp-content/upl…

Mark Meadows forwarded Mitchell’s message to Jeff Rosen at DOJ, page 219, with the request,

“Can you have your team look into these allegations of wrongdoing. Only the alleged fraudulent activity.”

Have I yet to mention the Bradley Foundation?

It finances many 501c4s. Cleta is on their board.

“Bradley Foundation Spreads The Big Lie:
Foundation gets ever more radical, using tax exempt funding to bankroll groups undermining democracy.”

urbanmilwaukee.com/2021/08/03/mur…

It turns out Bradley Foundation is paying for quite a lot of mischief. Jane Mayer's expose in August 2020 has all the major voter suppression players in it.

wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/big-mone…

Alas, I have let this overlong thread languish uncompleted.

For now, let’s simply add Page 33 of the October 2021 Senate Judiciary report, Subverting Justice: How the former president and his allies pressured the DOJ to overturn the 2020 election.

judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…

Tacking this wayback from a CNP search to point out how Leo took Pruitt to meet that defrockable cardinal, Pell.

Politics makes for strange bedfellows, isn’t that what they say, Cleta?

Must check the exact timing on when she began representing Pruitt when I kraken the 💻.

https://twitter.com/loonyberg/status/1136097890479345664

This story on Uihlein’s donations mentions #consigliereCleta above the fold, so to speak.

Now that Foster Freiss is buried, someone had to step up.

https://twitter.com/thebax33/status/1484192003462086658

And now, the inimitable Jane Mayers on all things Ginni Thomas and not a few things about Cleta Mitchell.

I would highly suggest you read the story. It’s very important.

https://twitter.com/JaneMayerNYer/status/1484497713735651332

Cleta Mitchell is a partner with Ginni Thomas in Crowdsourcers, as is James O’Keefe of Project Veritas.

Cleta Mitchell received an Impact Award from Ginni Thomas in 2018.

Time for additional notes on Cleta Mitchell now we know for sure it’s her metadata.

This mind map shows key conservative legal groups. PILF is the one that Cleta chairs, as mentioned above.

https://twitter.com/j2dumfounded/status/1485834163953573892

Let’s give Fog the floor.

https://twitter.com/clearing_fog/status/1487227898876477440

This is a blue check saying that it’s Cleta “Ms. Metadata” Mitchell.

#consigliereCleta

https://twitter.com/UrbanAchievr/status/1487148645799628802

I’m sure it’s intentional to not use the proper term, “DEMOCRATIC”

Nice that she’s using Constant Contact for her treason weaseling, must be great for their brand. The slogans write themselves, “marketing and more!”

Time to give cigar chomping toddler the floor.

Hard to believe I’ve spent almost a working week researching Cleta and had not seen this, that it was her metadata, until yesterday. 🤯

https://twitter.com/MingGao26/status/1345386484862504961

Thank you Satire Hat a

🤠

https://twitter.com/satirehat/status/1394071500144222210

Breaking story on Trump’s Save America PAC tossing around money like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Clean up Mitchell’s lawyer gets $50,000 while her employer gets $1 million. #consigliereCleta

Courtesy @satirehat

https://twitter.com/samstein/status/1488517174947950592

Seriously considering going from #consigliereCleta to #CletaTheCheetah for a handy hashtag, lol.

Because that’s exactly what she’s trying to do. She’s trying to cheat the American public out of fear elections where every vote counts.

https://twitter.com/duboo/status/1488676694617645059

Well that was a dictatorial typo… “fair” not “fear”

But I will expound to say that clearly, Cleta the cheetah has a fear of fair elections.

We know she doesn’t like rainbows. Guess that’s par for the white supremacist course.

On supporting this allegation ⤴️ allow me to observe that the people whom #CletaTheCheater name checks on Warroom are:

1. Susan Rice

2. Stacey Abrams

What do they have in common, remind me? 🧐

[You should read Gal’s 🧵 in its entirety]

https://twitter.com/gal_suburban/status/1488962468059795467

They say in physics that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Please consider taking Teri’s advice. ⤵️

https://twitter.com/teri_kanefield/status/1489064026558451712