John,
One of Donald Trump's former White House lawyers is helping a coalition of pro-Trump, Big Lie-promoting candidates running for secretary of state.
Stefan Passantino, Trump’s top ethics lawyer during his presidency, is the “designated agent” of the political action committee of SOS for America Candidate Coalition—a PAC that supports Republican candidates running for secretary of state who peddle conspiracy theories denying Trump’s loss in 2020 and backed the plot to overturn the election. Secretaries of state oversee elections, making them crucial positions for our democracy.
Read our new investigation on Passantino’s ties to the PAC, his connections with the former president and ongoing efforts to subvert democracy.
The PAC’s mission to establish “conservative America First election reforms” appears to mean eliminating mail-in ballots and implementing single day voting and voter ID requirements—policy changes that could suppress the votes of many Americans, particularly marginalized groups. Passantino’s involvement is a connection between Trump’s political operation and the group of candidates who want to make future elections harder to vote in, all while continuing to deny the results of the 2020 election.
Many of the candidates are running in states that Trump narrowly lost last time, and where he and his allies continue to falsely claim there was widespread fraud. Big Lie proponents overseeing elections in these states, giving them the power to change the rules to make it harder to vote—that’s a scary prospect for our democracy.
As CREW’s research has proved time and time again, Trump and his allies' attempts to undermine our democracy didn’t end when he left the Oval Office. As a lawyer with lasting close ties to Trump aids efforts to potentially overturn elections and create barriers to voting, we must pay closer attention than ever to the conspiratorial groups putting our democracy at risk.
Thank you,
Noah Bookbinder
President, CREW
