Vote-denying Trump ally to step down from government election commission: report

A key ally and onetime legal adviser to former President Donald Trump will not return to her position on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s Board of Advisors after a public outcry, according to a statement by advocacy group Free Speech for People on Wednesday.

"The announcement followed a months-long advocacy campaign by Free Speech For People and Generation Vote," said the statement. "In two letters to the USCCR, the groups argued that Mitchell’s repeated efforts to undermine voting rights and to promote the false claim of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election, as well as her testimony before the congressional January 6th Committee in 2022 where she claimed that no one in the American public has a constitutional right to vote for President of the United States, were deeply incompatible with the purpose and mandate of both commissions. A special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia unanimously recommended that Mitchell be indicted for her role in conspiring with Trump and others to overturn the 2020 presidential election."

Mitchell, who also participated in the infamous phone call in which Trump threatened Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, was ultimately not indicted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis; however, the former president was, along with a number of his legal advisers and allies.

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Emails released last year revealed that Trump was pushing for her to be named to the board even before the 2020 election took place.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has no formal rulemaking power; however, it performs a number of advisory tasks on elections, including maintaining the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, recommending certification and decertification of voting machines, and acting as a clearinghouse for funding for various election programs to the states.

“While on the Board, Cleta Mitchell has ridiculed young voters and recently called for efforts to curtail the youth vote after young people turned out in record numbers across the country," said Generation Vote director Brianna Cea in a statement. "Time and again, Mitchell proved that she does not have the best interest of all American voters and should not be in a position to advise our nation’s only federal election administration commission."