The instructions did not come from “Never Trumpers,” who hope to stop the party from nominating a criminal when delegates meet in Milwaukee next month. Instead, they came from avowed “America First” believers who created a far-right challenge — a conspiracy to free delegates from their pledge to support Trump, according to people present and briefed on the meeting, presentation slides and messages. private images obtained by The Washington Post.
Delegates said the strategy would require support from several other state delegations and it was unclear whether those allies were aligned. One idea, discussed as participants munched on snacks, was for co-conspirators to signal their loyalty to each other by wearing matching black jackets.
The exact purpose of the maneuver was unclear – and it left some delegates perplexed and alarmed. People familiar with the meeting, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations, said perhaps the intention was to block an undesirable running mate. Most of the dozen Republican Party officials or activists interviewed by The Post even ventured that the goal could have been to replace Trump with former national security adviser Michael Flynn if the former president had been sentenced to prison time. Among some members of the far right, suspicions have intensified that the former president surrounded himself with too many advisors indebted to the “deep state”.
Whatever the objective, the Trump campaign rushed to avoid the maneuver and replace the delegates. A campaign staffer involved in the cleanup described it to at least two Republicans as an “existential threat” to Trump’s nomination next month, two people familiar with the conversations told the Post. To another Republican, the official described the scenario discussed by Arizona delegates, while unlikely, as being “the only process that would prevent Trump from being the nominee.”
The episode in Arizona — a swing state where Republicans were gripped by especially strong doubts about the integrity of the elections — unfolded largely out of sight.
The campaign and Arizona delegates reached an agreement that there would be no disruptions to the convention. Still, suspicions persisted other state delegations, according to a campaign official who was not authorized to speak publicly. He declined to go into details.
The confusion exposed the challenges of choreographing next month’s convention in Milwaukee, where about 5,000 delegates and alternates will participate — many of them inclined to the falsehoods and conspiracy theories that animate many of Trump’s supporters.
“See, this is what happens in a war between Good and Evil,” Chris Hamlet, one of the Arizona delegates involved in the plan, told other delegates in a private text conversation. “We’re never going to get along and hold hands and sing kumbaya, that’s just not how it works.”
The 2016 Republican convention briefly turned into a shouting match during a short-lived attempt by Trump’s Republican opponents to derail his nomination. This time, the Trump campaign has worked quietly and steadily to line up delegates who are unwaveringly loyal Trump fans, in case any of his defeated primary opponents try to disrupt the proceedings.
This year’s delegates include at least one organizer of the rally that preceded the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, as well as individuals who are being prosecuted for participating in a strategy that falsely declared that Trump had won their states in 2020.
Still, suspicions have circulated among Trump supporters that secret saboteurs have somehow infiltrated his ranks. At the Republican Party convention in Georgia in May, a candidate for delegate withdrew after being accused of having lobbied for Dominion Voting Systems, a frequent target of false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.
“I have had to spend a lot of time dealing with intraparty power struggles and local intraparty animosities,” Illinois Republican Party Chairman Don Tracy said in a resignation letter this month. “We have Republicans who would rather fight other Republicans than engage in the harder work of defeating incumbent Democrats by convincing undecided voters to vote Republican.”
Next month’s convention is expected to be a pro forma, made-for-television event where delegates will put their stamp on a decision already made by Republican primary voters, who overwhelmingly supported Trump this year.
That’s what made Arizona’s presentation on the rule change so perplexing, according to GOP officials and activists who were interviewed for this story.
“Suspending the rules would then allow an open forum to consider alternative candidates to Trump,” said one person involved in the state delegate drama.
Several other Republicans involved in the discussions suggested reasons that revolved around the same idea: money.
“I suspect they really don’t want us to win… they’re making money off the election integrity issue,” one Republican said of the efforts of activists aligned with some of the more far-fetched conspiracy theories of fraudulent voting. “They make money when we lose.”
The group of delegates that caused alarm over Trump’s campaign was led by Shelby Busch, chairman of the Arizona delegation and leader of a political action committee he helped create in 2020.
The group, We the People AZ Alliance, has raised nearly $1 million, according to state campaign finance records. The group is closely aligned with Senate candidate Kari Lake (R) and is largely funded by entities linked to prominent election deniers such as Flynn and Patrick Byrne, a former Overstock.com executive who is no longer affiliated with the company .
On Tuesday, Byrne wrote in a post on “In two weeks, Trump will be in jail or under house arrest,” Byrne wrote. “Your vice president needs to be a general.” The post tagged Flynn’s social media profile.
Busch called the June meeting where another party delegate and activist, Joe Neglia, gave a presentation that included information about a maneuver to suspend convention rules and take over floor work, according to those present or briefed on the meeting. Neglia declined to comment.
When the Trump campaign learned of the meeting, an official began working with local party officials and activists to recruit new delegates to replace the six who had gathered.
“The leaders of this group, Shelby Busch and Joe Neglia, are involved in a multistate conspiracy to suspend the rules of the national convention,” the campaign said in a memo outlining the plan to recruit new delegates and swear them in instead of the six.
Busch’s bloc responded by accusing those challenging his status of being part of “an anti-Trump establishment group,” seeking to sabotage Trump from within his own campaign and the RNC.
“This is an effort orchestrated by our political adversaries, using the same vile tactics Democrats displayed against our beloved President Trump,” his group said in a statement this week. “Arizona’s grassroots patriots who love our President Donald Trump voted overwhelmingly for our delegation because they know us and our work in Arizona to save our state and our country, our unwavering support for Trump, and they know they can trust us to vote on Trump. even if he is incarcerated.”
(Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in New York on 34 felony convictions on July 11, just days before the convention begins.)
On Thursday, Busch reached an agreement with the campaign that Neglia would step aside, the other delegates could remain and there would be no riot on the floor, according to people familiar with the conversations. This resolution neutralized the threat, but left some of the replacement volunteers feeling rejected because they had helped the campaign, been criticized, and then rejected.
“It was driven by the campaign and the RNC,” said one of the recruited replacements. “There was no reason for any of us to do this other than to help the campaign.”
Another volunteer said in a private message obtained by The Post that the “juvenile rhetoric used toward fellow delegation members” disappointed him. “These actions were carried out at the request of the candidate who we all have the legal obligation and pride to nominate within a few weeks.”
The campaign’s political director, James Blair, moved to calm things down with a public statement thanking them for their service and praising their loyalty to Trump, while also announcing Busch’s commitment to cooperate with the campaign.
“It’s not just a matter of loyal support for Trump, it’s a willingness to do nothing that might distract from the historic nomination and celebration of President Trump, which is a four-day commercial,” the campaign manager said. “There are Trump supporters on all sides. Sometimes people want to use this forum to fight over small things, and we don’t want that. We don’t want anything that would be distracting.”
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Arizona Republican Party wrote to fellow conservatives that the delegation’s private conversation had become its own distraction.
“I’m closing the thread,” the post said. “It’s hurting their ability to function as a team.”
