A prominent election denier who wore multiple hats while aiding GOP efforts to overturn the 2020 election will serve as a top lawyer at the Republican National Committee. Christina Bobb, a former reporter for the fringe pro-Trump broadcaster One America News, will oversee the party’s “election integrity” operations. In Trumpworld, what puts a person in line for such a role is having worked tirelessly to subvert an election—and “election integrity” simply means anything needed to help Trump win.
Bobb has the necessary qualifications in spades. As the New York Times reported in 2022, Bobb embraced “conspiracy theories with a fervor that has at times seemed over the top even to her colleagues.” Indeed, she promoted the Big Lie with such zeal that she was sued for defamation. And not only does she appear to be a true believer, she’s been willing to sacrifice herself for the Trump cause, such as when she signed an affidavit to the Justice Department related to his stolen documents case that protected Trump and that she knew might be false. Such loyalty seems to have landed her this new job.
Last week, the RNC elected Trump’s picks to run the party ahead of the 2024 elections, including installing his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as co-chair, ally Michael Whatley as chair, and campaign adviser Chris LaCivita as chief of staff. The new leadership is moving swiftly to remove a significant number of staff, including those in top leadership roles, and hire new people more aligned with Trump. Enter Bobb.
As a correspondent for OAN, Bobb promoted the Big Lie—enough that she was a named a defendant in Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation suit against the network. But Bobb was not just a purveyor of the Big Lie—she was also part of the operation. Weeks after the 2020 election, Trump brought in a new team of lawyers, including Rudy Giuliani, to help him subvert the results and remain in office. Though Bobb has not been charged with any crimes, she worked with that team to helped coordinate the scheme to certify fake slates of electors in states Biden won, a plot that is part of both the criminal indictment against Trump in Georgia and the federal charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
After Biden was certified the winner on January 6, Bobb remained a pro-Trump activist, raising money for bogus election audits while also touting the Big Lie in her on-air role at OAN. In Arizona, Bobb played a significant part in the GOP-controlled state senate’s audit of Maricopa County’s votes, all while covering it as a reporter. As the Arizona Republic‘s Laurie Roberts recently recounted, Bobb helped orchestrate the audit, raised money for it, and then surreptitiously advised the auditor, Cyber Ninjas, throughout the process. Ultimately, the audit confirmed that Biden had won Arizona. It’s the upside down version of journalistic ethics.
In 2022, Bobb was once again working for Trump, this time as the former president withheld classified documents he had absconded with from the White House. In that job, Bobb gave a sworn statement to the Justice Department attesting that Trump had returned all the documents that the government sought. However, that turned out to be a lie. The documents are the subject of Smith’s criminal suit against Trump in federal court in Florida.
Last year, Bobb published a book: Stealing Your Vote: The Inside Story of the 2020 Election and What It Means for 2024. It’s a rehash of many of the conspiracies around the 2020 election. According to the Times of San Diego, she writes that the events of January 6, a day when people died and police officers were badly injured, were “overwhelmingly peaceful” and that police were “shuttling people into the Capitol” and had “waved them inside.”
If the work Bobb plans to do at the RNC resembles the work she has done, it will be part of Republicans’ broader assault on the democratic process. But Bobb prefers another spin on the task ahead: “I’m honored to join the RNC and thrilled the new leadership is focused on election integrity,” Bob said in a statement to CNN. “I look forward to working to secure our elections and restore confidence in the process.”
Pema Levy
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