“The Republican Party’s top lawyer warned in November against continuing to push false claims that the presidential election was stolen, calling efforts by some of the former president’s lawyers a ‘joke’ that could mislead millions of people, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post. Justin Riemer, the Republican National Committee’s chief counsel, sought to discourage a GOP staffer from posting claims about ballot fraud on RNC accounts, the email shows, as attempts by Trump and his associates to challenge results in a number of states, such as Arizona and Pennsylvania, intensified. ‘What Rudy and Jenna are doing is a joke and they are getting laughed out of court,’ Riemer, a longtime GOP lawyer, wrote to Liz Harrington, a former party spokeswoman on Nov. 28, referring to Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis. ‘They are misleading millions of people who have wishful thinking that the president is going to somehow win this thing.'”

“The email from Riemer to Harrington came about six weeks before Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and it shows that key figures in the party were privately disturbed by the false claims being made about the election by Trump and his supporters – even if they did not say so publicly. Riemer said Ellis and Giuliani were damaging a broader Republican Party push on ‘election integrity’ issues, according to the email. Riemer had led the party’s legal efforts for months ahead of and after the November election, particularly limiting the expansion of mail-in ballots. But Riemer was skeptical internally of some of the most conspiratorial theories and did not believe many of the claims from Giuliani and others about fraud, according to people who spoke to Reimer and discussed his views on the condition of anonymity because they were private conversations. Some Trump allies, including Giuliani, sought to have Riemer fired after learning of the emails, according to people familiar with the matter, but he remains employed at the RNC” – Washington Post.