>>17961413. Second Redstate article
Ronna McDaniel and RNC Budget Chair Reply to RedState Story, But Don't Address the Elephant in the Room
Jennifer Van Laar
12:45 AM on December 17, 2022
The reaction to RedState’s story, published December 14, analyzing the Republican National Committee’s expenditures between 2017 and 2022 has been intense. As Deputy Managing Editor Susie Moore covered, talk radio legend Mark Levin called for Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel‘s resignation on his Thursday show. In addition, Tucker Carlson covered the story, and John Rich joined him to reiterate the statement he provided RedState, and it was covered on Steve Bannon’s War Room, the Charlie Kirk Show, the Jesse Kelly Show, Dan Bongino Show, and The Ingraham Angle.
Probably due to all of this, email communications between RNC committee members has been intense, and much of it has been leaked to numerous journalists. Their communications purport to “debunk the lies about roughly 0.8% of the RNC’s total spending,” according to an email sent from McDaniel to the committee members, but they don’t seriously address the many line items noted in the original piece.
That the RNC under Ronna McDaniel has brought in a lot of money isn’t in dispute. The point of the analysis, coming after losses in critical races, was the expenditures, both the types and the amounts. None of those expenses were addressed in their emails. They simply, and sadly, chose to use the same exact strategy former Rep. Katie Hill used against me to attempt to avoid ccountability for her actions.
McDaniel’s email to the committee members is a forward of an email RNC committee member Glenn McCall from South Carolina sent to members earlier in the day, with her own additional comments at the top. Since these are the talking points now being put forward to attempt to discredit RedState’s reporting and me individually, I am going to address them.
McDaniel’s email begins:
First, I hope you all saw Glenn McCall’s email this morning about the falsehoods in the blog post my opponent’s client wrote about RNC finances. I am glad facts were able to debunk the many mischaracterizations that were made without any serious effort to contact me or my team.
The email she references from McCall contained the subject line, “The Truth about the False Blog Post Posted Overnight.” It began:
I am outraged by the falsehoods in the article published in the dark of night, which was written by a client of Harmeet Dhillon, who has publicly endorsed her bid for Chair, masking as a reporter. This type of low-brow tactic is beneath the dignity of the RNC. Having said that, while everyone should take this fake news with a grain of salt, I am happy that this incident gives me an opportunity to provide an overview of the Chairwoman’s invaluable fundraising efforts over her tenure, and to set the record straight.
Just as Katie Hill and her legal team did, Ronna McDaniel and Glenn McCall refer to RedState as a “blog” and to me as someone “masking as a reporter” to impugn our credibility. It’s interesting that while the critique of the RNC’s finances has to do with spending, McCall is grateful for the “opportunity to provide an overview of the Chairwoman’s invaluable fundraising efforts over her tenure.” And, one thing the numerous RNC committee members who spoke to RedState were frustrated about was that all they receive from McDaniel is an “overview” of expenditures. Why isn’t McCall happy to provide details about spending?
McCall then referenced the same 0.8 percent of funds raised point (which is a little different than McDaniel’s statement that it was 0.8 percent of expenditures) that was made in the RNC’s statement to RedState prior to making a truly astounding comment:
If anything, an article should be written about the amazing job Ronna, the Executive Committee and Budget Committee have done in running one of the best funded and most efficiently run political organizations in the world.
He then provided information on some of the categories of expenses listed in RedState’s story. Regarding the expenditures at the Salamander Resort & Spa, McCall says:
The RNC contracted with the Salamander for a donor retreat in 2020, which we were forced to cancel due to COVID. We had to use or lose, so we applied it toward a donor retreat with a sister committee in the summer of 2021, as well as a working Senior Staff Retreat.
With $17 million in donor mementos on the books, why would the RNC also be planning a donor retreat for $260,000? Why didn’t national committee members know about this retreat?….
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https://redstate.com/jenvanlaar/2022/12/17/ronna-mcdaniel-and-rnc-budget-chair-reply-to-redstate-story-but-dont-address-the-elephant-in-the-room-n674632