The Republican National Committee has been trying to prevent the Jan. 6 committee from getting hold of RNC email and fundraising data, as well as similar data from former President Trump’s reelection campaign. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly ruled on Sunday that communications company Salesforce will have to turn it all over to the panel.
“House Defendants are not seeking, and Salesforce is not producing, any disaggregated information about any of the RNC’s donors, volunteers, or email recipients, including any person’s personally identifiable information,” Kelly wrote in his opinion.
The Jan. 6 committee in February subpoenaed Salesforce for the data, writing that it needed to scrutinize how Trump and the RNC used Salesforce to push false claims about the 2020 election. The RNC sued the committee a few weeks later, arguing that the subpoena extends beyond the scope of the investigation while accusing the committee, as well as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, of “attempting to kneecap the RNC for political gain while trampling on free speech and freedom of political association.”
Kelly did not agree.
“Through the subpoena, the select committee seeks information that will help it understand whether and how much those email campaigns attracted attention and thus were a factor in the January 6 attack,” he wrote. “The select committee’s demand is narrowly tailored to its interest. As the court has already explained, the select committee seeks reasonably relevant information from a narrow window during which the RNC sent emails promoting claims that the presidential election was fraudulent or stolen.”
The RNC will have until Wednesday to appeal the ruling before Salesforce ferries the requested data over to the committee.
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