Former President Donald Trump officially endorsed a plan created by a man who is affiliated with the Oath Keeper militia. It aims to consolidate the Republican Party’s control.
The plan, known as the “precinct strategy,” has been repeatedly promoted on Steve Bannon’s popular podcast. As ProPublica detailedIt inspired thousands of people last year to fill the positions at the lowest levels of the party ladder. Although these positions are not well-known and often vacant, they have important powers. They help elect higher-ranking party officials, influence which candidates appear in the ballot, turn voters on Election Day, and even staff polling precincts, where people vote, and the election board that certifies the results.
“Just heard about an incredible effort underway that will strengthen the Republican Party,” Trump said Sunday in a statement emailed to his supporters. “If members of our Great movement start getting involved (that means YOU becoming a precinct committeeman for your voting precinct), we can take back our great Country from the ground up.”
Trump’s email named Dan Schultz, an Arizona lawyer and local party official who first developed the precinct strategy more than a decade ago. Schultz spent many years trying to promote his plan, and recruit precinct officer candidates. According to hacked records, Schultz posted a callout in 2014 to an internal forum for Oath Keepers militia groups. ProPublica.
“Why don’t you all join me and the other Oath Keepers who are ‘inside’ the Party already,” Schultz wrote under a screen name. “If we conservatives were to do that, we’d OWN the Party.”
January, Federal prosecutors charged the leader of the Oath Keepers and 10 of its other members with seditious conspiracy in last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol. One of them pleaded guilty as well as several other members of the group who have cooperated with the investigation in related cases. The group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, pleaded not guilty.
There are no signs Schultz was involved in the Capitol riot.
Schultz told ProPublicaHe did not become a member of Oath Keepers. “I have taken oaths to support and defend the Constitution as a West Point cadet, as a commissioned U.S. Army officer and as a practicing attorney,” Schultz said in a text message. “Those oaths do not have expiration dates, by my way of thinking, and I have kept my oaths. In that sense, I am an ‘oath keeper.’”
Experts on extremist groups say the Oath Keepers are among the most dangerous. recruit military and law enforcement veteransThe group uses the argument that their oath to uphold the Constitution never expired. The group then urges people to resist what they say are impending orders to take away Americans’ guns or create concentration camps.
“I don’t ever want to be pulling the trigger on an AR-15 in my neighborhood,” Schultz said in a 2015 conference call with fellow organizers, referring to the semi-automatic rifle. “Oath Keepers, I love them for instilling the oath. But what they need to do also, I think, is spread the message that hey, we can do stuff politically so we never get to the cartridge box.”
Schultz described his precinct strategy repeatedly as a last option to violence in recent interviews on right-wing podcasts.
“It’s not going to be peaceful the next go-round, perhaps,” Schultz said in a June interview with the pro-Trump personality David Clements. “But it ought to be, and the way to ensure that it will be is we’ve got to get enough of these good decent Americans to take over one of the two major political parties.”
It was unclear whether Trump or his aides knew Schultz had self-identified as Oath Keepers. Trump’s spokesperson, Liz Harrington, did not respond to requests for comment.
Schultz spent months trying to get Trump’s attention to his idea. Steve Stern, a fellow movement organizer, told ProPublica that he met a former Trump administration official for lunch at Mar-a-Lago, the ex-president’s private club in Palm Beach, in December. Stern said that Trump was briefly mentioned the project to Stern while Stern was there.
The interview was given by Schultz and Stern on a talk show hosted last month by Mike Lindell (MyPillow CEO) who promotes conspiracy theories concerning the 2020 election. Lindell said that he would discuss the plan personally with Trump. Stern said that Schultz and Stern followed this up with a conference phone call with Harrington, Bannon, and Stern. Harrington previously worked at Bannon’s “War Room” website.
“I know the president’s very jacked up about it,” Bannon said on his podcast, speaking with Schultz after Trump released the endorsement. “Help MAGA, help the America First movement, right? Help the poor, help President Trump, and help yourself, your country, your community, and your grandkids. Put your shoulder to the wheel.”
Bannon, who led Trump’s 2016 campaign, originally lifted the precinct strategy to prominence in a podcast interview with Schultz last year. After the episode aired, thousands of people answered Bannon’s call to become precinct officers in pivotal swing states, according to data compiled by ProPublicaFrom county records and interviews conducted with local party officials.
As of last August, GOP leaders in 41 counties reported an unusual increase in sign-ups since Bannon’s first interview with Schultz, adding a total of more than 8,500 new precinct officers. The trend appears to have continued. New precinct officers started using their powers to remove or censure Republican leaders who contradicted Trump’s election lies and to recruit people who believe the election was stolen into positions as poll watchers and poll workers.
Trump pardoned Bannon in the last minute after he was charged with financial fraud. He has pleaded guilty to contempt for Congress for refusing to comply with a subpoena by the committee investigating Jan. 6’s attack. Bannon’s spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
Bannon, Lindell, and other pro-Trump figures like Michael Flynn, former national security advisor, who urged Trump impose martial law and Sidney Powell, and Lin Wood, who led some lawsuits that sought to overturn the election results, support the precinct strategies. Right-wing groups, such as Turning Point Action which organized buses to transport rallygoers in January 6, also joined the effort of recruiting precinct officer.
While Stern said he’s thrilled about Trump’s written statement endorsing the precinct strategy, he said he hopes to hear it from Trump’s own lips at an upcoming rally. Stern stated that he will be there with tables to sign up more people.
