'Stop being stupid': Ex-RNC chair slams Clark and other 'flat out wrong' alleged Trump co-conspirators

During a Saturday morning interview, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele urged GOP leaders to "stop being stupid" by defending ex-President Donald Trump and the 18 others indicted by an Atlanta grand jury last month.

Appearing on MSNBC's Velshi with Ali Velshi, the former Maryland lieutenant governor blasted conservative attorney Jeffrey Clark's suggestion that in allegedly assisting Trump with efforts to overturn the 2020 election he was "actually doing government work."

PBS reports:

Clark is also believed to be one of the six co-conspirators listed in the Justice Department's indictment of Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Though Trump is the only person charged in the indictment, the other co-conspirators, who are not yet named in the indictment, could still face charges.

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During Velshi and Steele's conversation, Velshi said, "Jeffrey Clark is intriguing to me. He was an employee of the Department of Justice. Up to no good, but he has, he is making the case that 'I was actually doing government work.'"

Steele replied, "He's full of it. Because, you're right, he wasn't doing government work. There was no government work involved here. This was in the back end of a hotly contested presidential campaign. Campaign! Donald Trump wasn't running you know, an operation inside the government to secure the rights for fill in the blank, or to negotiate a deal with our allies abroad. There was no, no nexus to the State Department, or other government agencies who would be involved in this. This was a straight up political contest in which the president wanted to use the authority, and power, and instruments of the government to get his way. And Clark and others who were inside, all those others, even Mark Meadows, these government officials, the moment they picked up the phone, and called Brad Raffensperger, in my humble opinion, they were in violation of the Hatch Act."

He continued, "They did it on government property, with government property, having a political conversation. Trying to change the outcome of a political campaign. So, let's stop being stupid and getting caught in this space with these idiots, and believing, and pushing out their narratives. Because they are flat out wrong. And we need to be honest about that, and stand up, and push back against the noise they're making. They want to confuse the jury pool, Ali. This is all about the jury pools that will be put together over the next few months. This is not about anything other than that, so they can get that one juror, when Trump's name comes up, goes 'Oh no, Trump is not guilty,' and the whole thing falls apart."

Watch the video below or at this link.

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Ex-RNC chair slams Republicans defending Trump and others' violation of Hatch Actyoutu.be

PBS' full report is available at this link.