Foley’s lawyer resigns after collaborating in Trump’s name to Georgian officers

Conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell is at the Milwaukee-based law firm Foley & Lardner just days after it was revealed that she spoke to President Donald Trump on the phone to dismiss the Georgia presidential election results.

“Cleta Mitchell has informed management of its decision to resign from Foley & Lardner with immediate effect,” said a statement by Dan Farrell, company spokesman. “Ms. Mitchell decided that her departure was in the best interests of the company as well as her own personal interest.

“We thank her for her contributions to the company and wish her all the best.”

Her biography had already been deleted from Foley’s website on Tuesday afternoon. She was a senior partner in the firm with more than 1,000 lawyers for almost 20 years.

Mitchell is excited to learn that she’s been working for the president’s campaign for weeks on a lawsuit designed to improve the results of the Georgia presidential election – an apparent violation of her company’s policies.

Reed Galen, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, said Foley officials should disclose how much they knew about Mitchell’s role in the Georgia case. The Lincoln Project, made up of anti-Trump Republicans, led the social media uproar over Mitchell and the Georgia call.

“The company knew and they didn’t say anything,” Galen said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel. “Or they didn’t know and then the question arises, how the hell didn’t they know?”

The Washington Post was the first to report that Mitchell participated in the conference call on Saturday during which Trump pressured Georgian Foreign Secretary Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes to help Trump elect that state.

“You have data and records that we do not have access to and you keep telling us that you investigated this and you know you have nothing to see here,” Mitchell said, according to a transcript of the call. “But we don’t know. We only know what you’re telling us.”

Raffensperger pushed back.

“President Trump, we had several lawsuits and had to respond to the lawsuits and disputes in court,” said the Secretary of State. “We don’t agree that you won.”

Early evidence of work for Trump

However, this wasn’t the first public mention that Mitchell, a Conservative activist and Trump loyalist, worked on the Georgia case for perhaps a month on behalf of the Republican president’s campaign.

In an interview with NTD Television on December 11, presenter Jan Jekielek described her as “on the ground in Georgia, where he is working on the Trump campaign lawsuit in Georgia”. NTD Television, short for New Tang Dynasty, is owned by The Epoch Times, a Falun Gong newspaper that has become a leading provider of right-wing misinformation.

“The situation is that we believe that the election result is incorrect and that all these illegal votes should be discarded and that this election cannot be confirmed as having been awarded to (elected) Joe Biden,” said Mitchell Jekielek. “And there are extraordinary means that should be followed.”

The Daily Beast reported Monday that Mitchell also discussed the case with Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council, on a November 30 podcast, calling himself “a volunteer in the Trump campaign and Georgia legal team.”

“I’m a volunteer,” Mitchell told Perkins on a second podcast in December, according to the Daily Beast. “We have some other volunteers who help because there was so much to record. The aim was to create a public record that demonstrates the extent of the violations and the illegality.”

Even if she wasn’t paid to work on the Georgia case, she appears to have broken her company’s guidelines.

On Monday, Foley officials issued a statement saying they were “concerned” about Mitchell’s participation in the controversial appeal.

“We are aware of Ms. Mitchell’s participation in the January 2nd conference call and are concerned and are working to better understand her participation,” said Farrell.

The company made a decision in November not to acquire customers involved in matters related to the November presidential election. Biden, a Democrat, defeated Trump with 306 votes against Trump’s 232.

Members of Congress will meet on Wednesday to confirm the election results. A minority of Republicans, including Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, are expected to object to Biden’s victory.

Foley said he allowed his attorneys to participate in recounts and related matters as long as they were acting as individuals and not acting as legal counsel.

Mitchell didn’t return any calls or emails.

However, over the weekend, she initially defended her participation in the appeal. She said in a statement that the Georgian Foreign Minister “has made many statements in the past two months that are simply incorrect and that everyone involved in the effort on behalf of the presidential election challenge has said the same thing: Show it.” and your records about you rely on these numbers to be incorrect. “

Mitchell, who is based in DC, has represented a number of right-wing and GOP groups, including the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Rifle Association, and the American Legislative Exchange Council.

She is also a longtime board member and current board secretary of the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in building the national conservative political infrastructure.

Bradley officials said they couldn’t comment on Mitchell’s activities because the foundation is a nonprofit and cannot participate in partisan politics.

Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 224-2135 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.