In the weeks leading up to and following his defeat in the 2022 Republican Senate nomination, Dave McCormick’s campaign team paid nearly $40,000 to a special assistant and political aide to former President Donald Trump.
Michael Roman, who reported to former White House adviser Don McGahn and served as Trump’s senior election observer in 2020, is now charged with Trump and 17 others in a conspiracy to overturn the results of the Georgia presidential election.
Public records and published reports indicate that Roman is one of five people with ties to McCormick and his 2022 Senate campaign who played a role in the so-called Fake Electoral Plan, which would see the certification of Electoral College votes for President Joe Biden on January 6, 2021 by presenting lists of votes for Trump from seven embattled states.
McCormick’s connection to people involved in the plan was brought to light by two charges alleging Trump was at the forefront of a criminal conspiracy to undermine the will of voters.
McCormick, a US Army veteran and former CEO of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, is widely believed to be the most likely Republican to challenge US Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., next year.
That’s what political strategists have said such bonds will be a liability for McCormick if he decides to run and wins the Republican nomination.
“The Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and Casey will hold McCormick accountable for the company he runs,” Democratic campaign adviser Neil Oxman told The Capital-Star.
While ties to the Trump Republicans would likely lend credibility to a GOP primary campaign, McCormick would need to go deep into the center to win over moderates in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs in order to win, Oxman said.
“If he makes general, he’ll be an outsider,” Oxman said. “We’re still a purple state.” We’re still more in the thick of it. ”
A spokesman for McCormick did not respond to a detailed list of questions emailed last week. Attempts to reach Roman via publicly available phone numbers and email have been unsuccessful. It’s unclear if Roman has an attorney in the Georgia case.
Roman is the only person with ties to McCormick who has been criminally charged, but four other people associated with McCormick were implicated in the vote-rigging plot. Allegheny County GOP Chairman Sam DeMarco III is the leader of McCormick’s PAC, Pennsylvania Rising, which has raised just over $1 million, which McCormick said will be used to support other Republican candidates.
DeMarco was one of 20 people in December 2020, he signed a certificate of voting for Trump should the election result be overturned in Biden’s favour.
Two other sham voters, Bill Bachenberg and Suk Smith, and secretary of the electoral college where Trump votes were cast, Lisa Vranicar-Patton, also received money for their work or support for the McCormick campaign.
Show records of the Federal Electoral Commission patton received $1,330.70 from McCormick’s PAC for travel expenses in February 2022. Patton tweeted a photo of himself with McCormick and US Rep. Dan Meuser, R-9. District, at the Pennsylvania Farm Show.
GREAT DAY with @DaveMcCormickPA & @RepMeuser at the #PAFarmShow! Join the Farm Show Fun ➡️ https://t.co/dmmHMmLVgt pic.twitter.com/j7dRYJlhY0
— Lisa Vranicar Patton (@VranicarPatton) January 8, 2022
Bachenberg, who chaired the Trump Electoral College meeting, hosted an event for McCormick at his company. Lehigh Valley Sporting Clays, a trap shooting range in Coplay, Lehigh County. The company received $1,060 from the campaign for event catering, federal campaign funding records show.
I’m showing @tedcruz Lehigh Valley, PA today. We met with local pastors to talk about the importance of faith in our lives and how it holds our communities together. I especially appreciated the prayers for my old Army Division, the 82nd Airborne Division and all our brave troops 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/aykrosszlo
— Dave McCormick (@DaveMcCormickPA) January 25, 2022
Smith, who worked as a regional field manager for McCormick’s campaign, was paid about $100 $16,200 salary between March and June 2020.
Roman, 51, grew up in Philadelphia and became involved in local politics in the early 1990s after dropping out of college The Philadelphia investigator.
He played a key role in a campaign that foreshadowed Trump’s claims of a stolen election when a Republican Senate candidate successfully sued for the reversal of the results of a special election, claiming dozens of mail-in ballots were fake or invalid.
Roman then headed the intelligence arm of the Koch brothers’ conservative organization Freedom Partners, where he conducted opposition research on Democratic organizers and donors. Politico reported after joining the Trump White House.
There, Roman held the title of Special Assistant to the President and Director of Special Projects and Research, but his role in administration was unclear.
It’s also unclear what services Roman provided to the McCormick campaign in return for the $38,716 he has since received April and June 2022. At this point, McCormick was in the home stretch of a primary campaign against Dr. Mehmet Oz, who lasted into June as McCormick unsuccessfully pursued a recount.
In the indictment of a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury last week, Roman is charged with seven felonies, including violations of the state Extortion Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act, forgery; and conspiracies to pose as officials, commit forgery, give false information, and submit false documents.
The Georgia grand jury is indicting Trump and members of his inner circle
The 98-page indictment alleges that Roman helped organize the bogus voter lists in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by collecting and disseminating information about those nominated to be Trump voters.
The final report of the House Special Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the United States Capitol describes novel as a “key operational role in the fake voter effort.”
It said that Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, appointed Roman, the Trump campaign’s head of election-day operations, “to be in charge of conducting the voting” by the wrong voters on December 14, 2020.
“With the help of his EDO staff, as well as Giuliani’s team and RNC staff working alongside the campaign as part of the Trump Victory Committee, Roman conducted an impromptu ‘Electors Whip Operation,'” the report reads.
Among the actions described in the Fulton County report and indictment, Roman directed an employee to create a table with tabs for each of the seven states, listing contact information, whether they were contacted, whether they were willing to attend the voting meetings attend, etc. names of alternates to replace anyone who has resigned.
The group, which Roman dubbed the “whip team,” according to the special committee report, focused on tracking the nominees and coordinating the ceremonies where voters cast their votes for Trump and signed certificates, which they sent to Congress .
On December 14, 2022, voters in all seven states met and signed instruments. Voters from five states declared they were “duly elected and qualified voters,” which was false. The certificates signed by voters in Pennsylvania and New Mexico included a note that they were participating only in case they were later recognized as official voters.
In Pennsylvania, then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro said this safeguard kept bogus voters from crossing the crime line, and his office found the certificate did not meet legal standards for forgery.
The special committee report said the committee issued a subpoena to Roman on Jan. 6 and that he exercised his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and did not answer substantive questions about the sham voting system.
Roman’s involvement in the sham election scheme lasted until the day before the Capitol attack. The report said that while Roman did not participate in the investigation, the committee concluded that Roman’s Deputy Election Commissioner, G. Michael Brown, personally delivered the forged votes to Congress.
Among the communications the committee reviewed was a Jan. 5 group message from Brown to other campaign workers. It contained a photograph of Brown with the Capitol in the background. In the text, Brown alluded to a 19th-century controversy over Electoral College voting.
“I should probably buy [Mike] [R]oman a tie or something you sent me this one. “It hasn’t been done since 1876 and only three states have done it,” the statement said.
