US: Trump tightens grip on Republican Party as daughter-in-law takes key post

Donald Trump cemented his grip on the Republican National Committee on Friday after his daughter-in-law and another ally assumed top leadership posts amid a debate among members over whether the organisation should help pay his legal bills.

RNC members meeting in Houston voted to appoint North Carolina Republican Party head Michael Whatley and Lara Trump as chair and co-chair of the organisation, which will play a key role in marshalling voters and funds for the November 5 general election.

The move comes after Trump swept the Super Tuesday primary contests, prompting Nikki Haley to drop out of the Republican race and all but assuring the former US president will be the nominee and face off against President Joe Biden, a Democrat.

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"The goal on November 5th is to win, and as my father-in-law says 'bigly'," Lara Trump said, promising that "every single penny of every dollar raised" would go toward the goal of winning the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate for Republicans.

The reshuffling sees Ronna McDaniel replaced atop the organisation. McDaniel faced criticism over fundraising and the party's performance at the ballot box. During her tenure, Trump was defeated in 2020, and the party turned in a weaker-than-expected performance in the 2022 congressional midterm elections.

Some RNC members have called for the committee to help pay for Trump's legal expenses, which along with penalties have ballooned to hundreds of millions of dollars. Neither Whatley or Lara Trump directly addressed the issue on Friday. Trump's push to have the wife of his younger adult son Eric as second-in-command symbolises his takeover of a political institution whose mission is to get Republicans elected up and down the ballot. Not since President Ronald Reagan's daughter Maureen Reagan was RNC co-chair in the 1980s has a family member of a president or nominee served in such a position of power.

One of the new leadership's most pressing tasks will be money. After recording its lowest fundraising year in 2023 in a decade, the RNC had less than $9 million in the bank at the end of January, a little more than a third of the Democratic National Committee's $24 million, federal filings show.

"We have to raise a lot of money," Lara Trump said, showing a check for $100,000 she said had been donated on Friday.

Like her father-in-law has done often in his speeches, she painted the upcoming election in moralistic terms.

"This isn't just about right versus left, Republican versus Democrat," she said. "It's about good versus evil."

Lara Trump created a stir last month by saying she believed Republicans have a "big interest" in paying the former president's legal bills and by not ruling out using RNC funds.

Trump's legal costs are expected to mount this year as he grapples with 91 criminal counts across four cases and faces more than $500 million in damages tied to three civil case judgements in New York.

Henry Barbour, an RNC member from Mississippi, drafted a resolution ahead of this week's meeting that would have barred the committee from covering Trump's legal bills, arguing that all money should go toward winning the election.

Barbour warned that the prospect of Trump tapping the RNC for legal bills was spooking donors. "Rich folks don't want to pay other rich folks' bills," he said.

But Barbour's resolution failed to gain enough support, and Trump's campaign co-manager Chris LaCivita, who is expected to join the RNC as chief operating officer, has said committee funds will not be used for legal costs.

Solomon Yue, an RNC committeeman from Oregon, said, however, he has spoken with some 20 members who agree with him that the organization should pick up the bill for Trump's legal troubles.

Yue said he believed the Biden administration had "weaponized" the Justice Department to undermine Trump's campaign. Biden has denied any involvement in the criminal cases, and no evidence has surfaced to support Yue's assertion.

Two RNC donors who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity said they planned to wait to see the impact of the leadership changes before contributing funds. Both expressed concerns about their money going to pay legal bills.

"They called me to re-up my donation. I said. `Until I know how this is going to shake out, I'm not writing a check,'" one of the donors said.

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