The Republican National Committee has hired a prominent supporter of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement, who has since fueled conspiracy theories about the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, to help craft its 2024 party platform.
Ed Martin, a former chair of the Missouri Republican Party, was a major proponent of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. He gave a speech to Trump supporters in Washington on the eve of the Capitol attack, calling on “die-hard true Americans” to work until their “last breath” to “stop the steal,” according to video posted on social media.
On the morning of Jan. 6, Martin attended Trump’s speech near the White House before joining the crowd in marching to the Capitol and posting about it on social media. Capitol video surveillance footage published by House Republicans shows him arriving on the grounds at around 2:20 p.m. By that time, Trump’s backers had already broken through police lines and stormed the building itself in an attempt to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.
There’s no evidence Martin was on restricted grounds of the Capitol, entered the building or broke the law that day. But the new RNC hire’s outspoken advocacy for reversing the 2020 election results and his defense of those actions in the years after highlights the extent to which the “Stop the Steal” movement has become institutionalized in the GOP. Trump is anchoring his 2024 bid on the false claim that the election was stolen from him, dangling pardons for Jan. 6 rioters and vowing retribution against his political foes — even floating imprisoning them — if elected.
Martin was tapped by the RNC on May 15 to serve as deputy policy director of the platform committee, which drafts the policies the party will run on in November. The RNC noted that he’s the president of the conservative Phyllis Schlafly Eagles and the Eagle Forum Education & Legal Defense Fund, as well as the author of the 2016 book “The Conservative Case for Trump.”