- Cleta Mitchell was appointed to the board of advisors on August 21, records show.
- Mitchell was on the phone call with Donald Trump when he tried to overturn the 2020 election.
- Mitchell resigned from her law firm after the Washington Post published audio of the phone call.
On January 2, 2020, Republican lawyer Cleta Mitchell joined then-President Donald Trump on a phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who Trump asked to "find" 11,780 votes to overturn the election in his favor. Nearly eight months later, Mitchell was appointed to a federal election advisory board, the Associated Press reported.
Nominated by Republican-appointed members of the US Commission on Civil Rights, a federal agency that informs national civil rights policy and its enforcement, Mitchell was approved to join the Election Assistance Commission board of advisors by a majority vote of commissioners on August 21, AP reported.
However, her addition to the board was not publicized until journalist Jessica Huseman published EAC documents to Twitter on Monday.
—Jessica Huseman (@JessicaHuseman) November 15, 2021
According to the board's charter, it has the authority to recommend voluntary guidelines to the EAC, an independent, bipartisan commission that certifies voting systems, advises election offices on compliance, and maintains national voting registration forms.
Mitchell is one of the two USCCR appointees to the 35-member EAC advisory board, which she joined after resigning from her law firm and helming conservative efforts to push for tighter state voting laws, AP reported. USCCR is one of several federal agencies that is allotted a specific number of nominations to the board.
She resigned from her previous firm, Foley & Lardner, when the Washington Post published audio of Trump's phone call to Raffensperger and revealed her involvement.