OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The Democratic Party-aligned lawyer who has been deemed “most responsible” for destroying Americans’ trust in their electoral processes and system is a familiar figure in the effort by the 2016 presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton to invent a “collusion” narrative involving her GOP rival, Donald Trump, and Russia.
“Following the 2016 presidential election, a broad swath of Democratic voters, surrogates and lawmakers denied the legitimacy of the outcome, arguing Donald Trump’s victory was rigged,” Just the News noted in an analytical piece on Monday.
“Following the 2020 presidential election, a broad swath of Republican voters and elected officials, including Trump, argued Joe Biden’s victory was rigged and illegitimate,” the report continued.
“In each case, a significant segment of the electorate lost confidence in the integrity of U.S. elections. In each case, the same man was at the center of that erosion of public trust: the Democrats’ top election lawyer,” Marc Elias, the analysis added.
How a top Democrat lawyer undermined both sides’ confidence in U.S. elections | Just The News https://t.co/gGix27kg59
— John Solomon (@jsolomonReports) May 2, 2022
The FEC has fined Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign (as well as the DNC) for violating election rules in hiding that funding in filings by its counsel Marc Elias. However, it is the basis rather than the size of the fine that is so notable… https://t.co/QTI7OGy2Q1
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) March 31, 2022
Elias was a principal figure in the Russian collusion hoax, which cast a pall over Trump’s 2016 victory as well as his entire presidency, as well as the largely successful bid to disrupt the nation’s voting laws in unprecedented ways, which then cast a doubt on Biden’s 2020 victory.
“The legal mastermind probably most responsible for the leftist push to subvert our democracy, overturn elections, and destroy election integrity is Marc E. Elias,” wrote John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky in their 2021 book “Our Broken Elections.”
He “has grown astoundingly wealthy representing Democratic candidates, political action committees, and party organizations” and “seems to have a monopoly on the Democratic political machine,” they added.
Before he founded the Elias Law Group last year, he was a partner at another firm well-known in ‘Russiagate’ circles — Perkins Coie, which represented Clinton’s campaign and which was reportedly the financial conduit for financing the so-called “Steele dossier,” which leveled several unsubstantiated and salacious claims against Trump.
Just the News adds:
Elias headed the firm’s political group and served as the Clinton campaign’s general counsel. He testified both during a House Intelligence Committee investigation in 2017 and recently during Special Counsel John Durham’s ongoing investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe that he was the one who hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on then-candidate Trump.
Fusion went on to solicit former MI6 agent Christopher Steele to create the infamous Steele dossier, which contained several salacious and since-debunked claims about Trump and his alleged ties to Russia.
The attorney met with Steele during the 2016 campaign cycle and would then brief the Clinton campaign about alleged research gathered by him and Fusion GPS.
He was also involved with the financing and dissemination of the phony research which sought to paint a picture of ‘collusion’ between the eventual 45th president and the Kremlin. He also testified before Congress that he knew about Fusion’s plans to have Steele providing briefings to reporters regarding his alleged findings against Trump.
Elias’ former colleague at Perkins, Michael Sussmann, is set to stand trial next month as part of the Durham probe for allegedly lying to the FBI at a 2016 meeting in which he shared with the FBI some of the Trump-Russia dirt.
Claims of Trump and his associates colluding with the Russian government in the 2016 race caused Democratic lawmakers to call Trump an “illegitimate president,” blaming the Kremlin for helping him win the White House. Some Democrats tried to block the certification of the election results on Jan. 6, 2017, citing Russian collusion as a key reason for their objections.
Elias also used the COVID-19 pandemic as his impetus for filing lawsuits in key battleground states Trump won in 2016 to get voting rules changed in the courts and in secretaries of state offices, even though the Constitution directs only state legislatures to make such changes.
In the end, a large number of Americans have been left with serious doubts about the integrity of federal elections.
“Unfortunately, Marc Elias’ actions as a lawyer and political strategist have severely undermined the confidence of the American public in the election process,” von Spakovsky told Just the News. “His work has been nothing but detrimental to the integrity of our elections, and he has helped destroy public confidence.”
