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Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall was elected chairman of the Republican Attorneys General Association over the weekend, placing him at the head of one of the nation’s most powerful lobbying groups for Republican legal interest.
In a statement released by the group on Monday, Marshall said it was “an honor” to be elected chairman and described RAGA as “the most consequential group of elected officials in our nation at this time.”
Marshall was first elected to the group’s executive committee in 2018 when then-Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was chairman.
“The legal work led by Republican attorneys general continues to be our nation’s last line of defense in the Biden Administration’s crusade against the Constitution and, most especially, conservative states,” Marshall said in a statement released on Monday. “There is a reason that 28 of our country’s state attorneys general are Republican—we have been the steady defenders of public safety, first liberties, and self-governance. And rest assured, we have no plans of backing down.”
Marshall previously led the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a dark money organization acting as the policy wing for RAGA, that paid for robocalls detailing where and when individuals should meet for the “Save America” rally held on Jan. 6. The rally would later morph into an attempted insurrection of the U.S Capitol that same day.
After an open record request made by APR in late September of 2021, Marshal’s office denied any emails between the office and current and former staff of RAGA or the Rule of Law Defense Fund before and after the Jan. 6 rally and attempted insurrection, later stating its search encompassed “all computers and servers within the control of the Office of the Attorney General.”
Adam Piper, the former executive director for RAGA who resigned less than a week after Jan. 6, said in a statement to APR that the Rule of Law Defense Fund and RAGA had “no involvement in the planning, sponsoring, or the organization.”
The robocalls paid for by the Rule of Law Defense Fund encouraged “Patriots” to march on the Capitol building and “call on Congress to stop the steal,” according to a report by Documented.
The whereabouts of Marshall on Jan. 6, are also unknown, with the Attorney General’s office refusing to confirm his location that day.
Marshall was present in the Oval Office almost a month prior to the insurrection, according to an Instagram post made in December of 2021.
“Attorney General Marshall has been a consistent advocate for the Constitution and rule of law, aggressively leading some of our nation’s greatest legal challenges against the Biden Administration in recent years,” said RAGA Executive Director Peter Bisbee, himself a former executive director for the Rule of Law Defense Fund. “We’re grateful to have AG Marshall’s steadfast and principled leadership helming RAGA during this critical time when progressives in Washington, D.C. are waging an all-out assault on our system of government and way of life.”
In a resignation letter written in April of 2021 by Ashley Trenzeluk, former finance director for RAGA, Trenzeluk implicated Bisbee as the individual who “approved the robocall expenditure” and said that he “was the only other person accountable for RLDF involvement in the Jan. 6 events.”
