New R.N.C. Chair Declares ‘a United Front’ With Trump After Sweeping Changes

Michael Whatley, an ally of Donald J. Trump who took over the Republican National Committee last week, celebrated a series of major changes at the committee in a memo on Thursday and declared that the party would be “a united operation, and a united front” with Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.

Mr. Whatley was unanimously elected on Friday as the committee’s chair, along with Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, as his co-chair. A whirlwind of changes soon followed, remaking much of the party apparatus from top to bottom.

On Monday, the new leadership team gutted the committee, severing ties with more than 60 officials, including senior staff members. On Tuesday, Christina Bobb, a self-described 2020 election denier and conspiracy theorist on Mr. Trump’s legal team, said she was joining as senior counsel for election integrity.

“I am very pleased to say that my first week as the chairman of the Republican National Committee has been a great week,” Mr. Whatley began the memo, which was sent out to the membership of the R.N.C., and obtained by The New York Times.

Mr. Whatley also announced that the R.N.C. “is merging operations with the Trump campaign,” adding that James Blair, a Trump campaign aide, would wear two hats, as the political director for both the committee and the Trump campaign.

That announcement formalized a merger that had been playing out since Monday, when it was reported that much of the party’s operations would be relocated to Palm Beach, Fla., the base of operations for the Trump campaign.

Charlie Spies, a Republican lawyer and a chief fund-raiser for Mitt Romney during his 2012 presidential campaign, will also take over as the R.N.C.’s chief counsel, according to the memo.

As some Republicans have expressed concerns that Mr. Trump would use committee money to pay his legal bills, Mr. Whatley said the R.N.C. needed “to make sure that every penny of every dollar is spent towards one thing: winning. Winning House seats, winning Senate seats, and winning the presidency.” Before taking over as co-chair, Ms. Trump had said she would be open to the idea of the committee paying Mr. Trump’s legal bills.

Mr. Whatley’s memo also set a goal of building “the most effective election integrity program that has ever existed to safeguard our elections.” Ms. Bobb, who is now heading that effort, has for years relentlessly promoted false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump, first as a host at the far-right One America News Network and continuing after she became a lawyer for Mr. Trump. Bill McGinley, who served as cabinet secretary during the Trump administration, will also join the team as outside counsel for election integrity.

One of the goals for the election integrity team, according to Mr. Whatley’s memo, will be an “aggressive, proactive effort to ensure that it will be easy to vote and hard to cheat.” The memo mentions challenging some of the voting rules that were instituted for the 2020 election, suggesting that the national party may add to conservative efforts to tighten voting laws, as well as efforts by Trump allies to challenge large numbers of voter registrations in critical battleground states, ahead of the 2024 election.

The R.N.C. sued Michigan on Wednesday to make cuts to the state’s voter rolls, arguing that they are “bloated with ineligible voters.” Mr. Whatley highlighted that lawsuit in the memo, and said “many more” are coming.