Cleta Mitchell
SOURCE: Wikipedia, captured 2020-08-26
This page last modified: 2020-10-19 17:00:40 -0700 (PST)
Notable affiliations:
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Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP
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co-Chair, American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)'s voter suppression task force
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past Chairman, American Conservative Union Foundation
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Board of Directors, Bradley Foundation
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legal counsel for Steve Bannon's fraudulent Citizens of the American Republic
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legal counsel for Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC; past-President, Heritage Foundation)
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Chair, Public Interest Legal Foundation (where the notorious financier Neil Corkery is the Treasurer)
See also:
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[2020-08-24] Federal prosecutors have Steve Bannon’s murky nonprofit in their sights. Tucked at the bottom of the long indictment against Bannon, prosecutors say they want to seize the assets of his nonprofit "Citizens of the American Republic," shedding more light on the secretive political group's finances.
Near the end of a lengthy indictment detailing fraud allegations against Stephen Bannon, former Donald Trump campaign CEO and chief strategist and his associates, federal prosecutors reveal that they intend to seize the assets of a murky nonprofit organization Bannon launched in 2017 to promote "economic nationalism." ...
... Stephen Bannon is the President of the Citizens of the American Republic ... Other top officials are ... lawyer Cleta Mitchell ...
Cleta Mitchell speaking at the 2013 CPAC in Washington, D.C.
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Cleta Deatherage Mitchell (born September 15, 1950) is an American lawyer, politician and conservative activist. Elected in 1976, Mitchell served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives until 1984, representing District 44 as member of the Democratic Party.
Early life and education
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Cleta Mitchell was born as Cleta B. Deatherage in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1950. Cleta Mitchell attended Classen High School her junior and senior year. Cleta Mitchell received a B.A. in 1973 and a J.D. in 1975, both from the University of Oklahoma. Mitchell also has an honorary degree in Home Economics from Oklahoma State University due to her work with former dean, Beverly Crabtree.
In 1971, Mitchell was one of the five original conveners of the Oklahoma Women's Political Caucus.
Married life
Cleta Mitchell married Duane Draper, a fellow Oklahoman from Norman, in 1973. In 1980, Draper moved to Massachusetts to take a teaching fellowship at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The couple divorced two years later in July 1982 on grounds of "incompatibility." Draper later came out as a gay man and became director of AIDS programming at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
In 1984, Cleta Deatherage married Dale Mitchell, who was the son of all-star Brooklyn Dodgers left-fielder Dale Mitchell. In the early 1980s, the FBI began investigating Dale Mitchell for banking malpractice, and in 1992 he was convicted of five felony counts of conspiracy to defraud, misapplying bank funds and making false statements to banks, and ordered to pay $3 million in restitution. According to Mitchell, this is what convinced her that government had grown too big.
Oklahoma House of Representatives
Mitchell served as a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 1976 to 1984, as member of the Democratic Party. Cleta Mitchell was the first woman in the United States to chair a House Appropriations and Budget Committee. Cleta Mitchell served on the executive committee of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Committees
Chair of the House Appropriations and Budget committee.
Career after the House
In 1991 Cleta Mitchell moved to Washington to become general counsel and executive director of the Term Limits Legal Institute and later served as a losing co-counsel in the case of U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton.
Mitchell is a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Foley & Lardner.
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Oddly, Cleta Mitchell is not mentioned on the Wikipedia page for Foley & Lardner LLP. However, she is listed [2020-08-26] as a Partner at Foley & Lardner, on their web page [local copy (html)].
Cleta Mitchell, Partner, Foley & Lardner LLP.
[Image source. Click image to open in new window.]Affiliations (part). Ms. Mitchell served on the advisory council to the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Election Law and as an advisor on the American Law Institute's Election Law Project entitled, "Principles of Election Law: Dispute Resolution." In 2016 she was elected to membership in the American Law Institute. Ms. Mitchell serves on the Board of Directors of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, is past Chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation, and has served as the President of the Republican National Lawyers Association.
Cleta Mitchell refused to represent Christine O'Donnell.
Cleta Mitchell has been appointed to the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Election Law and as an advisor on the American Law Institute's Election Law Project entitled "Principles of Election Law: Dispute Resolution."
Cleta Mitchell serves on the Board of Directors of the Bradley Foundation. Cleta Mitchell also serves on the Board of the National Rifle Association (NRA), where she has also been a lawyer, and the American Conservative Union Foundation. Cleta Mitchell sits on the Board of Governors of the Republican National Lawyers Association, where she is a former president.
After leaving the House and an unsuccessful run for Lieutenant Governor in 1986, Mitchell switched her political affiliation from Democratic to Republican.
In August 2013, conservative Newsmax magazine named Mitchell among the "25 most influential women in the GOP".
National Rifle Association and congressional investigation
In 2018, The McClatchy Company reported that Mitchell, as a long time lawyer for the NRA, had previously expressed concerns about the NRA's close ties to Russia and the possibility that Russia had been funneling cash through the NRA into Donald Trump's 2016 Presidential Campaign. Mitchell's name was included in a list of individuals that Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee sought to interview in connection with the committee's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Upon learning of the report, Mitchell denied ever having expressed such concerns.
Awards and achievements
"Rising Star" Award by Campaigns and Elections magazine (1993)
South Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce's Native Daughter Award
Outstanding Female Attorney (1980)
Selected as a Fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics (1981)
Published works
Press articles
Campaign-Finance Reform and Its Casualties, The Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2012.
Give Partisanship a Rest and Address Real Issues, The New York Times, November 9, 2012.
Scholarly articles
'The Rise of America's Two National Pastimes: Baseball and the Law' (1999, Michigan Law Review)
'Donor Disclosure: Undermining The First Amendment' (Minnesota Law Review, 2012)
Books
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The Lobbying Compliance Handbook (2008, Columbia Books)
Additional Reading
[Slate.com, 2019-10-02] ALEC: How to Get Away With Gerrymandering. A leaked audio recording reveals how state lawmakers are taught to trash evidence, avoid the word gerrymander, and create an appearance of bipartisanship.
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Thomas Farr is an American attorney. Farr was nominated by President Donald Trump for a judgeship on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina in 2017, and again in 2018. Farr was considered a controversial[2] nominee due to his alleged involvement in suppression of African-American voters. ...
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Hypocrite Lynn Westmoreland is an American politician who was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 3rd congressional district from 2007 to 2017 and the 8th district from 2005 to 2007. Lynn Westmoreland is a member of the Republican Party. ... As Republican Leader in the Georgia House, Lynn Westmoreland led the fight against intense partisan gerrymandering during the redistricting process controlled by the Democratic majority in 2001. Lynn Westmoreland abandoned his opposition to gerrymandering -- and was instrumental in the mid-decade redistricting that took place in 2005 -- after Republicans won control of the Georgia legislature in the 2004 elections. ... | Lynn Westmoreland: Racial bigotry
... Slate has obtained an exclusive audio recording of the closed-door panel called "How to Survive Redistricting," moderated by influential Republican lawyer Cleta Mitchell. The panel's four experts -- Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation, North Carolina election lawyer Thomas Farr, former Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, and Texas state Rep. Phil King -- are among the architects and defenders of some of the most notorious gerrymanders and voter suppression plans of this decade.
During the session, the legislators were advised to treat redistricting as "political adult blood sport," trash potential evidence before it can be discovered through litigation, avoid the word gerrymander, and make deals with black and Latino legislators that guarantee them easy reelections by packing as many minority voters as possible into their districts, thereby making the rest of the map whiter and more conservative. ...
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