Republican National Committee leaders held a closed meeting in Cleveland on Tuesday where they reviewed the main legal argument to stop the Never Trump movement,
CNBC reports.
RNC General Counsel John Ryder, who is also a Trump delegate from Tennessee, presented the main points to the committee, giving his legal opinion on why delegates to the Republican National Convention are bound to the winner of their state's primary or caucus on the first ballot. RNC members told CNBC that the room burst into applause after the presentation.
Nevada Chairwoman Diana Orrock, a member of the RNC convention rules committee, told CNBC that no one will overturn the requirement that keeps delegates bound to whichever candidate they had vowed to vote for when chosen as a delegate. Unbound delegates won't be affected.
"These are the rules and they have always been the rules and they should be applied," Orrock said.
Rules committee member Curly Haugland sponsored a number of non-members to the session, including Trump foe and former New Hampshire Sen. Gordon Humphrey. According to
WMUR.com, Humphrey wrote a letter to 112 members of the RNC rules committee on Tuesday, urging them to let delegates "exercise their independent judgement in all matters."
On Monday,
NBC News reported that a federal judge sided with an anti-Trump delegate, blocking the enforcement of a Virginia law that requires delegates to support the winner of their state's primary at the convention.
"The court has confirmed what we have said all along: Rule 16 is in effect and thus delegates... are bound to vote in accordance with the election results," attorney and former Federal Election Commission Chairman Don McGahn, who currently works for the Trump campaign, said in a statement.
According to Republican delegate Stefani Williams, writing for
The Hill, only 890 delegates are committed to vote for Trump, far below the 1,237 required to make him the nominee. Another 680 delegates oppose the presumptive nominee, and 900 could go either way.
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