Michael A Roman
Special Assistant to the President and Director of Special Projects and Research
In office
January 20, 2017 – April 2018
PresidentDonald Trump
Personal details
Born (1972-12-07) December 7, 1972
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Political partyRepublican

Michael Roman is an American political operative and opposition researcher.[1][2] Roman was a staffer for President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2018.[1][3] He subsequently worked for the Trump 2020 campaign as director of election day operations.[4] Prior to working for Trump, Roman ran an in-house intelligence unit for the Koch brothers.[4]

Roman has a history of making misleading and unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud.[4][5] On Election Day in 2020, he posted baseless and deceptive claims of voter fraud.[6] He delivered the list of false electors for Michigan and Wisconsin to US Representative Mike Kelly who provided them to US Senator Ron Johnson. Staff of Ron Johnson tried to get these lists to Vice President Mike Pence before the count of the electoral votes on January 6, 2021.[7]

On September 12, 2022, the New York Times reported that agents of the U.S. Justice Department seized Roman's cell phone in conjunction with 40 subpoenas issued in the investigation of the false electors. CNN reported in June 2023 that Roman had entered into a proffer agreement with the Smith special counsel investigation.[8] On August 14, 2023, Roman was indicted under RICO charges in Fulton County, Georgia, related to activities attempting to overturn the 2020 election.[9]

Career

He began his career as a Republican Party activist in Philadelphia, his hometown.[10][11] Early in his career Roman was a political consultant in his home state of Pennsylvania and in New Jersey.[1] He worked for State Representative John Perzel and ran the 56th Ward in Northeast Philadelphia for him until Perzel was indicted and later went to prison . He was director of Election Day operations at the Republican National Committee.[12][1] He has been employed by the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, and John McCain.[1] Roman also served as chief of staff to former Illinois Congressman Bobby Schilling.[13]

Roman was a senior advisor on the 2016 Trump campaign as the campaign's chief poll watcher.[14][15][16]

Prior to joining the Trump presidential campaign, Roman headed up an intelligence gathering operation for Charles and David Koch, industrialists and high-profile Republican donors.[17] The now-defunct office surveilled and gathered intelligence on liberal opponents of conservative policies.[17][2]

Roman describes his blog Election Journal as dedicated to "fraud, cheating, dirty tricks, absurdity and other election news."[18][12] According to Richard L. Hasen, Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine, the blog appears to focus, "only on incidents favoring Republican's claims against Democrats.[12] During the 2008 presidential election, Election Monitoring, combined GoogleMaps, with Twitter, Flickr and YouTube to enable voters and poll watchers to post what they saw as instances of voter disenfranchisement and election fraud in a real time, online map.[19] One scholar, while recognizing the non-verifiable nature of this approach, asserted that it "opens up new potential for election monitoring that addresses some of the limitations that established and official (election monitoring organizations) face.[19]

White House role

Roman's role in the Trump White House as Director of Special Projects and Research, which Politico calls a "a vague title that reveals almost nothing," has drawn attention because in previous administrations it was usual for opposition researchers to work for the campaign or on the staff of the presidential transition team, rather than directly for the White House.[1] He left the White House in April 2018.[3]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cook, Nancy (February 11, 2018). "The mysterious oppo researcher working in the White House lawyer's office". Politico.
  2. 1 2 Haberman, Maggie (21 April 2016). "Koch-Backed Group Breaks Up Its Intelligence Unit". New York Times. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  3. 1 2 Cook, Nancy (28 April 2018). "Oppo researcher leaves White House". Politico. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 "Trump 'army' of poll watchers led by veteran of fraud claims". Associated Press. 2020-11-03. Retrieved 2020-11-03.
  5. ↑ Analysis by Marshall Cohen (30 September 2020). "How a false claim about anti-Trump bias at Philadelphia polling places jumped from Twitter to Trump's mouth at the debate". CNN. Retrieved 2020-11-03.
  6. ↑ Brandy Zadrozny. "Vote Watch: Conservative media influencers get early start pushing misleading claims about Pennsylvania election". NBC News. Retrieved 2020-11-03.
  7. ↑ Kyle Cheney; Nicholas Wu (July 15, 2022). "Trump campaign operative who delivered Jan. 6 false elector lists is identified". Politico.
  8. ↑ Zachary Cohen; Kaitlin Collins (June 29, 2023). "Former Trump campaign official cooperating with special counsel in 2020 election interference probe". CNN.
  9. ↑ "Trump, 18 others indicted for trying to overthrow 2020 Georgia election".
  10. ↑ Raghallaigh, Ciaran (6 June 2004). "O'Neill's Bhoys get Philly fillip". Sunday Mirror (London). ProQuest 339533782.
  11. ↑ Lieberman, Brett (31 March 1995). "They came "to make a crowd for Specter"". The Patriot-News. ProQuest 273219362.
  12. 1 2 3 Hasen, Richard (2012). The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300184211. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  13. ↑ Tibbetts, Ed (28 December 2010). "Schilling makes staff hires". The Quad-City Times. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
  14. ↑ Jacobs, Ben (October 18, 2016). "Controversial Republican Mike Roman to run Donald Trump's 'election protection'". The Guardian.
  15. ↑ Levitz, Eric (October 8, 2016). "Trump Names Guy Who Accused the New Black Panthers of Voter Intimidation As Head of 'Election Protection'". New York Magazine. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  16. ↑ Gauthier, Brendan (October 19, 2016). "Donald Trump taps shadowy GOP researcher Mike Roman as chief poll-watcher". Salon.com. Retrieved June 15, 2018.
  17. 1 2 Vogel, Kenneth (18 November 2015). "The Koch intelligence agency". Politico. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  18. ↑ Brennan, Chris (24 October 2016). "2008 video weak support of 'rigged' idea: Trump building excuse if he loses". Philadelphia Inquirer. ProQuest 1831569518.
  19. 1 2 de Jong, Jorrit (Spring 2008). "Trends and Challenges in Election Monitoring". Innovations: 162. doi:10.1162/itgg.2008.3.2.159.
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