The Vermont Republican Party is standing by former President Donald Trump.
According to a Thursday evening press release from the party, its executive committee on Wednesday night voted by “a narrow margin” to excuse Trump from a state party rule that prohibits it from supporting candidates who have been convicted of a felony.
As written in the party’s bylaws, the Vermont GOP “will not support or promote any candidate for elective office who … is a convicted felon.”
A subsection of the rule allows the party’s 14-member executive committee, by majority vote, to exempt a specific candidate from the prohibition under undefined “extenuating circumstances.”
According to Vermont Republican Party Chair Paul Dame, committee members voted during a closed-door, executive meeting held over Zoom Wednesday night. In an interview Friday afternoon, Dame declined to tell VTDigger the breakdown of the roll call.
The rule began making national headlines earlier this month, after a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in order to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The payment, prosecutors argued, was intended to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
At the time, Dame said in a recorded statement that the party’s executive committee had not met “to even discuss what, if any, action we would take and whether or not such an action would be necessary in the case of President Trump.”
Dame then told VTDigger on June 11 that, if the executive committee were to vote on the question of exempting Trump from the rule, it would not do so until after Trump is officially nominated at the Republican National Convention in July.
This week, that proved not to be the case. The party on Thursday released a two-paragraph, unattributed written statement announcing that the vote had taken place the previous night.
On Friday, Dame said Wednesday’s meeting was the executive committee’s standing monthly meeting.
The party has not shared which members of its executive committee were in attendance, how they voted, or the vote count itself — though Dame told VTDigger that as chair, he abstained from voting on the question.
“It was part of the discussion that we should just announce what the result was and then move on,” Dame said. “And it was a close vote. I feel comfortable saying that. That’s all I’ve got for you at this time.”
Asked whether he typically abstains from voting on questions as chair, Dame replied, “Well, I’ll say there have been other votes where I have voted.”
Asked if any record of the vote or preceding debate exists internally, Dame said he has not seen the meeting’s minutes and does not know.
“We have some kind of minutes, but it’s usually restricted to motions made,” Dame said. “We … don’t capture the character of the discussion necessarily, especially on sensitive topics where people want to be able to speak freely.”
The party on Thursday wrote that the executive committee “met and by a narrow margin voted to exempt the Republican Party’s Presumptive Nominee for President, Donald J. Trump from Rule 16-1 in accordance with our state by-laws.”
“While the vote was split on this particular issue the Executive Committee is still in broad agreement that the state party remains focused on supporting local Republican candidates for House and Senate to push back against the Democratic Super-majority,” the party’s statement concluded.
Jim Dandeneau, the Vermont Democratic Party’s executive director, told VTDigger in an interview Friday that he suspected the GOP opted to hold the vote this week because “they’re trying to sneak it through under the cover of the debate and do a Friday news dump,” referring to Thursday night’s presidential debate between Trump and President Joe Biden.
“They don’t want people to realize that they do not support democracy, that they support a man running for president who is convicted of 34 felonies and found liable for sexual assault,” Dandeneau said. “They don’t want anybody to notice that, because when people do notice that, they lose, because that’s not what Americans support, and that’s not what Vermonters support.”
Dame pushed back on Dandeneau’s comments, telling VTDigger that another member of the committee raised the discussion and made a motion to conduct the vote toward the end of Wednesday night’s meeting.
“There was discussion about waiting, but at the end of the day, the majority wanted to address it and get it out of the way and move on to focusing on Vermont-centric stuff,” Dame said.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Vermont GOP votes to back Trump, waiving rule against supporting candidates convicted of felonies.