After some Republican National Committee insiders tried to wrest away his financial control, Chair Michael Steele is returning fire. The Washington Times has the text of an email he sent:
“I have just returned from an overseas trip to learn that the five of you have developed a scheme to transfer the RNC chairman’s authority to the treasurer and the executive committee,” Mr. Steele wrote in an e-mail he sent to Randy Pullen, the RNC’s elected treasurer, and Blake Hall, the committee’s general counsel, as well as to three former RNC officers.
“It is of course not lost on me that each of you worked tirelessly down to the last minute in an effort to stop me from becoming chairman,” Mr. Steele wrote. . .
In the e-mail, Mr. Steele said the resolution “amounts to nothing short of a completely unprecedented usurpation of the authority of the RNC chairman, and a transfer of the chairman’s authority to the executive committee and the treasurer. No RNC chairman has ever had to deal with this, and I certainly have no intention of putting up with it either.” . . . Steele argues that he always has embraced the “transparency, competitive bidding and good governance” that Mr. Pullen and the others said their resolution aims to achieve. . . .
It’s not painting a pretty picture at the RNC. Presumably whoever released this email to the WT hopes that continued squabbles will get Steele out of his chairmanship.