The Republican National Committee said Tuesday that it will not be hiring conservative activist Scott Presler, who has a large online following and has helped spread a wide range of conspiracies, including about QAnon, in recent years.
Presler was director for a group critical of Islam that organized “March Against Sharia” protests and helped plan “stop the steal” rallies ahead of Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Newly installed RNC co-chair Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of former President Donald Trump, said last week that she was interested in hiring Presler.
"I'm going to have a call very soon with Scott Presler who ... has registered so many people in this country. I think he's fantastic. I want him on our legal ballot harvesting division," she told conservative commentator Benny Johnson.
Presler, who chaired a group called Gays for Trump, has gained a national following among the GOP’s conservative right flank as an organizer and social media personality with a specific focus on registering Republicans to vote. He has amassed 1.5 million followers on X and helped lead voter registration and get-out-the-vote training sessions for conservative groups.
An RNC spokesperson said Presler will be a “valuable voice to the RNC” but will not become a direct employee as he “remains focused on his nonprofit.” Presler runs an organization called Early Vote Action that was founded to “organize & mobilize Republicans to vote early.”
In a statement to NBC News, Lara Trump praised his work with the Republican Party's grassroots base.
“Scott Presler has shown what a single individual can accomplish when it comes to activating voters across the country,” she said. “I look forward to having his support as both of our organizations share the same goal of getting our friends and neighbors out to vote in this crucial election.”
Presler, who has appeared on Donald Trump Jr.'s podcast, did not return a request seeking comment.
Lara Trump’s announcement that she wanted to hire Presler received immediate pushback from Democrats eager to draw attention to Presler’s conspiracy theory-laced resume.
“Scott Presler is an election-denying conspiracy theorist, which just makes him par for the course in terms of new major RNC staff hires,” Alex Floyd, the Democratic National Committee’s rapid response director, said in a statement last week.
Lara Trump said during the interview with Johnson that she wanted to hire Presler to lead the party’s “legal ballot harvesting” program. It’s a reference to laws in some states that allow third parties to pick up and deliver multiple ballots at once. Republicans, led by Trump, have argued it should be illegal but are now saying they need to do things like ballot harvesting and mail-voting to not lose ground to Democrats.
