WASHINGTON—Candidates for the Republican Party’s 2024 presidential nomination were reportedly racing to fulfill the participation requirements after the Republican National Committee announced Monday that it was setting the cutoff for the first debate at a minimum of 20,000 ethics violations. “In order to qualify, candidates must show that they have committed at least 20,000 unique violations of Federal Election Commission statutes, including at least 500 from 20 distinct states,” said RNC committee chair Ronna McDaniel, explaining that the threshold would ensure that those candidates who appeared on the August 23 debate stage in Milwaukee met both the party’s expectations for disregarding the legal system as well as the expectations of GOP voters for undermining democracy. “Having a bare-minimum ethics violations requirement makes certain that we’re only featuring serious candidates. Whether it’s accepting illicit campaign contributions, using official government resources for campaign purposes, or failing to properly file expenditure reports, we need evidence from news articles, video recordings, or official stationary that the candidate’s campaign is violating federal law in multiple ways. Alternatively, if a candidate is unable to reach the 20,000 campaign ethics violations threshold, we’ll make an exception if they can prove that they’ve personally committed at least a Class X felony embezzlement from their campaign funds.” The RNC also reportedly set as an additional requirement for debate qualification that all candidates must sign a pledge to commit ethics violations on behalf of the eventual Republican nominee.
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