When hard-right socially conservative Rep. Daniel Webster defeated MAGA Republican Laura Loomer by 7 percent in a GOP congressional primary on August 23, she responded by refusing to concede and claimed, without evidence, that the election was stolen from her. There was no proof that any type of voter fraud occurred in that primary, but that didn't stop a group of Loomer supporters from filing a lawsuit on her behalf. And according to Daily Beast reporter Will Sommer, one of the Republicans listed in the lawsuit as a plaintiff, Theresa Rinaldi, has demanded that her name be removed from it.
Webster is far from a moderate. Because of his extreme social conservatism, Democratic firebrand and former Rep. Alan Grayson slammed him as "Taliban Dan" when they ran against one another in the 2010 midterms (Grayson lost). But 12 years later, ironically, Loomer lambasted Webster for not being far enough to the right and attacked him as a RINO: Republican In Name Only.
When Loomer lost to Webster, she declared, on Election Night, "I'm not conceding." And her supporters, believing her unsubstantiated voter fraud claims, filed a lawsuit. But Rinaldi, Sommer reports, wants no part of it.
"Now, in the latest blow to Republican attempts to prove voter fraud, one of the five supposed plaintiffs listed on the lawsuit told The Daily Beast she had no idea her name was going on the case and doesn't think malfeasance occurred in the election," Sommer reports in an article published by the Beast on September 12. "Theresa Rinaldi, of Orange County, cast her vote for Loomer, but says she was added to the lawsuit without her knowledge or permission."
According to Rinaldi, she spoke to John Pierce — a right-wing lawyer in the lawsuit — on the phone, but he never told her she would be listed as a plaintiff.
Rinaldi told the Beast, "I want my name off of that, because I did not witness any voter fraud…. I felt like he was tricking me in that phone conversation, I really did."
David Towns, a reporter for Florida's Villages-News.com, named Rinaldi as one of the plaintiffs in an article published on September 9. And seeing her name in that article, according to Rinaldi, came as a surprise.
Rinaldi told the Beast, "When I saw the article, I just about fainted." And she says that when she spoke to Pierce on Saturday, September 10 — the day after Towns' Villages-News.com article was published — she told him, "Why did you put my name down? I'm not going to lie."
Pierce's clients, according to Sommer, have ranged from Kenosha, Wisconsin shooter Kyle Rittenhouse to a "bevy of Capitol riot defendants."
Rinaldi said of Loomer, "If she's going to sue, then let her sue."
