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House Republicans on the committee with broad jurisdiction over national elections have hired at least two former Donald Trump campaign officials to be involved in the sham 2020 election scheme, as the GOP-led body prepares to face an unfamiliar post-election landscape after Congress returns to be the focus in November.

The overlap between Trump’s 2020 team and the Republican Party-led committee responsible for overseeing the election suggests that the same cast of people involved in Trump’s legal machinations are stationed in key positions on Capitol Hill before Congress takes on the crucial but largely ceremonial role of certifying the 2024 election on January 6, 2025.

The hires also signal that the House, currently under Republican control, is well-positioned to flood the zone with Trump’s new series of lies about ballots, vote counting and the electoral process, laying the groundwork for challenging a possible defeat in November lays.

The House Administration Committee, which typically stays under the radar, will also play an important role on January 6, when Congress certifies the election. If Republicans retain control of the House, the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, is expected to be one of four lawmakers sitting at the podium reading the electoral votes, and his staff will brief members on ongoing proceedings advise.

According to the consulting contract obtained by CNN, Republicans earlier this month hired former Trump campaign lawyer Joshua Findlay to advise on election law matters through the end of this Congress. They previously hired Thomas Lane, another Trump official who served as a surrogate elector in Arizona in 2020, to lead their investigation into the election.

According to committee records, the House Administration’s Elections Subcommittee met last year with groups such as the Republican National Committee, now under the control of Trump and his campaign; the Conservative Partnership Institute, a group affiliated with Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows; and the Election Integrity Network, led by Cleta Mitchell, who spoke to Trump on the phone in January 2021 as Trump urged Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” the votes he needed to win the 2020 presidential election.

The committee confirmed the hiring to CNN. “Chairman Bryan Steil is committed to strengthening our nation’s election integrity and increasing Americans’ trust in our elections,” a spokesman said.

Findlay participated in phone calls and meetings about fake voters, particularly in Georgia, until at least mid-December 2020, according to sources familiar with the conversations and sworn transcripts obtained by CNN. He then served as national director of election integrity at the Republican National Committee.

In an email chain with Trump lawyers and campaign officials discussing how to proceed with the alternative list of voters, Findlay updated the group on the status of voters and the legal battles with each battleground state.

“I have also included draft voting instructions, ballot papers and vote certificates for each state. “These documents must be reviewed to ensure they comply with state and federal law,” Findlay wrote on Dec. 11, 2020, according to emails obtained by CNN.

Under his consulting contract, Findlay will advise Republican members and staff of the panel appointed to act as election observers in key battleground states on election laws and intervene when observers are denied access to voting sites.

A spokesperson for the committee told CNN that Findlay’s contract ends Nov. 30 and is related only to the election observer program.

Findlay worked closely with Mitchell, who helped Trump overturn the 2020 election. He ultimately told the House special committee conducting the investigation on January 6, 2021 that he never found evidence to support the Georgia fraud allegations.

“I think there were a lot of legitimate complaints about election administration in general. But, you know, the big complaints that you would hear about massive vote swings and things like that, we just never did – at least in Georgia, we never found any evidence of that,” Findlay said in May 2022.

Republicans on the committee had previously hired another Trump official, who served as a surrogate elector in Arizona in 2020, to lead their investigation into the election. Emails obtained by CNN show that Lane was involved in planning the fake voters in Arizona, gathering contact information and discussing where the fake voters would meet. Lane was supposed to serve as a backup voter if he was absent on the day the bogus voters met in Arizona, according to documents obtained by CNN.

Lane, who is currently listed in the committee’s filings as an election consultant and election coalition director, was also subpoenaed by the Justice Department as part of the federal investigation into the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

“I’m here to do everything I can to make this work,” Lane wrote in a Dec. 12, 2020, email chain with then-Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro and then-Arizona State Party chairwoman, Kelli Ward, one of the most publicly vocal members advocating for the program in the state and discussing fake voter logistics.

Should Republicans retain control, the panel’s chairman, Steil, who is in a tough re-election race, will take center stage on January 6, 2025.

To put the role of Steil and his committee in context, a Republican source familiar with the process told CNN: “The people who direct traffic are the Rules Committee, the people who drive cars are the members, but the people who explain that you need gas in your car,” that you should use your turn signal and your brake light is off, that’s the property manager’s job. So I don’t think the role they play today can be overstated.”

Steil, who voted to certify the 2020 presidential election, must contend with competing forces as the former president and his allies, who claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen, look to Steil to carry the torch this time, especially through his investigations ActBlue, the Democratic online fundraising platform.

At a rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, earlier this month, Trump said of Steil: “You have a young, brilliant congressman and he’s on a committee and it’s a very important committee and he’s investigating fraud and the fraud within the Democratic Party and whatever.” what they do in terms of campaign contributions. And it’s a huge scandal.”

Steil praised Trump and explained how he turned his panel’s investigation into ActBlue over to five Republican attorneys general.

“You are dealing with this information, Mr. Trump. I think they will find a lot of answers for you very soon,” Steil said.

Steil’s legal team has been investigating ActBlue’s donor verification policies and procedures for nearly a year, but expanded the investigation in August and called on the FEC to immediately intervene and require ActBlue to verify the credit card information of donors who donate online.

As part of his referral to the five Republican attorneys general in September, Steil referenced “whistleblower reports” and provided “detailed donor records” based on “extensive data analysis reviewing over 200 million FEC records spanning the past 14 years.” .

None of this information was provided to Democrats on the committee, a source familiar with the process told CNN. (Because Republicans are in the majority, they are not required to share their findings.)

The timing of the committee’s expansion of the investigation also raised questions. ActBlue told Steil in November 2023 that the company did not require donors to verify their information online before paying, but Steil waited nine months before formally asking the FEC to intervene in August, according to Steil’s own account of events .

Given the panel’s recent efforts to publicize its work, a senior GOP aide told CNN, “We did our best to raise these issues outside of the election, and we literally got no coverage at all.”

The House Administration Committee has historically been viewed as an extension of the Speaker and Minority Leader of the House because, unlike other committees, party leaders select all committee members and are heavily involved in the decisions made.

Both sides strive for non-partisan cooperation. But that is less the case now, particularly when it comes to elections, said a source familiar with the committee’s work.

“It’s like this pure partisan now, throwing rotten fruit at everyone back and forth,” the person said. “This is what it has become. That wasn’t the case until recently.”

CNN’s Marshall Cohen, Zachary Cohen and Paula Reid contributed to this report.