Vazquez agreed with the DNC that a POLITICO article about Spicer spending time on the fifth floor of Trump Tower on election night raised enough questions to warrant his deposition. | Getty Judge allows DNC to depose Spicer on election night activities

A federal judge said Wednesday that he’ll allow the Democratic National Committee to depose Sean Spicer, the former Republican National Committee communications director and White House spokesman, on whether he violated a 35-year-old consent decree barring the RNC from engaging in ballot security or voter suppression efforts.

But the judge, Michael Vazquez, denied a DNC request for an evidentiary hearing on whether the RNC violated the consent decree.


The consent decree, which originated from RNC actions in New Jersey’s 1981 gubernatorial election, is set to expire on Friday, but its future is uncertain. Vazquez said he’s not yet ready to rule on whether it will expire on Friday.

“I’m going to reserve on the drop dead date of the consent decree and we’ll go from there,” Vazquez, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, said during a conference call with attorneys for both parties.

Vazquez said that despite comments from high-ranking Trump campaign officials about poll watching efforts in the lead-up to the 2016 election, the DNC had presented no evidence that the RNC participated in them.

“As far as what’s before this court, you’ve presented me with no evidence of actual voter suppression efforts on the day of the election, much less tying it to the RNC,” Vazquez told DNC attorneys. “The DNC has a lot of resources and I know this was a big concern. Where is the evidence that there were ballot integrity measures and other suppression going on on Election Day, and then a reasonable inference that the RNC was involved in those?”

But Vazquez agreed with the DNC that a POLITICO article about Spicer spending time on the fifth floor of Trump Tower on election night — the nerve center of the campaign’s poll-monitoring operation and data war room that day — raised enough questions to warrant his deposition. Spicer at the time worked for the RNC. Party staffers had been given strict instructions to avoid the floor, POLITICO reported.

“It would seem as though there’s a lot unanswered by the article and a deposition of Mr. Spicer would be able to address those clearly,” Vazquez said.

Vazquez said the deposition should not last more than four hours and gave permission for a “targeted” search of Spicer’s emails from that day relating to his presence on the fifth floor.

Still, Vazquez warned Democrats not to get their hopes up, saying he’s unlikely to grant them further depositions.

“I want to give you a realistic expectation that I’m not going to be inclined to grant any additional discovery unless, through material issue of the consent decree, you have real evidence that what he said was not accurate,” he said.

Spicer was also the RNC’s chief strategist at the time. In the run-up to the 2016 election, Democrats claimed that statements from RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence and Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway all indicated that the RNC and Trump campaign were in cahoots, after Trump called for his supporters to travel to “certain areas" to monitor the polling places.

The 1982 consent decree arose from alleged voter intimidation by Republicans in New Jersey’s 1981 gubernatorial election. Republicans, some of whom were armed off-duty law enforcement officers wearing armbands, showed up at urban polling places and challenged voters. The display was blamed for suppressing the black vote, allowing Republican Tom Kean to squeak out an extremely narrow victory over Democrat Jim Florio.