Two top campaign advisers for United States Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) worked to unbind delegates at the 2016 Republican National Convention in a failed effort to keep Trump from the nomination, according to sources and video.
Good, who is facing a Trump-backed primary challenger after initially supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in the Republican presidential primary, has used the consulting firm Bonnie & Clyde Strategies, LLC, since at least February 2023, Federal Election Records show. The firm, which is listed on Virginia’s State Corporate Commission’s website, was registered naming Christopher Shores as its registering agent in 2020. The Washington Times notes that Shores’ wife, Diana Shores, is Good’s campaign director.
The Shores couple attended the 2016 Republcian Convention in Cleveland, where they worked to unbind delegates with anti-Trumper Ken Cuccinelli, sources say and video supports.
Notably, Cuccinelli, who Politico reported in 2016 “played a key role in Cruz’s delegate operation,” founded the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down in 2023. This PAC supported DeSantis heavily in his challenge to Trump for the presidential nomination throughout the primaries.
The trio can be seen in a heated clip from the 2016 convention, with the Shores shouting and Cuccinelli chucking his credentials in apparent disgust as efforts to secure a roll call vote failed.
Politico reporter Tyler Pager reported:
Cuccinelli led an effort to produce a petition that would prompt a roll-call vote on the convention rules, something that would have furthered Donald Trump’s critics’ hopes of embarrassing the presumptive nominee or perhaps even denying him the nomination.
However, Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) called a voice vote and left the stage after declaring that the rules had been approved. He later returned for a second voice vote, which he declared another win for the pro-rules side, and then rejected pleas for a roll-call vote.
The footage, seen below, includes a shot of Diana Shores shouting and pointing while sporting a neon-green hat that appears to read “People’s Voice” and “Not a Rubber Stamp for the RNC.”
She is flanked to the left in the clip by her husband and to the right by Cuccinelli.
After an angle cut, a frustrated Cuccinelli seems to say, “Virginia, I’m very sorry, but I am not going to do this again,” as he hurls his delegate credentials to the floor of the Wells Fargo Center. Chris and Diana Shores appeared to look on intently during Cuccinelli’s outburst.
Both Chris – who FEC records indicate was paid nearly $4000 for consulting services for the Cruz presidential campaign between January and March 2016 – and Diana can be seen chanting for a “roll call vote” seconds later in opposition to Womack’s gaveling.
A similar video, with Diana in the thumbnail, is prominently featured in a 2016 NBC News article titled “Anti-Trump Delegates Cause Chaos on Opening Day of GOP Convention.”
Breitbart News reached out to the Shoreses for comment. In a phone conversation with Breitbart News on Saturday morning, Chris Shores said that he and Diana were there supporting Virginia delegate and 2016 RNC rules committee member Morton Blackwell, who was an advocate for rules changes.
“Morton was fighting for rules changes that we supported,” Shores said. “We thought that gathering more power onto the RNC was not appropriate for the party and did not represent the grassroots of the party. So we’ve always been big advocates of the grassroots in the party. And so we were supporting Morton Blackwell and his bid to make rules changes.”
He asserted this “was not an anti-Trump move for him personally.”
“And I know Ken Cuccinelli and others had their particular agendas, and we may have been lumped in with Cuccinelli on that, but speaking for me personally, I can tell you that I was not – this was not an anti-Donald Trump move for me personally,” he added.
Sources also say the Shoreses are close to Pete Snyder, a DeSantis donor, per Fox News, and a Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2021.
More recently, Chris Shores has been critical of one of Trump’s 2020 endorsements, according to a screenshot of the private Facebook group “Virginia 5th Congressional District Republicans” obtained by Breitbart News.
In a March post, he questioned Trump’s past endorsement of former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), who has since renounced his status as a Republican.
“Don’t speak for President Trump. He has not endorsed in this race. In 2020 he endorsed Denver Riggleman and look how Denver turned out. He served on the J6 Committee and went to work for Hunter Biden,” Shores wrote in the comment section under a post.
Under another post from the group obtained by Breitbart News that apparently came after the Iowa caucuses and Good’s switching of his presidential endorsement from DeSantis to Trump, Chris Shores shared a dated picture of Trump and Good, seemingly in an attempt to suggest a closeness between them.
One user commented, “Just a few short months ago Bob Good endorsed DeSantis, humm, when Bob flips its okay but not for others! Sounds like double standards.”
Shores then posted the picture in response, prompting the user to ask for a more recent one.
“That is an old picture, where is the current pic with Trump?'” she asked.
What is more, both Shores attended a breakfast for DeSantis hosted by Good on April 14, 2023, just 10 days after Trump was indicted on 34 felony counts on April 4, 2023, in what has been widely regarded on the right as “election interference.”
Trump was ultimately convicted of those charges on Friday in deep blue Manhattan.
“We were there to staff Congressman Good. I mean, Congressman Good attended the breakfast, as you know, and we worked for Congressman Good. So we were there to staff him,” Chirs Shores told Breitbart News. “And we go wherever the Congressman needs us to staff him and wherever he’s attending events or whatever. We are often with him, staffing him, or you know, have someone on our team staffing him, and so that particular day we were staffing him at that event.”
Good’s dragging his feet on backing Trump came after he secured the 45th president’s highly influential nod in the 2022 midterms. On Tuesday, Trump announced his endorsement of Good’s challenger, State Sen. John McGuire (R), and excoriated Good, who is the Freedom Caucus chair, in his statement.
“Bob Good is BAD FOR VIRGINIA, AND BAD FOR THE USA,” Trump wrote at the top of a Truth Social post.
“He turned his back on our incredible movement, and was constantly attacking and fighting me until recently, when he gave a warm and ‘loving’ Endorsement – But really, it was too late. The damage had been done!” he added.
Trump then gave high praise to McGuire:
I just want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, and the person that can most help me do that is Navy Seal and highly respected State Legislator, John McGuire, a true American Hero. John, who fought the Cartels on the Front Line, and then came home and fought the drug dealers in Virginia, will ALWAYS PUT AMERICA FIRST.
On Friday, Trump’s lawyers sent a cease and desist to the Good campaign “to halt the use of the presumptive Republican nominee’s name or likeness,” the Staunton News Leader noted.
The pair are set to square off in the June 18 primary election.