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This answer to Why would a former US president's announcement of a reelection bid cut off legal defense funds? in toto:

From the July 28, 2022 Yahoo article, by Cheryl Teh, The RNC has been helping Trump pay his legal bills but will pull the plug once he kicks off his 2024 campaign:

The Republican National Committee has been helping former President Donald Trump fund his legal battles but would stop if he declares a 2024 run, ABC News reported.

The outlet spoke to an unnamed RNC official, who said that payments would dry up once Trump announces he's running for the GOP presidential nomination.

The official attributed this to the GOP's "neutrality policy," which means that the party needs to be impartial to all candidates in the run-up to the presidential primary.

Question: Does the GOP actually have a formal 'neutrality policy' that this unnamed RNC official describes?

I'm wondering if this is established in some bylaws somewhere or if it's perhaps only a "policy of convenience" that arose in response to the reporter's question, or somewhere in between.

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From the Rules of the Republican Party

RULE NO. 11
Candidate Support
(a) The Republican National Committee shall not, without the prior written and filed approval of all members of the Republican National Committee from the state involved, contribute money or in-kind aid to any candidate for any public or party office of that state, except the nominee of the Republican Party or a candidate who is unopposed in the Republican primary after the filing deadline for that office.

So if there's a contested primary, the RNC can't provide financial support to any of the candidates.

Whether this counts as "neutrality" is a matter of semantics. It also prohibits the RNC from subsidizing all the candidates equally, which would still be neutral.

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    Subsidizing candidates equally would favor the poorest candidates, for whom the amount would be a relatively large fraction of total campaign funds.
    – Spencer Joplin
    Commented Sep 30, 2022 at 16:32
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    @SpencerJoplin By that logic, not subsidizing any candidates favors the richest candidates, since they don't need the subsidies as much.
    – Barmar
    Commented Sep 30, 2022 at 16:50
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    But if you take it to that extreme, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't
    – Barmar
    Commented Sep 30, 2022 at 17:01

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