How Cleta Mitchell Turned Trump’s “Big Lie” Into a Movement

By Doug Bock Clark, October 28, 2026, 5:00 am

Listen 45:14

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Reporting Highlights

• Hidden Hand: Conservative attorney Cleta Mitchell has shaped virtually every aspect of the Trump administration’s norm-busting agenda on American elections. 
  
• Movement Builder: After working to overturn Trump’s 2020 defeat, Mitchell forged a national grassroots movement to overhaul voting. Some of her allies now hold top administration jobs. 
  
• More Drastic Steps: With the midterms approaching, Mitchell has pressed the Trump administration to take actions that even some who’ve worked with her say go too far.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

In July, not long before President Donald Trump delivered a primetime address questioning the legitimacy of American elections, the pioneering conservative election lawyer Cleta Mitchell and about two dozen of her associates logged onto a private video briefing with the White House.

Mitchell, who holds no formal position in the Trump administration, had been pivotal to Trump’s bid to challenge his loss in 2020, spearheading efforts to prove his claims of fraud and reverse his defeat in court.

After Joe Biden took office, when others abandoned the fight or scoffed as Trump clung to conspiracy theories, Mitchell doubled down, founding a grassroots organization devoted to rewriting election laws and rules to be more restrictive. Members of her group, the Election Integrity Network [EIN], were named to vital election-related positions in swing states and, later, in the second Trump administration.

The pre-speech briefing was an acknowledgment of just how consequential Mitchell and her organization had become. The White House had held similar sessions for key political players, such as governors, members of Congress and major press outlets.

At the appointed time, the screen filled with the faces of EIN leaders and supporters, some sitting in front of digital backgrounds with the group’s logo on them. Mitchell shushed those who’d forgotten to mute and introduced John Solomon, an ally of hers who was helping prepare the speech.

Mitchell and her network hardly needed the run-through, though: Much of the speech was a compendium of allegations and conspiracy theories they had originated or spread.

Her lieutenants were thrilled to hear that the president would assert there were more than 275,000 noncitizens on state voter rolls — a since-debunked claim based on work led by one of her proteges, who occupied a top post at the Department of Homeland Security.

The speech would end with an exhortation for Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill requiring voters to provide documentary proof of citizenship to register, which Mitchell had helped draft.

To Seth Keshel, an EIN adviser on the call, none of it was surprising — Mitchell was in and out of the White House all the time. He’d joined her for one such meeting.

Read more: Behind Cleta Mitchell’s Relentless Effort to Overhaul U.S. Elections – ProPublica

Continue/Read Original Article: Behind Cleta Mitchell’s Relentless Effort to Overhaul U.S. Elections — ProPublica