This afternoon, MAGA Republicans are holding yet another bogus hearing pushing misinformation and conspiracy theories about voting to sow doubt in our democratic process and undermine the 2024 election. For months, former President Trump and his MAGA Republican allies have pushed a widely debunked lie characterized as “far-right rhetoric detached from reality” about non-citizens voting in federal elections. Trump’s closest allies in Congress are moving legislation to bar non-citizens from voting in federal elections – even though it is already illegal, and there is absolutely no evidence that non-citizens have voted in federal races.
The hearing features three leading election deniers playing a key role in laying the groundwork for Trump’s second attempted coup – including Cleta Mitchell, a former Trump lawyer and fierce election denier who the Intercept labeled, “One of the most influential people in the movement that’s undermining American democracy.” House Republicans also invited Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd, a DeSantis loyalist and QAnon sympathizer who is currently overseeing efforts to round up, question, and intimidate petition signers of a ballot measure repealing the state’s draconian abortion ban, as well as Rosemary Jenks, an anti-immigrant extremist who is deeply involved in the Project 2025-linked initiative to spread misinformation and panic. This partisan stunt only further demonstrates how MAGA House Republicans are serving as an arm of the Trump campaign, amplifying election lies and the MAGA Project 2025 agenda instead of addressing Americans’ real priorities like health care and inflation.
WITNESSES
Cleta Mitchell
Former Trump Attorney
Former Trump Attorney Mitchell Was Deeply Involved In Efforts To Overturn the 2020 Election & Has Worked To Curb Voting Access Ever Since. Cleta Mitchell, who has been described as “a fixture in the conservative movement” as well as playing a “central role in the effort to stop the certification of the [2020] election in Georgia and beyond, was “one of the principal players” in former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Ever since, she has continued to promote election denial and has worked tirelessly to push for greater voting restrictions across the country – including playing a leading role in MAGA efforts to spread panic and misinformation about supposed non-citizen voting.
- Mitchell Was A Key Figure In Donald Trump’s Attempt To Overturn The 2020 Election. In August 2020, Mitchell joined Trump’s legal team to litigate the 2020 election. She was a central figure of the team, hiring conspiracy theorist John Eastman and closely advising Trump. She was even on the phone with the former president when he asked Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” to reverse the election results. At the time, Mitchell was a partner at the law firm Foley and Lardner, but resigned a day after the Raffensperger call, after the firm criticized her participation in the call and her involvement with Trump.
- Mitchell Founded and Currently Chairs The Election Integrity Network. Mitchell founded and currently chairs the Election Integrity Network as well as the Foundation for Accountability and Integrity in Elections Fund. The network is a vast apparatus working to restrict ballot access and train conservative poll watchers as part of a broader MAGA effort to create disputes and justify intervention in the 2024 election by Republican-controlled state legislatures.
- 2021: Mitchell Ran A $10 Million “Election Integrity” Organization Based At FreedomWorks. In 2021, Mitchell entered into a new role running an elections-focused initiative sponsored by right-wing group FreedomWorks in order to “push for new restrictions in voting and help train conservatives to get involved in the nuts and bolts of local elections,” as well as “coordinate” conservative voting positions.
Mitchell Is A Member Of The Board Of The Right-Wing Bradley Foundation. Mitchell currently serves on the board of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, an organization with a history of anti-voter initiatives – including the funding of voter suppression billboards in 2010 and 2012.
Cord Byrd
Florida Secretary of State
Byrd Is An Election Denier Who Supports Trump’s Election Lies. Byrd has refused to acknowledge that President Biden won the 2020 election on numerous occasions, claiming that there were “irregularities in certain states,” citing allegations that have been widely discredited. He also alleged “People want to interfere and sow chaos, and they get smarter and more creative” as justification for new voting restrictions.
Byrd Defended An “Omnibus Voter Suppression Law” In Court. In May 2023, the NAACP filed a lawsuit against Florida’s SB 7050, an “omnibus voter suppression law” that imposed restrictions on mail-in voting and penalties on third-party voter registration assistance, which are more than five times more likely to serve Floridians of color than their white counterparts. The bill also tightened requirements to purge voter rolls. Byrd became the lead defendant in the case and asked a federal judge to recuse himself from the case for past rulings blasting Florida Republicans’ efforts to target Black voters in the state “with surgical precision.” Despite Byrd’s request, the federal judge remained on the case and struck down part of the voter suppression law in March 2024.
Byrd Is A MAGA DeSantis Loyalist Who Was One of The Most Right-Wing State Legislators Before Becoming Secretary of State. Byrd was reportedly “one of the more right-wing members of the Florida House” before he was appointed Florida Secretary of State by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Byrd’s former colleagues characterized him as a “hyper-partisan GOP loyalist who takes orders from Ron DeSantis” as well as a “QAnon conspiracy theorist.” He spearheaded some of DeSantis’ most controversial right-wing bills, including voting restrictions, anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, an infamous anti-protest law, and draconian abortion restrictions.
Cord Byrd Defended Comments Supporting QAnon and January 6th Made By His Wife Esther, Who Serves on The Florida Board of Education. After the Jan. 6 insurrection, Byrd’s wife Esther – who was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis to the state’s Board of Education in 2022 – published tweets defending the rioters and characterizing them as “peacefully protest[ing].” Esther Byrd, a member of the right-wing group Moms for Liberty, previously authored Facebook posts alluding to “coming civil wars,” claiming that “every elected official in DC” would be “either with us [or] against us.” She also publicly defended the Proud Boys militia, and Byrd and his wife were also identified aboard a boat flying a QAnon flag. After his wife faced backlash, Cord Byrd dismissed the comments as mere “hyperbole.”
Under Byrd’s Authority, The Florida Department Of State Has Rounded Up and Questioned Petition Signers Supporting An Abortion Ballot Initiative. In late August 2024, the Florida Department of State launched a “broad and unusual effort” to use the state’s election police to question and intimidate people who signed petitions placing an amendment on the 2024 ballot overturning Florida’s abortion ban.
Rosemary Jenks
Policy Director, Immigration Accountability Project
Jenks Is Deeply Involved In A Project 2025-Linked Initiative Spreading Misinformation and Panic About Non-Citizen Voting. Jenks serves as a policy director for a right-wing non-profit based in Mississippi known as the Immigration Accountability Project, which is at least partly funded (to the tune of $100,000) by the right-wing Heritage Foundation – the think tank behind Trump and MAGA Republicans’ Project 2025 policy blueprint. As the founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism noted, the group is “connected to Project 2025.”
Jenks Is An Anti-Immigrant Extremist. Before forming the Immigration Accountability Project, Jenks worked as a senior staff member of anti-immigration group NumbersUSA for over a decade, which has a history of promoting hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric. As the Southern Poverty Law Center points out, NumbersUSA was founded as a project of white nationalist John Tanton, who had a history of communicating with Holocaust deniers and making disparaging comments about Latinos. In 2019, Jenks also appeared on a podcast hosted by the anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney.