Notorious conspiracy theorist rolled out by RNC to train election overseers in Michigan

The prolific conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec undermined confidence in the upcoming election during a Zoom training for GOP poll challengers in Michigan that was hosted by the Republican National Committee this month.

“I actually think the Venezuelans learn how to run their current elections by coming to Philadelphia and learning from us,” Posobiec said during the Sept. 4 training, according to a recording of the call obtained by Raw Story.

As the largest city in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia holds the biggest share of Democratic voters in the critical swing state, and has been a focal point of baseless voter fraud claims by Republicans. Posobiec’s comment put a new spin on a debunked claim by attorney Sidney Powell that the 2020 election was run on software created at the direction of the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez.

Posobiec, who grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs, paraphrased a quote attributed to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, telling the Republican volunteers that he “learned very early on that it doesn’t matter who votes; it matters who counts the votes."

“And that’s what election integrity is all about,” he added.

Al Schmidt, a Republican member of the commission that oversees elections in Philadelphia, testified before the now-defunct House Select January 6 Committee that election officials found no evidence of widespread election fraud. Schmidt said threats escalated against election workers after former President Donald Trump accused him on Twitter (now X) of refusing to investigate “a mountain of corruption.”

Morgan Ray, the RNC’s Michigan state director of election integrity, introduced Posobiec during the training as “an incredible patriot.” She and Posobiec highlighted Detroit, also a Democratic stronghold, as a focal point of Republican suspicions about voter fraud.

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“We know that Philly and Detroit are some of the top cities in the entire country that are under a microscope,” Ray said.

Similar to Philadelphia, a review of the 2020 election by a Republican-controlled state Senate committee found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Detroit or any other part of the state. Nonetheless, Posobiec’s comments suggested election malfeasance as an agreed-upon fact.

“We all know what happened in 2020,” Posobiec said. He added that he had recently visited the TCF Center, now known as Huntington Place, which served as the vote tabulation center for the city. Some election challengers were locked out of the facility because it had exceeded capacity amidst concerns about COVID-19 spreading, which provided grist for baseless claims of election fraud.

“I was up in Detroit not long ago in the very building, the old TCF Center where we, you know, scene the crime, where everything went down and boarding up the windows and they were blocking people,” Posobiec said during the Sept. 4 RNC training call.

Posobiec could not be reached for comment for this story.

A former U.S. Naval Reserve intelligence officer, Posobiec is best known for spreading the Pizzagate conspiracy theory that Democratic Party officials were using a Washington, D.C. pizzeria as a front for a secret child abuse cabal. A North Carolina man drove to the restaurant with an AR-15 and opened fire after being convinced it was being used to traffic children.

Southern Poverty Law Center has documented extensive ties between Posobiec and white nationalists from 2017 through 2021.

During the recount of the 2018 U.S. Senate race between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson, Posobiec amplified unfounded claims that Democrats were attempting to steal the election. The vote marked the beginning of an effort by Posobiec and other proteges of political strategist and Trump confidant Roger Stone to undermine confidence in elections under the banner of “Stop the Steal.”

“We have assets that are going to be deployed,” Posobiec reportedly said during a Periscope livestream in November 2018. “They’re on their way right now to Broward County. Folks, they are trying to steal the elections.”

Another Stone protégé involved in the 2018 “Stop the Steal” effort was Laura Loomer, a self-described “proud Islamophobe” with a history of racist and misogynist attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris who recently accompanied Trump to the debate and 9/11 commemorations.

On Sept. 7, 2020 — two months before the last presidential election, Posobiec tweeted: “StoptheSteal 2020 is coming.”

Since Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, and Michael Whatley took over as co-chairs of the Republican National Committee in March, the party has openly embraced Posobiec and other election deniers who sought to overturn the 2020 election.

In May, Lara Trump invited Posobiec onto her podcast “The Right View.”

“How are you feeling about the upcoming election?” Trump asked Posobiec. “Anything you’re looking out for or anything that maybe makes you think, I don’t know, put a little tinfoil hat on?”

Posobiec obliged by drily asserting that “the vote results out of Philadelphia don’t always math up what the polls say.” He also said that he sometimes publicly proclaims that Joe Biden did not win the 2020 election. That assertion is provably false.

During the Sept. 10 presidential debate in Philadelphia, Posobiec participated in a social-media influencers “war room” set up by Trump campaign adviser Alex Bruesewitz — also a “Stop the Steal” alum — that amplified Trump’s messaging during his showdown with Harris.

Posobiec and the other influencers received letters signed by Trump on campaign letterhead that read: “Thank you for being a social media warrior in the fight to save our country from the Radical Left!”

Trump closed by writing: “I look forward to making viral content with you at the White House in just a few short months!”

Posobiec has spoken to at least one other RNC poll challenger training. He addressed GOP volunteers in Wisconsin on Sept. 9.

The RNC could not be reached for comment for this story.

RNC officials have said they planned to set up election integrity operations in 15 states and hoped to recruit 100,000 volunteers. The RNC’s Protect the Vote website directs potential volunteers to sign-up forms in 18 different states, including the key battlegrounds of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Posobiec told the Michigan volunteers to “think of yourself as the ground forces” while echoing Trump’s existential framing of the election.

“We’ve already seen the Marxism start creeping in; it’s already begun,” he said. “The question is, are we going to let them finish the job or not? And if you agree with me that we’re not going to let them take our freedom away, they’re not going to let them take our country away. That’s why you’ve got to sign up to be that final line of defense against the approaching Marxism.