“The overall dynamic, which is a huge problem for the country no matter which party wins, is that people can lose faith in the reliability of elections,” said Ben Ginsberg, a top GOP election lawyer and critic of President Donald Trump, "and elections are the basic mechanism for the peaceful transfer of power that has always been the foundation of our country.”
Mitchell joined Trump in the infamous January 2021 phone call where he pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" the votes he needed to overcome his loss in the state, and she and others involved in various schemes to keep the defeated president in office are getting jobs in the federal government, running for elected office and helping to advance the president's agenda in other ways.
"In the years since, however, Mitchell has become one of the most influential election voices in the Stop the Steal movement," CNN reported. "She built the Election Integrity Network – a coalition of conservative activists in some two dozen states, who have monitored polling places, challenged the accuracy of voting rolls and lobbied for changes to election ground rules. She also hosted more than 80 episodes of a podcast dedicated to her 'election integrity' campaign."
She also serves as senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, a pro-Trump nonprofit that is home to former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, and president of Foundation for Accountability Integrity & Research in Elections, or the FAIR Elections Fund, which provides grants to groups working to limit absentee voting or scrutinizing voter rolls to challenge individuals in battleground states.
Mitchell is also behind a push to require voters to provide documentation to prove their citizenship before registering to vote, which critics say could disenfranchise millions of Americans who may not have ready access to their birth certificate, passport or naturalization paperwork.
“If they cannot persuade the American people to want their Marxist policies for America, just import voters who don’t speak the language, don’t have a shared commitment to our country and our national principles, get them into the very poorest voter registration system and collect their votes,” Mitchell testified before a 2024 congressional hearing on the issue.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has sponsored a bill co-written by Mitchell requiring proof of citizenship to vote, which has passed the House twice but failed to advance in the Senate, and Trump's attempt to enact the measure through executive order has been blocked by a court.
Trump has suggested he might act on his own to impose new voter ID requirements on states, and Mitchell told a former congressman in a media appearance that the president would be within his rights to do so.
“The president’s authority … is limited in his role with regard to elections except where there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States — as I think that we can establish with the porous system that we have,” she told former Georgia congressman Jody Hice.
“Then, I think maybe the president is thinking that he will exercise some emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward,” she added.
Ginsberg sounded alarm at Mitchell's suggestion about "emergency powers," calling it “a dangerous comment, if she really means it, and if you believe in free and fair elections.”
Mitchell declined to comment on her remarks or answer questions when reached by CNN.
“No matter what I say, you’re going to twist it,” she said. “I used to talk to anybody and everybody, but I don’t do that anymore because it has never worked out since 2020."
