Stop the Steal Never Stopped

Summary

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Podcast Summary: “Stop the Steal Never Stopped”

Reveal (The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX) – May 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of Reveal probes the lingering campaign of election denialism in the U.S., focusing on the so-called “Stop the Steal” movement since 2020. The episode examines the recent FBI raid on Fulton County’s election warehouse in Georgia—as both symptom and catalyst—and exposes how obdurate false claims of voter fraud have altered political power, jeopardized local control over elections, and fostered distrust that threatens future U.S. elections. Through investigative reporting, interviews, and on-the-ground observation, Reveal’s team tracks how debunked allegations remain politically potent, culminating in tangible actions that imperil the democratic process.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. The FBI Raid in Fulton County, Georgia

(Segment: 02:05–06:17)

• Dana Barrett’s Firsthand Account:
  Dana Barrett, Fulton County Commissioner, describes the FBI’s January raid of a warehouse storing 2020 election documents.
  • “The press was already there in full force and... the FBI had locked down the building.” (03:42, Dana Barrett)
  • Barrett, chased by a right-wing influencer, calls the raid “political theater,” designed to undermine local elections.
    • “This is political theater aimed to undermine and set us up for a takeover of our elections.” (04:32, Dana Barrett)
• Aftermath:
  Former President Trump immediately pushes for federal takeovers of election administration.
  • “We should take over the voting in at least many 15 places.” (05:06, Donald Trump via Steve Bannon)

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2. The New Landscape of Georgia’s State Election Board

(Segment: 06:17–20:48)

• Board’s Transformation:
  Once staffed by technocrats, it’s now majority “Stop the Steal” believers, empowered to commandeer county elections.
  • Board members like Sally Grubbs and Dr. Janice Johnston, known for hyper-skeptical stances, hold sway.
• Election Myths in Action:
  Examples include:
  • The “shredding truck” incident, widely shared as evidence of ballot destruction, later debunked.
    • “You know, if y’all heard the story of the shredding truck in Cobb county... well, that was me. And so there’s pretty much nothing I won’t do.” (08:53, Sally Grubbs)
  • Board sessions dominated by minor infractions, most with no impact, but subject to outsize scrutiny and penalties.
• Baseless Prosecutions and Chilling Effect:
  Board issues reprimands for tenuous grievances, such as voter registration overlaps (12:31–13:15).
  • “I see it as a nationwide problem of the voter rolls... which is why I would like Georgia’s voter rolls to be shared with the Department of Justice.” (12:31, Dr. Janice Johnston)
  • The board’s aggressive posture—overturning officials’ recommendations—signals the use of administrative power as a political tool.

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3. Local Fears and Institutional Distrust

(Segment: 20:13–21:34)

• Growing Takeover Campaign:
  Dana Barrett voices concern over state-level MAGA control seeking to “take over” voting in Democratic strongholds like Fulton County.
  • “They want to sow doubt, they want to undermine trust, and they want to make it harder for people to vote.” (21:16, Dana Barrett)
• Weaponization of Process Errors:
  County-level errors are recast as evidence of endemic fraud, keeping the false narrative alive.

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4. National Trends – CPAC and the Spread of Election Denialism

(Segment: 22:25–35:33)

• Trump’s Call to Arms:
  Trump and allies advocate for the SAVE Act, demanding strict proof of citizenship and government IDs to vote. Critics warn this would disenfranchise millions.
  • “If you send it up that, you’re going to win the midterms at levels you can’t even believe, and you’re going to win every election for a long time.” (24:32, Donald Trump)
• CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference):
  Reveal reporter Najeeb Amini captures on-the-ground sentiment:
  • Universal support for strict voter ID laws, ICE presence at the polls, and the SAVE Act.
  • “Let’s suppress illegal aliens voting. Those are our elections, our country. This is America.” (28:12, Greg Bavino)
  • Widespread belief in threats never substantiated by evidence (e.g., Dominion voting machine conspiracies, widespread non-citizen voting).
  • Nostalgia for an imagined era of simple, “pure” hand-counted paper ballots (29:25–29:33, Aaron Kotsbauer).

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5. The Election Crime Bureau, Kurt Olson, and the DIY Fraud Movement

(Segment: 37:42–45:07)

• From Fringe to Power:
  Conferences like the “Election Crime Bureau Summit” in Missouri serve as incubators for activist-investigators and legal crusaders:
  • “Be your own Election Crime Bureau.” (40:06, Kurt Olson)
• Kurt Olson’s Rise:
  A little-known lawyer, Olson emerges as a key legal figure in overturning elections (in Texas, Arizona), despite court-sanctioned “unequivocally false” claims.
  • “Kurt Olson... was appointed the director of election security and integrity... [now] charged with reinvestigating the results in 2020.” (44:10–45:07, Abby Vasoulas)
  • He later leverages his White House position to refer Fulton County to the FBI, triggering the high-profile raid.

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6. The Raid’s Real Purpose and the Peril Ahead

(Segment: 45:07–51:38)

• The Mechanics of the Raid:
  The FBI’s actions in Georgia stemmed directly from White House referrals and claims by board members with a vested interest.
  • “The investigation originally began with a White House referral. A referral from Kurt Olson.” (45:18, Abby Vasoulas)
• Weaponizing Bureaucracy:
  Despite years of reviews and no findings of fraud, figures like Sally Grubbs insist on continued investigations.
  • “There were many, many, many, many, many complaints that were never brought forward. So I don’t feel like there was ever an appropriate investigation done.” (47:42, Sally Grubbs)
• Legal Perspective:
  David Becker, former DOJ lawyer, raises alarm:
  • “My first reaction... was how the hell could a court have signed off on a warrant here?... The only thing I can come up with is this is likely being directed to sow the seeds of doubt about a 2026 election that the president might be worried about.” (50:00–50:55, David Becker)
  • The concern: Sustained distrust may dissuade people from voting—what Becker calls “self-suppression.”
    • “The easiest way to suppress a vote is to get a voter to self suppress.” (51:08, David Becker)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Dana Barrett confronts a conspiracy influencer:
  “You are hurting America, young man.” (03:46, Dana Barrett)
• On why the “Stop the Steal” battle endures:
  “If the system doesn’t change, then they’ll never be able to trust an American election again.” (36:42, Najeeb Amini)
• Kurt Olson’s rallying cry:
  “Once people come together, we are unstoppable.” (39:37, Kurt Olson)
• Sally Grubbs on acceptable errors:
  “As an American Citizen, I think 0 per reject rate is acceptable.” (48:59, Sally Grubbs)
• David Becker’s warning to voters:
  “All of those [accusations of widespread fraud] are provably false. But... just go and vote.” (51:26, 51:38, David Becker)

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Key Timestamps

• 02:05 – The FBI raid in Fulton County, Georgia
• 06:17 – Transformation and workings of Georgia’s state election board
• 08:53 – Sally Grubbs and the “shredding truck” incident
• 12:31 – Board debates over voter registration “problems”
• 20:13 – New powers enabling state election board takeovers
• 22:25 – National “Stop the Steal” movement’s impact, Trump speech at CPAC
• 28:12 – CPAC attendee support for aggressive voter ID laws & ICE at polls
• 37:42 – Election Crime Bureau Summit and activist mobilization
• 44:10 – Kurt Olson’s appointment and escalation to federal power
• 45:18 – FBI raid origins traced to White House
• 50:00 – Legal experts warn the raid is about sowing doubt in democracy
• 51:38 – Closing advice: Resist self-suppression, go vote

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Conclusion

Tone: The episode’s tone is urgent and direct, foregrounding both the real-world consequences of conspiracy-driven activism and the persistent specter of disenfranchisement. Al Letson and Reveal’s reporters present a nuanced, in-depth exploration that combines empathy for confused or fearful citizens with clear-eyed concern for the health of democracy.

Takeaway: The “Stop the Steal” movement hasn’t quit. Instead, it has become more sophisticated, shifting from unsubstantiated claims to the very levers of power needed to act on them. The risk: that continued erosion of trust—fueled by political actors, administrative muscle, and relentless misinformation—may produce what failed lawsuits and failed coups could not: a democracy in which voters simply give up.

Final Word (David Becker, 51:08):
“The easiest way to suppress a vote is to get a voter to self suppress... Just go and vote.”

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For more in-depth journalism, visit revealnews.org/learn.

Transcript

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[Listener/Interjection]

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[Jane Butcher]

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[Al Letson]

From the center for Investigative reporting and PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letson. It's January 28th. Dana Barrett is working from home when a county official reaches out with some disturbing news.

[Dana Barrett]

I got a call maybe about 15, 20 minutes after the FBI showed up.

[Al Letson]

The FBI is raiding a warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia, where election documents from 2020 are stored.

[Dana Barrett]

I immediately jumped in the car and headed down to the warehouse.

[Al Letson]

By the time Dana arrives, it's already quite a scene.

[Dana Barrett]

The press was already there in full force and they were, you know, the FBI had locked down the building.

[Al Letson]

The raid is all over the news.

[Dana Barrett]

We're following breaking news out of Georgia where FBI agents are executing a Search warrant.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Baseless claims of voter fraud in Fulton county have been a steady stream of

[Al Letson]

local and state elected officials arriving at this sprawling facility, trying to observe the agent's work. Dana is one of those elected officials. She's a county commissioner in Fulton county, and she experienced this all firsthand. Besides the reporters, Dana also sees a group of people who believe a that the 2020 election was full of fraud.

[Dana Barrett]

There were certainly a handful of the elections board members, the Republican folks, and the conspiracy theorists I'm going to go with lurking around, who then sort of chased me around the side of the building.

[Al Letson]

Dana tries to get away from the guy chasing her, a right wing social media influencer who often posts misleading election videos on YouTube. One problem, the size of this building is like a city block.

[Dana Barrett]

And I, not realizing that it was an entire block, thought I was going to be able to get away from him so he would stop bugging me. And ultimately I had to sort of, I turned around and my mom voice turned on. I had to be like, you are hurting America, young man. You know?

[Al Letson]

Dana says once she finally gets inside, she figures she'll be there all night because.

[Dana Barrett]

Because if they had taken these documents in the right way, it would have taken all night because they would have had to go through every document and, you know, you'd have to take a picture of it and a receipt of what you're taking. But they did not do anything like that.

[Al Letson]

The FBI confiscated more than 650 boxes that day. Dana says she left right as it was starting to get dark.

[Dana Barrett]

I actually made a video in the parking lot before I left. And I was saying, right then, this is a setup. What you're seeing behind me right now is the FBI taking documents related to the 2020 elections out of the Fulton county warehouse. This is political theater at its best. The Trump administration, this is political theater aimed to undermine and set us up for a takeover of our elections. And like I think it was the

[Al Letson]

next day that actually it was two

[Dana Barrett]

days later that Trump was shouting about a national takeover.

[Steve Bannon]

The Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least many 15 places.

[Al Letson]

Dana believes one of those places is Fulton County. To her, this FBI raid in January is the opening act of a play that will end with the takeover of American elections. But if it's a play, it's a revival act of a now familiar story. A story about a movement of people who continue to believe the 2020 was stolen, where instances of human error get painted as widespread fraud and rigged elections despite Countless proof to the contrary. Today we're investigating this FBI raid in Georgia, why the so called Stop the Steal movement hasn't stopped, and how it could disrupt future elections, including this year's midterms. Mother Jones reporter Abby Vasoulas starts us off in Georgia, where she's been looking into the state election board, a once sleepy government agency and now swept up by this movement and empowered to do something about it. Here's Abby.

[Abby Vasoulas]

The day the FBI raided the election warehouse in Fulton County, Dr. Janice Johnston was on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast.

[Bob Hall]

War Room.

[Steve Bannon]

Here's your host, Stephen K. Bannon.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Johnston is a retired OBGYN and vice chair of the state Election Board. Last year, she led the board in passing an unusual resolution requesting that the Justice Department help investigate Fulton County.

[Janice Johnston]

It is a relief to see the FBI agents here, and I hope they take all 700 boxes of election documents and ballots and envelopes and take them to a secure location for review and investigation.

[Abby Vasoulas]

She's talking to Bannon from a car parked at the site of the raid. Sitting next to her is fellow board member Sally Grubbs.

[Sally Grubbs]

Sally Grubbs, we've had you on many times going back now, what, six years?

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

Six years, Dave.

[Sally Grubbs]

Six years, but who's counting?

[Abby Vasoulas]

Sally is the newest member of the board and she's long speculated that there was voter fraud in 2020 and suggests Fulton county has been trying to cover it up.

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

Well, you know, Steve, it's like I keep saying is if you have nothing to hide, you hide nothing.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Sally tells Bannon she's worked really hard to get to this day. She calls it surreal and describes what she's seeing as boxes get removed from the warehouse.

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

Tell you that I see, I see movement and activity with the forklift. So let's Across America right now, can we just pray?

[Abby Vasoulas]

Sally has gone to great lengths for the Stop the Steal movement. She's best known for jumping in her car to chase down a shredding truck in 2020. She believed it had shredded ballots. A video of it was posted on social media November 20th, Friday morning. I'm watching all of these ballots being shredded now.

[Listener/Interjection]

Unbelievable.

[Abby Vasoulas]

This all took place place the day after Georgia's first election recount. So the stakes felt extremely high. The claim was quickly debunked. It turns out that the county was doing routine shredding of inconsequential election materials. Things like mailing labels and envelopes, not ballots. Even Republican state lawmakers were dismissive when Sally testified about this during a legislative hearing. But more than Five years later, Sally considers her efforts a badge of honor. This is her telling the story at a recent breakfast for local Republicans.

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

You know, if y' all heard the story of the shredding truck in Cobb county that shredded evidence and documents from the 2020 election and the crazy person that chased the shredding truck, well, that was me. And so there's pretty much nothing I won't do.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Being a friend of mine, Sally is committed to the cause, and so are the majority of the members of the State Election board. The board used to be composed of nerdy lawyers and technocrats working to ensure that elections in the Peach State ran smoothly. But in the last few years, the board has been transformed. I went there in March to see the change for myself. The board meeting is at City hall in Marietta, Georgia, just just outside of Atlanta. And it's a good thing I get there early because it takes me 20 minutes to find parking. When I walk inside, I find out why. The room is packed. It might be near capacity. There's a lot of men in suits walking in. There's a woman wearing a sweatshirt right in front of me that says make elections great again. The room also skews a lot older as well. I mean, it is a Wednesday morning at 9:00am so I imagine a lot of people are at work and can't make it out here. Of those who could make it, some are holding small cartons of Vanilla Ensure, the protein supplement that they would later drink at their seats rather than leave to grab lunch. The board is sitting at a crescent shaped table that commands the room. Sally's wearing a dark blazer that contrasts sharply against her bright white hair, and she gives the opening prayer and God,

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

I just ask that you guide this meeting with your loving hand, with your direction, and with your divine providence. In Jesus name, Amen.

[Abby Vasoulas]

The audience is told to be on their best behavior and they're asked not to clap or yell, but if it's really necessary, jazz hands are okay.

[Meeting Moderator]

Please feel free to do the jazz hand. It just drives me crazy. But doing away with more jazz hands, hands are crazier. It makes me lague. But please just be respectful of everybody else.

[Abby Vasoulas]

The board hears a series of cases, mostly minor infractions based on tips filed by the general public. It's pretty tedious. There's the people accused of fraudulently signing petitions.

[Listener/Interjection]

So they signed not just for themselves but for their spouse. They were given fines $150 for Ms. Purnell and $100 each for Ms. Moorhead and Mr. Eady.

[Abby Vasoulas]

There's the case of a woman who wore a Joe Biden T shirt to a polling site and refused to leave. An officer had to remove her and that cost taxpayer money. Should she be fined?

[Al Letson]

I mean, if we got to pay for it, they should pay for it.

[Abby Vasoulas]

A nonpartisan group that was playing loud music too close to a polling site. Their case was sent straight to the attorney general's office for prosecution.

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

It irritates the stew out of me that people do that.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Then there's the case of a Georgia woman who temporarily moved to Washington state to be near family during a health crisis. She registered to vote there, then returned to Georgia where she voted in the next election. The state attorney general's office reviewed the case and recommended it for dismissal. Their reason? The woman was only registered in two places. That's different from voting in two places, which would have been illegal. But board member Johnston, the retired ob gyn, doesn't want to dismiss the case.

[Janice Johnston]

I see it as a nationwide problem of the voter rolls nationwide, which is why I would like Georgia's voter rolls to be shared with the Department of Justice to look for double, triple, or however many registrations there are across states.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Dr. Johnston wants the federal government to help clean up voter rolls so people don't go shopping around with their one vote.

[Janice Johnston]

That is not right. Why not everybody go vote in the battleground state? Hey, that's a great idea. Why don't we just register in all the states and we'll just pick the state that we have the hottest, you know, hottest campaigns and contests. So I find this quite problematic.

[Abby Vasoulas]

She's right. The law says you need to vote where you live. It's not legal to vote based on where you think you would make the most impact. But that's not what happened here. Beth Young from Georgia's attorney general's office, which, by the way, is Republican controlled, pushes back.

[Listener/Interjection]

I don't see any indication in this file that, you know, there was any deliberateness on her part to try to forum shop where she was.

[Al Letson]

You can't determine intent, though.

[Kurt Olson]

That's.

[Al Letson]

I mean, that's an assumption, right?

[Abby Vasoulas]

This is Janelle King, a Republican appointed board member who also believes there was fraud in Fulton county and is aligned with Sally and Dr. Johnston.

[Al Letson]

Well, it sounds like you're speaking as her defense.

[Listener/Interjection]

I'm just talking about why we feel like the case is not appropriate further pursuit because we have to have evidence of a criminal violation to. To move forward with it.

[Abby Vasoulas]

This back and forth goes on for several minutes. Johnston then proposes to issue a formal letter of reprimand Even though the woman didn't break any laws, Dr. Johnson has

[Meeting Moderator]

recommended or made a motion to issue a letter of reprimand on SCB2023.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Janell seconds it and the board approves.

[Meeting Moderator]

Motion carries three to one.

[Abby Vasoulas]

The meeting goes on for seven more hours. The board reviews more than a dozen new cases, often brought to the board's attention by self appointed investigators who allege that fraud is happening all across Georgia and particularly in one county.

[Meeting Moderator]

Well, it's time for Fulton County. Fulton county case is next item is 022068. That's where the Fulton county was added. The next case on the agenda is SCB2024 180 Fulton County High Museum of Art 2025037 Fulton County Double voter Fulton

[Abby Vasoulas]

county includes most of Atlanta and is a Democratic stronghold in this important swing state. Most of these cases are over inconsequential issues that wouldn't have changed the outcome of an election. Honest human errors, not intentional fraud. Though some of the allegations sound serious, in one case, the board considered whether a man named Stephen Williamson cast ballots in two states during the 2024 election.

[Stephen Williamson]

First of all, I want to say I'm doing my civic duty. Everybody should do this more often just to show up.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Steven showed up to defend himself and explained that over the last few years he's moved around a lot up and down the east coast. During the 2024 elections, he was in the middle of a move, leaving Florida for Georgia. Before he left, he sent in his absentee ballot.

[Stephen Williamson]

I voted down there, put the stamp on, sent it off and a couple of weeks later I moved up here. A lot of things were in state of flux. I wanted to handle my business in Florida.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Stephen told the board the allegation that he voted in both states is just wrong.

[Stephen Williamson]

Somewhat offended, pissed off, mad that I'm being accused of double voting. Okay? My family, myself and I, we work too hard to achieve these votes to screw it up by coming doing double voting.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Stephen is in his mid-60s. He's a black man born during the Jim Crow era when poll taxes and literacy tests were enforced to suppress black Americans from voting.

[Stephen Williamson]

I don't know what to say. I didn't cheat anybody and what gain would I have by double voting? Isn't like, well, you do this and I'll get mileage points or something or points on my credit card if you keep voting. No, it just doesn't add up.

[Abby Vasoulas]

It turns out this allegation of double voting came from a man well Known to the board. He's challenged about 10,000 people on Georgia's voting roll.

[Stephen Williamson]

I got the guy's name. I guess he's like a whistleblower or something.

[Abby Vasoulas]

I grabbed Stephen on his way out the door. He told me an investigator from the Secretary of State's office called to tell him that he had been reported by a stranger.

[Stephen Williamson]

I was like, look, I don't know this guy. I don't know nothing about this. And I said, I don't know. Basically, I would see you in court.

[Abby Vasoulas]

This case isn't going to court, at least not yet. It's on hold because board members are still waiting on evidence that Stephen actually broke the law. And so far they haven't received any. While Steven feels wrongly accused, many of the people who come to these meetings feel like the board is doing good work, finally taking voter fraud seriously, because to them, the 2020 election was stolen and nothing can convince them otherwise. Take Enid Alexander. I spoke to her during a lunch break.

[Enid Alexander]

I absolutely do think there was election fraud perpetrated in Fulton county and also in the other, what, five or six swing states that coincided.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Richard Schroeder was also adamant there was widespread fraud. He wanted to show me a 96 page report about the Dominion voting machines to prove it.

[Steve Bannon]

Dominion has an election management system. You can swap votes, change votes, ballots. You can do anything with it.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Richard also claimed that the machines have a single password that everyone has access to. Virginia Choate told me something similar.

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

You see that lady there and that man with the shirts that have all the letters and you know that's the password for the machine. Everybody in the world knows the password for those machines and they haven't changed it.

[Abby Vasoulas]

The T shirts Virginia is pointing out have a string of letters and numbers. They say DVS Corp. 08, exclamation point. And like many theories driving the election denialism movement, there's a grain of truth tucked within. First off, this is a password, but it's not the password to voting machines. It's the password to a database stored inside a server that's locked away and not connected to the Internet. A spokesperson from Georgia's Secretary of State's office told me there is no quote, single password, or magic key to a voting machine. Allegations against Dominion Voting Machines have been debunked many times. And Fox News famously had to pay $787 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by the company. Still, these people have not moved on, and neither have Dr. Johnston, Sally Grubbs, and Janelle King. They all became board members after the 2020 elections and now have unprecedented power because back in 2021, the Georgia legislature gave the board the right to take over an election in any county it deems as underperforming.

[Dana Barrett]

There is nothing good that can come from the state taking over our elections.

[Abby Vasoulas]

This is Dana Barrett again, the Fulton county commissioner who witnessed the FBI raid firsthand. She's now running for Georgia's Secretary of state, and she's worried that all the accusations at the hearings are a way to bolster a takeover of elections in her county.

[Dana Barrett]

The state elections board is MAGA controlled, and their goal will not be to have free, fair and secure elections in Fulton county or anywhere in Georgia. Their goal will be to control the outcome of those elections.

[Abby Vasoulas]

To take over the state election board would have to prove that either a string of procedural mistakes was never corrected or prove malicious intent and fraud. And people like Dana are concerned that that's what the FBI investigation could yield, an opportunity for the state election board to finally run Fulton county, which has voted Democrat for decades. To Dana, the threat goes beyond just Fulton County.

[Dana Barrett]

I think what we're seeing across the board, not just with our elections board, with all these attacks, is that they want to sow doubt, they want to undermine trust, and they want to make it harder for people to vote. They want control, full stop, and they're going to do everything they can to get it.

[Al Letson]

Coming up, we head to one of the nerve centers of the Stop the Steal movement and talk with some of its loudest proponents.

[Mike Lindell]

They were going to steal the United States without firing a shot.

[Al Letson]

That's next on Reveal. Don't go anywhere.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Storms, floods, and fires are ever more extreme. And yet the Federal Emergency Management Agency is fighting for its life.

[Steve Bannon]

I've never been a big fan of FEMA.

[Abby Vasoulas]

FEMA's a disaster.

[Steve Bannon]

FEMA's a dirty way.

[Stephen Williamson]

People are waking up in droves to the FEMA camps.

[Narrator/Reporter]

Can the agency survive the stories that have been told about it? And can we survive without fema? The Movement to Kill FEMA is a brand new series from WNYC's on the Media. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Al Letson]

From the center for Investigative Reporting and prx, this is Reveal. I'm Al Lettson. Earlier this spring, President Donald Trump addressed a room full of House Republicans at a spring retreat held at one of his golf clubs in Florida.

[Steve Bannon]

And hello to the men and women of one of the most consequential Republican majorities in history.

[Al Letson]

This Republican majority is crucial to Trump's agenda, but it's in Jeopardy. The House and Senate are both up for grabs in this year's midterm elections. And political pundits are predicting Republican losses as gas prices, ICE raids, and the war in Iran have all taken a toll on President Trump's approval rating. Trump's speech starts off as a pep rally boasting about the US Military effort in the Middle East.

[Steve Bannon]

Epic Fury. That's a great name, isn't it? Epic Fury.

[Al Letson]

But then it veers into old gripes and lies.

[Steve Bannon]

I won three times. First time was great. Second time, they cheated. Like hell it was Covid. And their cheating was at an inspirational level.

[Al Letson]

President Trump has been sowing doubt for years.

[Steve Bannon]

There's no elections so corrupt as the elections in the United States of America, and we can.

[Al Letson]

And now he's using that doubt to sell the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility act, known as the SAVE Act. He wants lawmakers to pass it, although the President has some thoughts about the name.

[Steve Bannon]

Don't ever say SAVE act again. It's a loser. The SAVE Act. Nobody has any idea what was what. What are we trying to save? It's the Save America Act. If you could send it up in full form.

[Reporter/Interviewer]

Full form.

[Al Letson]

The full form version of the bill would require Americans to present proof of US Citizenship, such as a passport, when registering to vote in federal elections. People would also have to show a government issued photo ID to vote. Legal experts and academics are concerned that this would create new hurdles and prevent millions of people from voting. But for Trump, this is how Republicans stay in power.

[Steve Bannon]

If you send it up that, you're going to win the midterms at levels that you can't even believe, and you're going to win every election for a long time until somebody really screws things up. And hopefully that won't happen.

[Al Letson]

The House GOP is on board, but in the Senate, Republicans don't have the votes to get past a filibuster, which means the bill is effectively, effectively dead, at least for now. Still, Trump doubles down.

[Steve Bannon]

If you don't get it, big trouble.

[Al Letson]

He says. It's the only way to win the midterms for two simple reasons.

[Steve Bannon]

Number one, they won't be able to cheat. And number two, the people are demanding it.

[Al Letson]

A Gallup poll shows that since 2020, confidence in presidential elections has dropped sharply among Republicans. And in 2024, only 28% said that they trusted the accuracy of election results. We wanted to understand this breakdown of institutional trust, so we sent Reveal reporter Najeeb Amini to a hub of election denialism, the Conservative Political Action Conference. In Grapevine, Texas.

[Reporter/Interviewer]

How do you feel about election integrity for this year's midterms?

[Al Letson]

For this midterms? We're about to fuck around and find out, aren't we? Here's Najeeb.

[Najeeb Amini]

I'm staring at a bunch of $400 jackets full of sequins. This isn't SoHo. This is CPAC.

[Abby Vasoulas]

She just bought this jacket today.

[Reporter/Interviewer]

You just bought this jacket today.

[Enid Alexander]

I just walking by and I see the sparkle and it clicked. My Donald Trump says, make America sparkle again. Why not buy one?

[Najeeb Amini]

Maria Duncan got a little shopping done. She's wearing a black sequin jacket that steals your attention. On the back, it says America's 250th and has a giant American flag on it. And after complimenting her on the fit, I tell Maria why I'm here at cpac.

[Reporter/Interviewer]

I'm working on a radio show about election integrity.

[Enid Alexander]

Oh, don't even speak to me about. I got so much to say about that. Why I came. Where are you from? You don't mind me asking, what do

[Reporter/Interviewer]

you mean by that?

[Enid Alexander]

Because with your look and men, and we're not. We are American by naturalization. Right?

[Najeeb Amini]

I'm from Long island, but that's besides the point, because what Maria was really interested in was showing me something she had in her purse.

[Enid Alexander]

Okay, let me show this. You see this card? I hope you're taping. This is a pocket sized passport.

[Najeeb Amini]

Think of that main page in a passport book, but on a plastic wallet sized card. That's what Maria is holding. It's government issued and can be used to travel, but only to a limited number of places. She says it's still worth it in the long run because when you hand

[Enid Alexander]

it to them, that shut them up, because everything in there cannot be fraudulent.

[Najeeb Amini]

Maria is an ardent believer in the SAVE Act. She thinks people should have to prove to government officials they are here legally because she doesn't want non citizens voting. Most of the attendees I spoke to embraced the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at airports, in cities, and potentially at polling places come November. At cpac, former Border Patrol Commander Greg Bavino was given a hero's welcome despite a controversial tenure that included violent ICE raids, deaths of migrants, and ICE custody, as well as ICE agents killing American protesters. I spotted Bavino and asked him if having ICE agents show up at the polls was voter protection or voter suppression.

[Sally Grubbs]

You're gonna say voter suppression.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Let's suppress illegal aliens voting. Those are our elections, our country. This is America. So we should damn well suppress any

[Aaron Kotsbauer]

illegal alien or foreign national that doesn't have the right to vote in our election. Do you want.

[Najeeb Amini]

The thing is, multiple studies have found that non citizen voting is extremely rare. Even the conservative Heritage foundation has only identified 99 cases of non citizen voting in the last 43 years. But that's still more than zero. And to people like Aaron Kotsbauer, it's a problem.

[Aaron Kotsbauer]

Why is it the Democrats want to fight so hard to keep illegals in the country and keep them on voter rolls? It sets up the process for election malfeasance.

[Reporter/Interviewer]

I'll play the devil's advocate. Voter disenfranchisement. It suppresses the vote. It makes it more difficult for people to get out and vote, which in a way, suppresses democracy.

[Aaron Kotsbauer]

Yeah, I'll disagree with that. First of all, we're a constitutional republic.

[Najeeb Amini]

Aaron takes me back to his earliest experiences voting in Pennsylvania in the 1988 presidential election, and then basically argues that we should go back to the old way where you vote with a paper ballot and the votes are counted by hand.

[Aaron Kotsbauer]

They've intentionally mucked up the process to make it so complicated that the ordinary person can't follow it. Thank you so much.

[Najeeb Amini]

You're welcome. But the thing is, back when Aaron first voted, there were voting machines and only about 11% of ballots were actually counted by hand. Still, this nostalgia for a plainer approach to voting is appealing to people like Aaron who say they want to undo the muck. And to them, President Trump is delivering. Take the executive order he signed in March.

[Steve Bannon]

Okay, so that's a big deal.

[Najeeb Amini]

The executive order instructs the Department of Homeland Security to create a state by state list of eligible voters. And that list is what the Postal Service would use to deliver mail in ballots. It's one of many ways Trump says he's trying to clean up the rolls.

[Steve Bannon]

Very proud of it. And I think. I don't know how it can be challenged. I'll probably challenge it. You may find a rogue judge. You get a lot of rogue judges. Very bad. Bad people. Very bad judges.

[Najeeb Amini]

This is controversial because Article 1 of the Constitution says states, not the federal government, are supposed to control how elections are run. More than 20 states have since sued. And this isn't the only legal tug of war between state governments and the Trump administration when it comes to elections.

[Narrator/Reporter]

The DOJ announcing Thursday it's adding Oklahoma and five others to the list of 29 states it's suing for denying its request to turn over registered voters private information.

[Najeeb Amini]

The Department of Justice is suing states that have refused to turn over their voter rolls. These states argue that turning over the rolls would violate privacy laws because the rolls contain sensitive information. Depending on the place, that could mean Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, and party affiliation. In every case that's been ruled on, judges have cited against the DOJ. They are currently 0 for 5. But these losses have done little to slow the spread of the so called election integrity movement. The concern about non citizens voting is one on just a long list that also includes how votes are counted.

[Mike Lindell]

I don't trust any election ever done in history with a computer.

[Najeeb Amini]

That's Mike Lindell, you know, CEO of

[Mike Lindell]

my pillow, my company. Use promo code, Mike, and you can save up to 80%.

[Najeeb Amini]

Mike has spent millions of his own dollars supporting the lie that the 2020 election was stolen. He was subsequently sued for defamation by companies like Dominion with lawsuits seeking a billion dollars in damages. But that hasn't kept him from making false claims.

[Mike Lindell]

This whole thing we broke through in the last five years, we broke through the biggest cover up of the biggest cross crime the world has ever seen. What was that? They were going to steal the United States without firing a shot.

[Najeeb Amini]

Mike is one of the loudest voices in the stop the steal movement and has been very active within the MAGA wing where to use his words, he has not stopped talking. And that's a big part of how this movement has grown, keeping the doubt alive whether it's in Fulton County, Georgia or across the country.

[Reporter/Interviewer]

What do you say to people who are alarmed or concerned that Republicans are trying to take over the elections? They're trying to use this advent of election integrity to secure their win for both the midterms and the presidential.

[Mike Lindell]

I hope they do say that and I hope that they, that they, if they lose or if they don't steal it, that they want the machines open. I was hoping in the 2024 election when Donald Trump won that all these people out there would say, hey, it's rigged, let's open up the machines. Nobody did. Doesn't that strike you funny? Doesn't it strike you funny that maybe

[Reporter/Interviewer]

they just accepted the results?

[Mike Lindell]

No, they didn't accept the results.

[Najeeb Amini]

The results of the 2024 presidential election were widely accepted. And while some experts have found security gaps in electronic voting machines, there is no evidence an election machine has ever been hacked to flip a vote. Still, many people here have a hard time believing that the US election system overall is actually pretty solid, even after their guy won.

[Bob Hall]

Well, I think you see a lot of people say, oh, there was no problem like that they're the ones that want to keep it hidden.

[Najeeb Amini]

This is Texas State Senator Bob Hall. For years he's been working on changing election laws at the state level.

[Bob Hall]

They don't want a process that would change from doing their evil in the dark of the night.

[Reporter/Interviewer]

Why not?

[Bob Hall]

Because you've got people who would like to not have fair and secure elections.

[Reporter/Interviewer]

You know what it sounds like to me, like on a very human level,

[Najeeb Amini]

is this just all a lack of trust?

[Bob Hall]

I guess there's an element of that because man is basically evil. God tells us that the, the heart of the man is basically evil. And when you see enough of it out there that people will find a way to beat the system. And so, yeah, people have an inclination that makes it difficult to trust folks.

[Najeeb Amini]

Shortly after having this conversation, I find Bob hall on stage talking about another topic.

[Bob Hall]

Cultural jihad. Sharia law is beginning to creep in here. We have got got to stop this.

[Najeeb Amini]

This is cpac after all. And there was no shortage of right wing fear mongering meant to rile up the base.

[Mike Lindell]

Let me just remind you what's coming. The Democrat socialist agenda.

[Najeeb Amini]

But this year felt different. Not only did President Trump skip it, his first absence in 10 years, so did a lot of other A list Republican politicos like J.D. vance and Marco Rubio. These used to be the types of people who'd show up and be given the main stage. And the absence of conservative superstars did not go unnoticed by one of the bigger names at the conference who I tried to grab just before he gave a speech.

[Reporter/Interviewer]

Anything about the election integrity, sir? Mr. Bannon? Anything about election integrity?

[Najeeb Amini]

For the midterms, Steve Bannon ignored me and made a beeline to the main stage where he addressed, no pun intended, the missing elephants in the room.

[Sally Grubbs]

People are sitting there going, oh, this person didn't come. This person didn't come. Yes, there are many great people that couldn't make it. Either they didn't want to come or they're tied up running wars and looking after the country. It doesn't matter. You came.

[Najeeb Amini]

His speech implored everyone from grassroots organizers to Republican leadership to stick together and stay united. And he used an example, the FBI raid in Georgia, as a symbol of success, something too precious to lose sight of.

[Sally Grubbs]

If we lose the fact of six years of struggle in Georgia, we now have the evidence of the 2020 Stone election. If you lose what's important, then we're gonna lose the country. Fight on.

[Najeeb Amini]

For the people I spoke to, it feels like an all or nothing fight. If the system doesn't change, then they'll never be able to trust an American election again. But where's the line between fixing and securing elections and rigging them?

[Al Letson]

For Steve Bannon, the FBI raid in Georgia holds the key to proving fraud in 2020. But how did that raid come to be? And who was behind it?

[Kurt Olson]

Once people come together, we are unstoppable.

[Al Letson]

They know that the people pushing debunked claims for years now have the power to get them investigated. That's next on Reveal.

[Enid Alexander]

Foreign.

[Al Letson]

From the center for Investigative Reporting and prx, this is Reveal. I'm Al Edson. I want to take you back roughly two and a half years before the FBI raids that election warehouse in Fulton County, Georgia. It's August 2023, and people have gathered in a hotel ballroom in Springfield, Missouri, for. For what organizers call the Election Crime Bureau Summit. And just like at this year's cpac, Steve Bannon was on stage riling up the crowd.

[Sally Grubbs]

Are you tough enough to take your country back? Are you gonna let them steal this Republic.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Usa?

[Al Letson]

This summit, one of many held since January 6, was a place for the Stop the Steal activists, lawyers and influencers, and amateur investigators to trade theories about election fraud and turn their grievances into a roadmap for challenging elections past, present, and future. The message here was clear.

[Sally Grubbs]

Did they steal the election of 2020? Will you? You ever back down?

[Al Letson]

Bannon wasn't the only one on stage motivating the crowd and trying to keep them in the fight. Mike Lindell, the. My Pillow guy, was there, too.

[Mike Lindell]

It's kind of like Chutes and Ladders when you're kids. You climb up, you go down, but you keep climbing. You keep going, you keep going, right?

[Al Letson]

There's another guy up there sitting between Bannon and Lindell. He's a regular in these circles, but a regular that's more quiet and subdued. Kurt Olson. He's a lawyer.

[Sally Grubbs]

Kurt Olson, you've been in some of the toughest legal fights. From what you've seen, what you fought on, where's the hope?

[Al Letson]

Olson, whose MIC was cutting in and out, said, their strength is in the numbers.

[Kurt Olson]

They just don't fear just the numbers, but they fear the numbers coming together. That's why they are doing everything they can to keep us divided, to keep us in fear. Once people come together, we are unstoppable. They know that.

[Al Letson]

Paulson, Lindell, Bannon, they all have this plan. Instead of waiting for the government to investigate voter fraud, do it yourself. Be your own Election Crime Bureau.

[Kurt Olson]

We can't rely necessarily on the courts, on law enforcement, or on politicians. People are relying on themselves, themselves to ferret out this information.

[Al Letson]

His message resonates. Like we heard earlier in the show. People in places like Georgia have turned themselves into election investigators, scrolling through records, challenging individual voter registrations and filing complaints. But none of those complaints turned into serious criminal investigations. That is until Donald Trump won the 2024 election and people like Kurt Olson suddenly got a seat not on the stage of a three star Midwestern hotel ballroom, but a seat in the actual White House and a role inside the federal government. Mother Jones reporter Abby Vasoulis explains.

[Abby Vasoulas]

When I started looking into Kurt Olson, one thing stood out right away. He wasn't a longtime election lawyer or political figure. He was a little known private lawyer handling civil disputes over things like retirement benefits and overtime pay. That is until 2020, when Joe Biden won the presidential election and Donald Trump refused to concede.

[Meeting Moderator]

President Trump tonight is playing a game of chance in the courts.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Legal the Trump campaign and its allies filed more than 60 lawsuits across multiple states, challenging everything from mail in ballots to the conduct of poll workers.

[Meeting Moderator]

The president's strategy is to throw everything against the wall and see what sticks.

[Abby Vasoulas]

They even throw some Hail Marys, like in Texas, where the state's attorney general, Ken Paxton, filed a lawsuit suing key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia to try to prevent them from casting their Electoral College votes for Biden. The suit claims that pandemic era voting changes in those states were illegal. It was so much of a long shot that the Solicitor General of Texas refused to participate in the lawsuit. But one lawyer raised his hand.

[Kurt Olson]

Kurt Olson the Constitution is a compact amongst the peoples of each state who all came together and agreed to play by the same set of rules.

[Abby Vasoulas]

This is Olson defending the case on the Eric Metaxas radio show.

[Kurt Olson]

And so when one state vitiates or violates that principle, all states are injured.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Texas took the case to the Supreme Court, but the justices rejected it. They said Texas had no legal right to challenge how other states ran their elections. In the months following the 2020 election, Olson kept going deeper into the Stop the Steal movement and he caught Trump's attention. According to congressional investigators, the two men spoke by phone Multiple times on January 6, the day of the insurrection. Olson later defied a subpoena to testify about it. In the years after 2020, he became the go to attorney for challenging election results. And in 2022, he found himself back in in court, this time calling another election into question. It's fraud. It's fake. I will be damned if when I'm

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

governor, we're going to have another election run this way.

[Abby Vasoulas]

This is Carrie Lake, the former television anchor and prominent election denier who refused to concede her loss in the 2022 Arizona governor's race. Olson was part of her legal team and delivered closing arguments at a hearing.

[Kurt Olson]

Thank you, you, Honor. Your Honor has heard.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Rather than alleging fraud, Olson focused on technical issues and called into question things like incomplete documents used to track ballots that are collected from dropboxes.

[Kurt Olson]

You know, dropboxes are not that sexy and chain of custody is not. But these are incredibly important issues to ensure the integrity of the vote. This is about trust, your Honor. It's about restoring people's trust.

[Abby Vasoulas]

This time, his claims aren't just rejected. The Arizona Supreme Court sanctions Olson for alleging that tens of thousands of ballots were improperly added to the count in Maricopa County. The judges called this quote unequivocally false. Olson's legal reputation was damaged, but his status in the election denial movement was not. And in 2025, less than a year after Donald Trump won a second term, Kurt Olson got a new job. He was appointed the director of election security and integrity. A lawyer who lost case after case trying to overturn the 2020 election is now in the White House, charged with reinvestigating the results in 2020. With the job comes the authority to refer cases to one of the most powerful law enforcement agencies in the country.

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

The FBI has raided an election office near Atlanta. The agents were executing a court authorized law enforcement action at Fulton County's main election office. This is in Union City, Georgia.

[Abby Vasoulas]

After the FBI seized hundreds of boxes from an election warehouse in Fulton County. An affidavit used to obtain the search warrant was unsealed, and it revealed that the investigation originally began with a White House referral. A referral from Kurt Olson. We wanted to talk to Olson and ask him why he thinks the FBI raid was justified. What did he think agents might find? We made multiple requests for an interview. We did not receive a response. But the FBI raid didn't just rely on Olson. The affidavit also had two key witnesses that stood out. Janelle King and Janice Johnston, both members of Georgia's state election board, the same board we talked about earlier in the show. They, along with a third member, Sally Grubbs, have spent years questioning the 2020 election results in Georgia. Sally even chased down a shredding truck that she thought had shredded ballots. Together, these three board members form a majority on the board. They have unprecedented power, the power to potentially take over elections in Fulton county, home to the largest concentration of Democrats in the state. On the day of the raid, Sally was there.

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

Well, I can tell you that, you know, I did go to Fulton county the day that the people say raid, I tend to look at it differently.

[Abby Vasoulas]

I spoke to Sally on a video call after six years and multiple reviews that found no election fraud. I wanted to know what, if anything, she thinks the raid might prove. A lot of people listening to this may feel that the FBI raid on Fulton County's election center is kind of treading on old territory. What do you think?

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

First of all, people can't say that they're, you know, use the word fraud. I'm very specific about fraud because, you know, you have. There's plenty of enough mistakes that happened in the election that would have caused an issue.

[Abby Vasoulas]

Sally is very careful about using the word fraud. She doesn't outright say that votes were stolen. Instead, she points to smaller issues like human errors and administrative shortcomings.

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

Having been on the ground doing this for six years and now being on the state election board and seeing some of the things, there were many, many, many, many, many complaints that were never brought forward. So I don't feel like there was ever an appropriate investigation done.

[Abby Vasoulas]

But there were investigations, including ones conducted by officials from the first Trump administration. It's been reviewed again and again. There was a full hand recount and a full machine recount. Georgia's Secretary of State investigated, as did an independent group commissioned by the state election board itself. Sally didn't spell out what the raid might uncover, but Georgia Democrats are worried because the board now has the power to commence a takeover of elections in any county they deem to have serious issues, including Fulton. So I asked Sally about that.

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

That is not on my Benko card. I will tell you that now. If there is, you know, something nefarious going on, that needs to be rooted out, too.

[Abby Vasoulas]

I talked to Sally for over an hour. I came away feeling that nothing would definitively convince her that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. She wants perfection.

[Steve Bannon or Moderator]

So a lot of people ask me, what is an acceptable margin of error. I can tell you as an American Citizen, I think 0 per reject rate is acceptable.

[Abby Vasoulas]

But even well run elections will have errors.

[David Becker]

There are always going to be mistakes that happen.

[Abby Vasoulas]

David Becker is a former Justice Department lawyer.

[David Becker]

Those mistakes aren't criminal and they shouldn't be weaponized.

[Abby Vasoulas]

He served under the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations and now runs the center for Election Innovation and Research. Which provides legal support to election officials nationwide. Becker says some level of error is inevitable because national elections involve millions of people across thousands of jurisdictions and countless local officials. It's a complex, decentralized process, one that's designed to catch and account for mistakes.

[David Becker]

We know the 2020 election has been reviewed more than any election in American history. We know who won and we know who lost.

[Abby Vasoulas]

What was your initial reaction when you heard that Fulton County's election center was being raided by the FBI?

[David Becker]

My first reaction as a former DOJ lawyer and as someone who litigated in federal courts for a long time was how the hell could a court have signed off on a warrant here?

[Abby Vasoulas]

For starters, Becker says the warrant recycles old claims that had already been investigated and the deadline to bring charges has already expired.

[David Becker]

This is an election that took place over five years ago. A warrant is the most extreme measure the government can use to seize evidence, so the evidentiary standard is very high. They didn't even come close, becker says.

[Abby Vasoulas]

If there was real evidence the election was rigged, we would know it by now.

[David Becker]

They've been in power for 15 months now and they've got nothing. So what is the point of all of this? And the only thing I can come up with is this is likely being directed to sow the seeds of doubt about a 2026 election that the president might be worried about because the stakes

[Abby Vasoulas]

in the 2026 midterms are high. With control of Congress on the line, Becker says the real danger is that people will think the system is so broken it's not worth voting at all.

[David Becker]

But the easiest way to suppress a vote is to get a voter to self suppress. To get a voter to think that voting is going to be dangerous, voting is going to be inconvenient, that their vote won't matter because the machine machinery is rigged or there's fraud or something like that. All of those things are provably false.

[Abby Vasoulas]

But David says there is a way to push back, and it's a really simple one. Just go and vote.

[Al Letson]

Since we spoke with Becker, the investigation in Fulton county has escalated. The Justice Department is now seeking names, addresses and phone numbers of thousands of people who helped run the 2020 election in Fulton county nearly six years ago, raising fears that efforts to secure an election could lay the groundwork to steal a new one. Today's show was reported by Abby Vasoulas, Najeeb Amini and Jonathan Jones, with help from artist Cheriscus. Najeeb was the lead producer for this episode, with additional production help from Jonathan artists Ashley Kleek and Laporia Thomas. Cynthia Rodriguez edited the show. Melvis Acosta is our fact checker. Victoria Baranetsky is our general counsel. Our production manager is the great Suleima Cobb. Score and sound designed by the dynamic duo Jay Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs and Fernando My Man Yo Arruda. They had help this week from Claire C. Note Mullen. Taki Telenides is our deputy executive producer. Producer Our executive producer is Brett Myers. Our theme music is by Camerado Lightning. Support for reveals provided by the Riva and David Logan foundation, the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, the park foundation, the Schmidt Family foundation and the Hellman Foundation. Support for reveal is also provided by you, our listeners. We are a co production of the center for Investigative Reporting and Priority. I'm Al Letson and remember, there is always more to the story.

[Kurt Olson]

From prx.