A series of recordings obtained by The Washington Post show prominent conservative activists discussing behind closed doors their alarming strategies for handling the upcoming election amid the pandemic.
The videos reportedly depict “dozens of hours” of meetings held over three days in February and three days in August by the Council for National Policy, a conservative group that serves as a network for activists and leaders of several tax-exempt charities. It also counts Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, among its members.
At one event, conservative activist J. Christian Adams reportedly told a CNP audience to “be not afraid of the accusations that you’re a voter suppressor, you’re a racist and so forth.”
Adams, a former Justice Department official, is currently president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a right-wing group bent on funding lawsuits to ensure “election integrity.” He told the Post that he stands by what he said, saying his statements are “accurate.”
Activist Charlie Kirk spoke approvingly of how the coronavirus crisis will potentially discourage thousands of left-leaning student voters from casting ballots, given that college campuses are largely closed.
“So, please keep the campuses closed,” Kirk reportedly told a CNP crowd in August. “Like, it’s a great thing.”
The recordings were made by CNP to provide to its members after events, and they were subsequently passed along to the Post.
At another point in the recordings, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton fretted about voter fraud with mail-in ballots ― a frequent topic of President Donald Trump’s ire despite the fact there is no evidence that voting by mail leads to rampant fraud. Experts on election security have repeatedly contradicted the president’s claims.
Nevertheless, Fitton told his audience, “We need to stop those ballots from going out” and requested that the lawyers in attendance “tell us what to do.”
He claimed that the Democratic Party is “war-gaming” a plan to slow down the ballot count so much that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would become acting president on Jan. 20, 2021. When contacted by the Post, Fitton doubled down.
“The left has war-gamed this out,” he said. “And it could cause civil war.”
CNP Executive Committee President Bill Walton reportedly spoke in similar terms at an August meeting, where he announced, “We have to do everything we can to win.”
“This is a spiritual battle we are in. This is good versus evil,” Walton said at the event.
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