They Couldn't Prove the Machines Were Rigged. So They're Going to Take Them.

How a lawyer with no evidence and a clerk with a nine-year sentence are pitching Howard Lutnick on the midterms.

Cleta Mitchell, 2023: "Bring me the proof." Three years later, nobody has. The plan now is to skip that step.

They Couldn't Prove the Machines Were Rigged. So They're Going to Take Them.

How a lawyer with no evidence and a clerk with a nine-year sentence are pitching Howard Lutnick on the midterms.

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #1,049: Wednesday, October 7th, 2026.

Marc Elias dropped this on X Wednesday afternoon: GOP lawyer Cleta Mitchell and convicted ex-clerk Tina Peters are pushing a plan to have Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick seize voting machines ahead of the midterms.

Read that again. Not “audit.” Not “inspect.” Seize.

I’ve spent my career in the influence business, and I tell every client the same thing: I don’t care how the problem sounds. I care what’s in the file. So let’s do what nobody on cable will do tonight. Let’s open the file.

Meet the sales team

Cleta Mitchell is the Republican election lawyer who was on the line when Trump asked Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” the votes in January 2021.

Two years later, at an RNC donor retreat…she was recorded admitting she never saw evidence of Dominion machine fraud in Georgia….which is exactly why she left the machines out of her lawsuit. Her words to the room: “Bring me the proof. I’m a lawyer.”

Hold onto that line. It is the entire damn case.

Tina Peters is the former Mesa County, Colorado clerk who let an unauthorized outsider into a secure update of her county’s voting system in 2021…trying to prove the 2020 election was rigged.

A jury convicted her on seven counts. A judge gave her nine years…and told her from the bench…that her lies were well documented. Her own experts…never showed the machines did anything wrong.

So…the two people now selling “the machines are compromised” are (a) the lawyer who admitted on tape she had no proof, and (b) the clerk who went to prison trying to manufacture some.

In business, that’s not a sales team. That’s a warning label.

How the scheme actually works

Here’s the mechanism, and it’s clever the way bad ideas usually are.

Commerce has authority to screen technology supply chains for foreign national-security risks.

The pitch: declare the components inside voting machines a foreign-adversary threat…and the Secretary can effectively pull them from service…without a single state legislature, court, or election board voting on it.

This isn’t hypothetical.

Reuters reported in May…that Trump’s election-security adviser, Kurt Olsen, asked Commerce last year to declare Dominion components national-security risks.

Those machines are used in more than half the states. Commerce staff actually went looking for legal grounds. The effort stalled for one reason: Olsen’s team never produced evidence to justify it.

CNN has since reported…that administration allies are still pressuring Lutnick to act on voting machines before November…on precisely that theory…and that his team drafted the postal rules election officials now say they can’t implement in time.

A Commerce spokesperson says Lutnick never engaged on election-integrity issues. Note what that is: a denial about a meeting…not a denial about the plan.

Now the names attached to the push are Mitchell and Peters. Same product…new sales reps.

Three things that tell you this is a con

I’ve spent enough years watching men sell bad ideas to good people to know the pattern cold. This is a pitch. Here’s how you read it.

1. Watch the verb.

Every con sells with big, foggy verbs: “secure,” “protect,” “restore confidence.” Bad outcomes hide inside them. “Seize” is the honest verb here…and…it’s the one they’d never put in the press release.

When the verb in the private memo….doesn’t match the verb in the public statement… the private memo is what you’re actually buying.

2. Urgency without evidence is manipulation.

When a man can’t prove his claim, he manufactures a deadline. “Before the midterms” is the deadline.

The proof is the thing Mitchell asked for in 2023 and…by every public account…still doesn’t have. Three years. A friendly administration. Unlimited subpoena power. Still nothing. Nobody who has the goods needs you to hurry.

3. Follow who gets paid.

Not always in money. In power. Who decides which machines are “safe”? Who certifies replacements five weeks out from an election? Who benefits when a county can’t count on time and the result gets disputed? A pitch that never names its beneficiary is hiding him on purpose.

Any one of these should stop you cold. This one trips all three.

The other side’s best argument, and why it doesn’t hold

Fair is fair.

The strongest case for the plan goes like this: voting equipment is critical infrastructure…foreign supply chains are a real concern…and Commerce already screens routers…telecom gear…and chips for exactly this.

If there’s a risk, somebody should have the authority to act before voters are harmed, not after.

I’d take that argument seriously. I’d take it tomorrow…if the people pushing it had ever produced the risk.

They haven’t. Reuters’ sources say the Olsen effort collapsed on the evidence question. A Colorado jury…with sworn witnesses and cross-examination…found Peters’ claims didn’t hold.

Mitchell said on tape she had nothing. Every room that requires proof has returned the same verdict.

A national-security power invoked on a claim no court has ever credited isn’t security. It’s a pretext with a letterhead.

And the timing gives it away: a real supply-chain finding gets made in February…with a replacement plan attached. A political one…gets made in October with none.

What you do with this

Doing nothing is a decision. Here’s the alternative, and it takes twenty minutes.

Call your county clerk or state election director.

Ask one question: “If federal action targets our equipment before November, what’s the contingency?” If they don’t have an answer, you just gave them a reason to get one.

Forward this to five people who vote in a county that uses Dominion.

That’s more than half the states. The scheme depends on nobody noticing until it’s done.

Follow the reporters…not the pundits.

Reuters and CNN broke the Commerce angle. Elias flagged the names. Pay attention to who keeps the receipts.

I don’t ask you to trust me. I ask you to do what I’d do with any pitch that lands on my desk: check the verb…check the deadline…check who gets paid. Then decide.

#HoldFast

Back soon.

-Jack

Jack Hopkins

Remember, Jack’s got your back.

P.S. The next time anyone tells you the machines are rigged, ask one question: what changed since the day Cleta Mitchell said “bring me the proof”? If the only honest answer is “the midterms,” you already have yours.

Sources

• Marc E. Elias on X (@marceelias) — the October 7, 2026 post reporting the Mitchell/Peters push

• Reuters: Trump official tried to ban voting machines used by half of U.S. (via Global News) — Kurt Olsen’s request that Commerce declare Dominion components a national-security risk

• CNN reporting on Lutnick and the midterms (via Raw Story) — pressure on Lutnick to act on voting machines; Commerce’s role in the postal rules

• AJC: Top Trump lawyer never saw proof of Dominion fraud claims (via Election Law Blog) — Cleta Mitchell’s recorded “bring me the proof” remarks at the 2023 RNC retreat

• NPR/KUNC: Former Colorado county clerk sentenced to prison — Tina Peters’ conviction and nine-year sentence

• Inquirer/AP: Tina Peters sentenced to 9 years — sentencing details