Dan Proft sat down with attorney Cleta Mitchell to explore issues ranging from the lingering mysteries of the Jeffrey Epstein case to longstanding concerns over election integrity and government overreach. Mitchell, a veteran election attorney and founder of the Election Integrity Network, painted a broad picture of institutional mistrust fueled by years of political targeting, media distortion, and lack of accountability.
While recent reports about Ghislaine Maxwell cooperating with federal investigators have drawn fresh attention to the Epstein scandal, Mitchell said she has not been closely following the developments. Still, she suggested the pattern of vague information, deflected blame, and inconsistent media coverage was familiar. The conversation turned to former President Donald Trump’s connection to the Epstein case, which Mitchell argued has been misrepresented in the press despite Trump’s early cooperation with attorneys representing victims.
Shifting focus, Mitchell returned to a subject she’s been deeply involved in for over a decade: election integrity. She expressed frustration that those who raised questions about the 2020 election, including attorneys and Republican electors, are still facing criminal charges, while other major scandals—like the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups during the Obama administration—never led to meaningful consequences.
Mitchell recounted her experience representing nonprofit organizations that sought tax-exempt status and were delayed or stonewalled by the IRS beginning in 2010. She pointed to documentary evidence and firsthand correspondence that contradicted claims the targeting originated from low-level staff in Cincinnati. Instead, she said, it was driven by officials in Washington, D.C., with pressure from Democratic lawmakers.
According to Mitchell, many of these applications were placed on indefinite hold if they had terms like “Tea Party,” “patriot,” or “pro-life” in their names—or if their mission included holding government accountable. She said the pattern amounted to a coordinated effort to suppress grassroots conservative political organizing ahead of the 2012 election. The Justice Department’s slow-walking of subsequent lawsuits further cemented what she sees as an entrenched double standard in how political speech is policed in America.
Mitchell also reflected on the now-infamous 2020 call between President Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Having participated in the call, Mitchell rejected the widespread media narrative that Trump pressured officials to fabricate votes. She claimed Trump was referencing already documented irregularities in voter rolls, such as registrations linked to vacant addresses or P.O. boxes—issues she says were ignored in the rush to criminalize dissent.
Beyond election-related concerns, Mitchell warned of an increasingly politicized media ecosystem—one now amplified by artificial intelligence. She described her recent experience using an AI platform, Grok, which initially returned mainstream narratives about the 2016 Russia investigation. Only after prompting did it acknowledge contrary facts, including declassified material that undermines earlier media claims. Mitchell expressed concern about the implications of biased algorithmic systems shaping public discourse.
She closed with a broader critique of political culture, arguing that progressive ideology has infiltrated major institutions—from universities to the federal bureaucracy—where dissenting viewpoints are often silenced. She drew a straight line from the campus intolerance she says many officials were trained in, to what she views as targeted enforcement in agencies like the IRS, the DOJ, and intelligence services.