True the Vote is at it again.
They’re the group behind 2000 Mules. You might remember that one. It was a disaster. A debunked film. False allegations about the 2020 elections. The whole thing collapsed under legal weight and basic facts. Salem Media even pulled it.
Now they’re prepping a new movie.
Trump is still pushing midterm narratives. Threatening the process. The timing feels convenient. The new project plans to dig back into the 2020 dust. This time? They want to allege systemic fraud in Black communities. It’s the same old lie. Just a new packaging. Courts have already thrown these claims out. Repeatedly.
The Pastor and The Plot
Enter Lorenzo Sewell. He’s a pastor in Detroit. Spoke at Trump’s inauguration. Knows how to work a crowd. And now? He’s tethered to True the Vote.
The movie is called Trap. Sewell tells WIRED the name fits because people are “trapped.” Coming soon. Within a month, he claims. He hasn’t actually seen the final cut. Doesn’t matter. He’s ready to roll.
The script follows a 2024 lawsuits from Detroit activist Ramon Jackson. Jackson accused Michigan’s top election officials of cooking the books. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson? On the hit list. Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey? Accused of orchestrating a scheme. They supposedly registered former residents and cast phantom votes dating back to 2015.
The courts said no.
Dismissed. No standing. No evidence.
But after Trump visited Sewell’s church to woo voters last June? The pastor paired up with Jackson. They’re keeping the ghost alive.
“There is a pattern right now where Democrats are voting for poor Black people without their knowledge,” Sewell says. No evidence attached. “They’re switching their votes when someone moves out of state.”
It sounds sinister. It’s also baseless.
Sewell thinks this is happening everywhere. Atlanta. Baltimore. St. Louis. New Orleans. Philadelphia. Cities with large lower-income Black populations. He admits he has no proof. None. But he says he has a “proven system.” Can detect cheating. Period. Democrat or Republican. He’s sure of it.
His “system” is bizarre. He looks at voting lists. Checks how and where votes landed. He claims Black people don’t vote absentee. Wrong. A recent study shows mail-in voting is actually more common for Black voters in areas with high hate crime rates. Context matters. Sewell ignores it.
He also flags names he doesn’t like. Names he deems “not conducive” to the community. He showed WIIRD envelope photos. Claims the names aren’t real. He handed over ten affidavits from people claiming their identities were stolen for votes.
WIIRD couldn’t verify any of it.
Worse? Sewell offers zero specifics. How did Benson or Winfrey identify these ghosts? How were false registrations created? How did ballots get cast? Magic, apparently.
Neither Benson nor Winfrey commented. Why bother?
The Influencer Circuit
Sewell says True the Vote heard about him because he’s “famous.” Convenient.
Catherine Engelbrecht? The group’s cofounder? No comment. She’s sending newsletters to donors though. One from last week mentions filming a doc in Detroit. Nothing else.
Her cofounder, Gregg Phillips, is louder. Remember the guy who claimed he teleported to Waffle House? And the FEMA disaster? He’s been hyping the project on Truth Social.
“Pastor Lorenzo is awesome,” Phillips posted. “Can’t wait.”
He also shared a photo with Engelbrecht and Tina Peters. Peters is that Mesa County Clerk who used someone else’s credentials to let a buddy watch an election software update. She’s a hero to this crowd. A pardoned hero. Is she in the movie? Nobody knows.
Phillips posted another message in early July. “Just wait,” he said. “Makes mules look like childs play.” Note the typo. It stays.
Later he tagged True the Vote. Referencing a DOJ warning to election officials. Said the new doc would be epic.
Why It Matters
2000 Mules came out in 2022. Dinesh D’Souza directed it. Trump promoted it. It alleged “mules” stuffed drop boxes in swing states.
It was wrong.
Georgia sued. Salem settled. The film died.
Election experts are worried now. Not surprised. Worried.
David Becker heads the Center for Election Innovation and He was also a DOJ attorney. He gets it.
“The 2020 election was the most scrutinized in history,” Becker says. “Any claims made six years later are clearly false. Designed to cause doubt.”
He adds the filmmakers have a “sketchy history.” The last doc was mostly lies.
So what now?
More confusion. More anger. A documentary built on affidavits that can’t be verified. Names flagged because of a pastor’s gut feeling.
It’s not about truth. It’s about the trap.
Who gets caught?
