True the Vote, the election denial group whose data underpinned the debunked 2022 film 2000 Mules, is preparing another election documentary, according to WIRED. The new project focuses on claims of fraud in Detroit and other majority-Black or heavily Black cities, even though related allegations have already failed in court.
Detroit pastor Lorenzo Sewell told WIRED the documentary is called Trap and said he expects it to be released in the next month or so. Sewell, who spoke at Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, said he has not yet seen the film. True the Vote cofounder Catherine Engelbrecht did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment, but she wrote in a newsletter to supporters that the group was filming a documentary in Detroit.
The project appears to draw from a 2024 lawsuit filed by Detroit political activist Ramon Jackson. Jackson alleged that Democratic election officials, including Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, ran a scheme involving former Detroit residents, false registrations, and ballots cast under those registrations in elections going back to 2017. A court dismissed the case, citing lack of standing and insufficient evidence.
After Trump visited Sewell’s church in June 2024 during a campaign push aimed at Black voters, Sewell and Jackson continued advancing those claims, according to WIRED. Sewell alleged that Democrats were voting on behalf of poor Black people without their knowledge and using address changes by people who had moved out of state. He also said he believes the same kind of scheme exists in Atlanta, Baltimore, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Philadelphia.
Sewell acknowledged to WIRED that he did not have evidence for those broader claims. He described his method as reviewing voter lists to examine where and how people voted. He also claimed Black voters do not use absentee voting, a claim complicated by a study published this week finding mail voting is more common among Black voters in communities with high hate-crime exposure.
According to WIRED, Sewell said he flags names he considers inconsistent with the community and sent images of ballot envelopes that he claimed contained fake names. He also provided 10 affidavits from voters who alleged their identity or address had been misused in recent elections. WIRED said it could not independently confirm those affidavit claims. Sewell did not explain how election officials supposedly selected people, registered false entries at their addresses, or cast absentee ballots using their names.
Benson and Winfrey did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment.
True the Vote’s last election film ended badly
2000 Mules, released by right-wing activist Dinesh D’Souza in 2022 and promoted by Trump, alleged that people were illegally stuffing drop boxes with ballots in swing states. The film relied on data from True the Vote. In 2024, Salem Media Group pulled the film from distribution after settling a lawsuit with a Georgia man wrongly portrayed as one of the alleged ballot “mules,” according to NPR.
Gregg Phillips, True the Vote’s other cofounder, has also promoted the coming documentary on Truth Social, according to WIRED. Phillips wrote that the new film would make 2000 Mules look minor by comparison. He also posted a photo with Engelbrecht and Tina Peters, the pardoned former Mesa County clerk who became a prominent figure in election denial circles after using another person’s credentials to allow an associate to observe a software update to her county’s election management system. WIRED reported that it is unclear whether Peters is involved in the documentary.
David Becker, who leads the Center for Election Innovation and Research and previously worked as a senior trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Voting Section, told WIRED that claims about the 2020 election surfacing six years later should be treated skeptically. Becker said the 2020 vote has already been heavily examined and argued that True the Vote’s prior documentary record gives election experts reason to worry about the new film’s effect on people already primed to believe elections are rigged.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
