Republican candidates for top statewide offices in Arizona have said they believe what they saw in the election-conspiracy movie “2000 Mules.”
Now, the state Attorney General’s Office is asking the FBI and IRS for investigations of the group behind the movie, True the Vote, noting that it has repeatedly rebuffed all requests to share the documentary’s alleged evidence and has raised “considerable sums of money” based on claims of having that evidence.
“Given TTV’s status as a nonprofit organization, it would appear that further review of its financials may be warranted,” wrote Reginald “Reggie” Grigsby, chief special agent of the office’s Special Investigations Section.
The film, released in May and thoroughly debunked by experts and media organizations, claims mobile-phone data obtained by the group shows a coordinated effort by hundreds of people around the country — deemed “mules” — to stuff election drop boxes with ballots for candidate Joe Biden in 2020. True the Vote’s representatives said they would use their findings to make elections more secure.
But the moviemakers have since refused to release any of their supposed data to law enforcement groups even after promising to do so, the Attorney General’s Office said in the two-page letter Friday.
Grigsby’s letter accuses True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht and its contractor Gregg Phillips of providing misleading information to his office and other law enforcement groups. He also mentions some of the bogus information the group has previously put out related to the movie, such as the false claims that the group helped solve a murder in Atlanta and break a ballot-harvesting case in San Luis, Arizona.
In sum, the information points to “potential violations” of tax code given True the Vote’s 501(c)3 nonprofit status, the letter states.
(The letter is here.)