Catherine Engelbrecht: 2000 Mules & The Importance of Election Integrity

*If you didn’t hear the interview with our partner, Gregg Phillips from Cover.Me, Listen now. CLICK HERE.

Show Transcripts:

Patti:

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. And today I have Catherine Engelbrecht on the show. Catherine is from True the Vote. Catherine, welcome to the show.

Catherine:

Thanks so much for having me, Patti.

Patti:

You’re welcome. So, I’m really interested in what you do. You actually hold people responsible for voter integrity through your organization, True the Vote. First, before we get into that, I would love it if you could tell my listeners just a little bit about yourself and how you grew up, and I’m interested in how you ended up in this field.

Catherine:

Sure. Well, I’m a native Texan born and bred, grew up in a small town. Didn’t have any affiliation with politics, except my dad was on the city council. And what I saw growing up was that local politics is every bit as challenging as what happens inside the beltway. So I got an up-close and personal look at that kind of dynamic, but I think more than anything, what I learned in my upbringing was that we have a responsibility to our communities. And it was very much a part of my family, you gave back to your community. That was just sort of a way of life for me. And I didn’t look at it any differently than just being, you know, you roll out of bed and there are certain ways you allocate your time, and working in the community was one. And that took a variety of turns. It was though in 2008 that I began to sort of get an awakening if you will, to the broader picture of what was happening, not just in my community, but the way my community was being impacted by the federal government, particularly at the time. And that sense of awakening seemed to connect with millions of other Americans through what we now know as the tea party movement. And that was really my wake-up call. I didn’t go looking for it, I just came up through it.

Patti:

Now that’s really interesting because I know there’s a lot of Americans out there who say, gosh, first of all, how can it boil down to this, we have these two candidates that are controversial in their own ways, because of course, the media spins everybody in a controversial way, correct.

Catherine:

Of course. (Inaudible 02:22) for good viewing. Lots of clicks.

Patti:

Yeah. And I think that people are starting to wake up a little bit and realize that there are some things wrong with our voting system. And I would like you to tell us a little bit more about that because I have my own theories, but I’m not a professional. I haven’t studied into it like you have. So, if you could kind of tell our listeners a little bit about how mainstream media, first of all, impacts our candidates that are out there. And then second of all, what you’re doing about it.

Catherine:

Well, you characterize it correctly. There’s a whole layer top layer, if you will, of candidates and makes media and big, big, big dollars and lots of professional politicians, consultants, it’s a whole sort of class unto itself. And they come alive every campaign cycle to make Americans all remind each other why we don’t get along and all of the things that we fight about. And they use that as fuel to drive the vote. That’s what’s happening up here. What’s happening down below is a much different situation, what’s happening down below is the process. And so many people get turned around in the practicality and the connection between those two. So what happens in the process is that people are needed, people like me and you are needed to go and work locally in our elections to work locally in our polls. And what we saw happen in 2020 was this confluence of the two we saw major moves from political campaigns and law fair, like never before, to change the laws around elections, change the process. 

And so we were all down on the bottom level, kind of thrown into something that we’d never seen before. So although True the Votes has been around since 2010, and we’ve seen a lot of process weaknesses over the years and we’ve encouraged people to get involved. And we’ve tried to work diligently to help restore and strengthen some of those areas that citizens can participate in, in terms of improving the process, improving the basic check and balance. Nobody had ever seen anything like what happened in 2020. And so I think we’re in a whole different space now than we were just a few years ago.

Patti:

Now, to highlight some of these things that are going on, you’re involved with a movie, right. Tell me about this.

Catherine:

Sure. So it’s what’s called 2000 Mules and frankly, it came about because I’ve known Dinesh and Debbie DeSouza for a long time. And we had been working on a project that we had not spoken of publicly about and needed to figure out how to tell the story as much as we could in its fullness because we could have gone public any time and we would’ve been the most important story in the world for one night and then America would’ve just moved on and we wouldn’t have had an opportunity to really dig deep. And so I reached out to Dinesh, shared with him what we were working on, and we started down this path of building out this movie, I guess last summer. And it’s been a long time in coming. The way that the story came about, to begin with, was born of what I described in the 2020 election. So we had all these changes in process and what we observed was that there was gonna be some inherent weaknesses that could be exploited. And we wanted to use data to measure and track whether or not what we hypothesized was in fact accurate. We didn’t know, it was sort of a fateful gamble to purchase a tremendous amount of cell phone data. And from there we geofenced or set up sort of digital data points, a digital net, if you will, around the privately funded Dropboxes that most of your listeners probably know Mark Zuckerberg spent 400 million-plus fueling a lot of this confusion that went into the 2020 election. And part of that was these drop boxes. So we thought, okay, this might be a place that if you’re gonna look to subvert, the already weak system, you’d go there. So we geofenced around these drop boxes. We had all the cell phone data, and we watched to see what cell phone devices pierced through this geo-fence an unusually high number of times. And the threshold was a little bit different for every location that we looked in. And we looked in five different states in five different jurisdictions within those states, specifically in Milwaukee county Wisconsin, in Wayne County Michigan, which is Detroit, in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, in Maricopa and Yuma counties in Arizona, and in Fulton County and the surrounding counties, sort of Metro Atlanta in Georgia. And the hypothesis was that if ballots were going to be trafficked, in other words, if you would have a single individual going to drop boxes more than one time, that this is something that the data would reveal, and that we hoped we would be able to get surveillance video from the drop boxes to thread together with our data from the cell phones and identify what these people were, in fact, doing at the Dropboxes. 

And so it was a sort of very novel and thoughtful approach to tracking this process. But the stuff in the movie as for anybody that wants to go see it, you’ll see the story. It has been fraught with all kinds of challenges that go back to the failure of process because the things that we had counted on like surveillance video, or chain of custody documents, things that you could have used to sort of connect all these dots, the gaps, when you really start looking at what was really happening on the ground, the gaps are stunning and really make the viewer, I believe, question how any of this is really working in a reliable fashion at all. So the movie tells this story and is, I hope a wake-up call to Americans to get involved and demand more from your local process. And if we all demand more locally, then that becomes like a wave across the country. And certainly, there’s all manner of technology that we can look to and improvements that we can seize upon to make this a better experience for all voters, but it’s gonna be us. It’s not gonna be the government that’s gonna do it. They’re gonna watch it go right off a cliff.

Patti:

Now could you tell us where we could find your, movie? It’s called 2000 mules. Where can we find that?

Catherine:

Well, the first place to go is to either truethevote.org, our website, you’ll see information about the movie there, or you can go to 2000 mules.com and see just the highlights of the movie. We are going to debut it in theaters, in select theaters, AMC, and cinema theaters, beginning on May 2nd. And so if you go to the website, I believe they have locations where you can go select your location from a dropdown. See if it’s at a theater near you, if not, you can request a theater, and they’re booking theaters. It’s been challenging to find a distribution path for the movie because of the cancel culture. Then on May 6th, there’s gonna be a really cool deal in Las Vegas. It’s gonna be a virtual event and more information will be available on the website about that, but it’s like this amphitheater, that’s a 360-degree surround sound. And if you’re watching, if you get a virtual ticket, your space is seen all around this amphitheater. So it’s like, all of us are watching it, the movie together, and then there will be a live Q and A at the end of the movie. And that’s gonna be a really fun one because we’re gonna be able to get up to 250,000 people online at the same time. And so I mean, the discussion out of that’s gonna be something to be a part of. And then post that it’s gonna be available on Rumble and on Salem’s network. So it’ll be widely distributed and of course on our side as well.

Patti:

Wow. Catherine, I have one question that I ask all of my guests, and I’m gonna put you on the spot because I didn’t tell you this before the show, and I should have probably. What is one trial that you’ve been through in your life and how did you overcome that trial?

Catherine:

Probably the biggest trial I have been through, although there have been many of late with this experience. I think the clearest example of a trial and how I overcame it, would’ve been during a period of my life from 2010 through about 2012 when I was part of sort of the eye of the storm of targeting by the IRS and in my case, other federal agencies at the hands of the Obama administration. And it’s something that I didn’t talk about, there are people in my world that knew bits and pieces of what happened and what was happening, but I didn’t share the full extent with anyone, no one, because I felt it was such a stigma against me or the organization or the circumstance. It was also surreal that I had five agencies and over a two-year period, there were 23 audits and investigations, and it was a very harrowing experience. How I overcame it was when I finally understood the power in speaking out and the power of telling the full truth about what was going on and watching as America rallied around us. 

It shifted my perspective on my initial thought of, you know, I’m strong enough to take this by myself and I don’t wanna burden anybody else. And I don’t want to have anything that I might say, be misconstrued and all that goes with those moments of thinking that you’ve got it all under control. And then flipping that script to realize, you know, the power in these instances, the power comes from getting past that fear to freedom and that freedom is found in telling your truth and people will rally to that. So now that’s a model I look to very quickly, it’s why 2000 Mules, we sought a movie format to tell that truth, to tell it in the biggest way that we could because the enemy thrives on our fear and our silence. That’s what they count on, is us being silent. And we have to beat them at their own game. Mm-Hmm

Patti:

That is so true. And I really can’t tell you how much I appreciate you in words. You’ve been just such a powerful influence on my life and you haven’t even realized that at all times, you know I always tell you, I think you’re amazing Catherine, you’re doing these great things. But as a woman, I think that we go through different obstacles on another level, but then actually to come out and have a word for, not only America, but the world, it is probably even more stressful for you because I actually wrote a post this morning about 2000 mules, and somebody commented on my post he’s from Poland. And he said we’re having these same issues here. And so what you’re doing is really impacting the world and it’s impacting me. As a woman, other women who are business owners or people who want to change the world in a better way, and it’s so important for everybody to remember not to be fearful, but to step out in truth like you said.

Catherine:

Well, thank you. And I admire you getting up in front of that mic every day and making sure that you’re bringing your truth out and millions of people are hearing it. So we’re all in it together.

Patti:

Thank you, Catherine. And again, just tell everybody the social media websites for 2000 Mules, please.

Catherine:

Absolutely. So you can check us out at truethevote.org. We have a Facebook page. We’re on Rumble,  True The Vote, We’re on Insta at realtruethevote. And then we’ve been de-platformed everywhere else.

Patti:

Yeah, I’m following (Inaudible 15:30). So everybody who’s listening, also, we have a website American.Ink that you’re gonna want to follow. It’s almost ready to launch. And by the time you hear this, it might even be launched. So we are not going to be censoring anything there and you’re gonna wanna come over and hear some of the great things that people are doing around the world on American Ink. Also Catherine, your organization is fueled by donations. Is that correct?

Catherine:

That is absolutely correct.

Patti:

And how does that work if somebody wants to donate to True The Vote?

Catherine:

So you can go to our website, we have a donate page, a button you’ll clearly that gives you the opportunity to donate. And we are a 501C3, which means that all donations are tax-deductible. And we could use the support. What we have just been through has been the heaviest financial lift, much beyond anything we could have imagined. And we’ve done some great work, but we really could use support.

Patti:

Absolutely everybody go check that out. And if you feel moved, please do donate. It’s really important. We’re at a pivotal time in American history and I can’t stress enough how important your donation is. Catherine, thank you again for being on the show. I really appreciate you. And do you have any last words for people who are listening?

Catherine:

I would say this, that I know that it seems that times are tough and there are a lot of things to worry about, and there are a lot of new things emerging on the world stage that seem very out of control and can get you in a dark place really fast. But I wanna encourage everyone that there is always hope and there is always a way forward. We have to stick together. We have to believe in one another. We are all a lot more alike than we are different and we can pull through. So take hope, I believe to the core of my being that our best days are ahead.

Patti:

I agree. Thank you, Catherine. And thank you, everybody, for listening, and until next time make sure that you go back and listen to prior podcasts, share this show with your friends. This is probably one of the most important shows that I’ve had to date. It is impacting our history here in America. And so be sure to share that with your friends. Everybody take care. Thank you, Catherine.

Catherine:

Thank You.