Lawyers on Bannon’s Podcast Urge Commerce Secretary to Act on Voting Machines in Georgia
On October 6, during a broadcast of Steve Bannon's War Room podcast, guests Cleta Mitchell and Ed Martin—both lawyers linked to election denial efforts—called for Howard Lutnick, the U.S. Commerce Secretary, to intervene in state-level election systems due to concerns over voting machine security.
Mitchell, who participated in the January 2021 phone call where former President Donald Trump urged Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" votes to overturn the 2020 election results, specifically criticized Georgia's election infrastructure. She built on longstanding conspiracy theories about vote tampering that followed Trump's loss in the state.
Ed Martin, a former Trump Department of Justice official involved in election denial activism, also appeared on the podcast. He claimed to have worked on efforts to aid Tina Peters, a prominent election denial figure and former Colorado county clerk, in her legal troubles.
Mitchell argued that a 2019 national emergency declaration by Trump provides Lutnick with the authority—and duty—to intervene in election administration. She urged Lutnick to mandate that the software in Georgia's Dominion Voting Systems be replaced and upgraded to ensure security.
Separately, on October 1, James Mills, Executive Director of Georgia's State Election Board, sent letters to the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security requesting updates to the state's voting machines ahead of the midterm elections. Mills' positions have generally aligned with Trump's unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud.
However, state officials and election experts have found no evidence of tampering with Georgia's voting machines during elections. A top election board Democrat described Mills' letters as an attempt to stage disputes over election results favored by Republicans.