While the House select committee carefully lays out a timeline of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and the events that led to it, false claims of a stolen election are still spreading.
Now, a new strategy has emerged. Instead of trickling down from former President Donald Trump's Twitter account, the movement has gone grassroots, with election denial influencers traveling the country to share their conspiracy theories with politicians and voters.
NPR's Investigations team used social media and news reports to track four key figures in the movement: MyPillow CEO and longtime Trump supporter Mike Lindell, former U.S. Army Captain Seth Keshel, former high school math and science teacher Douglas Frank, and former law professor David Clements. Here are four takeaways from that reporting.
Over the course of the 18 months since Jan. 6, 2021, the four election denialists NPR tracked have been slated to speak at at least 308 events in 45 states and the District of Columbia. The events were often small, held in restaurants and churches, backyards and community centers.
While efforts to undermine election results have been particularly public in battleground states like Arizona, the grassroots election denial movement is happening all over the country, including in deep red and blue states. On the social media site Telegram, believers have formed "Audit Chats" by state, including in places like New York and California, to talk about election conspiracy theories.
Lindell...
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