Lawfare Daily: David Clements, the Evangelist of Election Refusal, with Anna Bower and Ben Wittes

[Intro]

Anna Bower: After there has been an election, he is attempting to get local officials, usually it's the canvassing board or the county elections board or county commission, to withhold the certification of the results of the election to the extent that they have concerns about fraud or widespread irregularities.

Roger Parloff: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Roger Parloff, Senior Editor at Lawfare, and today I'm with Senior Editor Anna Bower and Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss their article, “David Clements: the Evangelist of Election Refusal.”

Benjamin Wittes: At one point in our conversation, he said that, you know, if you look at the video, all the violence is done by people who haven't been charged and then the people who, the patriots standing next to them, has gotten a long sentence.

Roger Parloff: Today, Anna and Ben will be discussing David Clements, who runs religiously-inspired trainings across the country, one of which Anna attended, which teach citizens how to stop their local elections officials from certifying elections the trainees judge to be fraudulent.

[Main Podcast]

 So, Anna, this is really your piece. It's a remarkable piece. It's mainly about David Clements, whom I hadn't heard of until your piece. So, how did he get on your radar screen?

Anna Bower: Well, David Clements has been on my radar screen for a little while now. He is a former professor who taught business law at New Mexico State University and had this career shift after the 2020 election in which he kind of became what you might term an election refusal evangelist. He's become very involved within what many people call the election denial movement: people who believe that the 2020 election was rigged and that there is widespread fraud in American elections. He became a part of this movement, started traveling around the country attempting to persuade people to, or local officials to, withhold certification of voting machines or election results.

And there was some reporting around this in 2022, but I really became aware of him when I started reporting on the Coffee County voting system breach. Because, because of his position as a lawyer, David Clements also has represented some folks who were witnesses in one of the civil cases that uncovered some of the evidence about the Coffee County voting system breach. He, in particular, represented Jeff Lenberg in a deposition. And so that's kind of when I first became aware of David Clements is when I was doing some reporting on Coffey County and learned about David Clements and his activities traveling around the country, trying to convince people to get their local officials to withhold certification.

Roger Parloff: Okay. Ben, maybe you should explain your role in the article and in this podcast.

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah, so my role is actually simple, which was that I was the editor of this story, and as I have done with previous Anna Bower features, and investigations. And then Mr. Clements agreed to an interview under a somewhat unusual set of conditions, and when that interview was scheduled for, Anna had jury duty. And so, couldn't do it. So, first I was there, kind of as a backup, in case she had jury duty and couldn't participate and then it turned out she couldn't participate and so I actually did the interview with Mr. Clements by myself and thereby became one of the reporters on the story.

Roger Parloff: So, Anna, what piece of election administration is Clements most focused on?

Anna Bower: So I think that he is focused on various aspects of election administration, but I would say that he has basically two, kind of, real focuses. The overall focus is on persuading local officials to refuse to certify at various points in the election administration process.

So, at one point he wants clerks or the canvassing boards or the, whichever authority it is that is responsible for certifying the use of voting machines in that jurisdiction. He wants those individuals to refuse to certify the actual use of voting machines.

Roger Parloff: Is that at the county level?

Anna Bower: I believe that it depends on the jurisdiction, but his focus is very much at the county level, which we can discuss a little bit more about why that is, but his focus has very much been at the county level. And so he is at one point wanting people before there is an election to withhold certification of the actual use of voting machines, and then after there has been an election, he is attempting to get local officials, usually it's the canvassing board or the county elections board or county commission, to withhold the certification of the results of the election to the extent that they have concerns about fraud or widespread irregularities.

Roger Parloff: And just to be clear, so if Trump wins a county, would they still try to stop certification, or is this just in case he loses?

Anna Bower: Yes, and I hope that Ben will chime in here because I believe that at one point Clements mentioned this in his interview. But yes, it's not, he's not discriminatory in terms of whether or not the county is one that is historically blue or historically red. He has advocated for withholding of election results in basically anywhere that there is a belief that there is fraud, which as I take David Clements to be alleging, it's that American elections for the past 20 years have been afflicted by widespread fraud and that they have been rigged.

And so he is very much, is equal opportunity for withholding of election results, no matter the county. So Ben, do you agree with that?

Benjamin Wittes: Yes-ish. I think there, this is one of those areas where, so, he very clearly believes that Trump was elected president four years ago, and that fraud has produced the presidency of Joe Biden. And he, also, very clearly believes that, you know, Trump would win without fraud, this time around too.

But he's also, you know, committedly a believer in the idea that the machines themselves are corrupt, and anywhere that's using voting technology other than hand-filled-out ballots, he is assuming is presumptively engaged in some kind of fraud. And so that includes a lot of red counties. That includes a lot of red states.

 And so, you know, I think he's got a bit of both going on. He's got like, he's, Anna's definitely right that some of his, you know, target counties, including the one where, she did, attended a training a month ago. Some of his target counties are very red and Trump's going to get, you know, 75 percent of the vote in those.

But part of what animates him is the belief that, but for this fraud and the machines to which he talks about, you know, in the language of slavery. That, you know, kind of, we are not actually a free people because the machines are stealing our votes. And, you know, some of that is the belief that, you know, but for the machines, we would have elected Donald Trump.

Anna Bower: And what I don't know, I should clarify is, if it's a situation where it's an overall Kamala Harris win, but Trump won the specific county, I think that David Clements would seem to have no problem based on things he said in the past, with county officials withholding certification of that specific county.

What I don't know though, and that I, if I ever have a chance to speak with him, would like to ask David Clements is: what happens if it's an overall Donald Trump win? You know, do you still advocate for the withholding of certification because you are trying to solve the problem of what he sees as voting machines?

He does have this kind of idea that he's explained before that you can, kind of, outvote the fraud if you vote on election day, because, he has this theory and I, I, it basically is that if you vote on election day in person, you'll be able to outrun or outsmart the algorithm that would need to be used to, you know, rig the election.

So, I, he does have this kind of convoluted, in my view, theory about how it is that Donald Trump may still be able to win. A kind of too-big-to-rig situation, but I just don't know what he would end up saying, if it is a Donald Trump win, because he still thinks, as far as I can tell, that the voting machines would continue to be a problem in future elections.

Roger Parloff: So how widespread is his following? How widespread is this phenomenon? How much should we be worried about this?

Anna Bower: It's really hard to tell, Roger. So, there are a few metrics that you could look at. One is his following on social media and in his media appearances that he makes on relatively popular conservative podcasts, like the Conservative Daily Podcast with Joe Oltmann, who himself is a, you know, well known right-wing podcaster and media figure.

David Clements has, I think, by my estimation, I believe it's over 65,000 followers on Telegram. He has over 25,000 on Twitter. He has appeared alongside very influential conservative figures like Mike Lindell. He's made appearances on Tucker Carlson in the past. He's interviewed Sidney Powell for his Rumble channel. So he has this kind of, you know, media influence and prominence within certain conservative circles.

But in terms of people, whether they're actually turning out for his events, based on our very extensive review of the photos and videos of these events, the answer is yes, people are turning out. It's not every event has thousands of people, but the cumulative number is, I feel confident saying that it's in the thousands in terms of the number of people who are coming out to his events as a whole.

In the past few months, since January, based on our review of public social media posts and various events, advertisements, it looks like he's done about, he's visited over 40 counties in various states, including swing states to do these Gideon 300 trainings. And when you look at the photos of each of those events, it appears to be the case that there's at least, you know, between 50 to up to 200 or 300 people who are going to these events. So, I feel confident saying that the people who've actually gone to these trainings, that this piece is about, is in the thousands.

Benjamin Wittes: I would just add to that, you know, there's a fair bit of evidence that he is influencing policy. And so there's been a significant controversy in Georgia about these rule changes from the state election board, which have been enjoined by the courts, but which were designed to allow county canvassing boards more leeway in refusing certification.

This is his policy objective, right. And there's some reason to think that, you know, these trainings, this way of thinking about it is, you know, trickling up into the policy process. There's pretty substantial reason to believe he is an important influencer in this ecosystem.

Roger Parloff: And speaking of trickling up, I gather he's met Trump. Is that right?

Benjamin Wittes: Yes, he met Trump. He was one of the few, as he described it, law professors who was, you know, convinced that the election was genuinely stolen, and Trump invited him for dinner at Bedminster. And they, you know, discussed his theories. So he's, you know, he's a, in the ecosystem of election-denying intellectuals and theoreticians, he is substantial.

And he is also substantial in that he is bringing this from the level of high theory, you know, like a John Eastman, down to the level of training thousands of individuals in counties across the country about how to pressure their local canvassing commissions to defy their legal obligations. And to do it in a fashion, and this is really the core of the piece, I think, and do it in a fashion that, you know, could involve arrest and prosecution for the commissioners in question, but also for the individuals who are pressuring them.

Roger Parloff: So, Anna, you attended one of these trainings, and maybe this will help listeners understand this all at a more concrete level. Tell us about how that came about, what that was like. Would that be a Gideon 300 training? Is that what that is?

Anna Bower: Clements has had several iterations of tours that he's done throughout the country over the past three years. One of them was called the Greater Magistrates Tour. Another was called, I believe something to the effect of the Stand in the Gap tour. And this is his Gideon 300 tour, which he has been on for the past you know, six or so months since he premiered a film that he helped produce with Mike Lindell called, “Let My People Go,” that features this strategy he calls Gideon 300, which is a reference to the biblical story of 300 men who took on an army of 135,001.

And so what he does during these trainings, as he goes from county to county around the country, is he shows the film, which is a film that makes many allegations that will be familiar to people who were paying attention in 2020 and in the time since. A number of claims of alleged widespread fraud or like irregularities in American elections.

He then conducts a training exercise that kind of goes through what exactly the Gideon 300 strategy or tactic is. And he does this simulation of a local elections meeting, in which he shows people kind of what his advocacy tactics are for trying to get more time to speak about election fraud, to get more time to try to convince local officials to withhold certification of election results or to withhold certification of election machines. And then kind of what to do if they don't actually listen.

And during this simulation, typically what happens and what I saw happen in Hogansville is he gets a number of people to play the county canvassing board or to play the county commissioners who are in charge of certifying elections. And then he has someone play the role of a public speaker or public commentator who gets up before the commission and starts talking about how they should get rid of machines or they should withhold certification of the election.

And then he has another person play the role of sheriff's deputy, and he will be in the role of the head of the board of commissions, and he will say okay, public commenter, your time is up. Sheriff's deputy, come remove her. And the sheriff's deputy will then simulate removing the person from the meeting.

Clements will then ask everyone to stop and get back into their places as they were. And he will say, I'd like to invite everyone in the room to stand up and surround the volunteer who is speaking about withholding certification of elections or getting rid of voting machines. He has everyone in the room stand in a circle around this person and then he tells them, do you see how the power dynamic just changed in this room? And he will kind of walk through why it's important for all of them to be kind of standing together, surrounding the person.

And one of the reasons as I take it, and as I observed is that it is much more difficult for a sheriff's deputy to then remove the person who is speaking. So it's kind of a way of essentially blocking a sheriff's deputy from removing a person who is being told to, that their time is up and that they must stop speaking at a public meeting. Ben, you can address this, but he has disputed the characterization that it involves blocking law enforcement, but that kind of is the strategy that he goes through.

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah. So, I mean, I think when I asked him about this, he contended that it did not involve blocking law enforcement. Here's what he said:

David Clements: Well, first of all, there's no blocking of law enforcement. There's a positioning where they actually stand where they stand before someone approaches. So even the characterization isn't accurate. Usually what happens is someone shows up by themselves. And these are citizens that go to these meetings every two weeks. Their voice is usually quavering, they're shaking, they're nervous. They don't like having to be out there and put themselves and make themselves vulnerable. And so the training, what it looks like changes depending on what needs to be done. And so, one of the things that we just ask people is if you're afraid to stand up by yourself, have you ever considered having your citizen activist group stand together?

Benjamin Wittes: I will note that the line between creating a barrier such that law enforcement has a disincentive to try to throw a person out and blocking may be one that only a law professor could love. And as we describe in the piece, it is certainly a distinction lost on at least some of the people who were present at the training that Anna attended, who spoke about it, as she describes, as blocking, right?

And so, I think, you know, this gets to a really important feature of David Clements, which is, he is, among other things, a smart lawyer. And he's thought pretty carefully, I think, about what you can get away with, where the legal risks are. And he, you know, he says at one point that if there are enough of you, the chances that they're even going to try is near zero. And so, you know, look, he had this, he has a very complicated relationship with legality, but it's fair to say that he's a lawyer who's telling a bunch of non-lawyers that this is legal when, you know, they could face arrest for doing it, as he acknowledges at other points.

Roger Parloff: So there's sort of a continuum here. There's peaceful protest, there's civil disobedience, sort of like the Woolworth lunch counters in the Civil Rights era. And then there's violence. Are we in a fuzzy area or where are we?

Anna Bower: Well, look, Clements insists that, and he told the audience in Hogansville that this is a peaceful, nonviolent, totally-consistent-with-the First-Amendment strategy. But he's not always consistent exactly with what it is that he is calling for and what he thinks all of this could result in, because I certainly think that he understands based on the interview that there are ways that this tactic could be construed by law enforcement as potentially unlawful.

He has also at times said that people who partake in this strategy have to be willing to get arrested, have to be willing to even die. He draws this distinction between what he calls use of force and violence, and Ben maybe you should address that because you guys spoke about it a little bit in the interview.

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah, so I'll speak about it, but I mainly want to let him speak for himself on this because I think he has a quite, as I say, complicated relationship with legality. So sometimes he simply asserts that everything he's doing is consistent with First Amendment peaceful protest:

David Clements: And so the Gideon 300 strategy is basically a citizen attempt to have accountability, to make sure that people are confronted over maladministration, if they're confronted over things that are being found.

And so I see it as consistent with the First Amendment where we're all lawfully able to assemble and declare our grievances.

Benjamin Wittes: But sometimes, he, as Anna says, he acknowledges, you know, that there are, you know, clearly elements of civil disobedience here as well, and that you have to be prepared to get arrested.

And, you know, he basically told me at one point that, you know, we're really in the same position as abolitionists in the slavery era, or in the position of, you know, colonists rebelling against the British crown:

David Clements: But when I use the actual words from the Declaration written by people that we have put all over the halls of Congress and every memorial out there, then it's a call for violence.

What you found during the time of the founders, and the reason why I bring this up, is that you had laws that were being passed by British parliament. And at some point, it was so terrible from a natural laws perspective of human rights, that the colonial Americans had to make a decision on whether they were just going to have someone use a general, a general warrant without particularity. They had to make a stand or, you know, having soldiers quartered in their homes, they had to make a stand. So, the Bill of Rights, which every lawyer celebrates, was brought about through a conflict where someone's natural rights were violated and denied. And so, where I push back, Ben, is that people often will look at something as lawful and equate it to something that's moral.

Benjamin Wittes: And then, you know, that colonist analogy is of course not a peaceful one. And he does, in that context, countenance, something that he calls, you know, that he doesn't really run away from the idea that might not be entirely peaceful. And when I pushed him on this, he basically told me that I would have been a supporter of the British crown, but that he was a rebel:

David Clements: You would strike me as someone that might have been more sympathetic to the crown. It's like, look, I'm a British subject. The law is the law. The king said you can't do what you're doing. And when push comes to shove, I'm gonna be on the side of the king, right? And, but fast forward to 2024, we've got this constitutional republic that has basically diluted all of the guarantees that I came to believe about our country.

And now it's not about throwing off the shackles of a king. It’s by revisiting the very documents that were drafted by Madison and Jefferson. And he foresaw a day where incrementally the Devil, what have you, was going to figure out every single place where rights were safeguarded and start eroding that.

Benjamin Wittes: Like, and then there's this other element of his approach, which is that, you know, he does revert at some times to the idea that there's a higher law. And so, you know, none of that makes him different from, you know, Martin Luther King in the “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” right? Except that he's not doing it for civil rights, he's doing it based on, you know, in order to coerce local officials into what is, in fact, not lawful on their parts, which is refusing to certify when they have a mandatory duty to do so. He also uses other arguments sometimes. Sometimes he just says he's just trying to posture cases for First Amendment challenge:

David Clements: It wasn't until, I think, six months ago or maybe eight months ago that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado upheld the notion that you could have a religious exemption to not put on the mask or get the jab. The people that were right about that had to challenge and put a level of conflict between themselves and the government in order to have standing, to have that litigated, only to be affirmed years later.

And so it's one of those things where I know that people are uncomfortable with conflict. I don't, I'm averse to conflict myself. But in order to actually challenge these things in a court of law you have to test the limits of where does the First Amendment start and stop in order to communicate, I think these concepts that have to be communicated.

Benjamin Wittes: So he has a lot of different arguments. But eventually he does not run away from the idea that, you know, you have to push lines in order to get heard. You know, in one of the trainings that Anna quotes, he says, you know, if you leave this to the satanic attorneys, you're going to lose every time. And I do think at some level he acknowledges that, you know, this is a civil disobedience that might involve what he calls a use of force.

Anna Bower: Yeah and it was interesting to me, Ben, that he even distanced himself from the term civil disobedience, because he at an event in Georgia last year, which we quote in the piece here, is exactly what he said.

He said that you have to pressure local officials to the extent that it comes to a point where, quote, we have that emperor has no clothes moment, where we show up in mass, this whole group shows up that they are undone, that they are naked before you, and the gig that they thought was sweet is a curse. That's the attitude. And I'm talking about, we take civil disobedience right up to the edge. Because we have to.

And then at other points in that same event, he said, he again made the slavery comparison and said that he didn't think that anyone would mind much if during the era when slavery was legal. Someone removed the whip from the slave owner and quote, kicked some ass.

He also at that same event compared what he was calling for to when abortion, anti-abortion activists barred the doors of abortion clinics, again, something that would presumably be unlawful. So there, there's a lot here where it's, there's a lot of inconsistencies with a lot of the analogies that he draws. There's a lot of inconsistencies with the terms that he uses, and I'm not entirely sure that he can himself reconcile all of it.

Benjamin Wittes: Right, I think at different times he uses different analogies. And look, to be fair to him, when I, you know, sort of called him on this, he acknowledged that there was a hard circle to square here. But here is, for example, what he said when Anna said he resists the term civil disobedience, when I called it civil disobedience, here's what he said:

David Clements: I wouldn't even call it civil disobedience. I mean, that's, I think the rub is that when I show you a list of 17 legal violations from those that are administering the elections, they're in a state of lawlessness. And what happens is when we bring up the lawlessness during these public meetings, we get crucified on this arbitrary altar of civility that we don't like the way that you're talking to us.

We don't like the fact that you pack the room. Now, notice packing the room is not illegal. Speaking candidly is not illegal. And yet the narrative gets put out there that somehow we're, you know, purveyors of chaos. And we're anything but that.

Roger Parloff: And I take it that among the groups that he admires in addition to the abolitionists, the American revolutionaries, the January 6th rioters, including the most violent among them are included. Is that correct? Is that fair?

Anna Bower: Yes. So, Roger, I think that a very good illustration of this is what something, part of the training that he does, he shows the film “Let My People Go,” which is part allegations of election fraud, part David Clements narrating his own story from former professor of law to traveling election fraud evangelist, but then also part about his advocacy work, or what he calls advocacy work, on behalf of people who have been accused or convicted of crimes related to the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

And at the very end of the film, instead of having your traditional credits that show who worked on what, who directed the film, who wrote it, all that, it's just a list of the people that he considers to have been wrongly accused or incarcerated or affected by January 6. It is a list that includes people like Stewart Rhodes, the far-right leader of the Oath Keepers. It includes some, you know, some of the people who were the most culpable and violent, as it relates to the January 6th attack on the Capitol. And what David Clements does at the end of this film is ask people in the room to stand up and give a standing ovation and clap for these individuals.

And, you know, he has said that he believes that all of the Jan. 6ers, as he calls them, should be pardoned and released. And he says in his film, and I believe Ben, he repeated in the interview that you conducted with him, that he thinks that the only people who should have been indicted or imprisoned for January 6th are the fed, quote fed co-conspirators or unindicted fed co-conspirators, because he has a belief that the attack was drummed up, or was kind of a false flag operation on behalf of the federal government, and people who were agitators in some capacity undercover.

So Ben, is that, does that reflect what you take him to be saying?

Benjamin Wittes: Yes, he feels passionately about the J6ers. He believes that the federal government, at one point in our conversation, he said that, you know, if you look at the video, all the violence is done by people who haven't been charged, and then the people who, the patriots standing next to them has gotten a long sentence.

This is, by the way, as Roger, you are best positioned among the three of us to articulate, completely wrong. But he really believes that the J6ers are patriots who have been wrongly accused, and that this is a closely related issue to the ballot stuff.

And so he, you know, he told me very earnestly, and I have no reason to disbelieve him, that he spends all his time on advocating for the J6ers, and on this ballot stuff, and the film credits are a really good example of where those two merge in his mind.

Anna Bower: Yeah, and can I just say, too, he was not alone in his empathy for the January 6th accused or convicted defendants. In Hogansville, people did stand for, and clap, for more than 10 minutes, for the names that were rolling by on the screen, again, including some of the most violent offenders during the January 6th attack on the Capitol.

And there was one woman that I saw who had a, you know, wad of tissues who was crying. There were people who nodded their heads in agreement when, in the film, David Clements says the only people who should be indicted or in prison for the January 6th attack are the quote unindicted fed co-conspirators. And then during the Q&A portion of the event in Hogansville, people asked, one guy stood up and asked, how can we help the Jan 6ers?

There were dozens of people at this event. It was a very interesting experience to be in that audience and experience people, you know, having those kinds of feelings and response to these claims that are about, for example, the federal government alleged involvement in the attack, which is false. It was really quite shocking.

Roger Parloff: Anna, I just want to get one thing out. When you attended this training, were you asked to identify yourself?

Anna Bower: No, I wasn't. So it was an event that was open to the public. It was advertised publicly on social media. There was no, you know, I didn't need to get a ticket. I just drove down to Hogansville and showed up, and it was in a church there, that was in the middle of a pasture right off the interstate. Hogansville is a town that is a pretty small town that's very close to the Alabama border in West Georgia, and I was not asked to identify myself.

However, I don't know how, maybe it's because at one point I took notes, or perhaps he recognized me from my previous reporting, but David Clements somehow knew that there was a journalist in the room. I, at one point during this simulation, it wasn't something I was trying to hide at all. But at one point during the simulation exercise, I was standing over to the side, not participating in the simulation of the local elections meeting and just observing. And after he did the simulation showing people how to surround the speaker, he then assured them that their conduct was consistent with the First Amendment.

And as, right before he said that, he said, now we've got a journalist in the room. And I think that he was kind of indicating that he wanted to make sure that I heard that he was assuring them or that he believed that the conduct was consistent with the First Amendment and that it was, in his words, peaceful.

Roger Parloff: Ben, you spoke to him, Clements, for about two hours, and so tell us what his conditions were for the interview and what he was like.

Benjamin Wittes: So, when Anna wrote to him and asked him for an interview, told him we were doing the story, which as she described, he already knew she had attended the training, so it probably did not surprise him that we were working on something. He responded with a quite belligerent, and hostile note that said, and I'm paraphrasing. First of all, it called us Marxists and—

Anna Bower: I don't know. I think he called us propagandists, not Marxists.

Benjamin Wittes: Propagandists?  Sorry. I think the word Marxists was in there too, but it may not have referred to us.

And it said, he would not do an interview except if it were recorded and released in its entirety to both of our audiences, which is to say he was going to record the whole thing, and we were going to record the whole thing, and then we would release it to the audience. And that he had offered the same thing to a number of other media organizations, which he listed, and that none of them had agreed to an interview under those circumstances. And that he knew we wouldn't either.

And so Anna wrote back to him that we were happy to do it under those conditions. And his tone immediately changed. He was quite gracious and helpful in arranging a time to do the interview, which then it turned out Anna couldn't do because of jury duty. And when I got on the, we initially had a technical problem. It was supposed to be a video interview and we, because of the tech problem, I forgot to turn on the video. So I only recorded audio.

But, when he started it by saying how much he appreciated that I was willing to do the conversation under and have a full recorded, transparent conversation with him, and he was at all times gracious and thoughtful. And I was, you know, particularly in contrast to the hostility of the initial email, for which he kind of apologized. He said he was, you know, he didn't expect us to do it and he was very pleased.

And again, we did publish the entire conversation. So, you know, you can go to the story and, but he I found him gracious and thoughtful and he didn't refuse to answer any of my questions. He only got, he only raised his voice once. But I, like, I thought he was—

Roger Parloff: And what was that about?

Benjamin Wittes: That was about when I asked him about his various comments that John Poulos, the CEO of Dominion Voting Systems and other Dominion executives should be killed. And he did not let me finish the sentence, which was going to be hanged or shot after being tried for treason, and he said, no, that's not true, I observed that they were, that the punishment for treason is death.

And so, he went on to reiterate the point. But he was concerned, and I actually understand why that that, you know, that I was suggesting that he was calling for mob violence against them, whereas in fact he's calling for them to be put before a military commission, or tribunal, tried for treason, and then executed. And while that, to me, is itself bizarre. It is not calling for somebody to go out and shoot or hang, you know, on their own, you know, sua sponte, right? So I, like, he actually cut me off before I finished answering the question, but he was pretty emphatic about that.

But otherwise, no, it was a, he was gracious and thoughtful and I mean, whatever you think of his underlying belief system or his tactics or his, he was a, I would say a model of engagement, with a journalist who has serious questions for him. And I cannot fault any aspect of his engagement with me on that score.

And by the way, I really don't have a problem with somebody who is suspicious of the press saying: I want a videotape, even though my video failed and so I actually inadvertently failed to comply with that. I have no problem with the request, let's have a transparent interview that we released to the press.

Roger Parloff: Let me just ask, looking forward. So I take it, if Trump wins, we're not sure, but he may let things. If Trump does not win, what do we expect? What, he will try to gum up the works? And are you confident that this will fail? What is your prediction here?

Anna Bower: Well, look I think that David Clements, himself, may not be trying to gum up the works other than, you know, he does have a history of having formed relationships with at least some local officials.

An early example was that he was successful in Otero County in New Mexico when he was just starting out in, you know, evangelizing about withholding certification. Clements became friendly with Couy Griffin, who was a commissioner in Otero County. He also was prosecuted and convicted of a misdemeanor crime for his participation on January 6th. But Clements formed a relationship with him, and other commissioners in Otero County, convinced them to withhold certification. Ultimately, they were compelled to certify by a court.

So while Clements does have a history of, you know, forming these kinds of relationships, I think that the main part of his work he might say, is done, in the sense that he has been doing it throughout doing these trainings by trying to persuade people to go to their election offices when there are these certification meetings to try to persuade their election officials not to certify. And the question now is just how many of those people will take up this call? And how many of them will ultimately engage in tactics that may be unlawful?

Benjamin Wittes: Look, David Clements’ main importance is not what he is going to do post-election, it's what he's trained other people to do. It's the relationships that he's formed with, the influence that he's had over people who are commissioners and are going to do what they're going to do. And it's in also in this very large indeterminate-size group of people, his film, “Let My People Go” has 55,000 views on YouTube and a great many likes.

How many of those people are going to turn out and filibuster their local canvassing commission’s meetings about certification, right? How many of them are gonna refuse to leave when they are told their time is up? How many of them are gonna do something else? None of that will have David Clements' fingerprints on it. And yet that is what he's been working on for these past several years.

Anna Bower: Yeah, and I, and Roger, to your question about how concerned are we about the effects of refusals to certify, I wrote a piece about this. I think that the question isn't so much, you know can refusal local refusals to certify lead to overturning the election as a legal avenue to overturn the election. But there is a lot of concern about here about the effects that this could have if local officials refuse to certify in the sense that it can cause chaos. It could very well lead to violence, it can lead to disinformation and misinformation.

So there's a lot of concerns here in terms of the effects, but not so much whether it will be a legal avenue to overturn the election. I feel fairly confident that courts will step in and compel certification where it's necessary.

Roger Parloff: Okay. Well, we're going to leave it there. Thank you, Anna. Thank you Ben. The piece is called “The Evangelist of Election Refusal”. I hope you take a look.

Benjamin Wittes: Thanks, Roger.

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