On Oct. 17, 2020, influential GOP donor Steven F. Hotze made an urgent request during a phone call with a top federal prosecutor in Texas, according to a court filing Fridayby the Houston district attorney’s office.
Hotze claimed that private investigators funded by his nonprofit group had been trailing a mysterious white van as it shuttled phony ballots around the city in an effort to rig the upcoming election. He asked if federal authorities would help stop the van and apprehend its driver, but he added that one of his hard-nosed investigators was prepared to do the job himself, according to the filing by prosecutors in Harris County that included a transcriptof the exchange.
“In fact, he told me last night, ‘hell … the guy’s gonna have a wreck tomorrow night. I’m going to run into him and I’m gonna make a citizen’s arrest,” Hotze told the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, Ryan Patrick,a Trump appointee, who recorded the conversation.
The filing Friday illuminates one of the most extreme tactics that far-right groups have employed in an effort to substantiate former president Donald Trump’s unproven allegations of widespread voting fraud in the election he lost. Groups have tried to gain access to sensitive election equipment, pushed for audits of the 2020 election by handpicked outside groups and recruited volunteers to scrutinize local election officials, sometimes leading to threats of violence.