The woman who began the election integrity nonprofit True the Vote says she sees a pattern of persecution against Republicans.
Catherine Engelbrecht said she was subjected to IRS audits and investigated by the FBI, OSHA, EPA and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms after requesting nonprofit status for her organization.
A recent report from the Texas Tribune alleges True the Vote helped create what liberals call “The Big Lie” and, further, that Engelbrecht funneled big money to herself and her friends.
The Epoch Times further reported:
Engelbrecht said seeing Trump’s home raided made her sick. It reminded her of her own experience and offered proof that more than a decade after her dealings with federal law enforcement began, the United States is moving toward communism.
“It was a nauseatingly clarifying moment,” Engelbrecht told The Epoch Times. “Like, just in case you thought it was enough to cheat him out of an election—No. They want him gone. They want him indicted.”
It galvanized her resolve to continue speaking about election integrity.
“It was clarifying in its clear weaponization, and a stark reminder of what we’re facing,” Engelbrecht said of the raid. “We cannot allow this to continue, or children do not have a chance.”
Engelbrecht became interested in election integrity after she volunteered to work the polls in Texas in 2009 and noticed procedural problems she felt should be addressed. She started True the Vote, which grew into a national election integrity movement. True the Vote is the investigative group behind the documentary “2,000 Mules,” but it was started well before the 2020 election.
Her troubles began in 2010 after she applied for tax exempt status for her nonprofit organizations. Engelbrecht had to file a lawsuit and deal with intimidating federal agencies for more than three years before her application was finally approved.
“We were being targeted before it was part of the American awareness that this is happening, so it was very surreal to have agency after agency show up, the FBI being the first of ultimately five agencies,” Engelbrecht said.
She had been holding weekly public meetings and the FBI wanted to see a list of attendees. She later learned it was the FBI’s domestic terrorism unit that had been visiting her.
In 2011, her personal and business taxes were audited by the IRS for the first time, each audit going back many years. In 2012 her business was inspected by OSHA when she was not present. The agency said it found nothing serious or significant in its report, but still fined the business $20,000. In 2012 and again in 2013, the ATF audited her family business.
“How does this happen, when we shouldn’t have been on anybody’s radar,” Engelbrecht said. “I look back now and I understand exactly what they were trying to do. They were trying to take out what they perceived to be opposing political voices. Back then there was no other nationally focused election integrity organization. They needed to kneecap us hard, before we began to gain momentum. And they did.”
She called it a coordinated effort to exert the weight of the federal government to intimidate her.
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