Since October 19, a pseudonymous researcher who posts as DataRepublican has been releasing recordings of private video calls in which former staff of the U.S. Agency for International Development's democracy office and allied activists discuss preparing for what one of them calls "a very acute legitimacy crisis" around the November 3 midterms, and how to "take that breakdown moment and leverage it for a big structural reform." On one call, a coordinator says an allied coalition has "developed a set of red lines" which, if crossed by the Trump administration, would make the federal government illegitimate in the network's view, and a former State Department official says a memo of options for that scenario went to three Democratic governors. DataRepublican calls the material an "illegitimacy playbook." Danielle Reiff, the central figure, did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News; Profoundd found no report that anyone else named was asked, and no public response from any of them as of October 25. The recordings have not been independently verified. The speakers describe their work as preparing for emergencies they fear, such as an "election meltdown" or an invocation of the Insurrection Act, and one participant said the idea "is not a concept for a secession, no one is talking about leaving the United States."
Who is on the calls
DataRepublican, whom Blaze News describes as a Utah software engineer who briefly worked for the Pentagon and helped Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, says the Democracy Renewal Group was formed by staff of USAID's Democracy, Human Rights and Governance office after the agency was shut down last year, and took the office's initials, DRG. On a March 25 call, Walt Roberts of the group Thriving Together US said he had "teamed up with the leaders of the Democracy Renewal Group. That's 300 people who used to be USAID people," according to The Post Millennial; that figure has not been checked. DataRepublican identifies Reiff as the group's lead, and Blaze News describes her as a USAID alumna and co-founder of Renew American Democracy, an effort she and other former USAID staff are part of. DataRepublican says the recordings come from a related group, Renew to Thrive, which she says "ended up accidentally publishing 400+ calls and thousands of documents"; she says she has backed up 312 gigabytes of material.
The calls also mention two larger networks. DataRepublican describes the United Democracy Alliance as an umbrella for protest and litigation groups that she says includes No Kings, Indivisible, MoveOn and 50501. National Security Leaders for America describes itself as a nonpartisan coalition of more than 1,400 former senior military, diplomatic and national security officials; a speaker on one call put its size at 1,600. DataRepublican says the alliance's Insurrection Act working group is run by a retired rear admiral, Mike Smith, of National Security Leaders for America. That claim rests on her reading of the material and has not been confirmed.
What the recordings say
On the March 25 call, held on a forum called the Democratic Constitution Forum, Reiff said she was "foreseeing a crisis of legitimacy around the November election" and that "we have to get super, super organized in the next seven months." She suggested that a "third Continental Congress" could issue a declaration saying "here are the red lines," while warning that "jumping straight into a constitutional convention too soon" could be dangerous. A participant from a caucus of the Democratic Socialists of America said its goal was "a democratic constitution based on universal and equal suffrage and a unicameral legislature."
On an August 13 call, Reiff said, "we end up in a very acute legitimacy crisis sometime in the next few months or the next few years," and "we can take that breakdown moment and leverage it for a big structural reform." Paul Zeitz, a co-coordinator of Renew American Democracy, said the United Democracy Alliance, which he called a "huge coalition of the blocking movement," had "developed a set of red lines," and that the group had written an "options memo" for governors to use if the federal government were deemed illegitimate. John Mongan, a former State Department official, said the memo went to the governors of Massachusetts, California and Illinois, and that Massachusetts "didn't want to touch it." Mongan added that it "is not a concept for a secession."
In a September 8 video, Reiff listed "crisis scenarios or democratic emergencies that we think that people should be aware of and preparing for": "an election meltdown scenario," "potential militarization, the Insurrection Act," and "an acute democratic crisis," and asked "how can cross-partisan political leaders come together to think about provisional or transitional leadership." In DataRepublican's description of a clip released October 22, Reiff names a cross-partisan board of governors, and former Presidents Obama and Bush, as possible transitional leaders. DataRepublican notes that in these recordings "election meltdown" means a large share of the public not believing the results are legitimate.
Washington's secretary of state in the audience
DataRepublican says that October 22 clip shows Reiff addressing an audience that included Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat and the state's top election official; Profoundd has not verified the clip or the identification. According to DataRepublican's account, Hobbs replied that he had had the same conversation with German and Japanese officials about how to deal with right-wing nationalist parties, and declined to commit because, in his words, "we're winning." Jim Walsh, the chair of the Washington State Republican Party, called the meeting "disqualifying" for a secretary of state, PJ Media reported. Profoundd did not contact Hobbs's office and found no public statement from it about the clip as of October 25.
How it is being described
The groups' own public documents describe their aims this way. A profile of the Democracy Renewal Group published in April by the USAID Alumni Association calls it "a community of global democracy and peace building professionals" who are "continuing the mission at home," including by "organizing for election integrity." The public Renew American Democracy plan, which says it builds on an assessment of the United States that the Democracy Renewal Group made using "a framework they employed globally for decades," calls for "convening across partisan lines to identify reforms with genuine cross-ideological support." It says that if the Insurrection Act were used "to deploy military force domestically against civilian populations or political opposition," the movement "must be prepared to respond swiftly and non-violently, with legal challenges, mass civic mobilization, and international attention."
Conservative outlets have called the material evidence of a "color revolution" plot or a "soft coup," and one private intelligence newsletter called it a "shadow government" structure. DataRepublican's own summary reads: "Most of them believe they're saving democracy. The problem is that people who spent their careers deciding when other countries' governments had lost their legitimacy wrote that test for ours, in private, and planned for what comes after." In the excerpts quoted in published coverage reviewed for this article, the plans described include declaring the federal government illegitimate if red lines are crossed, states declining to lend their resources to federal officials, a "Third Continental Congress," and transitional leadership. Profoundd has not reviewed the full archive, and no published report shows that any independent outlet has either. On the recordings, the speakers describe the work as preparing for emergencies such as an "election meltdown" or an Insurrection Act invocation, and one said it "is not a concept for a secession."
This article reflects reporting through the evening of Sunday, October 25, 2026. Quotations from the recordings are as published by DataRepublican, The Post Millennial and Blaze News and have not been independently verified. Sources: DataRepublican on X, primer (October 22), Part 3 (October 21) and Part 5 (October 22); The Post Millennial, October 20; Blaze News, October 23; Renew American Democracy plan; USAID Alumni Association, April 2026; National Security Leaders for America; Tennessee Star, October 23; PJ Media, October 23.
