{"slug":"the-caging-loop","title":"The Caging Loop","subtitle":"How returned campaign mail at 300 Independence Ave becomes voter-challenge ammunition.","tldr":"At 300 Independence Ave SE, the CPI 'Patriot's Row' hub, Compass Professional Inc. processes 'undeliverable' fundraising mail for committees like the Mike Johnson Leadership Fund. This investigation traces the closed loop: fundraising generates names, caging identifies who moved, and Cleta Mitchell's Election Integrity Network / EagleAI a few desks away can turn that data into voter-roll challenges.","publishedAt":null,"updatedAt":"2026-10-17T01:39:32.990Z","url":"https://codyhall.site/investigations/the-caging-loop","reportUrl":"https://codyhall.site/investigations/the-caging-loop/report.html","ogImage":"https://codyhall.site/og/investigations/the-caging-loop.png","topics":["voter caging","Compass","Cleta Mitchell","EagleAI","300 Independence Ave"],"diagram":{"caption":"Operating address: 300 Independence Ave SE, fundraising → caging → voter-challenge loop.","nodes":[{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d722174","nodeId":"addr","label":"300 Independence Ave SE","sublabel":"Washington DC 20003","type":"address","x":50,"y":50,"emphasis":"primary","href":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d722175","nodeId":"compass-pro","label":"Compass Professional Inc.","sublabel":"Caging / shared services","type":"llc","x":30,"y":28,"emphasis":"normal","href":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d722176","nodeId":"compass-legal","label":"Compass Legal Group","sublabel":"Delaware LLC (2021)","type":"llc","x":70,"y":28,"emphasis":"normal","href":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d722177","nodeId":"mjlf","label":"Mike Johnson Leadership Fund","sublabel":"Returned-mail source","type":"pac","x":18,"y":60,"emphasis":"normal","href":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d722178","nodeId":"mitchell","label":"Cleta Mitchell","sublabel":"Managing member / EIN chair","type":"person","x":50,"y":80,"emphasis":"normal","href":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d722179","nodeId":"ein","label":"Election Integrity Network","sublabel":"Housed at CPI","type":"org","x":72,"y":62,"emphasis":"normal","href":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d72217a","nodeId":"eagleai","label":"EagleAI / Valid Vote","sublabel":"Voter-challenge database","type":"org","x":86,"y":80,"emphasis":"normal","href":null}],"edges":[{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d72217b","from":"compass-pro","to":"addr","relation":"address","label":null,"asOf":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d72217c","from":"compass-legal","to":"addr","relation":"address","label":null,"asOf":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d72217d","from":"ein","to":"addr","relation":"address","label":null,"asOf":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d72217e","from":"mjlf","to":"compass-pro","relation":"funds","label":"pays for caging; $23,162 spike Nov 2025","asOf":"Nov 2025"},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d72217f","from":"mitchell","to":"compass-legal","relation":"controls","label":"managing member","asOf":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d722180","from":"mitchell","to":"ein","relation":"controls","label":null,"asOf":null},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d722181","from":"ein","to":"eagleai","relation":"controls","label":"challenge data hand-off","asOf":null}]},"keyPlayers":[{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d722182","name":"Cleta Mitchell","nodeId":"mitchell","role":"Managing member, Compass Legal Group; chair, EIN","bio":"Beneficial owner of the legal arm and leader of the voter-challenge network, the link between the caging plumbing and the challenge database."},{"id":"6a16369a972fef001d722183","name":"Mike Johnson Leadership Fund","nodeId":"mjlf","role":"Leadership PAC","bio":"Speaker Mike Johnson's fund; its national fundraising generates the returned-mail dataset Compass Professional processes."}],"sources":[],"fileNo":"CF-0006","fileType":"Investigation","subject":"Cleta Mitchell","narrativeText":"One address, one machine 300 Independence Ave SE is a vertically integrated hub. Compass Professional Inc. and Compass Legal Group are listed in IRS Schedule R as 'shared services' entities for CPI and America First Legal, the for-profit 'plumbing' (caging, accounting, legal compliance) of the movement. The Election Integrity Network, run by Cleta Mitchell, is housed in the same building. The loop The intake: Compass Professional receives 'undeliverable' mail from national fundraising pushes (e.g., the Mike Johnson Leadership Fund). The scrub: it records who moved or died to keep FEC filings clean. The hand-off: that 'moved' data sits a few desks from EagleAI. The weaponization: a returned fundraising letter becomes a 'verified' data point flagging an address for a voter-registration challenge. A $23,162 spike in November 2025 at this address is the kind of disbursement consistent with running that data-sorting machine.","record":{"facts":4,"primaryFacts":4,"sources":39},"evidenceClasses":{"primary":20,"derived":17,"reported":2},"findings":[{"id":13,"statement":"9Seven Consulting is a degree-340 hub in FEC space ($4.1M / 340 GOP committees / 3,239 transactions 2019-2025) but completely invisible to the resolved entity/centrality graph","state":"verified","confidence":"confirmed","evidenceClass":"derived","marker":"primary","sourceNumbers":[21,22,23,24,25,26],"discoveredBy":"human","record":null,"records":null,"ledger":null},{"id":78,"statement":"DHS gave a June 2025 briefing to Cleta Mitchell's Election Integrity Network on the federal citizenship verification database, direct executive-branch coordination with a private voter-suppression organization","state":"verified","confidence":"confirmed","evidenceClass":"primary","marker":"primary","sourceNumbers":[1,4,5],"discoveredBy":"human","record":null,"records":null,"ledger":null},{"id":35,"statement":"9Seven Consulting and AxCapital, LLC are captive compliance vendors to the Datwyler 676-committee book; 9Seven files from Datwyler's own PO Box 183, Hudson WI 54016-0183","state":"verified","confidence":"confirmed","evidenceClass":"primary","marker":"primary","sourceNumbers":[7,8,15,17,20,27,28,29,30],"discoveredBy":"human","record":null,"records":null,"ledger":null},{"id":79,"statement":"Only three FEC committees in the entire 2019 to March-2026 filing universe have ever booked a payment to a Compass entity with the explicit purpose 'CAGING' or 'CAGING SERVICES' on Schedule B: Speaker Mike Johnson's leadership PAC ($240,756.89, 23 payments, 2024-02-14 to 2025-12-19, treasurer Lisa Lisker), the Senate Conservatives Fund ($22,342.23, 11 payments, treasurer Paul Kilgore), and Tim Sheehy for Montana ($8,236.75, 2 payments, treasurer Katie Wenetta); Johnson's caging spend escalated 47% year-over-year ($97,419.89 in 2024 to $143,337.00 in 2025) with the single largest disbursement, $23,162.25, posted 2025-11-04, one day before the off-year election.","state":"verified","confidence":"confirmed","evidenceClass":"primary","marker":"primary","sourceNumbers":[2,3,6,9,10,11,12,13,14,16,18,19,31,32,33,34,35,36,37],"discoveredBy":"agent","record":null,"records":null,"ledger":null}],"numberedSources":[{"n":1,"title":"At Briefing, White House Urges States to Use DHS Databases to Check Citizenship for Voting","url":"https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/at-briefing-white-house-urges-states-to-use-dhs-databases-to-check-citizenship-for-voting/","domain":"democracydocket.com","class":"primary","retrievedAt":"2025-06-26T00:00:00.000Z","sha256Prefix":null,"anchor":null},{"n":2,"title":"Cleta Mitchell's New Dark Money Elections Group Raised $3.9M in Its First Full Year - 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