A network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump.

These previously unreported plans are the work of a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest conservative Christian families in the nation, including the billionaire Uihlein family, who made a fortune in office supplies, the Greens, who run Hobby Lobby, and the Wallers, who own the Jockey apparel corporation. Recipients of Ziklag’s largesse include Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the Christian legal group that led the overturning of Roe v. Wade, along with the national pro-Trump group Turning Point USA and a constellation of right-of-center advocacy groups.

ProPublica and Documented obtained thousands of Ziklag’s members-only email newsletters, internal videos, strategy documents and fundraising pitches, none of which has been previously made public. They reveal the group’s 2024 plans and its long-term goal to underpin every major sphere of influence in American society with Christianity.

Earlier this week, we co-published “He Was Convicted of Killing His Baby. The DA’s Office Says He’s Innocent, but That Might Not Be Enough” with The New York Times Magazine. In the story, reporter Pamela Colloff details how flawed science helped convict Russell Maze more than 20 years ago. The district attorney’s office now says the evidence was misinterpreted, but Maze is still behind bars. 

Pam responded to some reader questions in the Times Magazine’s comments section, which we’re excerpting here. If you have a question for her about the investigation, reply to this email with it — we’ll answer some of them in a future newsletter. 

A reader asks: It seems that if the case were tried today, there’s no way that Russell could be found guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt”. There’s reasonable doubt all over this. Why, then, is the standard different when trying to reverse a potentially flawed conviction in front of one judge and no jury?

Pamela Colloff: It's hard to wrap your mind around, isn’t it? The standard changes once a conviction is in place. In a 1993 Supreme Court decision, Herrera v. Collins, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote, “Once a defendant has been afforded a fair trial and convicted of the offense for which he was charged, the constitutional presumption of innocence disappears.”