Short answer: the network's foreign ties are real and in its own words. Former USAID officials brought in foreign activists to teach U.S. organizers, wrote a budget line to get "Heads of State" ready to recognize their side, and said they want "other governments to support our" cause "when the s*** hits the fan." What the record does not show is a foreign government agreeing to any of it, or any link between this network and the Oct. 30 court fight in Poland.

How to read this page: "Documented" means the people's own recordings, papers or official records, as shown by DataRepublican or checked by us. "Parallels and allegations" means shared language, timing or other people's claims. Being listed here is not evidence of wrongdoing.

• Spain (Catalonia). Enrique Roig, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State 2023–25 and a named contributor to RAD's strategy, met Catalonia's foreign minister, Jaume Duch, in Barcelona on Oct. 23. Duch posted that they "shared the scenarios that are opening up" before the midterms (her translation). Roig and his wife, Horizons Project founder Julia Roig, were billed at an Esquerra Republicana party event, "Check on Trump," on Oct. 27. Stops at: DataRepublican found nothing in the files mentioning Catalonia or tying the meeting to RAD.
• Brazil. On the July 9 call, Sami Sternberg (Pacto pela Democracia) described arranging ahead of time for foreign governments "to swiftly recognize election results," "*regardless of who wins*," and noted President Biden's recognition "less than 30 minutes after the announcement." Ana Claudia Santano (Transparência Eleitoral Brasil) also advised. Eric Manton said Brazilians told them international solidarity gave them "some kind of cover from an internal attack." DataRepublican says Transparência received a $100,000 Open Society grant. Stops at: the grant rests on her on-screen card.
• Serbia. Raša Nedeljkov (CRTA) advised on July 9. CANVAS, founded by veterans of Otpor, which helped topple Milošević, was in the PartnersGlobal-led coalition that won USAID's award No. 7200AA23GR00053 (per DataRepublican's source cards). Seed the Vote cites Serbia as a model for its parallel count. Stops at: CRTA's NDI and Open Society ties are her claim; we did not confirm them.
• Slovakia. Rasťo Kužel (MEMO 98) advised on July 9. MEMO 98's own site says it launched "with support from" NDI, which we confirmed.
• Guatemala. Edgar Ortiz Romero, a constitutional lawyer, described on July 9 how litigation combined with street mobilization won in court in the 2023 transition.
• Venezuela and Hungary, as cited models. Seed the Vote's May 18 post says parallel vote counting "has been done in Venezuela, in Hungary, in Serbia." Stops at: citing a model, not contact with anyone there.
• European Parliament. Natalie Winters reports that European Parliament money helped fund a closed June 3 roundtable on "resistance to Trump and MAGA" (see Who). Stops at: her report and the agenda she cites; DataRepublican endorsed it. We found no tie to RAD.
• Foreign reaction. The OSCE called the decision not to invite its observers to the midterms "regrettable," and Germany's transatlantic coordinator criticized it (shown in Part 10). This is on the public record. Stops at: nothing shows these officials were in contact with the network.

The model itself: the primer traces this approach to Serbia in 2000, then Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004) and Egypt (2011). In Part 10, Danielle Reiff describes the same work at USAID: "That's what we did. We supported local activists and local movements and local institutions." The legal limits are on the law page.

What Sen. Elissa Slotkin said, in her own words. At the Carnegie Endowment on Sept. 30 (her video), after visiting "Poland and Hungary, our NATO allies," she said: "just as there is an authoritarian playbook for authoritarian leaders to hold on to power, there's also one for getting out of that authoritarian leadership," and that a broad coalition is needed "to remove an authoritarian like Orban at the polls." On accountability: "In Poland, they called this plan the iron broom, cleaning the place up. The goal here is to have a list of signature cases." She named Kristi Noem, Doug Burgum and Jeanine Pirro, and called for "a Project 2029 for the middle class."

In an undercover video Townhall published Oct. 30, she told someone asking about prosecutions: "we have a list of like the signature cases," in "every committee." On Budapest: "how did you handle 16 years of corruption? … and they did this signature cases." "So that's what you'll see basically in January." So a U.S. senator has said on camera that she took a plan to go after President Trump's officials from governments that replaced conservative ones. That is the real story, and it needs no embellishment.

• Who she met: Poland's foreign ministry says Deputy Prime Minister Radosław Sikorski met a Senate delegation on Sept. 10, including Slotkin, Thom Tillis and John Curtis. Hungarian Conservative reports that on Sept. 9 she and Tillis met Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek and senior judicial officials, who briefed them on the dispute over Constitutional Tribunal appointments, and that she met advisers to Hungary's Péter Magyar. We found no second source for those two meetings. The outlet is openly on the other side of this fight.
• People linked to both: the Carnegie event was a conversation with Anne Applebaum, who is married to Sikorski. In Slotkin's own recording of that conversation, Applebaum says she lives "part of the time in Poland"; we did not hear her mention the marriage. She turns to "the use and purpose of congressional investigations," saying "I know you grappled with it in Poland and Hungary," and calls the January 6 committee "excellent," "timed and organized in a way that was constructed for television." Then: "And yet it didn't have the impact it should have had," and she asks whether investigations after the midterms would be useful or a distraction. Slotkin answers that committees will want accountability, but "be smart and strategic" about "which cases you bring forward." Slotkin is also one of the six members in the "illegal orders" video (see Who).
• What happened in Warsaw: on Oct. 30, government-backed judges moved to suspend the Tribunal's chief justice, Bogdan Święczkowski, and police kept him out. He, President Nawrocki and the tribunal call it a coup. Prime Minister Tusk says it restores the rule of law after PiS packed the court. We found no court ruling on the "coup" label.
• Applebaum's husband took the government's side. Sikorski posted that night that the standoff "is about restoring rule of law to an institution which had been politicised by the populist government which lost power in the election of 2023," and that the Tribunal's president "repeatedly broke the law by steering politically sensitive cases to hand-picked judges."
• President Trump's ambassador spoke up. Ambassador Tom Rose posted on Oct. 30: "The events unfolding tonight at Poland's Constitutional Tribunal are very serious indeed. We appear to be witnessing an unprecedented confrontation over the government's use of state power and the independence and authority of a constitutional institution." He added: "Both sides offer sharply different accounts of what happened and why," and "America is on Poland's side. It is not our place to judge or interfere in its internal affairs." He asked "government officials, law enforcement, and demonstrators alike" not to "take any action that could provoke violence or further escalation." He did not call it a coup.

Where the evidence stops. Nothing we found shows that Slotkin or any U.S. official had a role in the Oct. 30 events, or that she has any tie to RAD or the Democracy Files network. The trip came seven weeks before the crisis, not "a month." Hungary's change of government came through an election, as she herself stresses. Her "signature cases" are congressional oversight and accountability for named officials, which is a political fight, not a crime, however hard it is meant to hit President Trump's people. Watch January.

A correction to what's circulating: Slotkin did not say she "brought home the playbook," though a viral post and outlets repeating it put that in quotation marks. The clip in that post has her saying the trip "crystallized a number of things and brought home here in the United States a number of things," then, "There's a playbook for these authoritarians, but there's also a playbook to get out of it." Use her real words; they are strong enough. That post also calls Sikorski "Deputy Foreign Minister"; Poland's ministry calls him Deputy Prime Minister.

• A coordinated wave abroad. Cynical Publius lists unrest across Europe, Poland and elsewhere in the two weeks before the midterms, and others argue the timing shows coordination. We have not checked each item, and we found no evidence tying them together or to this network.
• Brazil's election. DataRepublican's Part 10 post calls fast congratulations to Lula from EU officials and Alex Soros "a deliberate strategy to grant Lula legitimacy." That is her reading. It fits what Sternberg described in 2022, but no document shows it was arranged this time.
• Shared language. "Playbook," "renewal" and "pro-democracy" recur on both sides of the Atlantic. Shared vocabulary shows a shared worldview, which is worth reporting, but not a chain of command. DataRepublican's own read is "lawful federalism" and "nobody needs a conductor."

Sen. Slotkin, Carnegie speech video and post · Carnegie event page · Townhall and its clip · @ErikaCA47 and her clip · Polish foreign ministry readout · Hungarian Conservative · Notes from Poland · Al Jazeera · ZeroHedge · Wikipedia: Anne Applebaum · Slotkin and Applebaum at Carnegie, full conversation · Sikorski on X · Ambassador Rose on X ·Part 10 and Who for the network's own material. Slotkin quotes are from our transcription of her videos.