Rick Wilson, a former Republican turned anti-Trump operative behind the Lincoln Project, said he was recruited by the 2+2 campaign in recent months to help the group with its messaging and strategy. He said one of the group’s goals is to warn Fox News executives and others about the possibility of spreading false claims about the 2024 election.

“I view this as part of a broad opportunity to hold accountable the organizations and individuals who have caused enormous damage to our democracy and the republic,” Wilson told NBC News. “They are relying on a very pernicious lie that could potentially plunge us into an unprecedented level of chaos and national destruction. If we have a big lie in part two, I think the only way out in this country is violence, and I’m working very hard to prevent both the election of Donald Trump, but also to prevent part two of the big lie divides America even more…in violence and chaos.

Wilson and others behind the group believe Fox News had reached a critical point of financial vulnerability after litigation brought by two voting systems companies over claims made during the 2020 election. Dominion Voting Systems reached a $787 settlement million with Fox News in April 2023, and a separate lawsuit filed by Smartmatic expected to go to trial early next year could force the cable channel to pay billions in damages.

The legal battle continues between Smartmatic, a voting company accused of rigging elections despite being used by only one U.S. district in 2020, and Fox Corp., which said it covered events and newsworthy individuals surrounding the 2020 election. Smartmatic sued Fox and some of its hosts and guests in 2021.

Wilson said the strategy is to target “an audience of one” to attract a handful of individuals: Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch, the Fox News board and key “influencers” in Washington, D.C. or elsewhere . “If Fox is looking over their shoulder and thinking, uh oh, maybe we shouldn’t go out and repeat Donald Trump’s lies. It is a victory for the country.

Wilson said he plans to use traditional television advertising, digital advertising and social media platforms to spread the message in hopes of ensuring a short list of individuals will see it. “Advertising has become incredibly granular and allows us to target it almost on an individual level,” he said. “I can geolocate around the Fox building, if I wanted I could geolocate individuals inside Fox.”

The television ad aired four times in the Washington market over the past week. Attempts to place the ad in the New York City market were unsuccessful, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Dmitri Malhoun, a former political adviser to Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and top Democratic donor, said his network of Oakland Corps donors donated about $100,000 to support the initial launch, coming from him and other members of its “technological and financial” circles. About $2,000 was raised through small individual donations on the website.

A member of Smartmatic’s legal team told NBC News they had no involvement.