Joe.My.God. LGBT News
Talking Points Memo reports:
A half dozen sheriffs from across the country addressed a far-right conference focused on bogus claims of voter fraud this week. The event, hosted by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, featured speeches from several Republican state lawmakers as well as fringe election deniers including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, ex-Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne.
The sheriffs and other speakers at the event pushed discredited voter fraud allegations from the documentary “2000 Mules,” which asserts evidence of a vast network of illegal vote smugglers based on vague cellphone data and clipped surveillance footage. And attendees announced an effort to fundraise for additional surveillance cameras and other tools to allow sheriffs to watch voters as they cast their ballots.
Read the full article. There’s SO much more.
Among the attendees was Michigan sheriff Dar Leaf [photo above], who has appeared on JMG multiple times for his 2020 election lawsuits and for appearing on stage with militia members later accused in the plot to kidnap and murder Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
And by the way, this convention is the same one that resulted in an arrest warrant for QAnon Colorado county clerk Tina Peters.
An explainer from the Washington Post:
Constitutional sheriffs assert they have the power not only to enforce the law but to be the ultimate arbiters of what the law is in their counties.
Contending that this authority supersedes that of all other government officials — including state governors and the president — they refuse to enforce a range of public safety laws, from local mask mandates to state and federal gun laws.
If their assertion brings to mind the anti-government, militia-supporting Oath Keepers organization, you are on the right track. Richard Mack, founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, was a longtime board member of the Oath Keepers, and the constitutional sheriff idea has explicitly white supremacist roots.
According to the above-linked article, several hundred sheriffs belong to the group.
Far-Right Sheriffs Mull Schemes To Surveil Voters At Election Conspiracy Theory Event https://t.co/JiFF2JHpfc pic.twitter.com/MEiwDqpxDv
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) July 14, 2022