Thursday, July 4, 2024

The Truth is Marching On: Exposing Missouri Politics

 By Gretchen Garrity

 A major scandal has been brewing in the Missouri Republican Party that may have repercussions on the national level. After the Missouri GOP establishment's preferred platform and slate was overturned at the May 4, 2024 MOGOP convention, the dirty tricks began almost immediately to defeat the will of the people.

Desperate people do desperate things.

Background HERE and HERE and HERE. 

And information HERE on the challenges to the duly-elected slate of delegates.

Not only did the MOGOP establishment--through gross incompetence and/or machinations--cause the convention to close without a 2024 platform, but establishment challenges to the grassroots slate were mounted quickly and submitted to the RNC Committee on Contests. The RNC obliged by recommending the slate of grassroots-elected delegates be vacated.

RNC Committee on Contests Chairwoman, Jeanne Luckey, released a report and recommendation on June 28, 2024. According to the Committee on Contests, "As a result of the improper credentialing process at the State Convention, the Committee recommends vacating the at-large delegates and alternate delegates from Missouri. The Committee recommends that pursuant to RNC Rule No. 18, the vacant delegate and alternate delegate positions be filled by the MOGOP by 5:00 p.m. EDT on July 5. The Committee urges the MOGOP to meet as soon as possible to resolve this issue and to work towards unity."

This recommendation has caused the very division it supposedly recommends against. In fact, the deceit and bad faith with which the state GOP committee has acted, is causing an avalanche of information to be shared among the Missouri Grassroots.

As a result of the recommendation, the MOGOP has removed the slate of delegates and alternates that were elected at the state convention and are attempting to cobble together a new slate of delegates to attend the 2024 national convention. Another challenge was mounted against the other elected positions, including the electors, and they have also been vacated. In effect, this move by the state organization has disenfranchised the citizens who elected their delegates at district conventions around the state.

Click on the tweet to see video of the grassroots slate being unanimously approved by convention delegates:

Below is a link to a short video of state GOP Chairman, Nick Myers, admitting the state committee was at fault in the credentialing process, a process that was used by the RNC and the MOGOP to invalidate the grassroots slate:

MOGOP Chair Admits Credentialing Errors

Additionally, the RNC report asserts that "there exists no accurate roll of the credentialed delegates and alternate delegates at the state convention." Indeed, Leann Green, chair of the credentials committee for the state convention even signed a sworn affidavit that the committee cannot show an accurate roll of credentialed members of the May 4 convention.

However, in its Response Statement of Position, the Missouri Delegation states, "The Missouri State Committee created a problem with a credentials debacle, locking some delegates out and submitting contradictory rules for the selection of Delegates and Alternates to the National Convention...The credentials debacle was ultimately settled to the satisfaction of the state convention delegates who were physically present at the state convention...There are NO delegates who claim to have remained outside after the lunch break. ALL were ultimately allowed back into the building."

That the very committee who caused the issues would benefit from their own mistakes is unconscionable.

THE CLEAN HANDS DOCTRINE

Missouri delegates mounted a cogent defense of the validity of the election of delegates to the national convention, partly using the Doctrine of Clean Hands: "The doctrine requires that a party act fairly in the matter for which they seek a remedy. A party who has violated an equitable principle, such as good faith, is described as having "unclean hands.” The clean-hands doctrine is invoked when a party seeking equitable relief or claiming a defense based in equity has themselves violated a duty of good faith or has acted unconscionably in connection with the same subject matter out of which they claim a right to relief."

That the credentialing process was delayed and problematic was the fault of the MOGOP, not Chairwoman Sophia Shore or the convention delegates. The state committee has tried to hide their culpability by having delegates, Derrick Good and Daniel O'Sullivan (who both ran unsuccessfully), mount challenges to the grassroots slate of delegates, and indeed the convention in total.

In a June 24 affidavit, Chairwoman Shore relates, "I was elected by a vote of 465 to 365...After the election of a permanent secretary, the next order of business was the adoption of the rules package."

The rules package was adopted by the convention delegates after striking two sections that conflicted with the Standing Rules, "which stated that a full slate had to be 27 delegates, and these delegates would be selected by election of a majority."

Further she states, "The second part of this rule change occurred in order to ensure that everyone who wanted to submit a delegate slate that day could do so. Regarding the election of delegates, GOP Chairman Nick Myers had ample time to combine his two slates--his slate of 16 and his slate of 11."

The Nominating Committee Chair, Chris Howard "ultimately was the one who had the power to decide which slates were valid." No slates were turned in to the convention chair, and Miles Ross, the Executive Director of the MOGOP, approached Shore and pulled Nick Myers' slate.

Shore states "Nick wasn't disenfranchised, he just knew he didn't have the majority and wanted to spare himself the embarrassment." She closes with the assertion that she did not make any unilateral decisions. "I did not have the authority to make unilateral decisions as the permanent chair of the convention. The majority of the delegation body made the decisions, as it should be...Attempts to disenfranchise the will of the delegation should not be entertained."

How ironic that the MOGOP, in collusion with the RNC, have now disenfranchised Missouri citizens who sent their delegate representatives to the convention in good faith.

THE GRASSROOTS REVOLUTION

On its face, it is clear the MOGOP was blindsided by the tidal wave of grassroots delegates who voted to overturn the proposed platform and slate the state committee had tried to impose. The dirty tricks since the convention have ranged from closed meetings that do not promote transparency or unity, threats to have delegates removed from meetings if they speak out, outright lies, and more.

The MAGA movement, headed by President Donald Trump, has been a thorn in the side of the GOP establishment. By any means necessary they seem willing to destroy their credibility to accomplish the goal of excising MAGA from the party.

In an article published in The Miami Independent, titled "The RNC's Apparent Plot Against Trump Thickens," the question is asked, "Yesterday - TWO MONTHS AFTER THE MISSOURI DELEGATES WERE CHOSEN - the Republican National Convention Committee ruled that there had been “alarming irregularities” in the process of their election. Why weren’t these “alarming irregularities” discovered months ago?? Why not, when the state had a chance to fix whatever was deemed wrong?

The article notes, "The list of rejected delegates includes two of the major GOP candidates for governor, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and state Sen. Bill Eigel."

The article further states, "In general, the stench of undercover acts to throw the nomination away from Donald Trump, is becoming undeniable. This stinks because Donald Trump is the people’s choice, nationwide. That’s how it used to work.

This is horrifying because these state party maneuvers are being done in support of the brain dead old man and his Junta leader, Obama, who have demonstrated their contempt for us and our freedom, for years.

Mao is rearing his ugly head for all to see."

The corruption and cronyism in Missouri politics is being exposed, and it often includes actors on the national level who work with convenient state-level tools to make things happen. The members of the state GOP who embarked on this usurpation of duly-elected delegates will go down in the history of our state as scurrilous scoundrels who betrayed everything the Republic has stood for since our first Independence Day. May they be roundly condemned and quickly forgotten.

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