dar leaf sheriff

see antrim BS

NOT WISC?

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/michigan-republicans-struggle-with-recognition-of-their-own-roles-in-fueling-militia-kidnap-plot}:

david n kos

discovering that terrorists can look like the guys next door is a jarring thing, especially if that's not how you've been conditioned to think of such matters. In Michigan this week, cognitive dissonance has been thick on the ground—especially as public officials who came too close to the plotters and their incendiary rhetoric have tried to wrestle with the consequences of last week's arrests of 13 Michigan militiamen who schemed to kidnap and assassinate Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

A local sheriff who had appeared onstage at an anti-Whitmer rally this spring suggested to a TV interviewer that maybe the plotters—some of whom he knows personally—were just trying to make a citizens arrest. A Republican state legislative candidate opined that the arrests were "a totally bogus sham." And the state's Republican Speaker of the House, who has helped stoke the incendiary "tyranny" rhetoric that fueled the plotters, chastised Whitmer for pointing out the connection between the plotters' actions and the rhetoric used by Donald Trump and Michigan Republicans. [vid rally w. da bois and dar]

Dar Leaf, the sheriff of Barry County—where two of the accused domestic terrorists, William and Michael Null, reside and were arrested by the FBI Thursday—told a Grand Rapids interviewer that he believed the men might have been within their rights.

"It's just a charge, and they say a 'plot to kidnap' and you got to remember that. Are they trying to kidnap? Because a lot of people are angry with the governor, and they want her arrested. So are they trying to arrest or was it a kidnap attempt? Because you can still in Michigan if it's a felony, make a felony arrest," Leaf told Fox17 reporter Aaron Parshegian.

He added: "The two gentlemen that I know of from my county, were they involved in that? I don't know. They're innocent till proven guilty. And we really, really should be careful, trying to try them in the media."

The evidence unveiled by the FBI included multiple instances of surveillance of Whitmer's summer home, where the militiamen—who called themselves the Wolverine Watchmen—planned to abduct her, as well as multiple instances in which the men discussed killing her. The evidence also showed that not only had the men originally planned a paramilitary assault on the state Capitol, they also made plans to kill law-enforcement officers. The discussion of a "citizens arrest" of Whitmer was largely rhetorical.

Leaf's comments created an uproar. Shortly after the interview aired, Michigan's attorney general, Dana Nessel, ripped into him on Twitter:

As Michigan's top law enforcement official, let me make this abundantly clear-Persons who are not sworn, licensed members of a law enforcement agency cannot and should not "arrest" government offficials with whom they have disagreements. These comments are dangerous.

Leaf tried to defend the remarks subsequently by insisting that he only wanted to ensure that men weren't being "tried in the media."

"I don't want anybody to think I'm sympathetic towards these charges, right, these are very, very serious charges," he said. "What I don't want is I don't want us to be trying it in the media and we mess it up in the justice system somewhere, 'cause they can't get a fair trial."

Leaf told MLive: "The governor has the right to govern and also the right to be safe." Yet he went on to criticize officials like Whitmer and Nessel for blaming people like Trump and himself for creating an atmosphere empowering fringe groups.Leaf said the militia movement "has been brewing for quite some time" over what he described as "a gradual and growing loss of rights."

In fact, as Jen Hayden explored earlier, Leaf is a member of a law-enforcement organization closely aligned with the "Patriot" militia movement with which the plotters identified. He also was an outspoken critic of Whitmer's anti-COVID-19 pandemic orders.

At a May 18 "Michigan Patriots Rally" held at Rosa Parks Circle in Grand Rapids, Leaf had appeared onstage with several militiamen, including Michael Null. In his speech, he compared Whitmer's stay-at-home orders to being held unlawfully under house arrest. Leaf had also described Owosso barber Karl Manke—who had defied the governor's order by opening his shop—a "little version of Rosa Parks."

Meanwhile, Republican legislative candidate Paul Smith of Sterling Heights angrily denounced the arrests on Twitter.

"What a totally bogus sham," Smith commented. "These citizens never did anything illegal. Law enforcement is employed to punish people who COMMIT crimes, not people The Governess simply HATES. You can legally hurt Whitmer by voting out her minions."

State Republican leaders were appalled, and announced they had withdrawn financial and other support for Smith's candidacy, calling the remarks "conspiracy theories and hateful remarks."

"If you can't denounce the evil plans and actions of these white nationalists, we don't want you in our caucus," Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield said. "In fact, if there's any 'Republican' who thinks like this guy, we don't want your vote either. We don't support domestic terrorism."

Chatfield, however, also chastised Whitmer for her remarks laying some of the blame at Trump's feet that week: "Just last week, the president of the United States stood before the American people and refused to condemn white supremacists and hate groups like these two Michigan militia groups," Whitmer said, adding that extremists had "heard the president's words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry—as a call to action."

In a Twitter thread, Chatfield criticized Whitmer, claiming she had kept the investigation under wraps: "Why weren't we warned of the plot to take hostages at the Capitol? The plot by these terrorists was against us too. Why weren't House sergeants warned? You knew and we weren't even given a warning. We had people working in the building and their lives matter too." However, it was the FBI, and not Whitmer, who had overseen the sharing of information with potential victims.

Chatfield also suggested that she shared in the blame: "Hatred and violence are wrong, and that's why I've continually denounced it," he wrote. "And I agree, it's time to tone the partisan rhetoric and 'the heat down.' Will you do the same for President Trump? Will the [lieutenant governor] do it to the entire GOP? We have to make this decision together."

However, Chatfield and other leading Michigan Republicans, had played their own not-insignificant roles in whipping up anti-Whitmer hysteria, as Michigan journalist Joshua Pugh pointed out on Twitter. When "Patriot" protesters had locked down Lansing with an anti-Whitmer protest on April 15 that featured Confederate flags and incendiary rhetoric, Chatfield had greeted them by waving a flag out his window and tweeting out encouragement.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey had been even more incendiary. On the floor of the Senate during a subsequent Lansing protest—during which armed militia members were watching from the gallery above—Shirkey had called the governor a tyrant: "If she does not recognize the end of the emergency declaration, we have no other choice but to act," he said, not clarifying what kind of action he intended.

After Thursday's arrests, Shirkey was defiant: "This is no time to be weak in our commitment to freedom," Shirkey told a "Let MI People Go" rally at the Capitol. "We need to be strong…and not be afraid of those who are taking our freedoms away from us."

Shirkey also told the crowd at Thursday's rally that they were not the same people involved in the plot to kill the governor. However, the *Detroit Free Press*identified several of the arrestees as participants at the earlier protests against Whitmer's orders.

In Barry County, Leaf's remarks sparked calls for his resignation. Local residents organized a protest demanding he step down or face a recall movement—but that protest was called off when organizers became concerned about the safety of participants amid the likelihood of armed right-wing counter-protesters.

"Whereas I truly believe in the statement we were trying to make, I cannot in good conscience compromise the safety of my fellow Barry County residents," organizer Olivia Bennett wrote on the event's Facebook page.

"I have come to this conclusion for a couple reasons. First, there were many concerns about confrontational counter protesters. Second, this protest garnered enough attention this weekend that crowd size was a concern given short notice, security, and capacity at the commissioners' meeting."

Bennett tried to clarify that she and other protesters aren't suggesting the sheriff was a participant. "We are not accusing him of having known about the kidnapping plot and we are not accusing him of being a part of it at all," Bennett told MLive. "What I am suggesting is his actions and his words embolden people who would attempt to do such things."

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RSS

Election denial groups and right-wing media figures are talking about their election interference plans as voting begins

Election denial groups have publicly talked about their plans to challenge voter rolls, monitor ballot drop boxes, and recruit and train poll workers to be a “spy in the camp” on Election Day

Written by Payton Armstrong

Research contributions from Media Matters Staff

Published 10/31/24

Election denial groups and some right-wing media figures have been discussing their plans to interfere in the 2024 voting process, building on previous efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and interfere with the 2022 midterm election.

Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, election denial groups and right-wing media figures have discussed their plans to challenge citizens’ right to vote, vowed to monitor drop boxes, claimed to be recruiting and training poll workers, launched apps to track supposed fraud on Election Day, and encouraged activists to monitor for noncitizen voting.

In the 2022 midterm elections, right-wing media supported election denial groups recruiting poll workers and poll watchers and asking for volunteers to monitor ballot drop boxes. These efforts had seemingly grown out of conspiracy theories from former President Donald Trump and right-wing media that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud and had been stolen, culminating in a violent attempt to overturn the election by storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

As voting begins for the 2024 election, “election officials across the country are ramping up their security measures at polling places,” as reported by NBC News, including “beefing up law enforcement presence to donning bulletproof vests to deploying drones for surveillance amid an increasingly hostile environment.”

Right-wing groups and media figures are encouraging challenges to voter rolls, including asking supporters to flag “suspicious voter[s]” with “Hispanic-sounding last names”

• • Election denial group True the Vote has urged followers to submit voter-eligibility complaints by using an app, resulting in thousands of challenges to voter registrations.True the Vote is run by Catherine Engelbrecht and Greg Phillips, who regularly promote the group’s activities in right-wing media. CNN reported: “One of the main drivers of the fruitless challenges is a conservative Texas-based nonprofit group called True the Vote, an election-monitoring organization that has long peddled debunked voter-fraud theories. The group’s founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, has called on followers to help clean voter rolls by using an app called IV3 that enables users to research voter data and submit voter-eligibility challenges to local election offices.” CNN, [7/29/24; Media Matters, 1/26/23]

• • Cleta Mitchell — who leads the Election Integrity Network and has appeared frequently in right-wing media to promote the group and its activities, and fearmonger about noncitizen voting — was reportedly involved in helping the development of EagleAI for mass voter challenges in various states.As reported by Documented, “Eagle AI draws from public data sources like voter files and newspaper obituaries to build a dashboard for activists to conduct their own ‘list maintenance’ and generate potentially thousands of challenges to voter eligibility with a few clicks.” Documented, [8/17/23; Media Matters, 6/14/24, 10/2/24]

• • Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network, a coalition of election-denying activists, has reportedly been recruiting people at the state level to “target the registrations of potentially left-leaning voters.”The New Republic reported that the coalition “recruits activists at the state level and trains them to target the registrations of potentially left-leaning voters in an effort to tilt the balance of the electorate toward conservative-leaning voters.” The New Republic, [10/16/24]

• • In the last several months, the Ohio chapter of Election Integrity Network has reportedly “mounted a statewide effort to kick thousands of registered voters off the rolls in the runup to the 2024 election.”According to local reporting, at least 13 counties “have received thousands of voter registration challenges, the vast majority of which have been rejected” and that “most of those challenges, the officials say, come from locals identifying themselves as members of the Election Integrity Network.” Cleveland.com, [9/25/24]

• • On CBS News, the head of the North Carolina chapter of the Election Integrity Network encouraged people to flag “Hispanic-sounding last names” for potential voter roll challenges. In an interview with the network, James Womack, head of the North Carolina Election Integrity Team, discussed creating a “list of suspicious voters” who may be on the voter rolls in North Carolina. CBS also aired a clip of a video in which Womack also said, “If you’ve got folks that you, that were registered and they’re missing information … and they were registered in the last 90 days before the election, and they've got Hispanic-sounding last names, that probably is, is a suspicious voter.” Media Matters, [10/22/24; CBS News, 10/21/24]

• • On Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, the founder of Fight Voter Fraud, Linda Szynkowicz, offered the MAGA audience voter data for mass eligibility challenges in Georgia. “Go to our website, download the request data so you can have a list of people in your county that we believe should not be voting in your county, and you can actually hang on to those,” she said, adding, “Do your due diligence. We’ll even teach you how to do it.” Media Matters, [10/7/24]

• ## Right-wing groups and media figures have been recruiting and training poll workers and observers

• • Election Integrity Network claims to have recruited tens of thousands of “election integrity patriots” and holds regular online coordinating calls. The Guardian, [10/21/24]

• • Right-wing group Judicial Watch announced that “as part of its ongoing election integrity efforts, its trained observers will monitor polling sites in Wisconsin on November 5.”Judicial Watch President and podcast host Tom Fitton was quoted in the press release saying, “Judicial Watch’s teams will monitor the election in Wisconsin to expose and deter any fraud.” Per Democracy Docket, Judicial Watch is “a right-wing legal group that’s constantly filing all manner of litigation against the government — Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, challenges to immigration policy, attempts to thwart environmental actions and any other issue that riles up Republicans. ‘Judicial Watch’s strategy is simple: Carpet-bomb the federal courts with Freedom of Information Act lawsuits,’ the New York Times wrote of the organization in a 2016 profile.” Judicial Watch, [10/22/24; Democracy Docket, 6/11/24]

* Tea Party Patriots, which sponsored Trump’s January 6 rally, is apparently doing “poll watcher trainings specifically in Georgia” in collaboration with Election Integrity Network.On War Room, election denial figure and Tea Party Patriots founder Jenny Beth Martin claimed her group is also partnering with Turning Point Action and America First Works on door knocking efforts. Martin also described the groups’ efforts in Georgia in a separate interview, saying they are “making sure that poll watchers are recruited and trained.” Media Matters, [9/9/24, 1/30/24]

• • Right-wing group VoterGA — co-founded by Garland Favorito, who has fundraised for his election denial organization during appearances on a far-right show — collaborated with the Election Integrity Network on poll-watcher training.CNN reported that “VoterGA, a nonprofit led by a computer consultant-turned-activist named Garland Favorito who has a long history of promoting debunked conspiracy theories, has made inroads with some election officials.” In a phone interview with CNN, “Favorito argued that he and his group are fighting for election integrity and that some state and local officials have sought to cover-up elections malfeasance in Georgia. As an example, he cited his inability to review ballots from the 2020 election,” ignoring that state law requires for the ballots to be sealed after the elections. CNN, [10/9/24; Media Matters, 6/14/23]

• • On the Christian nationalist program FlashPoint, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump recruited poll watchers and promoted the RNC’s new “election integrity division” to “ensure that there is no funny business” in the election.During the appearance, Trump said that the RNC is working to stop “3:00 a.m. dumps” and “ballots in suitcases that miraculously appear places,” and she called on the audience to “volunteer to be part of our team, ballot harvest with us where it's legal, you know, be a poll watcher, be a poll worker.” Media Matters, [5/30/24]

• • Christian nationalist “prophet” and podcast host Lance Wallnau has been traveling the country on his “Courage Tour” recruiting conservative Christians as poll workers to be a “spy in the camp” on Election Day.During Wallnau’s tour — which recently got a boost from Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) — attendees were directed to a group called Lion of Judah, which ProPublica reported “offers a free course titled ‘Fight the Fraud,’ with modules detailing poll workers’ basic duties and helping people find their local elections offices so they can apply as well as email templates to streamline the process.” Notably, Wallnau has already declared that “there will be cheating” in the 2024 election. ProPublica, [10/16/24; Media Matters, 9/27/24]

• • A Turning Point Action member used QAnon supporter Melody Jennings’ podcast to recruit poll workers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.The member, Brett Galaszewski, urged Jennings’ audience to become poll workers and get involved with the Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Republican Party’s “Election Integrity Committee.” Jennings is an election denier who participated in election denial efforts during the 2022 elections by coordinating attempts to intimidate voters at ballot drop boxes. Jennings even took credit for armed men who staked out drop boxes in Arizona. Media Matters, [11/15/23; The New York Times, 11/1/22]

• • Right-wing “Stop the Steal” activist Scott Presler, who has previously pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, called on Donald Trump Jr.'s Rumble podcast audience to become poll workers and to investigate county voter rolls in Pennsylvania.Media Matters, [9/5/24, 1/30/23]

• ## True the Vote is planning to monitor ballot drop boxes for supposed fraud, including partnering with Steven Crowder and “working with sheriffs”

• • True the Vote claims to be planning to monitor ballot drop boxes in Michigan and Wisconsin with “24/7 streaming video” that will be “available for anyone.” On War Room, founder Catherine Engelbrecht declared, “This cycle, we do intend to have eyes on those drop boxes with surveillance footage.” Media Matters, [9/5/24]

• • True the Vote also claims it “is reaching out to sheriffs across the country” to monitor ballot drop boxes.In different media interviews, Engelbrecht claimed to be working with “three very influential sheriffs” in Wisconsin and said the organization is offering local sheriffs “camera equipment” to monitor drop boxes and, in exchange, the public can livestream the footage to “see for themselves what’s happening.” Media Matters, [8/6/24]

• • YouTuber Steven Crowder is apparently “partnering” with True the Vote for “the scoop” from the group’s drop box monitoring.True the Vote claims it has been “setting up teams and schedules for drop boxes” to monitor “with a little handheld camera” in multiple states and says Crowder is “opening up” the organization’s efforts “to a whole new crowd.” Media Matters, [10/19/24]

• ## Right-wing groups have launched apps, hotlines, and websites for people to report supposed voter fraud and issues at the polls on Election Day

• • True the Vote launched a new app for users “to quickly report problems at the polls” and “document and report instances of suspected election fraud” to funnel to local law enforcement.True the Vote claims to be “working with sheriffs” in Wisconsin and plans to funnel reports of supposed “problems at the polls” from users of its new app. Media Matters, [9/12/24, 9/20/24, 8/6/24]

• • Election denial group The America Project launched an app “for people to hop on and report different things that they see that they know are illegal,” as described by the group’s Director of Rights & Freedoms, Amanda Freytes.The America Project was founded by former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who following the 2020 election, became one of the country’s biggest election denial funders. Twitter/X, [10/5/24; Media Matters, 1/26/23]

• • Right-wing group United Sovereign Americans launched a new “election complaint” webpage, where people can submit supposed voter fraud to authorities.Founder Marly Hornik has promoted the webpage on War Room. CNN, [10/23/24; Democracy Docket, 5/29/24]

• • Judicial Watch announced it “will run an Internet hotline for voters in all states to report suspicions of election and voter fraud.”The hotline’s poster asks people to send Judicial Watch a detailed email “if you witness any suspicious activity at your polling place, have issues with your voting machine, or witness voter fraud or intimidation.” Judicial Watch, accessed [10/23/24, 10/23/24]

* YouTuber Steven Crowder touted a plan to have “boots on the ground” on Election Day because “this already is election theft,” saying there will be a “live electoral integrity map” where his audience can “see any shenanigans going on” in real time.Crowder claimed there will be “investigative journalism units and team leaders, managers in every major swing city.” Crowder also said that he would be “partnering” with True the Vote for “Election Night,” and claimed that they “will have tens of thousands of volunteers” combined “watching hundreds of key polling locations and ballot drop boxes around the country.” Media Matters, [9/23/24; Truth Social, 10/28/24]

• ## Right-wing figures are also encouraging people to monitor for noncitizens voting, or registering to vote

• • During a so-called election integrity call, election denier Cleta Mitchell called on MAGA activists to watch their local Department of Motor Vehicles for noncitizen voter registration and distribute her group’s materials on the ground.Mitchell said: “There are things you can do in your local communities. Watching at your DMVs, watching - going to your election board, asking your local election officials what are you doing to ensure that noncitizen are not getting registered to vote and getting — we've got sample resolutions. We've got signs, you can download and leaflets you could hand out.” Media Matters, [10/8/24]

• • On a Rumble live stream, Election Integrity Network leader Kerry Toloczko said that “we don't want noncitizen voting,” and she offered materials for right-wing activists who are planning to monitor for noncitizen voting at the local level.Toloczko, who has also appeared on Newsmax to push baseless claims of noncitizen voting, said that their activists are “everywhere” trying to “suppress the people who are trying to vote unlawfully,” asserting, “We have activists, grassroots activists, so we're handing these [signs] out in churches, in parking lots, in voting centers.” Media Matters, [10/17/24, 10/18/24]

• • Wisconsin-based talk radio host Vicki McKenna urged her listeners to go to polling locations and “stand with very large signs that say in Spanish, ‘Noncitizens are not permitted to vote in the state of Wisconsin.’” McKenna warned of noncitizens voting and complained that “they don’t want you in the field. They don’t want you participating. They don’t want you observing elections.” 1310 WIBA,*The Vicki McKenna Show*, [10/18/24]

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an 8 24

'Stale and unsubstantiated': Trump’s recusal motion denied in scathing rebuke

MAGA attorney Stefanie Lambert has been representing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne in a defamation lawsuit from Dominion Voting Systems. But on Tuesday, August 13, according to CNN, Federal Judge Moxila Upadhyaya removed Lambert from the case — citing her "truly egregious misconduct."

Lambert and Byrne are among the far-right MAGA Republicans who falsely accused Dominion Voting Systems of helping now-President Joe Biden steal the 2020 election from Donald Trump — a claim that has been repeatedly debunked.

Dominion also filed defamation lawsuits against Fox News, Newsmax TV, One America News (OAN), MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and attorney Sidney Powell. Fox agreed to pay Dominion $787.5 million when a settlement was reached in April 2023.

READ MORE: Analysis grapples with GOP fallout if Trump 'loses badly

Upadhyaya was downright scathing in his criticism of Lambert in his August 13 decision, saying that she "flagrantly and repeatedly disregarded court orders" by publicly disclosing "thousands, if not millions" of internal documents from Dominion.

The judge wrote, "Lambert's actions were intentional and clearly meant to inflict the harm that has resulted…. This Court cannot allow such intentional, dangerous, and relentless misconduct to continue…. Byrne and Lambert's acts have not only fueled theories of widescale election fraud and crime … they have resulted in real harm and threats to Dominion employees."

CNN's Marshall Cohen describes Lambert and Byrne as "part of a coterie of Trump supporters who tried to overturn the 2020 results and are still peddling debunked claims that Dominion software manipulated the outcome."

"Separate from the Dominion litigation," Cohen notes, "Lambert is facing criminal charges in Michigan over her alleged role in a conspiracy to seize voting machines in 2020 in hopes of proving her voter fraud theories. She pleaded not guilty…. The decision to disqualify Lambert from the Dominion case comes months after she leaked internal Dominion e-mails to a right-wing Michigan sheriff who has used his office to investigate baseless theories about the 2020 election."

READ MORE:'Falling on deaf ears': Damning supercut shows Trump at odds with allies on how to beat Harris

Cohen adds, "The sheriff, Dar Leaf, subsequently posted many of the documents online — doxing Dominion staffers by publicly disclosing their names, email addresses, and cell phone numbers.

READ MORE:'Nervous Senate Republican' tries boosting reelection campaign with over $1M of his own money

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see deperno

see const sheriffs

t didn’t take long before some sheriffs responded favorably to Mack’s entreaties, joining CSPOA, showing up for or even speaking at his events, or referring to themselves as “constitutional sheriffs” and repeating or paraphrasing Mack’ claims about the powers of the sheriff.  A number of sheriffs, especially in Western states, already had a long history of right-wing activism or opposition to the federal government.  These included Glenn Palmer, the long-time sheriff of Grant County, Oregon, who vocally supported Ammon Bundy and his band of anti-government extremists who seized control of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016, meeting with them and calling them “patriots.”  (Palmer’s support of the Bundy extremists may have cost him his next election).  Another prominent CSPOA supporter was Dar Leaf, sheriff of Barry County, Michigan.  In 2020, Leaf appeared onstage at a protest with militia members who later would be charged with plotting to kidnap the governor of Michigan.  After their arrest, he suggested the plotters might have been trying to make a citizen’s arrest of the governor.

AN 3 24

An attorney known for pushing ex-President Donald Trump's 2020 election Big Lie was arrested in Washington, DC Monday following a bench warrant after she failed to appear "for a hearing related to four felony charges she's facing in Michigan," according to The Detroit News.

However, Michigan lawyer Stephanie Lambert she was in the nation's capital for a different reason.

CNN reporter Marshall Cohen reported via X/Twitter Monday, "NEW: Questions swirl about whether pro-Trump lawyer Stefanie Lambert was arrested today after a DC hearing about her leaking Dominion docs. There was an existing arrest warrant in Michigan & she wasn't seen exiting the courtroom after US marshals went in."

READ MORE:**Judge orders Mike Lindell to pay $5M to man who debunked his election fraud claims**

Cohen added, "She was indicted last year on MI state charges stemming from an alleged conspiracy to seize voting machines. She recently started representing ex-Overstock CEO Byrne in his Dominion defamation case — that’s how she got the internal Dominion files that she leaked to a MI sheriff."

Lambert was in DC representing Byrne.

Less than an hour after CNN published Cohen's report, The Detroit News confirmed that Lambert was arrested Monday "according to a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service."

Per The Detroit News, "The arrest ended an 11-day saga of uncertainty that played out after Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Jeffery Matis issued a warrant because Lambert failed to appear for a hearing related to four felony charges she's facing in Michigan."

READ MORE:**'Explosive e-mail' reveals OAN 'may have engaged in criminal activities' with Smartmatic data**

Per CNN's report, trouble ensued when "Lambert provided the confidential Dominion documents to Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who has embraced conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and has used his office to hunt for fraud. He has since posted more than 2,000 internal Dominion documents on his social media account."

The Detroit News reports,

*In August, Special Prosecutor D.J. Hilson revealed four felony charges against her, including undue possession of a voting machine. Lambert and others who were spreading theories of fraud about the 2020 election allegedly conspired to obtain and analyze five tabulators that were used in Michigan.

*Lambert has resisted getting fingerprinted by authorities as her criminal case is ongoing. In a court filing on March 8, Lambert contended that Hilson wants to use her fingerprints to compare with evidence on the tabulators.

During Monday's hearing, according to CNN, "Lambert admitted that she gave the materials to Leaf, though she said she was allowed to because she was reporting a crime to 'law enforcement.' She also called on Congress to investigate her claim that 'foreign nationals' interfered with the 2020 election, which the US Intelligence Community has said was the most secure ever."

READ MORE:**Revealed: Michigan fake elector communicated with Trump campaign attorneys in 2020**

The Detroit News' full report can be read here. CNN's report is available[at this link

year in hate

https://www.splcenter.org/year-hate-extremism-2022/trends-and-threats#sheriffs

the no lnx nice grsf

Sheriffs Working to Subvert Democracy

By Rachel Goldwasser

A smattering of county sheriffs across the U.S. tested the limits of democracy in 2022, with an assist from extremist law enforcement groups.

These constitutional sheriffs are devoted members of an antigovernment extremist movement that believes sheriffs are the highest authority in the country, above even the president. They usurp the duties of the Supreme Court by personally deciding which U.S. laws are legitimate and whether to enforce them.

These sheriffs are actively damaging the nation’s rule of law and attempting to shape the U.S. into a country where fringe law enforcement officers determine what human, civil and property rights they will enforce.

In the U.S., where the justice system already perpetuates great inequities that disproportionately effect people of color, these members of law enforcement further undermine equal justice under the law.

In 2022, constitutional sheriffs’ ideology intruded into another facet of democracy: elections. Members melded their extremist positions with their law enforcement authority to investigate rogue, conspiratorial allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election and brought doubt into the legitimacy of the 2022 midterm elections.

Two extremist law enforcement groups, Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) and Protect America Now (PAN), led these efforts.

CSPOA radicalizes sheriffs and the public through law enforcement training, presentations to lawmakers and civilians, online media and books written by the group’s founder Richard Mack. The organization is linked to extremists, including Oath Keepers, sovereign citizens, neo-confederates and white nationalists.

PAN was founded by political operatives and is less outspoken about their constitutional sheriff beliefs, but most of their advisory board and members are constitutional sheriffs whose ideology has shaped the organization at large. PAN has focused its attention on immigration issues, supporting the anti-immigrant hate group Federation for Immigration Reform (FAIR) in its efforts to demonize migrants and lobby for policies that reflect this.

Beginning in the summer of 2022, both organizations worked with election conspiracy group True the Vote, whose founders participated in the film 2000 Mules, which promotes the “Big Lie,” the conspiracy theory parroted by former President Trump that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.

The Sheriffs Alliance Interfering with U.S. Elections

Graphic connecting individuals and groups with efforts to interfere in U.S. elections

Photos credits: Donald Trump: James Devaney/GC Images; Michael Flynn: Chris Kleponis/AFP via Getty Images; Sidney Powell: Drew Angerer/Getty Images; Catherine Engelbrecht: Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images; Lin Wood, Mark Lamb, Richard Mack: Gage Skidmore; Gregg Phillips: CNN Screen Shot via Texas Tribune

CSPOA posted a press release to its website on May 24, 2022, calling on local law enforcement agencies to investigate the 2020 election. The organization’s leaders and member sheriffs repeated the claim on July 12 at a CSPOA press conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sheriffs that were investigating and those considering it spoke publicly about their efforts and repeated themselves a day later at the Libertarian Freedom Fest in Las Vegas.

True the Vote announced its partnership with PAN on June 22, calling it ProtectAmerica.Vote. The group advertised that the effort was intended to teach sheriffs about their state election laws and provide them with grants to investigate alleged voting violations. The partnership included a plan to build a “National Election Integrity Voter Hotline” that would be linked to sheriffs’ offices and promote their cause in an informational campaign starting Aug. 1.

Multiple sheriffs affiliated with CSPOA and PAN spent the year attempting to investigate the 2020 election or interfering in the 2022 midterm elections. A group of devout constitutional sheriffs from Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin were the most egregious.

ARIZONA’S CONSTITUTIONAL SHERIFF PROBLEM

Mark Lamb, sheriff of Pinal County, Arizona, and PAN leader acted as the face of the PAN True the Vote partnership. In an interview published in the right-wing media source American Greatness on July 20, Lamb claimed that he was “disturbed” by talk of a law enforcement focus on domestic violence threats, that the feds had no jurisdiction over his county and that if they tried to push what he called unconstitutional mandates, “We would stop them,” Lamb said.

David Rhodes, Sheriff of Yavapai County, Arizona, has been linked to CSPOA and the Oath Keepers, and most recently an Oath Keepers offshoot organization, the Yavapai County Preparedness Team (YCPT). YCPT and the group Lions of Liberty formulated a plan to stake out and film Arizona ballot drop boxes for cases of fraud. At a July 23 YCPT meeting, group leader Jim Arroyo told members, “We have already coordinated with Sheriff Rhodes, and he told us if we see somebody stuffing a ballot box, and we get a license plate, they will make an arrest, and there will be a prosecution. Bottom line.” YCPT and Lions of Liberty eventually halted monitoring after a lawsuit was filed against them by Protect Democracy on behalf of the League of Women Voters asserting the group was engaging in voter intimidation.

MILITIAS, ELECTIONS AND PLOTS IN MIDWEST

Dar Leaf, Sheriff of Barry County, Michigan, is a lifetime member of CSPOA. He received the group’s Sheriff of the Year award in 2017. On May 18, 2020, Leaf appeared at a protest alongside members of theMichigan Liberty Militia (MLM), whose members were found guilty in 2022 of a 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Leaf was asked if he regretted having shared a stage with MLM members, and he replied, “It’s just a charge, and they say a ‘plot to kidnap,’ and you got to remember that. Are they trying to kidnap? Because a lot of people are angry with the governor, and they want her arrested. So, are they trying to arrest or was it a kidnap attempt? Because you can still in Michigan if it is a felony, make a felony arrest.”

In December 2020, Leaf began his investigation into the presidential election. Leaf’s attorney Carson Tucker reached out to Trump allies, including conspiracy theorist and former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn, attorney Sidney Powell and Lin Wood’sFight Back Foundation asking for information regarding "counties that have been potentially compromised.” Leaf tried to seize the voting machines from those counties to run his own investigation. In 2021 Leaf also worked with a private investigator who partnered with a sheriff’s deputy to question county clerks in six Michigan townships. After learning that the state was investigating his own investigation, on June 3, 2022, Leaf sued the Michigan attorney general, secretary of state and members of the state troopers for illegal interference. His claims in his lawsuit were dismissed by a Michigan judge on Aug. 29, 2022.

Leaf’s extremist election denial continued through 2022 as he made claims of voter fraud at the July CSPOA True the Vote press conference, FreedomFest in Las Vegas and to CSPOA members after the midterms. Leaf has gone so far as to call for sheriffs to host common law grand juries on the 2018 “stolen election” conspiracy. This type of grand jury is promoted by the National Liberty Alliance, a sovereign citizen group Leaf has worked with.

Christopher Schmaling, Sheriff of Racine County, Wisconsin, has also closely affiliated with CSPOA. He has appeared on Sheriff Mack’s online show and presented with CSPOA at 2022 FreedomFest. Schmaling, who was once the keynote speaker at a Trump rally, launched his own investigation into alleged 2020 voter fraud.

In 2021, Sheriff Schmaling tried to have nursing home staff and the majority of the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) arrested. He claimed they committed voter fraud after the WEC changed a policy during the pandemic that allowed nursing home staff to assist residents with their ballots in 2020. The Racine County District Attorney’s office declined to prosecute.

Ironically, in 2022, Schmaling refused to charge Harry Wait, leader of the group H.O.T. Government, who requested multiple absentee ballots using false information. When asked about it, Wait said, “Basically, I committed a crime when I ordered them. I emailed Sheriff Schmaling, asked if he was going to arrest me, and he said, ‘hell no.’ ” The Wisconsin attorney general’s office began an investigation July 29, 2022.

Schmaling also presented at 2022 FreedomFest, alongside other election denying sheriffs.

Unfortunately, these men have made a significant impact, using their power as law enforcement officials to make and investigate spurious allegations and gotten their ideas in front of a wide audience. Fortunately, these men represent a fringe movement, one many law enforcement officers still refuse to participate in.

While multiple Arizona sheriffs including Sheriffs Lamb and Rhodes joined the constitutional sheriff’s movement and meddled in U.S. elections, making the process more fraught for voters, another Arizona sheriff, Paul Penzone of Maricopa County, Arizona, exemplified the legitimate role of sheriffs: He chose to denounce the same extremist ideology and support democracy rather than participate in actions or groups working to damage it.

In in the run-up to the 2020 election, Penzone said in a press release, “With the same conviction we display when taking the oath of office, we must commit to practice impartial and nonpolitical actions during the course of our duties.” He continued, “Denying, ignoring or refusing to recognize and apply the laws as they are written is not within the authority of law enforcement professionals. Terms such as ‘Sanctuary’ county become an excuse to circumvent the law and defy due process and democracy.”

Then again on Nov 12, 2022, when speaking to the groups and politicians targeting elections and voting facilities, Penzone told the press he would not stand for any threat to voting, voting facilities or election workers.

“We are seeing a radical movement, including some local law enforcement, of people who are committed to destroying trust in our system for their own selfish gain,” Penzone told the press in August as the 2022 midterm elections heated up. “We must fight against it, or our nation will no longer be the democratic standard.”

REJECTING CONSTITUTIONAL SHERIFFS IN POLICY

All law enforcement can play a role in minimizing the harm from the constitutional sheriff movement. They can resist disinformation and conspiracy theories. They can resist recruitment into extremist groups like CSPOA, PAN and the Oath Keepers that actively prey on them. County sheriffs and police chiefs can push back on the notion that their function is to interpret the law rather than enforce it. The National Sheriffs Association can finally decide that there is no place for extremism among their ranks and refuse membership to sheriffs who actively promote antigovernment ideologies, including constitutional sheriffs.

State leaders can ensure that board members of their state police officer trainings and certification programs (POST) are not constitutional sheriffs or affiliated with extremists. These same boards can also create rules that prevent extremists from conducting official law enforcement training in their state.

States should limit the role of sheriffs’ posse members or deputized private citizens to core law enforcement functions – not election administration. And federal and state authorities should ensure that constitutional sheriffs do not engage in voter intimidation or intervene or interfere in election administration in any way.

Congress can ensure no federal funds are used for training that promotes CSPOA propaganda. Congress should investigate all law enforcement departments’ links to extremism. Law enforcement officials who self-identify as constitutional sheriffs, engage in election interference or otherwise violate the Department of Justice’s new Title VI protocols prohibiting discriminatory conduct, should be ineligible to receive federal funds.

Every level of government from national, state, and local law enforcement organizations should publicly reject the views and practices of constitutional sheriffs – and should not permit these individuals to serve in leadership positions.

law & crime many cookies

A Michigan Sheriff and a ‘Kraken’ Lawyer Lost a 2020 Election Lawsuit in Federal Court. They Just Filed Another in State Court.

Adam Klasfeld  Jun 6th, 2022,

After the 2020 presidential election, a county sheriff in Michigan filed and lost a federal lawsuit that a judge ripped for making “hazy and nebulous” claims of fraud. Now more than a year later, the same sheriff and a so-called “Kraken” lawyer have filed a lawsuit in state court claiming that law enforcement is interfering with his supposedly “ongoing criminal investigation.”

At the center of both lawsuits is Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who once shared a stage with William Null, one of the men accused of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). Leaf then defended Null in the press after the charges against him came to light.

“Well, it’s just a charge,” Leaf told local Fox affiliate WXYZ in October 2020. “And they say ‘a plot to kidnap,’ and you’ve got to remember that, are they trying to kidnap? Because a lot of people are angry with the governor, and they want her arrested. So are they trying to arrest or was it a kidnapping attempt?”

Though other men accused of plotting to kidnap Whitmer were recently acquitted, they raised an entrapment defense. In his interview, Sheriff Leaf appeared to justify an attempt to capture Whitmer through a supposed citizen’s arrest. The allegations against Null remain pending.

Leaf’s lawyer Stefanie Lambert Juntilla, part of the so-called “Kraken” effort to overturn elections, is also no stranger to controversy. A federal judge issued sanctioned Lambert and eight of her co-counsel for their failed attempt to overturn Michigan’s election results. Their penalties included referrals to their respective bar associations for possible discipline or disbarment.

As the new lawsuit indicates, the threat of disbarment hasn’t stopped Lambert from using her still-active license to pursue an election fraud-related case in court.

In a 45-page complaint, Leaf alleges that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) and Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) showed “inherent bias” toward their accusations of election shenanigans. More than 60 state and federal courts rejected claims of unfairness in the 2020 election, which former President Donald Trump’s (R) own cyber-security agencies ratified as the “most secure in American history.”

“Defendant Nessel has also shown her mockery and disdain for Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf in her multiple ‘Twitter’ posts and on other social media and biased ‘news’ articles,” the complaint alleges.

In a tweet on Dec. 7, 2020, Nessel noted that Leaf took part in the “post-election circus.”

The only thing missing from this post-election circus was a lawsuit from Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf against @GovWhitmer and @JocelynBenson. Until now, of course. Because 2020 is still happening.

— Dana Nessel (@dananessel) December 7, 2020

Indeed, that same day, a federal judge skewered Leaf’s litigation as decidedly not serious.

“Plaintiffs’ applications invite the court to make speculative leaps towards a hazy and nebulous inference that there has been numerous instances of election fraud and that defendants are destroying the evidence,” Chief U.S. District Judge Robert Jonker, a George W. Bush appointee, found in a scathing, three-page ruling. “There is simply nothing of record to infer as much, much less conclude that irreparable injury will occur before the defendants can be heard.”

Some months later, Leaf withdrew the federal lawsuit entirely.

The new state lawsuit alleges that Leaf has been conducting an investigation into the 2020 election and that other law enforcement agencies have been trying to “bully, harass, intimidate, [and] threaten” him, then “unconstitutionally usurp” the probe.

“On or around the beginning of March 2022, members of an undisclosed government agency (including Defendants State Police, Sergeant Fuller, and Sergeant Geyer), believed to consist of both ‘state’ and ‘federal’ elements directed and controlled by, or in collaboration with the other Defendants herein, began calling and harassing Plaintiff and Plaintiff’s deputies and agents conducting the Election Investigation, and asking questions about the investigation and seeking other information,” the complaint claims.

Michigan State Troopers Bryan Fuller and David Geyer are among the officials named as defendants.

In an email to Law&Crime, Michigan State Police spokesperson Lori Dougovito noted that their investigation is ongoing.

“We previously confirmed publicly that we are involved in an ongoing investigation involving a voting tabulator that began in Roscommon County,” Dougovito wrote in an email. “Because this is an ongoing investigation, we are not providing further details.”

That investigation reportedly involved suspected unauthorized access to voting equipment, a probe that looked into a pro-Trump Michigan lawmaker seeking to conduct a partisan election review, which was denied.

The lawsuit contends that state law enforcement is trying to obstruct Leaf’s review.

“The real effect of this usurpation of authority is to obstruct justice, cover up wrongdoing, and completely prevent Plaintiff from performing his constitutional duties to ferret out and investigate criminal activity,” the complaint continues. “In their brazen attempt to thwart justice and the judicial, legislative, and constitutional processes established to uphold the rule of law and legal duties and responsibilities, and most importantly to ensure that state and federal laws are not violated, Defendants instead made an effort to neutralize Plaintiff’s ability to perform his constitutionally and statutorily imposed duties as an elected constitutional officer.”

The sheriff wants a judge to order other law enforcement not to “interfere” with his investigation, allegedly tamper with evidence or leak information to the press. He and his attorney filed the lawsuit on Friday.

Nessel’s representative declined comment. Lambert did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s email requesting comment.

Read the complaint, below:

[image via Fox 17 screengrab]

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BREAKING: Hero Sheriff Dar Leaf Sues Lawless MI AG Nessel, Dishonest MI SOS Benson For Interfering, Obstructing and Covering Up Crimes In Election Fraud Investigations, Including Machine Voting,Ballot Harvesting and Trafficking

By Patty McMurray

Published June 4, 2022

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100 Percent Fed Up Exclusive – Hero and American treasure, Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf and the Barry County Sheriff’s Office is suing MI Attorney General Dana Nessel, MI Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the Director of MI Bureau of Elections Jonathan Brater, the MI State Police, MI State Police Trooper Bryan Fuller and MI State Police Trooper David Geyer in their official and individual capacity.

Michigan Election Code specifically states that it is the duty of any police, sheriff or other peace officer, present and having knowledge of any violation of any of the provisions of this act to forthwith institute criminal proceedings for the punishment of such offender.”

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MI Election law also states that a MI Sheriff is required to investigate any alleged or suspected illegal or fraudulent voter registration activity:

If a township or city clerk has knowledge that there is a probable illegal or fraudulent registration in the township or city, or in any ward or precinct of the township or city, the clerk has the power and duty to make a full investigation of the facts concerning the registration and to ascertain whether any name has been illegally or fraudulently registered. A township or city clerk is authorized and empowered to call upon the police department of the city or the sheriff of the county in which the city is located, or both, to assist in making the investigation, and the police department and the sheriff are required to render assistance if the clerk makes a request for assistance, and to furnish the clerk at his or her request with all available assistance in making the investigation.

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Barry County, MI Sheriff Dar Leaf

Sheriff Dar Leaf’s lawsuit addresses the lawless and obstructive actions of Attorney General Dana Nessel, who regularly mocks and threatens her political opponents, together with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who’s blocked the efforts of citizens and law enforcement to investigate voter fraud and voter irregularities related to the 2020 election.

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Benson has also been caught in numerous lies related to the election and like her fellow Democrat activist attorney general, she has mocked and threatened her political opponents while preventing Sheriff Dar to perform his duties and responsibilities as an elected official.

MI SOS Jocelyn Benson (D) and MI AG Dana Nessel (D)

The Barry County Sheriff is also suing MI Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s henchman,Jonathan Brater.

Jonathan Brater is Michigan’s Director of Elections, a member of the executive branch of state government, and an employee of the state. As director of elections, Mr. Brater is “vested with the powers and shall perform the duties of the secretary of state under his or her supervision, with respect to the supervision and administration of the election laws.”

Defendant Brater has no law enforcement or executive authority to encroach upon law enforcement functions of a constitutional sheriff.

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MI SOS Benson appointed Director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections Jonathan Brater

From the lawsuit, filed byDetroit Attorney Stefanie Lambert:

This lawsuit represents a flagrant violation of constitutional and statutory law on the part of Defendants, both named and unnamed, who took it upon themselves to bully, harass, intimidate, threaten, and ultimately to unconstitutionally usurp, and/or cause to be usurped and replaced, and/or to invade and encroach upon the powers and duties of Plaintiff as the Constitutional Sheriff of Barry County, in the performance of his constitutional and common-law duties, and in adhering to his oath of office by choosing to honor and uphold state and federal laws by exercising his constitutional and statutory duties to investigate alleged election fraud and crime.

The lawsuit states that Attorney General Nessel, who has no accountability to the Barry County Electorate, and even less authority to encroach upon the law enforcement functions of a constitutional sheriff, has committed a flagrant violation of constitutional and statutory laws by usurping the power of Sheriff Dar Leaf by obstructing, impeding, prejudging the ability of a duly elected official to conduct a criminal investigation into allegations of criminal acts related to the 2020 election and voting.

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Defendants, without authority, encroached upon Sheriff Dar Leaf’s duties by obstructing and interfering with his lawful investigation, obstructing justice in the process, and covering up evidence and crimes, including those that they themselves were involved in and conspired with others to commit.

Defendants usurped and otherwise obstructed an elected constitutional officer and prevented him from performing his constitutional, statutory, and common-law duties as County Sheriff in accordance with the Michigan Constitution, and state and federal laws.

Defendants, without legitimate authority, also unconstitutionally and unlawfully confiscated property, documents, and information (including voting machines with its attendant software, programs, and data), all of which was required to be sealed, preserved, protected, and retained by federal law.

Defendants acted in concert or individually to transfer and reallocate the duties and powers of the Plaintiff, usurping his power and removing from him or otherwise preventing his ability to perform his constitutional and statutory duties.

Defendants acts included but are not limited to threatening, harassing, and interfering with witnesses, local government officials (including township clerks), deputies, agents, and experts, and interfering with, obstructing, and otherwise defiling investigative works and the results of such works; confiscating and/or destroying confidential files and information pertaining to an ongoing investigation; unconstitutionally and unlawfully (and without the proper procedure) usurping Plaintiff’s law enforcement functions and authorities, which are exclusively reserved to him under Michigan common law and statutory law; stepping in to quell an ongoing legitimate investigation, confiscating confidential files and documents related thereto; obstructing, harassing, and/or threatening his deputies and agents conducting the law enforcement function on his behalf as they are allowed to do exclusively and with immunity under Michigan law, confiscating voting equipment and information and data that is required by federal law to be protected and preserved.

On or about November 3, 2020, Plaintiff Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf received information that election fraud and voting machine fraud was taking place in Barry County, Michigan, before, during, and after the November 2020 election.

Pursuant to his exclusive common-law and statutory duties to investigate and ferret out criminal activity occurring within his county, Sheriff Leaf opened an investigation.

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As with all such law enforcement investigations, confidentiality, protections and investigatory privileges are sacrosanct and necessary to properly perform the law enforcement function because leaks and disclosures that erode these principles reduce the likelihood that true justice and truth will prevail. As one court has noted, generally, “the law enforcement privilege plays a critical role in litigation involving the government. The purpose of the privilege… is to prevent disclosure of law enforcement techniques and procedures, to preserve the confidentiality of sources, to protect witness and law enforcement personnel, to safeguard the privacy of individuals involved in an investigation, and otherwise to prevent interference with an investigation.”

Under MCL 168.941, “It is hereby made the duty of any police, sheriff or other peace officer, present and having knowledge of any violation of any of the provisions of this act, to forthwith institute criminal proceedings for the punishment of such offender.”

Defendant Nessel has shown her inherent bias against any fraud claims or suspected criminal acts committed in relation to the investigation of rampant voter fraud that occurred during the November 2020 election, including the suspected hacking and manipulation of voting machines.

MI Dem. AG Dana Nessel

...

Defendant Nessel has also shown her mockery and disdain for Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf in her multiple “Twitter” posts and on other social media and biased “news” articles.

Even before the November 2020 election was over, Defendant Nessel “predicted” that counting of ballots would not stop and go on much longer than election day.

Defendant Nessel also urged the DOJ not to investigate Michigan election integrity and allegations of widespread fraud and voting machine anomalies.

Defendant Nessel even attacked Monica Palmer for not wanting to certify the 2020 election.

In light of these admitted biases and her mockery and disdain for Plaintiff, and all others who point out the now demonstrated problems with voter fraud, illegal ballot harvesting and trafficking, and voting machine hacking, Defendant Nessel is conflicted out and unable to ethically or legally overview, direct, authorize, or otherwise involve herself in any ostensible “investigation” of voter fraud and alleged criminal activity that may have occurred in Barry County, and in the process of that she is nonetheless forbidden from obstructing, interfering with, encroaching upon, or otherwise usurping the exclusive constitutional duties of Plaintiff County Sheriff.

Nessel preemptively threatened anyone who questioned the results of the election. In a series of two tweets, the lawless MI AG used her power as Michigan’s top law enforcement officer to warn anyone from questioning the election results saying, “Any effort to discount over half of all votes in our state is nothing short of a coup.” She then threatened the citizens she represents, “The Michigan Department of Attorney General will be ready to counter such an effort.”

Defendant / Respondent Jocelyn Benson SOS (SOS Benson), is the Secretary of State for the State of Michigan and a member of the executive branch of state government.

Secretary Benson is responsible for assuring Michigan’s local election officials conduct elections in a fair, just, and lawful manner.

Beyond this, Secretary Benson, or any other Defendant or party, has no law enforcement or executive authority to encroach upon law enforcement functions of a constitutional sheriff.

Defendant Benson has shown her inherent bias against any fraud claims or suspected criminal acts committed in relation to the investigation of rampant voter fraud that occurred during the November 2020 election, including the suspected hacking and manipulation of voting machines (finally acknowledged by the media and as demonstrated in multiple unbiased and impartial expert analyses).

Defendant Benson has also shown her mockery and disdain for Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf in her multiple “Twitter” posts and on other social media and biased “news” articles.

In light of these admitted biases and her mockery and disdain for Plaintiff and all others who point out the now demonstrated problems with voter fraud, illegal ballot harvesting, and trafficking, and voting machine hacking, Defendant Benson is conflicted and unable to ethically or legally overview, direct, authorize, or otherwise involve herself in any ostensible “investigation” of voter fraud and alleged criminal activity that may have occurred in Barry County, and in the process of that, she is nonetheless forbidden from obstructing, interfering with, encroaching upon, or otherwise usurping the exclusive constitutional duties of Plaintiff County Sheriff.

The lawsuit includes Michigan State Police:

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Michigan State Police (MSP), is an unelected and unaccountable strong arm of the state, a partisan and politically controlled, run and operated “state police” force in every sense of the term, acts as a law enforcement branch for and on behalf of the executive branch of the state government, including Defendants AG Nessel, SOS Benson, Director Brater, and at all times relevant to the facts and circumstances described in this complaint, acted at the direction of or in collaboration with any and all of the other Defendants, named or unnamed, and who were and remain an arm of the executive branch of government.

Defendant MSP and Individual Trooper Defendants (to be named) have no law enforcement or executive authority to encroach upon law enforcement functions of a constitutional sheriff.

The lawsuit, filed on June 3, 2022, can be viewed here:

BARRY CO., MI SHERIFF DAR LEAF COMPLAINT FOR DECLARATORY, MANDAMUS AND INJUNCTIVE RELIEF; AND DAMAGES, INCL… by 100PercentFedUp on Scribd

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Here is one example of SOS Benson, Jonathan Brater, and the MI State Police working together to reportedly usurp the power of a duly elected clerk:

On May 23, 100 Percent Fed Up reported about Michigan’s lawless Secretary of State Benson, who has yet to pay any price for asking clerks across the state to break the law by telling them to ignore signature matching but was hell-bent on making Adams Twp. Clerk Stephanie Scott pay a steep price for not complying with voting machine updates on her timeline.

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The Adams Twp. Clerk became the target of SOS Benson when she refused to allow updates to her voting machine over concerns that election data from the 2020 election that, by law, is supposed to be preserved for 22 months will be compromised or, worse, erased.

In a threatening Oct. 25, 2021 letter from Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office written by Director of Elections Jonathon Braeter with a copy sent to Dana Nessel’s office, the Adams Twp. Clerk was “directed” to “provide immediate access to all election equipment and records, including tabulator, voter assist terminals, absentee ballot applications, ballot envelopes, and polling place materials. They also informed her that her access to the Qualified Voter File would be suspended until further notice and that she would be charged with a misdemeanor if she refused to comply.

On October 29, only four days after receiving the letter from SOS Benson’s office, Sergeant Barkley of the Michigan State Police, apparently acting at the behest of Michigan’s partisan Attorney General Dana Nessel and allegedly at the direction of the dishonest and lawless Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, seized the township’s election tabulator from a locked cabinet in the office of Adams Township’s Clerk, Stephanie Scott.

A “search warrant” was procured seeking a scan unit for a Hart inter civic tabulator used in the November 2020 election and to be used for an upcoming local election being held in the township on November 2.

Letter to Scott.

According to Ms. Scott’s attorney, Stephanie Lambert, the County Treasurer entered the Clerk’s office and unlocked the cabinet to allow Sergeant Barkley to remove the tabulator and other items. Lambert explained, “The treasurer has no authority to go into the Clerk’s office to open the cabinet.”

At 2:52 pm, the Clerk’s attorney received a message from Sergeant Barkley saying he had what he was looking for and that her client did not need to come to unlock the cabinet in her personal office.

Adams Twp. Clerk Stephanie Scott

Ms. Scott’s attorney asked the state police sergeant whether the Treasurer had opened the cabinet without her client’s permission, which had obviously occurred.  She also asked if the sergeant had any questions for her client, to which he replied, “I will come up with a list of questions and get with you in the next few business days.”  When asked for a copy of the affidavit, which would have to have been presented to the judge who authorized the search, Sergeant Barkley refused to provide it and said that she would have to obtain it from the court where the warrant and affidavit would be filed.  In order to obtain a search warrant, the requesting entity or individual officer has to sign an affidavit to explain the probable cause basis for the search warrant, which must then be reviewed and approved by a judge.  In this case, the warrant was presented to and signed by magistrate Megan Stevenson for the 2nd District Court in Hillsdale County.

Stephanie Scott, who was elected to run her township’s elections, has been officially stripped of her election responsibilities and is now facing a recall over her actions.

On May 13, the County Election board approved the language for the recall petition of Stephanie Scott. The recall is based on Jonathan Braden’s letter, which Lambert says is unlawful. Lambert is appealing the recall language that is not accurate or clear and has filed suit against defendant Hillsdale County Clerk Marney Kast, who made the resolution for the petition and for essentially usurping Scott’s authority.

Sheriff Dar Leaf is seeking Temporary Injunctive Relief to:

prevent Defendants from further usurping and interfering with the performance of his duties and his investigations;

prevent Defendants from seizing and keeping property and information and data created during, related to, or subject of said investigations, and order Defendants to return all such information;

prevent Defendants from tampering with or otherwise adulterating the property and evidence that it unlawfully confiscated;

prevent Defendants from harassing, threatening, seizing, or otherwise interfering with by interviewing and confiscation of their property all deputies and agents lawfully engaged by the Plaintiff to assist him in conducting his investigation;

prevent Defendants from obstructing justice, interfering with, and/or destroying all investigatory confidences and privileges;

prevent Defendants from leaking information related to Plaintiff’s investigation to the press and to further refrain from commenting or otherwise alerting the public of the nature of such confidential investigatory information as is protected by law; enter an order pursuant to MCR 3.310, enjoining Defendants from carrying out or otherwise causing to be carried out any and all tampering, deletion, erasing, or adulteration of the data and evidence related to the general election of November 2020 as required by federal law, and order that all evidence related to the investigation that is in their possession be returned to Plaintiff;

Order Defendants to show cause as to why its proposed actions are authorized by law and are not ultra vires of their constitutional and statutory authority, and thereby in contravention of and directly violative of Plaintiff’s exercise of his constitutional and statutory duties as a constitutional, elected official of a known legal character with certain duties and powers provided by law, and beholden to his electorate;

Order that a hearing be held on the merits of this Complaint wherein it shall be determined whether the Defendants must honor their respective constitutional, statutory and legal obligations vis-à-vis Plaintiff in his official capacity as a constitutional officer and perform those actions and procedures deemed necessary to bring about compliance by Defendants with state and federal law and to restore to Plaintiff his ability to perform his independent duties and functions; whether Defendants must further refrain from unconstitutionally encroaching upon the Plaintiff’s constitutional office in violation of the doctrine of separation of powers and the exercise of his exclusive powers, and such other relief as this Honorable Court deems just and equitable under the law.

It’s about time a sheriff in Michigan stood up to Michigan’s top two elected officials whose job it is to serve all of the citizens of the state of Michigan. Instead, they have chosen to ignore their demands to investigate the 2020 election, and, even worse, to obstruct and threaten one of the only duly elected sheriffs in the state of Michigan who is brave enough to investigate the 2020 election.

raw  https://www.rawstory.com/matthew-deperno-2658319741/

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Michigan AG candidate may face criminal charges before election for tampering with voting machines: report

Bob Brigham

September 21, 2022

Michigan AG candidate may face criminal charges before election for tampering with voting machines: report

The GOP nominee for attorney general in Michigan could face criminal charges stemming from his election denialism before the November election.

Kalamazoo attorney Matthew Perno is being investigated by Muskegon County Prosecutor DJ Hilson, who was appointed special prosecutor by Attorney General Dana Nessel, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Hilson issued a statement on the timing of potential charges, saying, "As prosecutor, I have an ethical obligation to ensure that all necessary evidence and information is obtained and reviewed so that a determination of criminal charges can be made. In order to meet that obligation, I have determined that additional investigative work needs to be done and I am working with investigators on those issues."

"I am acting as expeditiously as possible, but due to this ethical obligation, I cannot say at this time when any decisions would be made."

Nessel requested a special prosecutor as DePerno is her opponent following an investigation by her office and the Michigan State Police.

Also under investigation are GOP state Rep. Daire Rendon and Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, among others.

"According to documents from Nessel's office, several people − including DePerno − are also accused of either illegally tampering with voting machines or being present when others "broke into the tabulators." Additional people accused of misconduct in the request for a special prosecutor include Stefanie Lambert Juntilla, Ann Howard, Ben Cotton, Jeff Lenberg, Douglas Logan and James Penrose," the newspaper reported. "Juntilla, a lawyer, has worked on debunked legal efforts brought by Trump-supporting attorney Sydney Powell and others to suggest widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Cotton, Lenberg, Logan and Penrose worked both with Powell's so-called 'Kraken' team on discredited election efforts across the country and on DePerno's Antrim County lawsuit."

DePerno has denied any wrongdoing.

Read the full report.$

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https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/22/politics/michigan-republican-gop-nominee-deperno-emails-invs/index.html

9 29 22

matthew DePerno, the Republican nominee for attorney general in Michigan who has made a name for himself by pushing lies about the 2020 election — and by becoming the target of an investigation into whether he illegally tampered with voting machines — is spending the final stretch of his campaign spouting new falsehoods about supposed election crimes.

In a recent meeting with the Detroit Free Press’ editorial board, DePerno claimed that voting machines in Antrim County, Michigan, had been “broken into” in 2020, the paper said Tuesday. He also said that his opponent in the November 2022 election, Attorney General Dana Nessel (D), had failed to look into the purported crime.

“Why don’t you write a story about Dec. 4, 2020, when I referred to Dana Nessel an actual crime of two tabulators that were actually used in the November 2020 election where the security tapes were removed, the machines were broken into,” DePerno said.

But none of that is true, the Free Press reported.

for one thing, the paper found, DePerno never submitted any kind of criminal complaint to law enforcement. More importantly, the candidate still hasn’t offered evidence, or even a detailed description, of the crime he said took place.

His allegations appear to stem from a 2020 civil lawsuit filed by his client Bill Bailey, which claimed that a vote-tallying issue on Election Day in Antrim County was evidence of possible widespread fraud in Michigan. (In fact, it was a simple, quickly resolved human error.) Unofficial early results showed then-President Donald Trump losing the rural, conservative county, but a prompt recount indicated that he had won, 61% to 37%.

As part of the legal challenge, DePerno claimed that some voting machines in Antrim Country were missing the security tape typically placed over them after elections, suggesting that they could have been compromised. But the group of inspectors DePerno was involved with hadn’t looked at the machines until weeks after the election, the Free Press reported — well after that security tape legally could have been removed.

Still, DePerno claimed that “there is evidence that someone who was not authorized removed the tape ... during the election.” He provided no such evidence, according to the Free Press.

He also told the outlet that he believed Nessel had known about allegations of tampering and done nothing to address them.

“You cannot deny that Dana Nessel was aware of the allegations,” DePerno said. “You can also not deny that Dana Nessel never took any steps to investigate these claims. Not one single witness was contacted to give a statement by [Michigan State Police].”

Both Nessel’s office and the Antrim County clerk reiterated this week that they believe the claims are baseless.

The lawsuit hasn’t gone anywhere. An appeals court panel foundin April that the “plaintiff merely raised a series of questions about the election without making any specific factual allegations as required.”

In a statement to HuffPost, DePerno’s campaign declined to comment further on the allegations or lawsuit. “We are done rehashing the Antrim County Case,”a spokesperson wrote.

[pix Former President Donald Trump endorses Republican Matthew DePerno for state attorney general at a rally on April 2 near Washington, Michigan. (Photo: Scott Olson via Getty Images)

‘They Are Domestic Terrorists’

DePerno’s claim about voting-machine tampering actually echoes pieces of an investigation into his own alleged actions: Nessel’s office has said that DePerno was one of the “prime instigators” of what it described as a potential “conspiracy to unlawfully obtain access to voting machines used in the 2020 General Election.”

At the office’s request, a special prosecutor is currently investigating DePerno and right-wing operatives who the office says tried to access and breach the machines as part of their attempt to push voter fraud myths.

DePerno and others, including far-right Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf,allegedly managed to get their hands on some machines during this effort. Leaf also sent a sheriff’s deputy and a private investigator from town to town, pressing clerks for information.

According to Nessel’s office, the group then took the machines to “hotels and/or AIRBNB’s in Oakland County” so that they could break into them and perform “tests” on the equipment.

It’s a felony in Michigan to “obtain undue possession” of voting equipment.

DePerno has previously called the state investigation a “witch hunt,” and he promises on his campaign website to “prosecute the people who corrupted the 2020 election and allowed fraud to permeate the entire election system.”

DePerno’s efforts have been a wellspring for widespread lies about the 2020 election. 

Former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, a key financial backer in the effort to sow doubt about the 2020 results, sent a team to look into the machines in Antrim County, and it wrote a report claiming that Dominion-brand voting machines in the area were “intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.”

This report has been repeatedly debunked, but it was still cited in a draft executive order in 2020 asserting that Trump, who was still president at the time, had the authority to seize voting machines nationwide.

“It’s not a question. ... The whole thing’s rigged,” Byrne, now one of several people facing a defamation lawsuit from Dominion, said in a video this month.

Byrne then called out Nessel, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) and Jonathan Brater, the director of Michigan’s Bureau of Elections: “They are domestic terrorists. I’m saying it. Sue me.”

This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

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Sep 1, 2022 Leaf harkened to the "constitutionalist" claim that county sheriffs are the supreme law of the land, saying: "What that does, it gives you the power—and I don't know if you're gonna appreciate me...

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Extremist sheriffs double down with their embrace of Trumpist ‘election integrity’ campaign

David Neiwert

Daily Kos Staff

ThursdaySeptember 01, 2022 **

Barry County, MI, Sheriff Dar Leaf

Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf sought warrants on voting machines even after coming under investigation for tampering with the devices.

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It’s a testament to the cult power of Donald Trump’s Big Lie that an elected lawman who himself now faces investigation for tampering with voting machines will not only refuse to apologize, but proceed to double down. Another law enforcement official subscribing to the same authoritarian conspiracy theories is meanwhile threatening everyone within his fiefdom with repercussions if they don’t submit to his similar “investigations,” and setting the stage for his nakedly partisan deputies to patrol at polling places.

These cases, both involving the so-called “constitutional sheriffs” movement’s open embrace of Trump’s election denialism, reflect the challenge that awaits much of the country—particularly the rural areas where these sheriffs rule—when we head to the polls in November. Their well-financed campaign, coordinated with leading Trumpists, to overturn election results and seize voting machines they suspect of skewing the vote could wreak havoc with election results around the country if it continues to gain steam.

Dar Leaf, the sheriff of Michigan’s Barry County, has played a leading role in the unfolding saga. It recently emerged that not only does Leaf insist that his dubious “investigations” of election outcomes in his county—based almost entirely on a fraudulent Dinesh D’Souza pseudodocumentary—are legitimate, but that he has continued to seek warrants to confiscate voting tabulators from election officials in townships throughout his county.

Leaf sought warrants to seize machines and search offices of the Barry County Clerk, as well as in Woodland Township and Irving Township, Bridge Michigan found through a Freedom of Information Act request. His affidavits could not cite any evidence justifying the searches, saying only that Leaf sought "evidence of the crime of election law violations."

The report found that Leaf wanted to seize "components of voting and election equipment"—tabulation machines, poll books, election reporting modules, as well as 2020 election paper ballots. He also demanded keys to unlock the devices.

Leaf’s intentions, the affidavits showed, were to have the voting equipment "forensically examined" by someone "who is certified and trained to conduct data extractions."

His involvement in seizing one such tabulator in 2021—which resulted in its being dismantled and examined, then returned with its seals broken—is part of a state investigation that involves not just Leaf, but the Republican nominee for Michigan’s attorney general, Matthew DePerno.

Last month, the current Democratic attorney general, Dana Nesso, filed a petition for a special prosecutor to handle that investigation since it involves her likely Republican opponent in the fall election. The petition indicated that state police investigators believed that DePerno was “one of the prime instigators,” along with Leaf and a state legislator, of a conspiracy to persuade Michigan clerks to allow unauthorized access to voting machines.

DePerno’s campaign issued a statement ridiculing Nessel’s petition as “an incoherent liberal fever dream of lies.”

Barry County Prosecutor Julie Nakfoor Pratt's office refused to sign off on the warrant requests because Leaf had not established "probable cause" to conduct the searches.

"There just wasn't anything in there that amounted to any fraud that I could see," she told Bridge Michigan.

Leaf’s efforts on Trump’s behalf began in December 2020, when he filed a lawsuit demanding Barry County’s voting machines be impounded—which was swiftly laughed out of court. He then embarked on an “investigation” of the machines by sending a deputy and a private investigator to grill township officials about their intricacies.

It was during one of these interrogations that the Irving Township clerk surrendered one of the town’s Dominion machines to Leaf’s team. “I’ve been told they took it (to the Detroit area) and tore it apart,” she told a local TV station, noting that when the machine was returned during a meeting in a parking lot, its security seal had been broken.

Dominion’s machineswere the focus of a conspiracy theory popular after the election among the Trumpist right claiming that vote totals had been secretly manipulated to hand the presidency to Joe Biden. The theory was widely circulated on right-wing media such as Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax, all of whom now face multibillion-dollar defamation lawsuits from the company.

Leaf was connected through his attorney, Carson Tucker, to a number of the leading Trump-loving conspiracists the former president employed, including ex-Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood. “My client Barry County Sheriff and several other county sheriffs in Michigan would like to consider issuing probable cause warrants to sequester Dominion voting machines if there is evidence of criminal manipulation,” Tucker wrote to them in one email.

His claims made little sense in Barry County, where Trump won by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. Rutland Charter Township clerk Ruth Hawthorne observed tartly: “They seem to think there was some kind of microchip in our tabulators that was throwing votes to Biden. But Trump won Barry County. He won by 65 percent of the vote, so I don’t know where they’re thinking that any kind of chips were in any of our machines or thinking that something had happened to them. The whole thing is nutty. It is nutty, totally nutty.”

Leaf’s extremism was well established before the 2020 election. He had appeared on stage at an anti-masking rally bashing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer with three of the “Patriots” who were later charged with plotting to kidnap and execute her. He first suggested to reporters that perhaps the plotters were only trying to make a “citizens arrest.” Leaf and other Michigan “constitutional sheriffs” also later refused to enforce a statewide ban on guns in Michigan polling places.

His “election integrity” campaign in Michigan caught the attention of Richard Mack, the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Keepers Association (CSPOA), who then announced a nationwide campaign involving all of the country’s “constitutional sheriffs.”

In May, Mack called on sheriffs and police around the U.S. “to come together in pursuit of the truth regarding the 2020 election.” A CSPOA press release made clear that the basis of their “investigations” was D’Souza’s widely debunked pseudodocumentary, 2000 Mules:

Considering the persistent allegations of election fraud since even before the 2020 elections began, and as a response to the perpetual polarizing effect this has had on the American people, the CSPOA would like to put this issue to rest. Our constitutional republic and peaceful future as a free people absolutely depend on it.

In the opinion of the CSPOA, there is very compelling physical evidence presented by truethevote.org in the movie “2000 Mules” produced by Dinesh D'Souza. “Law Enforcement has to step in at this point,” asserts D'Souza, and we absolutely agree with him. Therefore, we are asking for all local law enforcement agencies to work together to pursue investigations to determine the veracity of the “2000 Mules” information.

In fact, D’Souza’s documentary has been repeatedly demonstrated to be utterly groundless garbage. It has been debunked by Reuters, the Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, FactCheck.org, Politifact, and NPR, to name only a few of the outlets where its phony “facts” and false premises have been eviscerated.

In short order, the CSPOA had teamed up with Trump’s most fervent election denialists, True the Vote, which receives substantial funding from notorious pro-Trump conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell. “Constitutional sheriffs” in other counties—including one in Kansas and another in Wisconsin—attempted similar “investigations” but came up empty-handed.

At a Las Vegas gathering organized by Mack and True the Vote in July, Leaf called the county prosecutor’s refusal to hand out the search warrants "ridiculous,” adding: “We think we have enough for search warrants and everything else,” Leaf said during the conference, which also featured speeches from Trump loyalists like Lindell. “We're gonna keep moving forward, folks. We’re not done with this.”

Leaf harkened to the “constitutionalist” claim that county sheriffs are the supreme law of the land, saying: “What that does, it gives you the power—and I don’t know if you’re gonna appreciate me saying this—if we can’t get anywhere, we’re looking at doing grand juries, at the common law.”

One of True the Vote’s partners in the “election integrity” campaign is another “constitutional sheriffs” organization called Protect America Now, run by Sheriff Mark Lamb of Arizona’s Pinal County.Lamb was a featured speaker at a Trump rally in Prescott in July, where he revved the crowd up with promises that the nation’s sheriffs would intervene on their behalf in future elections.

“We’re gonna make sure that we have election integrity this year,” Lamb declared. “Sheriffs are going to enforce the law. This is about the rule of law. It is against the law to violate elections laws—and that’s a novel idea, we’re going to hold you accountable for that. We will not let happen what happened in 2020.”

Lamb has plenty of local critics in Pinal County. At recent meeting of the county’s Board of Supervisors, he was accused by longtime residents of indulging in baseless fearmongering over election results.

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Roberto Reveles, a longtime Arizona civil rights activist, told commissioners that Lamb was engaging in naked partisan threats: “I recently was subjected to the intimidation referred to by a previous speaker. Sheriff Mark Lamb walked up to me and pointed at me … and said, ‘You and your fellow Democrats are destroying our country.’”

Lamb defended himself shortly afterwards during an appearance on Newsmax. “Last week in the board meeting I had probably 8 to 10 Democrats show up and absolutely blast me because I believe in the ‘Big Lie,’” Lamb said.

“It clearly shows that these folks don’t care about election integrity,” he continued. “They’re happy that their guy is in power, and right now they should care more than ever because this guy in office, Joe Biden and his administration, is absolutely destroying America and freedom and they’re turning this into a country that we just don’t recognize.”

Local Democrats like Ralph Atchue, formerly a candidate for Arizona Senate, state that Lamb and his deputies will begin patrolling polling places. “I hear from everybody that the line is being crossed,” Atchue told Jessica Pishko of Bolts. “Completely blurred.”

Far-right election denialists in Seattle’s King County placed signs during the July primary at ballot drop boxes warning people that their actions were being recorded on camera. Ironically, the King County Sheriff’s Office is now investigating those actions at the behest of the county’s elections office.

“The specter of law enforcement at the polls is already enough to discourage people from going to the polls,” observes Devin Burghart of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights. “Moreover, the threat of surveillance of polling places and drop boxes proposed by groups like True the Vote is meant to intimidate voters, particularly people of color, and deter them from casting ballots.”

duck 9 22

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Jul 29, 2022In rural Michigan, county Sheriff Dar Leaf has teamed with a Trump-camp lawyer to chase the former president's outlandish rigged-election theories. A member of a radical group of "constitutional...

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Jun 6, 2022Leaf is among a handful of self-described "constitutional sheriffs" in Michigan who contend they are the highest level of governmental authority and have the power or duty to defy or disregard laws that they find unconstitutional. His lawsuit alleges the state is undermining that authority by interfering in his election fraud probe.

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Constitutional sheriff Dar Leaf of Barry County, Michigan, openly defied his governor's stay-at-home orders - as did constitutional sheriff Mike Carpinelli of Lewis County, New York. "Carpinelli says at the end of the day, it's about respecting each other and each other's boundaries when it comes to concerns about the virus.

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Aug 29, 2022LANSING — A Michigan sheriff suspected of wrongdoing in a vote tabulator tampering case has lost a major fight in his lawsuit alleging state authorities meddled in his own ongoing probe of the 2020 presidential election.. Michigan Court of Claims Judge Douglas Shapiro on Monday dismissed Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf's claims against Michigan State Police and Attorney General Dana Nessel and ...

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Oct 12, 2020Leaf is a member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, an extremist, pro-militia group. In April, Leaf was a guest on Fox News' America's Newsroom. During this appearance,...

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Jun 25, 2022Michigan "constitutional sheriff" Dar Leaf, was exposed recently spearheading a broader effort to enlist other sheriffs in seizing voting machines from local election officials to ostensibly prove Donald Trump's Big Lie about fraud in the 2020 vote. Credit: Screenshot Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter 131 By David Neiwert — June 25, 2022

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Sep 1, 2022 Leaf harkened to the "constitutionalist" claim that county sheriffs are the supreme law of the land, saying: "What that does, it gives you the power—and I don't know if you're gonna appreciate me...

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Jun 24, 2022That's especially the case with Michigan "constitutional sheriff" Dar Leaf, who was exposed recently spearheading a broader effort to enlist other sheriffs in seizing voting machines from local...

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Jun 15, 2022Richard Mack, CSPOA's founder and a leader in the "constitutional sheriffs" movement, was blunt in a phone interview with TPM last week. "He would be within his rights to arrest them for...

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Jun 14, 2022Statement of Constitutional Sheriff; CSPOA Final Resolution; Newsletters; Silver and Gold. FREE Wealth Protection Kit; FREE Gold IRA Kit; Events; News. Press Releases. ... Entries tagged with "Sheriff Dar Leaf" The BIG Lie. Sheriff Richard Mack By Sheriff Richard Mack August 5, 2022.

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Jun 5, 2022sheriff dar leaf's lawsuit addresses the lawless and obstructive actions of attorney general dana nessel, who regularly mocks and threatens her political opponents, together with secretary of state jocelyn benson, who's blocked the efforts of citizens and law enforcement to investigate voter fraud and voter irregularities related to the 2020 …

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Jun 4, 2022sheriff dar leaf's lawsuit addresses the lawless and obstructive actions of attorney general dana nessel, who regularly mocks and threatens her political opponents, together with secretary of state jocelyn benson, who's blocked the efforts of citizens and law enforcement to investigate voter fraud and voter irregularities related to the 2020 …

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Statement of Constitutional Sheriff; CSPOA Final Resolution; Newsletters; Silver & Gold; Events; News. ... Entries tagged with "Wisconsin Sheriff Dar Leaf" Man On A Mission. Sheriff Richard Mack By Sheriff Richard Mack August 3, 2022. Mainstream media wants you to believe that election fraud is a conspiracy. They don't want investigations ...

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Jun 6, 2022Adam Klasfeld Jun 6th, 2022, 11:52 am. Sheriff Dar Leaf. After the 2020 presidential election, a county sheriff in Michigan filed and lost a federal lawsuit that a judge ripped for making " hazy and nebulous " claims of fraud. Now more than a year later, the same sheriff and a so-called "Kraken" lawyer have filed a lawsuit in state ...