AZ Republicans Start To Eat Their Own

After an Arizona Republican Party reorganization election which was marred by claims of voting irregularities – at least one declared winner was later informed that she had lost – Arizona Republicans are now eating their own.

Party Chair Kelli “Chemtrails” Ward spent months supporting Donald Trump’s Big Lie of election fraud in Arizona through numerous frivolous lawsuits laughed out of court, but her own reelection as Party Chair may have been the actual fraudulent election.

The Arizona Republic reports, GOP state lawmakers call on Kelli Ward to audit her win for chair or drop call for audit of Biden’s win:

Republican members of the Arizona Legislature are calling on Kelli Ward, the controversial chair of the state Republican Party, to either audit the election processes and results of her win on Jan. 23 or to remove her calls to audit the results of the 2020 presidential election, which President Joe Biden won.

More than a dozen GOP members of the state Senate and House of Representatives signed onto the letter, obtained Thursday by The Arizona Republic.

I’m sorry, but these state senators are the very same senators who just voted (first read) for a resolution to hold the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors in contempt for ignoring their subpoena (challenged in court)  for ballots and other election materials for the purpose of conducting their own conspiracy theory audit of the vote in Maricopa County, and to give Donald Trump’s “elite strike force team” of clown lawyers led by Rudy Giuliani and his conspiracy theorist “experts” access to those records. When are they going to remove their calls to audit the results of the 2020 presidential election? Does anyone fail to see the hypocrisy here?

Ward is among the Republicans in Arizona and nationally who spread baseless allegations of voter fraud and claimed Biden and Democrats stole the 2020 presidential election from former President Donald Trump.

At a state GOP meeting, Ward was reelected as party chair by just 42 votes. The election went to a runoff between her and southern Arizona businessman Sergio Arellano.

Questions about the integrity of the election were raised after the wrong winner of another party race was announced — a mistake Ward blamed on human error.

Ward has rejected calls for an audit of the processes and procedures used for the election, saying last week on Phoenix radio station KFYI (550 AM) that there was “no procedure, process, rule that allows for it to be done, and you certainly don’t allow a challenger who lost an election to demand something that they don’t have the right to, and we don’t have the responsibility for providing.”

Sounds to me like someone who has something to hide. The Party retained the ballots. The total of a hand count recount of the ballots should be exactly the same as the original announced vote, if everything was on the up and up. There are not that many ballots to count. How hard could it be?

The group of Republican lawmakers joined the chorus of calls demanding an audit, noting in their letter that Ward had joined them in calling for transparency and accountability in the state’s November election process.

“Now, our collective message is being undermined by your insistence that none of these standards should apply to your election as AZ GOP Chairman,” the lawmakers’ letter said. “The inconsistency is simply not acceptable.

“Whatcha talkin’ bout Willis”? Being a hypocrite is in the DNA of Republicans.

“Without question, an election for Party Chairman pales in comparison to the importance of electing a United States Senator or President of the United States, but the principles that surround every election, no matter how big or small the office, must remain the same. We urge you to heed the calls of your voters and allow for an immediate audit of the election that was held on January 23rd, in a manner that is fair and transparent. Or we would ask that you remove yourself from efforts to properly audit the elections held in Arizona on November 4th, 2020, as you would be an unwelcome distraction and foil for the media to use to discredit our efforts to protect our state’s voters.”

The letter was signed by some of the Legislature’s most conservative members, including Rep. Mark Finchem, R-Oro Valley, who was involved in an attempt to overturn the state’s presidential election [and the January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C.], and Rep. Shawnna Bolick, R-Phoenix, who has proposed letting the Legislature void the results of a presidential electionif it chooses.

Thus proving my point that being a hypocrite is in the DNA of Republicans.

Rep. T.J. Shope, a Coolidge Republican, signed onto the letter because he said Ward should be held to the same standard she is applying to others.

“The party chair, especially after what I think has been a lot of incendiary comments she’s made over the last few months, … should be held to the same standard that she holds election officials to,” he said.

* * *
The lingering questions about the way the state party elections were conducted, and Ward’s response to them, have already tainted, at least temporarily, her second term as chair ahead of the crucial 2022 elections.

State party chairs are typically responsible for helping to recruit candidates, raising money, and bolstering voter turnout in a cycle that will see statewide offices up for grabs, including the governorship.

During her appearance last week on KFYI, Ward criticized those calling for the audit and said she wanted to return to the party’s business.

“I want to get back to the business of the party,” she said. “I want to continue to fight for election integrity at the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors level, where complaints about the election emerged the night of the election.”

But not fight for election integrity in her own election, “where complaints about the election emerged the night of the election.” It’s enough to make one’s head spin.

In other news, the equally nutty and outrageous freshman Sen. Wendy Rogers will face an ethics investigation from her Senate colleagues. Let’s hope that the Senate Ethics Committee is more competent than their House counterparts in handling the expulsion of Rep. Don “Tequila” Shooter in 2018. Don Shooter sues Arizona for denying ‘due process’ in his expulsion from the Legislature.

Howard Fischer reports, Senate panel to look further into complaint filed by fired staffer of Flagstaff Republican:

Members of the Senate Ethics Committee voted Thursday evening to have its attorney pursue the complaint filed against first-term Sen. Wendy Rogers by a now-fired staffer.

The 5-0 vote is a setback for the Flagstaff Republican who argued that nothing in the complaint by Michael Polloni, even if true, violates the rules governing the conduct of a senator. And Rogers, in her formal response also said there was nothing in the allegations that were a violation of public trust, improper conduct that adversely reflects on the Senate, or broke the law.

Thursday’s action does not mean that Rogers will be found guilty or be punished. It simply means that committee members, after being briefed behind closed doors by the staff attorney, concluded there was enough there to merit a closer look.

The panel will meet again on Jan. 11 to review the findings.

Polloni, who had started as a campaign volunteer for Rogers before being hired, said that the senator made a series of comments about him and his family.

“She told me that I need to lose weight and that she wants me to look good when I am sitting behind the desk representing her,” he said in his signed and sworn complaint.

He also said she made comments about his sister, who is gay, asking him why. And Polloni said Rogers also talked about his uncle who is a conservative and his aunt who is a liberal, ask why they are married “and saying it wasn’t right.”

Beyond that, Polloni said Rogers yelled in his face to the point “I could feel her spit on my face” and described an incident when the senator “slammed the door and almost smashed my hand.”

Polloni also complained that after he contracted COVID-19, had to stay home but that Rogers suggested he was faking it, saying her “bull– — detector was really going off.”

He eventually was terminated.

Rogers, a former Air Force pilot, has been one of the challengers of the presidential election returns. She also sent out a Twitter message saying it was “radical Antifa mobs” that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Nice try, you nut job. It was a MAGA mob of QAnon, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers and Three Percenters. Just take a look at the arrest records of the hundreds of people who have been arrested. And it was all documented on video, photos, and social media.

The Arizona Capitol Times adds this:

The decision authorizes committee chairman Sine Kerr, R-Buckeye to lead the investigation, issue subpoenas or retain outside attorneys to represent the committee. Rogers must have a hearing before the committee within 20 days.

Rogers denies that she created a hostile work environment. Anyone who is familiar with how this perpetual candidate has treated her GOP primary opponents and Democratic General Election opponents over the years would find this assertion laughable. She is just a nasty, nasty person. That’s why voters have rejected her in so many elections for so many offices over the years, until she somehow managed to win this one time in a “safe” Republican district.