Showing posts with label shenanigans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shenanigans. Show all posts

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Trump, Alias John Somebody

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Previous Related Posts
The Trump Taco Bowl
Trump Looms Over GOP Convention
 Nazi Trump Demands Sieg Heil from Crowd - But Not Racist Of Course
Chris Christie as Trump's Toadie

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It's been brought to light that in the past, specifically during the 1990s after his break-up with wife Ivana, Donald Trump liked to play phone games with reporters, pretending to be his own publicist. He used the aliases John Miller and John Barron. When asked about it in the past, Trump admitted that he pranked the reporter, but now he denies it ever happened.

TRUMP: "No, I don't know anything about it - you're telling me about it for the first time and it doesn't sound like my voice at all. I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice - you can imagine that. And this sounds like one of the scams. One of the many scams. This doesn't sound like me.





From the Washington Post:
A recording obtained by The Washington Post captures what New York reporters and editors who covered Trump’s early career experienced in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s: calls from Trump’s Manhattan office that resulted in conversations with “John Miller” or “John Barron” — public-relations men who sound precisely like Trump himself — who indeed are Trump, masquerading as an unusually helpful and boastful advocate for himself, according to the journalists and several of Trump’s top aides.

In 1991, Sue Carswell, a reporter at People magazine, called Trump’s office seeking an interview with the developer. She had just been assigned to cover the soap opera surrounding the end of Trump’s 12-year marriage to Ivana, his budding relationship with the model Marla Maples and his rumored affairs with any number of celebrities who regularly appeared on the gossip pages of the New York newspapers.

Within five minutes, Carswell got a return call from Trump’s publicist, a man named John Miller, who immediately jumped into a startlingly frank and detailed explanation of why Trump dumped Maples for the Italian model Carla Bruni. “He really didn’t want to make a commitment,” Miller said. “He’s coming out of a marriage, and he’s starting to do tremendously well financially.”

From NorthJersey.com by writer Abbott Koloff
As a sportswriter more than 30 years ago, I called Donald Trump’s office in New York and was put on the phone with a man who said he was John Barron, a spokesman for Trump who sounded so much like his boss and used many of the same phrases that I kept interrupting him.
“Wait, is this Donald?” I asked at least three times during the interview.
“Oh, no” the man calling himself John Barron said, adding something along the lines that it was an interesting thought.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported what sports writers covering the New Jersey Generals of the United States Football League discovered in 1985 — that Trump, who owned the Generals at the time, often posed as someone else in order to praise himself or to say something he could later deny.
Trump’s apparent ghost spokesman sometimes spelled his name “Barron” — Trump named his youngest son Barron and reportedly admired hotel magnate Barron Hilton — and sometimes Baron. He also used the name John Miller, according to the Washington Post.
After that phone call from 1985, I called Trump’s secretary and was told that John Barron was not on any of the company’s organizational charts but was Trump’s right-hand man. You could almost hear the wink in her voice.

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Transcript of "John Miller" call with WaPo ~ Read it Here

Interviewer: What is your position there?

John Miller: Well, I’m sort of handling PR because he gets so much of it. And frankly, I mean, I could tell you off the record. Until I get to know you, off the record, I can tell you that he didn’t care if he got bad PR until he got his divorce finished.

So when he got a lot of bad financial stuff, he liked it because, you know, it was good because he could get a divorce finished. And once his divorce is finished, if you noticed since then he’s doing well financially and he’s doing well in every other way. The licensing was five to nothing. And people are saying how come all of a sudden he’s doing so well? And then I guess Newsday about two weeks ago did a story on that. So I’ve sort of been put in here to handle because I’ve never seen anybody get so many calls from the press.

Interviewer: Where did you come from?

John Miller: I basically worked for different firms. I worked for a couple of different firms, and I’m somebody that he knows and I think somebody that he trusts and likes. So I’m going to do this a little part time, and then, yeah, go on with my life, too.

Interviewer: Is he trying to -- I mean, is Marla trying to reconcile all this or is this --

John Miller: Marla wants to be back with him and he wants to be with her, but he just, he just feels it’s too soon.

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Interviewer: What about this Ivana thing? It says in the Newsday Trump also told friends that when he and Ivana met last week, she indicated that she would be interested in reconciliation?

John Miller: Ivana wants to get back with Donald, but she --

Interviewer: Really? After saying on Barbara Walters that she never would?

John Miller: What is she going to say? What is she going to say? She’s going to say when he’s with somebody else and had other people lined up, is she going to say, “Yes, I want to get back. I want to get back.” You know, she’s a pretty savvy woman and she’s not going to say -- I mean, he’s living with Marla and he’s got three other girlfriends, and then, and she’s not going to say, I really want to get back, you know? She wants to get back, she’s told it to a lot of her friends and she’s told it to him, but it’s so highly unlikely. That’s off the record. He left. I mean, it was his choice to leave and he left.

Interviewer: He left for Marla.

John Miller: No, he didn’t leave, no. See, that’s the biggest misconception of this whole thing. The second question I asked about after the ring was the biggest misconception is he left. He didn’t leave for Marla. He really left for himself. He didn’t leave for Marla. He never left for Marla. He was going to leave anyway. Marla was there, but he was going to leave anyway. Whether there was a Marla or not he was going to leave anyway.

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Friday, July 4, 2014

Mississippi GOP and the Cotton-Pickin' Conference Call

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The Mississippi Republican Senate Race is getting weirder by the day. Chris McDaniel lost on the vote count of the run-off, but he won't concede to Thad Cochran. There was a conference call the other day which included members of both campaigns along with national and local reporters, but McDaniel supporters turned it into a circus by equating black votes with bales of cotton. No, really, that happened. And McDaniel keeps saying the black votes are somehow not legal even though it was an open primary, meaning anyone from either party could vote. But the actual laws don't seem to matter much to the Mississippi Tea Party!

Previous Related Posts:
Mississippi Chaos ~ Voter Fraud and Suicide
Mississippi Senate Race Shenanigans
Poutrageous ~ McDaniel Loses to Thad Cochran

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The Conference Call:

From the Clarion-Ledger
A conference call set up by the campaign for U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran devolved into a shouting match and then ended, after which time supporters of GOP primary challenger Chris McDaniel chatted for a bit.
California-based blogger Charles C. Johnson posted the call-in number on Twitter and encouraged people to call in and crash the call. He succeeded.
. . . an unidentified male started asking about harvesting cotton and black votes.
. . . (Austin) Barbour (Cochran advisor) tried to continue on, but he was repeatedly cut off by the man. Eventually Barbour and Cochran spokesman Jordan Russell told media that they could be reached by email or cell phone and then hung up.
. . . As word of the debacle spread on Twitter, it quickly became journalists dialing in to see what the commotion was about, only to sit and laugh about the fact that it was over.

From Roll Call
The conference call line did not give the Cochran campaign the ability to mute callers’ lines, so there was no way to force the caller to stop speaking.
“I’m happy to address any question, no matter the lunacy of it,” he said.
But the man on the line, who did not identify himself, could not be placated. Finally, Barbour apologized and announced he was ending the call, telling national press that they had the contact information for the campaign if they had any questions.
. . . Thirty minutes after the call ended, the call line was still open. Someone was using a soundboard of President Barack Obama’s voice saying “Hey! What’s up?” Someone else was playing the audio from the movie “Animal House.”













Chris McDaniel was given time on CNN to denounce the conference call, and instead got all huffy about Cochran's ability to get out the black vote in Mississippi. The problem is, every time he defends his challenge to the vote count he sounds like a racist who thinks black votes aren't valid. There are theories about why McDaniel thinks this is a good idea - he lives in a conservative bubble, all his friends are racist, or he just has a tin ear for politics. Perhaps all of the above?

The point is, McDaniel never seems to understand that Cochran's appeal to black voters worked so well because the Tea Party is inherently racist, and they are all about cutting funding for minority programs. That is the platform on which McDaniel was running, but now he denies that he ever intended to cut anything - a complete lie!

CNN New Day, Transcript 7-4-2014

BOLDUAN: Do you regret that this has gotten so ugly for any part that you've played in this whole race that it's gotten so ugly?

MCDANIEL: Let me tell you what I regret. Here's what I regret. The last two and a half weeks of that campaign, they went out to Democratic communities, predominantly African-American in our state. They called me a racist. They race-baited.

They said if I was elected, I would suppress their right to vote or do away with it. They said if I was elected that welfare would be cut off. They said if I was elected that funding to historically black colleges and universities would be cut off.

I regret any campaign of divisiveness that deals with race in the manner they dealt with it. That was unfair. It's improper, and in so doing, they ran a scare tactic campaign that pushed 42,000 at least Democrats into the Republican primary.

Do I think that's a problem? Absolutely. Because I don't think divisiveness and that type of race-baiting belongs in the Republican Party.

BOLDUAN: You definitely don't like how they run their campaign. That is absolutely clear, Mr. McDaniel.

But for the part that you've played, this is two people running in this race, any regrets you have in how ugly this has gotten?

MCDANIEL: Which examples do you have where we've been ugly?

BOLDUAN: I'm just saying there are two people running in this race. Do you think you've run a completely fair campaign?

MCDANIEL: Help me understand which examples do you have that show I haven't run a clean campaign?

BOLDUAN: I'm asking if there are any regrets now that you're part in one of the ugliest primaries we've seen in a long time.

MCDANIEL: I can't control the Cochran's race baiter, name calling. If you can find an example where we did something like that you let me know and we'll talk about it.



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Saturday, June 28, 2014

Mississippi Chaos: McDaniel Charges Voter Fraud ~ Tea Party Leader Commits Suicide

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Previously Related Posts
Poutrageous: McDaniel Loses to Thad Cochran
Mississippi Courthouse Shenanigans

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The chaos over the Republican Senate Run-Off Race in Mississippi continues. Seasoned politician Sen. Thad Cochran was declared the winner last Tuesday, but Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel refuses to concede amidst allegations of some type of voter fraud particularly aimed at Democratic black voters who crossed over for Cochran, although that is legal in Mississippi and this was an open election. In the midst of the election angst, a prominent Tea Party leader who was arrested for spying on Cochran's wife in a nursing home has committed suicide. He had been indicted by a grand jury and was facing a court date later in the summer. Many say he was devastated by the arrest and the effect on his legal career, but it's possible he somehow blamed himself for the loss of the election.

The outrage of the Tea Party in Mississippi isn't going away any time soon. They are going hyperbolic and nearly apoplectic over McDaniel's loss:

This is a win for the establishment, but it’s a win with an asterisk, because it’s so tainted that it might be one of those things where they’re going to be sorry they ever won the runoff in Mississippi.
~ Craig Shirley, a political consultant and the author of two respected biographies of Ronald Reagan, via National Review

This just threw gasoline onto the flames of the civil war. What happened yesterday in Mississippi will resonate for years to come. It will become the battle cry, just like the Alamo. We will remember Mississippi.
~ Richard Viguerie, the author of Takeover: The 100 Year War for the GOP’s Soul

And the McDaniel campaign is looking to find more votes, but local election officials in Mississippi say there is no proven voter fraud, which is refreshing to hear from a mostly Republican state.

From New York Times
The McDaniel camp charged that a partial review of the tallies in Hinds County had turned up nearly 1,000 ballots that were cast by voters who participated in the Democratic primary on June 3 and were ineligible under state law to vote in the Republican runoff. McDaniel aides said supporters were reviewing ballots across the state, although they have met resistance in about half of the counties they have approached.

Pete Perry, the Hinds County Republican Party chairman, said the McDaniel campaign’s claims were “wildly exaggerated.” In the Jackson precinct at Fondren Presbyterian Church, he said, the McDaniel campaign charged that 192 illegal votes had been cast by people who voted in the Democratic primary. But, he said, only 37 Democrats voted there on June 3.

“Instead of making wild accusations which stir up social media with cries of fraud and corruption, it would be much better for all involved — the voters, the candidates, the 500 poll workers in Hinds County — if we let facts enter into the conversation,” Mr. Perry said.


















On Death of Tea Party Leader Mark Mayfield:









A prominent lawyer and leader of the Mississippi Tea Party, who was arrested in connection with photos posted online of U.S. Senator Thad Cochran's bedridden wife, died on Friday of an apparent suicide, the man’s attorney said.
Mark Mayfield, 57, was a founding member of the state's Tea Party and had served as its vice chairman, the organization said.
. . . Police received an emergency call on Friday morning from his wife, saying her husband had just shot himself. Mayfield was found lying on the floor of a garage storage room with a single gunshot wound to his head, according to the police department in Ridgeland, Mississippi.
~ Reuters

Mayfield was one of three men charged with conspiring to photograph U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran's bedridden wife in her nursing home and create a political video against Cochran.
That incident was one of the most explosive events in the Mississippi Senate primary, which Cochran won in a runoff over Tea Party-backed Chris McDaniel on Tuesday. McDaniel has refused to concede the race and suggests that voting irregularities may have helped Cochran win.
Mayfield, 57, an attorney and state and local Tea Party leader, was arrested last month along with Richard Sager, an elementary school P.E. teacher and high school soccer coach. Police said they also charged John Beachman Mary of Hattiesburg, but he was not taken into custody because of "extensive medical conditions." All face felony conspiracy charges. Sager also was charged with felony tampering with evidence, and Mary faces two conspiracy counts.
~ USA Today

Regardless of recent allegations made against his character, Mark Mayfield was a fine Christian man who was always respectful and kind. He was one of the most polite and humble men I’ve ever met in politics. He was a loving husband, father, a pillar of his community, and he will be missed. We are saddened by his loss, and we send our thoughts and prayers to his wife, his family and friends.
~ Candidate Chris McDaniel on his friend Mayfield

They killed him. They sent a SWAT team to his office, six officers, just to arrest him.
. . . I'm just crushed. Mark's death just kind of puts an exclamation point on how out of control this has all gotten."
~ Pat Bruce, president of the Madison (MS) County Conservative Coalition, Via Jackson Clarion-Ledger:





“A good man is gone today [because] of a campaign to destroy lives,” Keith Plunkett, a Mississippi GOP operative, tweeted. “To all ‘so called’ Republican leaders who joined lockstep: I WILL NOT REST!”
Plunkett deleted the post after others on Twitter responded negatively and accused him of using a tragedy for political gain.
. . . McDaniel allies have argued that the whole nursing home incident was politicized to get sympathy for Cochran in what became one of the nastiest races in memory.
“The politicization of the incident was beyond the pale,” Plunkett said. “It was an attack on a good man that is well respected. I’ve never met a person that had a bad word to say about him. It’s shocking to those in the state who knew the demeanor and quiet dedication of the real Mark Mayfield. He wasn’t the character he was being cast, and he didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.”
~ Politico





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Thursday, June 26, 2014

Poutrageous - McDaniel Loses to Thad Cochran in Mississipi Run-Off

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Previous Related Post:
Locked-Up - Mississippi Courthouse Shenanigans

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The Republican Senate Run-Off Election in Mississippi has turned into a big deal. Tea Party candidate Chris McDaniel had been favored to win, but at the last minute Thad Cochran appealed to black Democratic voters who turned out in record numbers to vote AGAINST McDaniel. And thus began another strange night in American politics.

Cochran won the election, but McDaniel has so far refused to concede the race, and there's talk of a write-in campaign, a third party for Teabaggers, an investigation into the election, and general far-right Poutrage.

Make some popcorn and read what happened.

From Time
McDaniel lost in a runoff to the six-term incumbent Cochran by only about 6,000 votes, amounting to less than 2% of the total count. Many of those who pushed Cochran over the top were either Republicans who’d been unmoved to vote in the initial June 3 primary (in which McDaniel narrowly won but failed to secure the 50% needed to prevent a runoff), or Democrats who were inspired to vote for Cochran to prevent a Tea Party victory for McDaniel.
Turnout in Tuesday’s runoff was higher than in Round One, with about 55,000 more ballots cast, many of them by Democrats for Cochran. McDaniel supporters felt robbed; as their candidate took the stage at his election night watch party, the crowd chanted “Write Chris in!”

From Robert Costa in Washington Post
In a bitter and angry speech to supporters in Hattiesburg late Tuesday, McDaniel refused to concede and said, “we are not prone to surrender.” He cited “voting irregularities” and thundered that the “Republican primary [was] decided by liberal Democrats.”
“We’re not done fighting,” McDaniel vowed.
. . . McDaniel has drawn support from national tea party groups as well as conservative stars, including former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and Chuck Woolery, the original host of “Wheel of Fortune.”



























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Sarah Palin Word Salad On Facebook
With Friends Like These, Who Needs Liberals?
As we pointed out last week (see: http://t.co/y8T64iZQyR), there were several potentially illegal political games afoot in Mississippi to motivate Democrat voters to “switch” over to the GOP for a day to help save a 42 year Republican member of Congress. On top of that, millions of dollars from out of state liberal billionaires like Mike Bloomberg poured in at the last minute on that same incumbent’s behalf. You have to ask yourself why?
When a primary election is lost fairly, I am all for unifying behind the victor and joining forces to fight in November. When an election is questionable, with potential legal violations, politics MUST be put aside and the irregularities MUST be fully investigated. Regardless of party, we owe it to voters and to democracy within our Republic. The integrity of the vote speaks directly to the integrity of those who serve and the trust we ask the American public to put in our institutions.
I told Chris McDaniel last night that I stand with his effort to get to the bottom of this – he needs to know average, but tremendously concerned, citizens want to make sure the integrity of last night’s results in Mississippi are verified. Voting shenanigans never cease to amaze, but they had better cease altogether for the sake of ethical elections. And any GOP “architect” behind these abhorrent voting shenanigans should be ashamed of this Pyrrhic victory for the establishment.
If we find out it’s true that some of the characters alleged to have masterminded this Mississippi hijacking are the same ones who’ve tried to destroy other Republicans’ careers, they need to be taken to task and only be hired by unethical campaigns. Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice, shame on us. And if any news organization ignores a free and fair elections issue like this, then whether left-leaning or center right, their silence will speak volumes.
You can read more about this issue from an article last week here:

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/18/MS-GOP-Chair-Only-Those-Who-Plan-To-Support-GOP-Nominee-In-November-Should-Vote-In-Runoff

- Sarah Palin


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From "The Marionettes Remain Uncut" by Erick Erickson on Red State
. . . the Mississippi race does crystalize for me the desires of many to start a third party. In essence, tea party activists are the RINOs. A Republican Party campaigning on making the Senate “conservative,” used liberal Democrats to preserve an incumbent Republican and defeat a conservative. The actual conservatives are the outsiders with the GOP establishment doing all it could to preserve its power at the expense of its principles.
. . . Mississippi is a crystalizing election in that sense. Cochran is, for all intents and purposes, a marionette. His strings are pulled by staffers and lobbyists. They drop him onto the stage of the Senate and pull up a string to raise his hand. These puppeteers are so invested in keeping their gravy train going that they will, while claiming to be Republicans, flood a Republican primary with Obama voters to ensure their gravy train continues.

And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. They won fair and square. They changed who the electorate was, which was allowed under the rules.
. . . Unfortunately for the Republican Party the fight continues. And as grassroots activists feel further and further removed and alienated from the party, it will become harder and harder to win. . . . we may just see an irreparable split. Then, and even worse, if party leaders and party base voters cannot reconcile themselves to a common candidate in 2016, God help us.
I continue to oppose a third party. I’m just not sure what the Republican Party really stands for any more other than telling Obama no and telling our own corporate interests yes. That’s not much of a platform.









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Sunday, June 8, 2014

Locked Up ~ Mississippi Senate Race Shenanigans

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There are strange goings-on in Mississippi politics. In Hinds County on Election night, June 3, 2014, three people connected to the campaign of Chris McDaniel were somehow locked into the County Courthouse, along with boxes of supposedly secure ballots. They were Scott Brewster, McDaniel's campaign coalition director; Janis Lane, a Director of the Central Mississippi TEA Party; and Rob Chambers,a consultant with the Mississippi Baptist Christian Action Commission.

From GulfLive.com
Hinds County Republican Executive Committee Chairman Pete Perry, who's supporting Cochran, said Lane called him at 2 a.m. Wednesday, saying she and a friend were locked inside the courthouse, that nobody else was inside and they needed help getting out.

Perry said Lane, who is on the GOP county committee, told him that when she was trying to get into the courthouse, she spoke to a man she believed was a police officer and that he showed them a door that appeared to be ajar.

Perry said he called the Hinds County Sheriff's Department. Cain, the department spokesman, said a deputy sent someone to let Lane, Brewster and Chambers out of the locked building.

"I told the deputy: 'I hope you don't just let her out. I hope you ask her what she was doing there,'" Perry told the AP.


From Washington Post
. . . What was the group doing in that courthouse? Brewster was joined by Janis Lane and Rob Chambers. They appear to all be McDaniel supporters: Lane, the Clarion-Ledger reports, is a board member of the Central Mississippi Tea Party; Chambers is a consultant who has worked with McDaniel. When questioned by the sheriff, the three gave "conflicting stories" about their presence in the courthouse.

Janis Lane is famous for saying that women don't really need to vote.

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I’m really going to set you back here. Probably the biggest turn we ever made was when the women got the right to vote. Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting. There is nothing worse than a bunch of mean, hateful women. They are diabolical in how than can skewer a person. I do not see that in men. The whole time I worked, I’d much rather have a male boss than a female boss. Double-minded, you never can trust them.
~ Janis Lane, Central Mississippi Tea Party, 2012

I guess she was projecting her own "deviousness" onto "all" women, right? She certainly proved that she herself wasn't trustworthy.

What's also disturbing is that she was a "precinct worker" who was in charge of voting materials that night! Why is this obviously partisan woman in charge of votes?

WAPT.com
Lane was a precinct worker during Tuesday's primary election and had dropped off her ballot materials about 8:30 p.m. and then left, Perry is reported as saying.
Lane, Brewster and Chambers were contacted by WAPT-TV for comment but none of them answered.


Then there's Scott Brewster, who works for McDaniel:

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Via Talking Points Memo
"Going to come down to Hinds county. We will win the night but might be runoff," Brewster wrote in one Facebook comment thread at 11:16 p.m. on Tuesday night.

"Friends, thank you for all your messages and support," Brewster also posted on Facebook at 12:06 p.m. on Wednesday. "I didn't get until 4 this morning. I'll do my best to get back to everyone today. All of your encouragement has given our campaign family such positive energy. Thanks!!!"

And he's not worried about all that legal stuff:





Rob Chambers is associated with the Mississippi Baptist Christian Action Committee, a lobbying group that fights against Common Core Educational standards. Here is an excerpt from his bio on their website:

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With training in theology, ethics, and philosophy, Rob Chambers brings both intellectual perspective and practical ideas to churches and Christian organizations who seek leadership in understanding and communicating applied biblical ethics to moral, cultural, philosophical, and political issues.
Rob is a Senior Consultant with the Christian Action Commission – the agency of the Mississippi Baptist Convention dedicated to providing resources on social and moral concerns and their implications on public policy issues from City Hall to Congress.


Maybe one type of action that Jesus would approve of would be to not be locked inside the Courthouse on the night of the election? I'm sure Chambers can understand why people have "moral concerns" about he and his buddies.

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Official McDaniel Campaign Statement, via Biloxi Sun-Herald
"Last night with an extremely close election and Hinds being one of the last counties to report, our campaign sent people to the Hinds courthouse to obtain the outstanding numbers and observe the count.

"In doing so, they entered the courthouse through an open door after being directed by uniformed personnel. They were then locked inside the building. At this point they sat down and called the county Republican chairman, a close Cochran ally, to help them get out. Eventually a Sheriff's officer showed up and opened the door to let them out."

This is actually the second time the McDaniel campaign got into hot water for strange activities:

From the Clarion Ledger
Brewster's name popped up during the first days after conservative political blogger Clayton Kelly was arrested and charged in a photo scandal involving U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran's bedridden wife, Rose. Kelly was accused of sneaking into Rose Cochran's Madison nursing home and taking photos of her for a political video.
After Kelly's arrest, three other McDaniel supporters were charged with conspiracy in connection with the nursing home case. Those include state tea party leader and attorney Mark Mayfield and a former radio talk show co-host of McDaniel's.

From Liberal America Blog
The Hinds County Mississippi Sheriffs Department is disputing the account of three Tea Party activists in regard to how they gained access to the county courthouse after hours early Wednesday morning shortly after ballot counting stopped in the Tuesday primary election. Hinds County was one of the last Mississippi counties to post returns in the very hotly contested race between Chris McDaniel and Senator Thad Cochran.

Key to their account of how they entered the building is that when they arrived they were let in or shown where to enter by “uniformed personal “. Hinds County Sheriffs Department Spokesperson Othor Cain it that the department does do security for the courthouse during business hours. He also told the Clarion-Ledger that off duty officers are hired to do security during elections but that at the time that Lane, Brewster and Chambers gained entry all security would have been long gone.

“It’s a fabrication that someone pointed them to a door. I think that’s a total misrepresentation of fact,” Cain said. “None of our guys let anybody in.”
Cain stated there are attorneys and courthouse employees with access to the courthouse that are not “uniformed personnel.”

Even if there was no criminal activity, it still doesn't account for why these three individuals were in the county courthouse afterhours with no county employee. We have no information whether they had criminal intentions or not. We don't know how long they were in there…We need to have a total accounting."
~ MS District I Supervisor Robert Graham via the Clarion-Ledger


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