Thread by @DavidPepper

🚨🚨🚨

THREAD/VIDEO: anatomy of grotesque lies by Ohio’s Secretary of State

After losing in every court in which he made a sham legal argument, LaRose is still lying about it.

He’s also lying about how it all happened.

Here’s the video. Listen to every word. Carefully:

1/

This is master class stuff by LaRose. He’s so comfortable & casual lying about something over such a long period of time. So publicly. So provably false.

It’s disturbing.

But it’s also important to call out dishonesty. This thread will point out every lie. W receipts.

2/

Re drop boxes, LaRose starts by saying “this is something where the legislature has to weigh in on this”

🚨 Bald-faced lie

We took him to court over this lie; every court ruled that this assertion is false. That he has the power to add drop boxes in multiple locations.

3/

More specifically, LaRose banned off-site drop boxes claiming the legislature needed to expand them. We knew it was false & sued. Then he literally argued against having the power to add boxes at the courts (bizarre, I know), lost, then appealed—but not a single judge agreed

4/

Now he’s saying it again despite those clear rulings against his position.

Ie. He’s still lying.

5/

amp.cincinnati.com/amp/3741652001

But then he digs deeper: “there really wasn’t a legal framework underpinning them being there.” Watch:

🚨 🚨 Totally false. Courts found that there was all the legal authority needed in current law to expand drop boxes. That’s why new legislation wasn’t needed.

6/

LaRose then suggests that his off-site drop box policy emanated from his “reading” of O.R.C. 3509. He cited this same language in court to argue that he couldn’t expand drop boxes off-site

Again, every court & every judge REJECTED the reading of the language he repeats here

7/

So after all these rulings allowing him to expand drop boxes, it was LaRose—NOT the legislature—that STILL banned expanding drop boxes.

It was HIS decision, after the courts made clear he was wrong. The legislature had nothing to do w it.

He’s still lying now. But…

8/

..he doesn’t stop there.

LaRose tries to rewrite history by saying it was the TIMING around the drop box discussion that didn’t allow him to act

He suggests that he couldn’t expand drop boxes because it was “just weeks before the election” and would’ve invited “litigation”

9/

🚨 First lie. He actually asked for litigation.

As the debate began, LaRose texted to people that he was shocked Dems hadn’t “filed a lawsuit which could actually establish once and for all if we had authority to expand ballot drop boxes beyond just at the board office.”

10/

How do we know that? Those texts became public later (see link). But I also heard about them at the time.

So at the time, he said he WANTED litigation. And guess what, we did exactly that—sued to clarify the law.

11/

talkingpointsmemo.com/news/why-has-o…

How did LaRose respond?

Despite his text messages, he too litigated—taking Trump’s and the RNC’s side against our effort to sue. Trying to get it dismissed

Then he took the position AGAINST his own office’s power, lost, then appealed every loss

12/

news.wosu.org/news/2020-09-1…

Back to the tape: he complains more about the timing: “making last minute changes like this is really detrimental to election administration”— It’s “one of the things we have avoided in Ohio that has led to chaos in other states”

13/

🚨 It actually didn’t lead to chaos in other states. That’s what proponents of the Big Lie want you to think!

Drop boxes were added elsewhere around the same time and were perfectly fine. Trump didn’t like them because Biden voters chose to vote that way in big numbers.

14/

This reminds me of LaRose’s re-election video, where he says: “while other states struggled, Ohio got it right”. As he says the words, there’s an image of Michigan on the screen.

But every audit found that Michigan also got it right.

This is Big Lie propaganda

15/

But back to the tape.

LaRose says more: we aren’t looking to make changes “as late as September or October” as to how you return absentee ballot

And: It’s “not something you figure out a few days before early voting begins”

16/

🚨🚨 This entire discussion on timing is a lie.

Advocates called for more drop boxes mid-summer. Some raised the issue in a July 15 letter. Officials were exploring adding them, and the media was discussing Larose’s need to act

17/

wvxu.org/politics/2020-…

But LaRose sat on the issue for weeks, oddly asking the AG to look into it on July 20. A slow walk.

At the same time, he prohibited counties from moving forward. So in July, he both delayed the process and stopped counties in their tracks.

18/

Weeks more passed, nobody able to do anything. Finally, WITHOUT getting a ruling by the AG (something the AG told the public), LaRose issued his drop box ban on his flawed legal theory for which he never received a legal opinion.

August 12: amp.dispatch.com/amp/113137326

So he froze boards of elections from moving forward in July, then banned them from doing so in August.

And even though he’d said a suit would clarify things “once and for all,” after we sued, he fought the suit and dragged that litigation out.

HE dragged it into September

20/

But here’s how bad LaRose’s lie about timing is. It was NEVER about timing at all.

Shortly after the drop box issue arose in July, his office did actually look into it….they reached out to a notorious GOP vote suppressor to get guidance

21/

propublica.org/article/before…

After that communication he began his stall tactics, froze progress at the county level, and joined forces with Trump and the Republican Party to stop adding drop boxes at all levels.

He did what he was told.

22/

How shameless is LaRose’s lie that late timing is why he couldn’t add drop boxes?

AFTER the election, when there WAS all the time in the world to add drop boxes going into ‘21 and ‘22, he unilaterally ordered AGAIN that they NOT be expanded.

23/

google.com/amp/s/www.clev…

That’s right: the ban for the ‘20 election had expired, so he unilaterally re-upped it w a NEW ban for ‘21

Do you see what I mean by next-level dishonesty? I mean, this is pathological.

And scary coming from the guy who runs Ohio’s elections.

END, for now