Something worth remembering as we wait for the #lecterngate audit report to be released: even the very best-case explanation is still bad for Sarah Sanders.

Let me explain... 🧵
(1/7) The best version for Sanders -- b/c it's the only one not illegal on its face -- is that the $19,029 actually went to Virginia Beckett for the lectern below.

Except, look at that thing. It's not worth $1,900, let alone $19,000. (2/7)

1. False. Private schools absolutely "choose" which students to accept.

2. Letting parents take their kids & state money to a non-public school flies in the face of creating the free, adequate, & efficient system of public education the state constitution requires.

https://twitter.com/ArkansasEd/status/1748412395016319201

3. SHS & her cronies are starting from the assumption that giving each parent a choice on where their kids go to school on the public dime is an aspirational goal. It's not. The goal should always be improving PUBLIC education for all students, regardless of income or ZIP code.

But if you *really* want a head-scratcher this evening, try to make sense of Sarah Sanders' $53,041.71 payment to

/checks notes

a small, mom-&-pop diner in Little Rock for "consulting - political" less than a month after the inauguration.

https://twitter.com/BlueHogReport/status/1722018985800049050

Pictured: The place that Sarah Sanders paid over $50K for consulting. Also, the place where I had a delightful BLT about a month ago.

Remember yesterday when I mentioned that Sarah Sanders' chief legal counsel had gotten Sanders sued because she was too dumb to understand the limits of the working-papers exemption?

Well here's that lawsuit: bluehogreport.com/wp-content/upl… And here are the exhibits referenced in that lawsuit: bluehogreport.com/wp-content/upl…

I, for one, would like to congratulate Sarah Sanders for getting the state of Arkansas sued yet again under the Freedom of Information Act. Maybe a judge can explain to them that the working-papers exemption does not mean that literally everything in their office is exempt.



"But they will claim he's an employee!"

Well that is going to be news to literally everyone, because I just asked TSS for his employee file and got this response:

Oh…I have a new theory on #lecterngate that answers a few questions.

Assume your plan was never to buy an actual lectern, just to give Beckett money.

The second it gets noticed, you arrange for the “reimbursement,” thinking that will end the story. It doesn’t. 1/ You realize you’re going to have to prove the 8/9 “delivery” exists. But you have to do it quickly, because it’s 9/20ish and the story is not going away at all.

Now, recall that you’re both (a) stupid and (b) greedy. That’s important. 2/

Since Sarah Sanders & Alexa Henning keep trying to pretend like #lecterngate is some make-believe issue that only a few malcontents in Arkansas care about, let’s put all of the coverage of the scandal in one thread so they can see how screwed they really are. First time BHR has been mention in the Wall Street Journal (pay wall): wsj.com/us-news/arkans…

The most obvious choice of scapegoat would be her executive assistant Laura Hamilton, who communicated with TSS about the lectern & got her credit card increased to pay for it.

Except...Laura specifically said in writing that "the governor and Judd" approved this purchase. (2/?) It's hard to blame your exec assistant for "accidentally" paying $19K to *your* friends for a lectern that hadn't been delivered when you approved it. Doubly so when the purchase was apparently being forced through specifically so it would be done prior to your Europe trip. (3/?)

Lol. What a clown. I’ve had him blocked for years. He knows it. He even whined about it a couple months ago. I only looked into him today because of his obviously fake jelly story. But he’d rather lie about that so he can keep playing the jellyless victim. Also, again, LOMFL. Being “on the board” doesn’t get someone listed as principal/director of the actual corporate entity with the Sec. of State.

If LEARNS vouchers were *just* about helping poor kids, this might make sense. But there’s no income cap. Financially comfortable families get the same $ for private schools they’re already attending that poor Nicky’s family would have received to weirdly avoid Searcy schools.

https://twitter.com/nhhorton/status/1666949357122330627

Also, “jelly was a delicacy”? It costs less than peanut butter, is available at the same food bank he claims to have gone to, can be made cheaply at home from nearly any fruit, & is frequently given away by Arkansans through the summer

Why is the Arkansas Secretary of Education going to Philadelphia for three days at the end of this month--while much of LEARNS implementation has yet to be figured out--to speak to anti-government extremist group Moms For Liberty? Also...what are the odds that he was planning to use vacation days to do this, rather than he and Sanders claiming that this was somehow approved, on-the-clock action?