Today I’m going to look at the history of the political Sheriff in order to help Missoula Democrats understand why their “Democrat” law man, Jeremiah Petersen, just stabbed them in the back like a Billings she-boy stabbing a math teacher.
Since these Missoula Democrats are pretty busy doing damage control for the growing scandal of corrupt leadership (and the appearance of bribery), I hope this research helps them figure out how to salvage credibility as their party struggles to redefine itself.
What kind of “strong, practical support” does Jeremiah Petersen think the Republican Congressional candidate, Aaron Flint, might be able to offer him? Is it the kind of support our Republican President, Donald Trump, has offered other Sheriffs, like the one he pardoned with the bribery problem?
If you’re not aware of how Sheriff Scott Jenkins got himself out of legal hot water last year, here’s a British rag for some context (BBC):
US President Donald Trump has issued a pardon to a former Virginia sheriff who was convicted on fraud and bribery charges.
A jury found former Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins guilty of accepting more than $75,000 (£55,000) in bribes last December, in exchange for making several businessmen into law enforcement officers without them being trained.
Jenkins, a long-time supporter of Trump, was sentenced in March to 10 years in prison. He was set to report to jail on Tuesday, but due to Trump’s pardon, he will not spend a single day behind bars.
“Sheriff Scott Jenkins, his wife Patricia, and their family have been dragged through HELL,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social network.
Scott Jenkins is not the only corrupt Sheriff to get saved by a Trump pardon. The more infamous case is the one where Trump pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an example of presidential pardon power that has its own Wikipedia page:
On August 25, 2017, President Donald Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio for criminal contempt of court, a misdemeanor. Arpaio had been convicted of the crime two months earlier for disobeying a federal judge’s order to stop racial profiling in detaining “individuals suspected of being in the U.S. illegally”. The pardon covered Arpaio’s conviction and “any other offenses under Chapter 21 of Title 18, United States Code that might arise, or be charged, in connection with Melendres v. Arpaio.”
With this presidential pardon history in mind, a curious observer of Sheriff Petersen’s political endorsement might be asking themselves what he could angling for. To try and answer that question, let’s consult Jesse Mullen’s op-ed in the Missoula Current to see what we can glean from the implosion of Montana Democrats and the resignation of party chair, Shannon O’Brien.
The newsworthy question absent from O’Brien’s resignation letter is why she presented it as a principled stand against partisan politics while failing to disclose that the party’s executive board was investigating a severance agreement she signed without its approval. Her $5,000-a-month stipend had also been revoked following a separate dispute over her handling of party finances.
That question is supported by a trail of documents, not hearsay or rumor.
According to an internal report circulated among the executive board, including Robyn Driscoll, who signed the recent column, O’Brien and former deputy director Justin Ailport negotiated and drafted a severance agreement after Ailport was passed over for a promotion. The report says neither the executive director nor the board was included in that decision.
Members of the board estimated the severance exceeded $30,000. They claim O’Brien approved it without authorization, notice to the appropriate officials, or discussion with the board, and it went to an employee who voluntarily resigned.
The reporting includes the agreement’s time-stamped audit history, internal discussions with the party’s attorney, an interview with a former party executive director, and confirmation from multiple board members.
While I can’t say conclusively that the “party’s attorney” referenced here is a lawyer by the name of Paul Leisher, I have reason to believe that Leisher is connected to this growing financial scandal, along with interim party chair, Jeremy Ailport, and his boyfriend, Andy Nelson.
While interim director Jeremy Ailport told those Republicans (who Democrat Sheriff Petersen is now directly supporting) that they can’t hide in Washington DC from accountability, I’m wondering what DEMOCRATS might be hiding from that has inspired Jeremiah Petersen to jump ship.
In a new column, Montana Democratic Party Interim Executive Director Justin Ailport slams President Trump and Elon Musk’s push to shut down the Department of Education and highlights the dire consequences that will be felt in Montana.
Ailport criticizes Montana’s congressional delegation’s blind support for Trump and Musk’s reckless slashes, cuts and firings and warns Republican leaders they cannot continue to hide in Washington, DC from frustrated constituents at home in Montana.
One risk of making this move for Sheriff Petersen is angering the gay bathroom judge, Shane Vannatta, who did a TREMENDOUS job helping Sheriff Ryan Funke continue being a retarded Brady cop until the bitter end of his reign in Mineral County when Vannatta judiciously declared Funke’s legal problem to be a total nothingburger.
And who was Ryan Funke’s personal lawyer on that case? That’s right, PAUL LEISHER!
After three years of litigation, a judge has ruled that 10-year-old allegations of inconsistent reports by current Mineral County Sheriff Ryan Funke don’t constitute Brady material and don’t need to be provided to defendants in criminal cases.
The Mineral County Attorney’s Office, representing the Mineral County commissioners, has argued that inconsistencies in Funke’s reports when he served as a deputy in Lake County constituted Brady material, meaning the office would have to provide this material to the defense in cases where Funke’s testimony or reports were used. Judge Shane Vannatta ruled from the bench on Wednesday in favor of Funke and his attorney Paul Leisher, who argued that these inconsistencies were standard minor mistakes.
“I think it’s a nothingburger,” Vannatta said, borrowing the verbiage of Mineral County Attorney-elect Roy Miller, who took the stand during Wednesday’s evidentiary hearing.
While a Proud Patriot might be inclined to demonstrate the strength of the Constitution, and the protections this founding document has enshrined, by typing out obscenities like NIGGER, CUNT, and FAGGOT, I’m neither proud, nor a patriot who assumes language won’t be criminalized, like filing FELONY charges against a young asshole who drunkenly suggested some some Jeets should return to their homeland.
While having a STRONG Constitution would be nice, what we have instead are retarded Sheriffs who started a retarded Sheriff movement by calling themselves “Constitutional Sheriffs”.
Here’s some context to make you sleep better at night, citizens of America:
Self-described constitutional sheriffs assert that they are the supreme legal authority with the power and duty to defy or disregard laws they regard as unconstitutional.
Sheriffs are not mentioned in the United States Constitution. However, the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution explicitly states that the states and the federal government possess sovereignty and that local government is left to the states. As such, sheriffs and all other local government officials are creations of state law. However, rather than the United States Constitution, the ideological basis of the constitutional sheriffs’ movement rests on various incorrect historical and legal claims, relying on a pretense that the historic powers of the high sheriff of an English shire apply in the United States regardless of subsequent legal developments.
What kind of conduct can a Sheriff get away with? How about apparently lying to a state legislator about a citizen journalist’s address information?
So far, from my perspective, yes, it DOES appear that Sheriffs (and other officials) are allowed to lie and commit other crimes, like theft, without fear of consequence. Unless, of course, Keithi Worthington does her job and charges the likely culprit who stole my personal property on June 19th after reviewing the strong evidence of who that culprit is.
While I wait for the “protect and serve” law enforcement services that taxpayers fund with their taxes in modern cities like Missoula, I’m offering YOU, dear reader, even MORE historical context on the modern Sheriff with this link (PDF) to a 41 page paper about the history and political implications of this important office.
Here’s the title, author, and summary of this educational research paper:
And here’s a short excerpt from the conclusion of this paper about the POWER local jurisdictions have to CHANGE the office of the Sheriff if they so choose:
An important finding in this paper is that states and individual counties are able to decide whether or not they wish to continue electing their sheriffs. Despite the longevity and ubiquity of elected sheriffs, cases from New York to Miami to Seattle to Connecticut show that institutions are dynamic: the elected office of sheriff is not permanent or unchangeable. Future research should explore the persistence of the institution over time, as well as the reasons for why sheriffs were never elected in Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and the other territories.
If you appreciate the work I’m doing while being actively targeted by the people and institutions with the power to take away my freedom and my life (like they did to Sean Stevenson and Johnny Lee Perry) I’d say donate, but I’m too financially fucked at this point for digital donations to really help, since my accounts are frozen.
Anyway, I’ll just keep pretending I have the protection of the first amendment and report on what I can until my status of being in pre-trial supervision changes.
Thanks for reading!