The establishment and their backers are fighting against efforts to put conservatives in positions of leadership in St. Johns County, Florida, Republican county chairman Denver Cook said during an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday, walking through some examples and warning what is at stake for voters.
It is not clear who is behind the efforts to undermine the county’s endorsed candidates, but an investigation is underway.
Cook walked through the battle in St. Johns County in the upcoming election and explained why the St. Johns County GOP took an unusual step in endorsing conservative candidates.
“We put forward the opportunity for people to do endorsements,” he said, describing the officially endorsed candidates as “America first, MAGA grassroots candidates.”
“They’re not funded. They’re looking to try to restore responsiveness, accountability, and transparency in government, not at the federal level, but at the state and the local level, and all of those are very important. And here we are — one of the fastest growing counties in Florida and maybe the United States; the developers are building thousands and thousands and thousands of homes a year,” he said, explaining that there is a “lot of money at stake for them, and they have been … granted more authority over our county elected officials and the citizens, and the citizens are not being heard.”
“The development,” he said, “is moving at a pace which is unsustainable for both our county government and our school districts, and has created significant challenges in our infrastructure, our debt.”
But the establishment is not taking the St. Johns County GOP’s support of America First candidates sitting down, allegedly creating their own flier making it look as if it were from the St. Johns County GOP, endorsing establishment candidates in this fake guide.
“It is a really big deal that a county party endorsed so many people. … It’s not normal, but it was vital at this time,” he said, detailing when he found out someone received a knock-off mailer with fraudulent information.
“Every single one of our candidates have been removed and replaced by the establishment, well-funded candidates, including races in which we didn’t even consider doing endorsements,” he said, describing the flier as “a clear fraud that’s been perpetrated on the voters.”
He said there is an active investigation underway, as this is “a serious criminal fraud.”
“We don’t yet know exactly who paid for it, but we have about 34,000 super voters here in St. Johns County, over 122,000 voters, and if a candidate wants to send a mailer, a typical political mailer can run between $25,000 and $35,000,” he said. “This mailer was done with a far more expensive palm card than a normal mailer, including the cost of envelopes, stamps, and, you know, searching through the voter records to combine households to and mailed across the entire county.”
He estimates that this was a $30,000 to $50,000 operation.
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“And these envelopes were — had no return addresses. There’s no claim of who did it, so it’s clear evidence that it was done purposefully, understanding it was fraudulent,” he said, noting that the mailers were sent not from St. Augustine and St. John’s County, but from Jacksonville and Orlando.
“This is very, very serious election crime on the eve of a primary that’s hotly contested, perpetrated against the county party supporting its voters and its citizens, and [it] appears to directly support the incumbency and those people who are spending millions of dollars to promote their candidacy and have funding from political action committees and developers and have unlimited deep pockets,” he said, essentially pointing to the establishment.
While he said he cannot talk much about the investigation, Cook said evidence has been brought to crime labs, and there are some active leads at this time.
When asked why these well-funded establishment types act this way, Cook explained that it all comes down to control, financial benefit, and political power.
“So that they can decide who is making the decisions and who benefits from those decisions — not so that we have a representative government serving the interests of the citizens. That’s my belief,” he said. “That’s my stance.”
Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.