Georgia Republican Party Apparently Maintaining and Spreading an 'Enemies List"

Chairman McKoon and Inner Circle Must Resign

Apparently, within a short time after the Republican State Committee voted to remove Brian Pritchard from his elected office as party first vice-chairman, a possible Republican “enemies list” comprised of those voting NO on the question of removal, was compiled and sent out to others in at least one ancillary Republican organization, the Atlanta Young Republicans (AYR).

The first question anyone should be asking is how such a thing could happen? After all, each individual attending the trial of Brian Pritchard is compelled to secrecy by the rules of the meeting held in “executive session.” They are allowed to NEVER DISCLOSE the accounts of that meeting, not even during a deathbed confession. That is what “executive session” means.

So, who violated the sanctity of the trial of Brian Pritchard held in executive session?

Apparently, the chain of lost custody began, as I would naturally expect, with party stagehand and data gatherer, Brant Frost, the party operative Chairman McKoon apparently entrusted to compile and secure the vote totals. Frost, it seems, is the party’s “keeper of the clickers,” those handheld transmitters the party uses to quickly register votes during meetings or conventions. Frost, as reported, handed out the programmed clickers, each clicker associated with the name of a State Committee person to vote. When the vote occurred, the clickers transmitted their data, including which names voted FOR or AGAINST Pritchard, to Frost’s laptop.

Later that afternoon, surprise! A screenshot of a list of names, sorted to display only those voting “NO” on the question of removing Brian Pritchard from office, ended up an image transmitted apparently from the “laptop” to the cell phone of Executive Director, Travis Bowden. From there, Bowden, the evidence suggests, sent those screenshots to an individual purportedly serving as “Treasurer and Financial Wizard” of the Atlanta Young Republicans, as indicated on an AYR Instagram chat screenshot.

Subsequently, the “Financial Wizard,” apparently, shared the same screenshots on the AYR Instagram chat page. Ooops…he was not supposed to do that…uh…or was he? Once he (apparently) shared the names, local AYR President Winslow took note of the “list of shame” and asked a few pertinent questions. At some point, leaker Bowden showed up on the chat, engaging Mr. Wizard, calming his nerves for publicizing information none of those people should have had access to, saying, “No worries. Glad you did it. The State Committee voted to publicize our votes.” The Wizard responded that he knew it was okay to share because he “cleared it with a few people before sharing,” adding, “I’m not a rule breaker.”

You can laugh now.

Bowden then finished the conversation letting his fellow leaker know that they planned on posting the “recording of the arguments for and against Pritchard” over the weekend, a plan which we now know has been postponed.

So, here we have it directly from the fingertips of the Georgia Republican Party Executive Director, that prior to any public remarks by Brian Pritchard or those who support him, there was a plan in place to release “the recording of the arguments for and against Pritchard…over the weekend.”

Thus, as of this moment, the evidence suggests that ever since party executive director Bowden, a former AYR member himself, leaked what is apparently the official Republican Party’s ENEMIES LIST to the financial wizard, and got doxed himself for doing so, party Chair McKoon has found himself in a predicament. McKoon is the one who set all this into motion, calling the FIRST TRIAL AND REMOVAL OF AN ELECTED PARTY OFFICER IN THE HISTORY OF THE GEORGIA REPUBLICAN PARTY, which, according to Robert’s Rules, must have been conducted under strictest executive session protocols, only to discover afterward his two freckle-faced, former young Republicans, Frost and Bowden, couldn’t stand their excitement holding possession of such a “list of shame” without gleefully leaking it to other young Republican gigglers, who then shared it again. Apparently, that cat was out of the bag, possibly before McKoon’s reported limo dropped him off at his home, too late, of course, to go back to work at his job with the state, the chairman’s next task apparently becoming to cover all this up and make it look like it’s not his, or their faults. So, what does McKoon do? Of course, he logs on to Twitter and blames the need to publicize the accounts of the entire trial on the defendant, Brian Pritchard, and his supporters, none of whom had anything to do with the aforementioned:

McKoon writes that it was the First Vice-Chairman Pritchard who requested executive session, a claim that is not true at all. The requirement for executive session for a disciplinary hearing is written in Robert’s Rules (63.33). Pritchard didn’t write that. McKoon wrote the invocation of executive session would occur as a result of the State Committee passing a draft resolution McKoon himself prepared and sent out seven days prior to the trial. Pritchard had no role in writing a resolution for his own removal. Lastly, Josh McKoon never even spoke to Brian Pritchard after the much publicized “Zoom call” with State Executive Committee members over a month prior to the trial. That was the call in which McKoon, with no direction from his Executive Committee, asked for Pritchard’s resignation. So, the First Vice Chairman is not the one who requested executive session. A trial of this sort cannot happen unless it is under executive session.

All of what I describe notwithstanding, McKoon confirms in his Tweet, “the proceedings…are supposed to be confidential.” So, what does McKoon decide to do then? Well, he ought to fire Travis Bowden and hold a trial for Brant Frost for allegedly violating the sanctity of an executive session. But instead, Josh McKoon announces he’s going to double down on the leaks and ask the State Committee, which meets again this Thursday, to vote to release ALL the records, including audio, video and a full court reporter transcript to the public!

McKoon blames “inaccurate information” for the necessity to now make all the trial records public. Thus, according to Josh McKoon, this is all Brian Pritchard’s fault, and the fault of those “spreading inaccurate information” on Pritchard’s behalf. And since it’s Pritchard’s fault in the first place, Robert’s Rules somehow no longer apply, and the question whether Frost and Bowden broke the sanctity of the executive session has become a moot point.

And people wonder why I called the proceedings under consideration a “kangaroo court.”

Georgia Republican Party Now Maintaining an Enemies List?

Once again, according to Mr. “Financial Wizard,” the list of committee members voting NO comprises a “list of shame,” and anyone who voted NO on the question of Brian Pritchard, “should be shamed for their vote.” Question: Does one shame one’s friends? No, one only shames one’s enemies. The mere fact that party operatives would have sorted the final vote totals, separating YES votes from NO votes, reveals that they had purpose in doing so. What would be the purpose of sorting those names except for party leadership to identify at a glance, and promulgate a list of who is “with” them, and who is “against’ them? We all know the answer to that question.

Apparently, it wasn’t just Brian Pritchard on trial last Friday. The evidence I see indicates there was method in the madness discovered by Brian Pritchard when he and his attorney walked into the courtroom. That is when, unbeknownst to anything Pritchard had been led to believe, he discovered that cameras had been set up to capture video and audio, and even a court reporter had been hired to create a transcript and permanent record of the proceedings. If what the party executive director says in the AYR chat is true, it appears there had always been plan to make all that public.

So, let me ask you this, if the trial of Brian Pritchard was, as in Chairman McKoon’s words, “supposed to be confidential,” what would be the purpose of collecting such a high level of documentation, noting that none of the accounts of the secret trial of Brian Pritchard could ever be released? Furthermore, why was this not a secret ballot as the clickers were used during last June’s convention? The only actionable information that could result from collecting such detailed accounts of the trial, including the identities of the yeas and nays, would be that which might be used in the future by those in control of that information. That would be a very small group comprising McKoon and his inner circle. That purpose would not simply be to provide entertainment over a bowl of popcorn.

It is unavoidable to consider the possibility that the purpose of recording such detailed accounts of the proceedings, including the private deliberations of the committee members, was also to capture the sentiments of those offering comments during the one-hour closed session following the trial. Why would the Republican Party leadership divulge such a list of names to ancillary Republican organizations such as the AYR, unless they wanted those whose names are on the list to be known to that particular group, some of whom are obviously highly-charged and unrestrained partisans?

This doesn’t look good, a political party maintaining a potential enemies list like this. If history be our teacher, repressive regimes are those who gather and maintain enemies lists. A political party gathering and maintaining names of political enemies is dangerous for a free society. We all know that and understand where it goes.

Expect the Republican regime to act as if what I postulate here is nonsense. But, why would Josh McKoon make up a story that Brian Pritchard is the one responsible for the secret trial? Why would he blame Pritchard and Pritchard sympathizers for the alleged necessity to release the detailed accounts of the secret trial when they had nothing to do with any of those decisions? I believe there is something not right in all of this. Josh McKoon and everyone in his inner circle should resign and find themselves excommunicated from the Republican Party, just like they did to Brian Pritchard. Turnabout is fair play.