New Michigan GOP Chair Pete Hoekstra Is Taking Legal Action to Regain Party Social Media Access

AP Photo/Jim Rassol

Let me paraphrase a line from a movie that I think fits the current situation of the Michigan GOP.

Just when you thought she was gone, she pulled herself back in.

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Of course, the original line was spoken in The Godfather III by the character Michael Corleone about trying to get out of the mob. 

This loosely applies to former Michigan GOP chair Kristina Karamo, who still, a month after being removed from her leadership position that was run through a court and verified, has not released access to the Michigan GOP website and social media accounts. 

To recap what's happening, last month I happened to be browsing the World Wide Web and went to the site formerly named Twitter but now called X and observed that the Michigan GOP site was "missing" and I wrote an article wondering why. 

Where Did the Michigan GOP Twitter-X Site Go?

From that article...

This of course follows the legal battle that removed Karamo from calling herself the chair of the Michigan GOP on the last day of February a little over a week ago. That story was hit right here, and it stripped her of the ability to present herself as the legal chair of the Mi-GOP and use its tools. 

  • The ousted former leader of the Michigan Republican Party lost a key court ruling Thursday in her effort to regain the top post.

    The Michigan Court of Appeals said it won't suspend a lower court's order affirming Kristina Karamo's removal by party members.

    Karamo was hoping that a stay would clear the way for her to lead a meeting Saturday in Detroit to select presidential delegates for the party's national convention.

    Former U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, with backing from the national party and former President Donald Trump, is recognized as the new chair of the state Republican Party. He is scheduled to lead a similar meeting across the state in Grand Rapids.

    Karamo has refused to concede that party members properly voted her out of office. But a Kent County judge on Tuesday said the Jan. 6 vote was valid and any actions by her since that date were "void and have no effect."

That would include tools like X or the party's bank accounts.

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As I mentioned in the article above, I had reached out to some people in the know and they told me that this would be corrected "soon" and to check back. That was back in the middle of March, and it seems that new Michigan GOP chair Pete Hoekstra has now had enough.

Pete Hoekstra, the chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, says his team plans to take legal steps to determine who's currently controlling the party's longtime website and Twitter account.

In an interview Friday, Hoekstra, a former congressman, said he's authorized state GOP staff to seek subpoenas in order to take depositions as part of an effort to uncover what's happening with the website and social media account. Hoekstra said his team, which hasn't been able to take over the website and account, will "use the law to the maximum extent."

"It is clear that these people are being malicious in their actions," Hoekstra said.

Possibly Karamo forgot what had happened to her previously being she seemed a bit scattered.

Michigan Republican Party state committee members voted to oust the party's former chairwoman, Kristina Karamo, on Jan. 6. Then, on Jan. 20, they chose Hoekstra to replace her.

Karamo, a former secretary of state nominee, refused to recognize the votes until a judge ruled on Feb. 27 that she had been removed in accordance with party bylaws. The Kent County judge's order specifically barred Karamo or anyone acting on her behalf from "engaging in any communication, including on social media, that purports to be issued on behalf of the Michigan Republican State Committee or the Michigan Republican Party."

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Karamo playing games like this is another reason I believe she is against Donald Trump being competitive in this state. She and her compadres can claim until they are blue in the face that this is on principle, but the reality is that the longer you screw with the Michigan GOP resources not being used to lay the groundwork for a November victory, the greater the chance that it won't happen.  

As my colleague Nick Arama wrote about Michigan being in play New Poll Has Very Bad News for Biden When It Comes to Battleground States and Approval Compared to Trump:

I touched on a new Wall Street Journal poll in my story about Jill Biden snapping at a CBS reporter over how badly Biden is doing in the battleground states. 

But the bottom line is she can't spin or argue away the facts, even though she just spread some absolute malarkey about how Biden was "even or better" in the battleground states. Indeed as the new poll shows, former President Donald Trump is leading in six of the seven states.

Donald Trump is leading President Biden in six of the seven most competitive states in the 2024 election, propelled by broad voter dissatisfaction with the national economy and deep doubts about Biden’s capabilities and job performance, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds.
 
The poll of the election’s main battlegrounds shows Trump holding leads of between 2 and 8 percentage points in six states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina—on a test ballot that includes third-party and independent candidates. Trump holds similar leads when voters are asked to choose only between him and Biden.

The one outlier is Wisconsin, where Biden leads by 3 points on the multiple-candidate ballot, and where the two candidates are tied in a head-to-head matchup.
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Michigan is in play.

The longer Karamo and her crew continue to play these reindeer games just furthers the belief in my mind the reasons why she was removed as chairman and a clear reason why she should have never been elected in the first place.

I'm glad Pete Hoekstra is finally moved to do this legal action and the sooner this gets taken care of, the GOP can steps to finally be competitive in this state for the general election in November of 2024.

God willing.

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