MS Tea Party President Found In Locked Courthouse With Ballots (VIDEO)

 

Image Credit: Jackson Free Press
Image Credit: Jackson Free Press

 


 
Early on the morning of Wednesday June 4th Central Mississippi Tea Party President Janis Lane along with Scott Brewster, and Rob Chambers?were found locked in the Hinds County Courthouse. Tuesday was primary election night in the highly contested race against Tea Party backed candidate Chris McDaniel and long time Senator Thad Cochran which ended in a run off . So the question on my peoples minds is what was she and her merry band doing in the building alone at two in the morning?

Obviously accidents can happen in the rush of election ballot counting maybe someone could get locked in the building. However, everyone who was counting ballots had left at around 11:30 pm. www.wapt.com reported that?security told Hinds County Election Commissioner Connie Cochran? three people went to the courthouse around 12:30 a.m. allegedly to observe the election process. They then walked around the building until they found an unlocked door which was propped open then automatically locked behind them. The trio claimed they walked around the courthouse for about 90 minutes looking for a way to get out and then called Hinds County Republican Executive Chairman Pete Perry, according to?Cochran.

Perry received the call around 2 am saying Lane and a friend were locked in the building?.

?”She said she needed my help,” said Perry. She was locked inside the courthouse and couldn’t get out; that she and a friend were in here and I think she said they had been out of town and were coming home and came by to see what was going on with the election.”

According to Perry, Lane was a precinct worker and had dropped off her materials around 8:30. Perry also stated that Lane had called him earlier in the night to ask about election results.

Lane has said she came back by to watch the election process. The Hinds Country Sheriffs Department is investigating the incident as a possible break in. Othor Cain spokesperson for the Sheriffs department stated:

“There are conflicting stories from the three of them, which began to raise the red flag, and we’re trying to get to the bottom of it. No official charges have been filed at this point, but we don’t know where the investigation will lead us.”

The Central Mississippi Tea Party endorsed Chris McDaniel who they have been billing as the next Ted Cruz. ?One of it’s board members has been charged with conspiracy in connection to the break in at Rose Cochran’s nursing home by a blogger attempting to get photos and video for a hit piece on Thad Cochran. ?According to the Clarion-Ledger?one of the three people found in the courthouse?Scott Brewster, the ?former coordinator of Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s Mississippi operation and current McDaniel campaign coalition director, is loosely connected to blogger scandal. When the scandal first broke Brewster said he was aware of the video. ?At the time Brewster stated

“I do remember when it came out,” he said. “I think people made some calls (to have it removed). I didn’t personally — nobody personally talked (to Kelly). I don’t know if anybody made phone calls about it. I’m not sure. Just, I remember all of a sudden it was gone.”

(Don’t worry, I’m confused by that statement too.) Yet after Brewster’s comment, McDaniel and other campaign leaders stated they knew nothing about Kelly or the video.

Cochran campaign spokesman Jordan Russell stated:

“It is astonishing that the same people who are up to their eyeballs in four felons breaking into a nursing home are also up to their eyeballs in potentially breaking in somewhere else again.”

“At some point you got to say enough is enough. How many more arrests of allies and McDaniel team members before we can say this has gone too far?”


 
Election officials and the Sheriffs department have stated that all election materials were secured and in no danger of being breached. Still there remains concerns about how anyone could access the courthouse after hours that easily.Perry said:

“I don’t care who it is, I have a concern with someone being in the courthouse with all the election material down there.”

The McDaniel campaign issued this statement:

“Last night with an extremely close election and Hinds being one of the last counties to report, our campaign sent people to the Hinds courthouse to obtain the outstanding numbers and observe the count.”

“In doing so, they entered the courthouse through an open door after being directed by uniformed personnel. They were then locked inside the building. At this point they sat down and called the county Republican chairman, a close Cochran ally, to help them get out. Eventually a Sheriff’s officer showed up and opened the door to let them out.”

Just when I thought this race couldn’t get any weirder or dirtier it did. If I wrote fiction I couldn’t come up with this stuff. I know I have questions about the stories that the three who were locked in gave. Did the lack of cars at the courthouse when they arrived maybe tip them off that everyone was gone? How about that that the Hinds County ballot results had already been announced on local media? Almost all media outlets were saying nothing else was going to be reported until the next morning by midnight if she was monitoring elections why wouldn’t she know counting had stopped? I could go on and on. Then again maybe Ms. Lane just wanted to go snatch the lady ballots from the box since she doesn’t believe women shouldn’t be allowed to vote.

By far this has the makings of the worse planned break in since Watergate. ?I guess we should be grateful that they are not good alleged criminals. Stay tuned folks!

 

Edited/Published by: SB

Laurie Bertram Roberts is the president of Mississippi National Organization for Women, a feminist activist, full spectrum doula and writer in Jackson, MS. Her family suspected she was trouble when at age 8 she preferred reading weekly news magazines over girly magazines. Her early fascination with liberal ideals, women's rights, was not quite welcome in her conservative fundamentalist Christian home. She is incredibly passionate about reproductive justice and fighting all forms of oppression. When not speaking truth to power she is likely hanging out with her children watching sci fi or doing other nerd like things.