Hasan Harnett, once the face for the Republican party in North Carolina, is no longer GOP Chairman for the state. An intraparty feud has been brewing for months and in a lopsided vote on on Saturday night, the North Carolina Republican Party voted him out.
Harnett, the party’s first black chairman, was a Tea Party favorite. Their support helped usher him into the position last summer over better known candidates. He says that has made him a target.
A small group of leaders within the organization, the Central committee formally censured Harnett in March, leading him to lash out in a leaked email to executive director, Dallas Woodhouse:
“I mean seriously, is this some form of ritual or hazing you would put the first black chairman of the NCGOP State Party through?” Harnett wrote to Woodhouse, using a private email account. “Or is it because I am not white enough for you? You keep pushing the limits. I guess time will only tell what your real plot and schemes are all about against me.”
The official reason given for the censure was “gross violations of the Party’s rules.” He is specifically accused of trying to lower the price of attending the convention in order to accommodate more activists. The Central committee denied his request for the lower price and they allege he then tried to usurp the party website with a website he created with the lower price.
Harnett took to Facebook to address the charges because as part of the censure, he was barred from headquarters and his email privileges for the organization were revoked.
“Recent accusations of me hacking into the NC GOP website are false and ridiculous,” he wrote. “These types of ‘witch hunts’ will not only devastate our Republican Candidates’ chances of winning in November but will utterly annihilate the Republican Party we all work so hard to build in North Carolina.”
The Richmond County Daily Journal reported that a small group of Harnett supporters stood outside of the meeting holding protest signs, including one that read: “NC GOP Elites GO HOME!”
In the end, more than two-thirds of the 300 members in attendance voted for his removal. He has been replaced with former U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes.
Featured image, Facebook
