AP Reports on Sheriffs Who Swear to Uphold the Constitution

The Associated Press, a State-friendly outlet, reports that a “right-wing sheriff’s” group that will foremost protect the Constitution of the United States is “gaining acceptance around the country.”

Their flag says, “God, Guns, and Guts, Make America Free.” There was also a photo hanging of despots, including Hitler and Stalin, with the words, “Gun Control Works.”

That must have seemed very threatening to the journalists who wrote this story. It shows at the end.

“The sheriff is supposed to be protecting the public from evil,” the chief law enforcement officer for Barry County, Michigan, said during a break in the National Sheriffs’ Association 2023 conference in June. “When your government is evil or out of line, that’s what the sheriff is there for, protecting them from that.”

Leaf is on the advisory board of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, founded in 2011 by former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack.

The group, known as CSPOA, teaches that elected sheriffs must “protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government” by refusing to enforce any law they deem unconstitutional or “unjust,” reports the AP.

“The safest way to actually achieve that is to have local law enforcement understand that they have no obligation to enforce such laws,” Mack said in an interview. “They’re not laws at all anyway. If they’re unjust laws, they are laws of tyranny,” the AP continued.

The AP found a dozen counties following Mack’s guidelines.

The AP quoted one of the left-wing terrorism watchdogs. She was kind but misguided IMHO:

Amy Cooter, research director at the Middlebury Institute Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, said many sheriffs join the group from “a misinformed but well-meaning perspective.” But, she added, it also allows some sheriffs to “potentially engage in extremism by not enforcing legal, lawful, legitimate orders.”

The AP put “constitutional sheriffs” in quotes because they obviously don’t agree. Then they slipped in some subtle racism:

“The public-facing image of the sheriffs group, which is led by white men, prominently features the American flag and the experiences of Black civil rights icons who pushed back against unjust laws.

There was nothing in the article suggesting they’re racist white men, nothing on the wall, nothing. The comment is unwarranted.

Then they made Leaf look like a criminal:

Leaf was investigated, but not charged, in connection with the Michigan attorney general’s investigation into the alleged illegal seizure and breach of vote-counting machines in 2020. He also appeared at an election-denier rally with two men later charged in the conspiracy to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Then they suggested he was a subversive:

Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, described the sheriffs group as “insidious” and said it had become “mainstream standard-bearers for entrance into more violent forms of extremism.”

“Just because it’s not as overt in their subversion of the democratic system, just because it’s quieter about how it does it and what it’s calling for, doesn’t make the ideas any less dangerous,” said Lewis.

Right, it’s really subversive to not enforce laws that are unconstitutional.  Like I said, this is a State-friendly outlet and the Howard School for Journalism the authors hale from is left-wing.

The comments were negative, against the sheriffs as you would expect based on the article. They want to know how the sheriffs dare decide what laws to enforce. They need to ask Uncle Joe about that.

H/T Gary Spina

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