MAGA lawmaker who abused office to silence Charlie Kirk critics let off the hook

Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA founder, puts on a MAGA hat during the AmericaFest 2024 conference sponsored by conservative group Turning Point in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. December 19, 2024. REUTERS/Cheney Orr/File Photo

A Republican politician was given a slap on the wrist for abusing her office to silence a critic of Charlie Kirk.

"[Alaska state] Rep. Sarah Vance — one of the state’s leading Christian Nationalist lawmakers — likely violated state ethics laws when she used her legislative office to threaten the Homer News over its coverage of a memorial she helped organize for Charlie Kirk," wrote The Alaska Current's Matt Acuña Buxton on Wednesday. "Her letter to Carpenter Media, sent on Alaska State Legislature letterhead, sparked a firestorm in local media last fall, with reporters and editors resigning after ownership gave in to Vance’s threat that 'the consequence will be financial as well as reputational' if they didn’t soften the story."

“Vance — who made headlines for, among other things, complaining that a hearing on Missing Murdered Indigenous Women didn’t include the experiences of white women — wrote the letter to corporate ownership, complaining about the Homer News and its local born-and-raised reporter for describing Kirk as espousing ‘often racist and controversial views,’” wrote Buxton on Wednesday.

Despite Vance using her Alaska State Legislature Letterhead to suppress the story, the House Select Committee on Legislative Ethics decided Vance should simply be warned not to do it again.

Vance has consistently complained that attempts to hold her accountable violate her First Amendment rights. Ironically, her letter seemed to have violated the reporter’s rights, as “the story not-so-mysteriously disappeared in the following days, replaced by a rewritten version that sanded off the uncomfortable edges of Kirk’s legacy, without the input or even notification of the local reporters and editors.”

Buxton added, “Dramatically changing a story without a reporter’s and an editor’s input is taboo on its own, let alone the fact that it was corporate ownership bowing to political pressure, and the resulting exodus continues to reverberate across Alaska’s media landscape.” He pointed out that the article did not mention Kirk’s promulgation of COVID-19 conspiracy theories, the racist great replacement theory and climate change misinformation.

“According to the ethics report, Vance didn’t meaningfully participate in the investigation, other than requesting that the complaint be dismissed,” Buxton wrote. “Still, just by looking at the letter, the ethics panel could see that, yes, the letterhead was used, and the committee determined that the contents of the letter fell into the realm of partisan political activity.”

Vance claims that she is the victim.

“The irony is not lost on me,” Vance said in a statement. “The committee contends that calling out partisan bias somehow constitutes partisan political activity. Nor is it lost on my constituents that Charlie Kirk paid the ultimate price for exercising his constitutional right to peaceful free speech, losing his life in an act of political violence. Now, in defending his memory and speaking openly about issues that matter to my community, I find my own speech being scrutinized through a process that many view as an attempt to silence dissent.”

Buxton observed that “Vance’s threats were just one example in a larger conservative cancel culture war over what they felt was unfair treatment of Kirk in the wake of his assassination. People lost their jobs, including a teacher-of-the-year finalist (costing the district $300,000), a university professor in Tennessee (costing the system $1.7 million) and a Florida biologist (ending in a $485,000 settlement). Merely quoting President Trump, for example, was enough to put an ex-cop behind bars for 37 days (netting him a $835,000 settlement).”

Even though prominent Democrats from former President Joe Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) immediately denounced Kirk’s shooting, Republicans like President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Fox News commentator Jesse Watters blamed Democrats for the assassination and claimed they rejoiced in his death. This led to a wave of cancellations against individuals who said anything negative about Kirk in the aftermath of his death, and in turn organizations being required to compensate individuals whose rights were violated in the process.

For example, the Republican Oglethorpe County, GA paid $270,420 to high school English teacher Michelle Mickens and $17,080 to her attorney for accurately posting that Kirk had been a gun enthusiast after he was shot to death. It was determined that the district had violated her First Amendment rights.

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