|
A report out in the Huffington Post today reveals that Alek Skarlatos (OR-04), Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR-05), and Mike Erickson (OR-06) have each inflamed conspiracy theories that undermine confidence in our democracy – theories they are now attempting to conceal from Oregon voters.
Specifically, the report finds that:
-
Alek Skarlatos (OR-04) has up until now “refused to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election” and that he continues to like tweets that “suggest the 2020 election was stolen” and that the January 6 insurrection was “staged;”
-
Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR-05) “has spent months casting doubts on Biden’s 2020 win and on the events of Jan. 6,” going so far as to “sympathize with the Jan. 6 insurrectionists and [blame] the press for playing a role in the attack that day;”
-
And Mike Erickson (OR-06) has recently “scrubbed” all mentions of “election fraud” from his website and even “threatened to file a lawsuit to overturn the results of his election if his Democratic opponent wins” – something that, despite public record to the contrary, he insists he “never said.”
DCCC Spokesperson Teddy Lake:
“Alek Skarlatos, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Mike Erickson have no qualms about fanning dangerous conspiracies and undermining public confidence in our elections when it suits them. They pose a clear and present danger not just to Oregon, but to our democracy.”
Read more below:
Huffington Post: Oregon Is About To Vote On Whether To Send GOP Election Deniers To Congress
By Jennifer Bendery | November 2, 2022
-
With days to go before the midterm elections, a funny thing is happening with GOP congressional candidates in Oregon: They’re pretending they’re moderate, reasonable people after months of fueling election conspiracies in plain sight.
-
He had “no comment” in May 2021 when asked who he believed won the election. He was asked again last month to “state without equivocation who won the 2020 presidential election.” He wouldn’t. Instead, he said only that Biden is the president, without addressing the validity of the election ― a common dog whistle among Republicans who don’t want to anger former President Donald Trump’s base of supporters by saying Biden fairly beat him.
-
Skarlatos, who is running against Democrat Val Hoyle for an open seat, has also downplayed the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol. He said in May 2021 that many of the people involved in the insurrection ― an attack that resulted in at least seven people dead, more than 140 police officers injured and $1.5 million of damage to the building ― simply walked into the Capitol and didn’t know they were forcing their way in, and shouldn’t be charged with trespassing.
-
Among the tweets Skarlatos has liked in recent months: an August tweet that states “The FBI rigged the 2020 election,” a July tweet fueling a conspiracy theory that a federal informant staged the Jan. 6 insurrection, another July tweet fueling that same conspiracy theory, and a June tweet mocking whistleblowers as “con artists” and “professional liars” who credibly testified about Trump’s abuse of power against Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and about Trump’s efforts to instigate the Jan. 6 insurrection.
-
“Let me be clear: Joe Biden won the 2020 election,” Skarlatos said in a statement. “And like Barack Obama, if he offered me a meeting in the Oval Office, I would accept that invitation to discuss solutions to help our country.”
-
Skarlatos’ mention of Obama is intentional: He’s featured the former Democratic president in his ads to suggest he is moderate. Skarlatos, a former Army National Guardsman, met Obama in 2015, after he and two friends stopped a terrorist on a Paris-bound train. At the time, Obama said the three “represent the very best of America.”
-
In a Q&A published last week with Oregon Public Broadcasting, Chavez-DeRemer was asked directly if she believes there was widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. She wouldn’t answer. Instead, like Skarlatos, she said only that Biden is the president.
-
“I think that there’s some question to what people felt,” Chavez-DeRemer said, despite there being zero evidence of widespread voter fraud. “People were, at least voters I talked to, they felt like it was unusual.”
-
“When you feel like your vote no longer matters and you’re being disenfranchised as an American, and we have a protected right for people [sic] peaceful protesting, we should have been allowed to do so,” she said of the rioters behind the attempted coup, during an April candidate debate. “So I think the media had something to do with all of that.”
-
What is “even more shocking” than an attempted coup, she added, is that some of the rioters may have been held in jail without due process. (All of the Jan. 6 defendants were arraigned and had bail hearings, so it’s not clear what violations she’s referring to).
-
Despite all of these claims being made in public and a matter of record, Chavez-DeRemer has more recently been denying that she ever cast doubts about the 2020 election or the Jan. 6 attack. In a combative debate last month hosted by KZTV, McLeod-Skinner appeared to catch her in a lie about it.
-
Erickson, an enthusiastic Trump supporter, prominently featured language about election fraud on his website ― until he won his primary in mid-May, at which point he scrubbed all of it.
-
His website used to have a section on election fraud, too. In mid-May, it read, “Ensuring that our elections are free, fair, and not tainted by fraud is essential to our democracy.” He vowed to sponsor legislation to ban ballot harvesting, which is when someone collects and submits absentee or mail-voter ballots for other people, and to require election audits. But as recently as late last month, that section was removed and replaced with a new section about climate change. Here’s an archived link to this page on his website on Oct. 23 versus Wednesday.
-
Erickson sent a cease-and-desist letter to his Democratic opponent, Andrea Salinas, relating to an ad by Salinas’ campaign about Erickson’s 2016 guilty plea for driving under the influence. In the letter, obtained by Oregon Capital Chronicle, Erickson threatens legal action if Salinas wins, leaning on a state law that allows for elections to be overturned if a judge finds that the winner made a false statement that changed the election’s outcome.
-
“Your false ad could have dire consequences for you if you win this election because of how close the race is,” Erickson’s attorney wrote. Pointing out how tight their race is, the letter continues, ”This increases the likelihood that you would be deprived of a successful election if it can be shown that the false ad influenced voters to not vote for Mr. Erickson.”
|
