Republican Rep. Liz Harris doesn’t
consider that any “direct prison allegations” have been made throughout a
committee assembly she organized whereby a speaker accused the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and a laundry checklist of native and state officers of being concerned in a bootleg cash laundering scheme orchestrated by the Sinaloa drug cartel. 

For about 90 minutes on Thursday, the
state Home of Representatives Ethics Committee questioned Harris about
the Feb. 23 assembly, in an try to find out if she knew upfront
that the speaker deliberate to unfold wild and unfounded allegations. 

The Ethics Committee adjourned
Thursday afternoon to look over the proof and deliberate what motion
it will take, if any, and Committee Chairman Joseph Chaplik,
R-Scottsdale, didn’t point out when the committee would reconvene to
announce its determination.

Home Democrats on March 6, led by
Rep. Stephanie Stahl, requested that the Ethics Committee formally censure
Harris for inviting Gilbert insurance coverage agent Jacqueline Breger to talk
throughout the joint Senate and Home elections committee assembly on Feb.
23. Breger accused the LDS church and different officers, together with Gov.
Katie Hobbs and Republican Home Speaker Ben Toma, of collaborating in a
housing deed and cash laundering scheme alongside the Mexican drug
cartel. 

For greater than 40 minutes on Feb. 23,
Breger made salacious claims in regards to the numerous officers and members of
the legislature, accusing them of election fraud along with cash
laundering. 

To again up her claims, Breger pointed
to a e book by her boyfriend, John Thaler, and a slew of paperwork upon
which he apparently used to tell his e book. 

On Thursday, Harris stated that Stahl
had not reviewed any of the proof of Breger’s claims earlier than she made
an ethics grievance, including that she believes Stahl can not show that
any of the knowledge introduced throughout the assembly was unfaithful. 

The Arizona Mirror reviewed the
“proof” of the rip-off that Breger and Thaler shared and located none of
it to be credible. In lots of circumstances, allegedly “pretend” folks listed on
supposedly phony deeds have been actual, and so-called falsified deeds
attributed to elected officers have been merely filed by folks with comparable
names.

Fringe conservative media retailers
helped Breger and Thaler’s unfounded claims to unfold like wildfire
throughout the nation after the assembly, prompting many Republicans within the
legislature to distance themselves from the testimony, together with Toma and Senate President Warren Peterson. 

Harris instructed the Ethics Committee that
she had no concept that Breger was going to make such outlandish claims,
including that she’d by no means seen the checklist of elected officers supposedly
concerned within the scheme till that day. 

“I used to be shocked after I noticed the names
listed,” Harris stated, including that she was “extraordinarily upset” that Toma
was included within the checklist. 

Harris stated that she instructed Breger
previous to the assembly that Breger might to not impugn the members of the
legislature or convey up claims concerning any spiritual establishments
throughout her testimony. 

Each Breger and Thaler had beforehand
made unfounded claims that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints was concerned within the scandal. 

However screenshots of a textual content message
thread amongst Harris, Breger and an unidentified one that is assumed to
be John Thaler, have been delivered anonymously to legislative management
and submitted as proof within the ethics grievance in opposition to Harris. 

In one of many messages, despatched a couple of
days previous to the Feb. 23 assembly, Harris tells Breger that she should
create a title for her presentation to the committee so Harris can put
it on the agenda for the assembly. 

“We are attempting to consider one thing
that received’t elevate a purple flag,” Breger responded. “Can we be fully
imprecise and say one thing like ‘Presentation by Harris/Thaler legislation
Company.’”

Harris stated that Breger was considerably
of a last-minute addition to the agenda, after a number of different individuals who
had deliberate to talk dropped out. Harris stated she was beneath the
impression that Breger would testify a couple of witness who reportedly noticed a
cache of ballots being stored exterior of a Mesa residence, in addition to
about proof of backdoor portals into the county laptop techniques in
Maricopa, Yavapai, Yuma and Pima counties. 

Harris instructed the committee she didn’t meet Breger till the weekend previous to the committee assembly. 

Breger talked about the alleged backdoor
laptop portal throughout her testimony, saying it was used within the housing
deed rip-off, in addition to to vary election outcomes. However she spent the
majority of her time talking in regards to the housing rip-off. 

Within the texts, Harris stated that every one
digital displays earlier than the elections committees needed to be
submitted to Toma beforehand, and for that motive, she urged
supplying paper handouts as an alternative. Harris defined to the Ethics
Committee that she urged paper handouts due to time constraints,
not as a result of she needed to maintain the content material of the presentation from
Toma. 

Republican Sen. Ken Bennett
ultimately put an finish to Breger’s testimony on Feb. 23, telling her she
couldn’t impugn members of the legislature. 

Later, Harris texted Thaler and
Breger saying, “I left there (the committee assembly) at present with the
thought that I might by no means return.” 

Harris instructed the Ethics Committee she
was scared following the listening to and thought, “I’m about to be
beheaded,” referring to what she feared would occur to her for inviting
testimony alleging a housing fraud scheme involving the Sinaloa drug
cartel. 

“I didn’t need to come again as a result of I knew that I’d be blamed for every part,” Harris defined.

In her formal response to the ethics
grievance, Harris wrote that not solely can the legislature not cease
members of the general public from expressing their grievances with the
authorities, however the structure required her to let Breger testify. 

“If the folks see points that want
strengthening with legal guidelines to dam the hazard of mal-administered
elections and want to freely inform the folks and instruct the
legislature, the one physique empowered to analyze and write
acceptable legal guidelines, they’re free to method their servants within the
legislative physique,” Harris wrote. 

Regardless of Harris’ assertions to the
opposite, the chairs of each the Home and Senate election committees
have vital energy over who testifies throughout committee conferences, for
how lengthy they’ll communicate and what they’re allowed to say. 

Throughout a Home Municipal Oversight
and Elections Committee assembly on March 8, Republican committee chair
Jacqueline Parker instructed liberal lobbyist Ben Scheel that he couldn’t
utter the phrase “conspiracy principle” whereas talking earlier than the
committee. Throughout the identical assembly, Parker instructed him he wasn’t welcome to
communicate earlier than the committee till he might study to be extra respectful. 

Harris, who’s a member of the committee, didn’t communicate up in Scheel’s protection throughout that assembly, or a subsequent one throughout which Scheel was requested to depart after making an attempt to talk. 

“You have been courageous,” Harris texted
Breger after the Feb. 23 assembly. “I knew they’d shut it down. Took
them longer than I assumed.”