Minnesota Report
The recent attention on Republican Party Chair Jennifer Carnahan accomplishes one fact it made her the focus of the gamut of political coverage and not Rep John Thompson (DFL-67A, St Paul). Here is an example of where a salacious story with a sexual undertone pushes politician with a residency issue off of the newspapers frontpages and as the lead story on news broadcasts.
With the charges again Anton “Tony” Lazarro and additional charges against Gisela Castro Medina, a 19-year-old, Chair of the St Thomas College Republicans, the scenario is reminiscent of Jeffery Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
Lazarro, as a significant contributor to the Minnesota Republican Party and other prominent GOP candidates, shifts from a party darling to a pariah in a matter of seconds, and in spite of Carnahan cohosting a podcast with him, she quickly distanced herself from him in a fashion we have become familiar with, which we call Trump style. In fact, listening to her you might think she doesn’t even know the guy.
Last night, the Republican Party Executive Committee met for the 2nd time on the matter in addition to the “Lazarro problem”, other charges of a toxic work environment and unaddressed sexual harassment complaints have surfaced. Four former Executive Directors had come forward to criticize Carnahan’s leadership. The result was Carnahan’s resignation and an 8-7 vote, in which she was the deciding vote to provide her with a three-month severance package totaling approximately $38,000.
This resulted in Deputy Chair Carleton Crawford being elevated to Chair and a State Central Committee meeting being called to vote for a new party chair and to fill the vacancies of Executive Committee members allied with Carnahan, who also resigned.
In the initial election efforts Carnahan sought to overcome the party’s significant debt and, in her departure, she leaves it in dire straits.