LANSING – State Representatives Brandon Dillon (D-Grand Rapids) and Democratic Floor Leader Kate Segal (D-Battle Creek) today renewed their call for a complete investigation into the election fraud case involving Speaker Jase Bolger and former Democrat turned Republican Roy Schmidt.
“As we saw in news reports today, many people in the law enforcement community are aghast that an investigation that was uncovering so many leads was shut down with so many questions unanswered,” said Dillon. “This casts a terrible light on many elected officials, not just the prosecutor and State Reps in Kent County, but all the way up the ladder to the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the Speaker of the House. A full investigation needs to be completed to answer the questions of conspiracy, election fraud and cover up.”
A Detroit Free Press article today outlined and analyzed even more evidence uncovered during the aborted State Police investigation into the events surrounding Schmidt’s party switch only moments before the filing deadline. The mounting body of text messages and other evidence seems to indicate that many more individuals could have been involved including the Attorney General, Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons, and even the Secretary of State whose staff inexplicably failed to turn over evidence to state police investigators in a timely manner. The article also calls into serious question the decision by Kent County Prosecutor William Forsyth to halt the investigation.
In light of these new reports, Democratic Floor Leader Segal again called for a full investigation.
“Last week, I introduced House Resolution 309 calling on Prosecutor Forsyth and Attorney General Schuette to complete their investigation and take appropriate legal action if the evidence points to criminal wrongdoing, but the Speaker promptly buried it in committee,” said Segal. “Law enforcement experts are saying there is evidence that points to criminal wrongdoing, but without a complete investigation, we may never know the extent of the fraud or the conspiracy. The people of this state deserve to know if their top leaders are waging a cover-up to try and protect themselves or their friends.”
Prosecutor Forsyth ended the investigation saying that he could find no crime because no laws were broken. He went on to say that he was embarrassed that members of his own party would engage in such tactics. More recently it was revealed that when he shut the investigation down he cancelled three warrants that the State Police had including one for Bolger’s cell phone records.
“This is a problem inherent when one party controls all the levers of power – you lose all checks and balances and justice takes a back seat to partisan politics” said Dillon. “If the current members of law enforcement can’t or won’t follow the leads in this case, someone else needs to step up to defend our system of democracy and the citizens of Michigan.”