GOP Transparency
Ever wonder about things that just don’t make sense? I do. One of the things that makes no sense at the moment is this; Why all the back and forth in the paper and at local Republican Party meetings concerning the party’s bank statements? More importantly, why the refusal of the Chair and Treasurer to open up the Republican Party’s books. After all, the Chair of the Party has called for ‘full transparency.” Bank statements are not that hard to come by, especially when you are the account holder. Yet Rene Leith, the Republican Party’s Treasurer and Butch Striegl, Chair of the Bandera County Republican Party, along with current and former Precinct Chairs; Laura Briscoe, Dede Skoglund and Darcy Hasty all claim they don’t have the records from the previous Chair and thus can’t provide them. How can that be when you realize the previous County Chair turned over all the bank records in her possession and control when her term ended in June of this year per state election law. So what records do they claim the Chair didn’t provide? Could it be the statements from the period when the above mentioned people removed her from all the Party’s bank accounts… before being ordered by the Court to put her back on the account? Naw, couldn’t be that, could it? How could they expect her to provide records for accounts they had removed her from? Maybe we’ll know more when the State Attorney General, as reported by this paper, completes its investigation into the bank fraud allegedly perpetrated by these same folks. These past and current Republican Party members, Striegl, Leith, Hasty, Briscoe and Skoglund also sued the former County Chair earlier this year and lost. The Court ordered them to pay her attorneys fees and restore her to the the bank account they had removed her from. This was the account she turned over in June. Another question to ponder, did these folks use Party funds under their control at the time to sue a fellow Party member? I sure hope not. All these puzzling questions could be answered easily by just opening the Party’s books and allowing an independent audit as has been requested multiple times by new members of the Party. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. As for now, so much for Striegl’s calls for “transparency!”
Bob Haueter
Bandera, Texas