A high-ranking Republican from Maricopa County, Arizona, said earlier this year that she would “lynch” one of the county’s top election officials if he walked into the room.
At a March event for a Republican congressional candidate, Shelby Busch, the first vice chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Committee, spoke about the importance of finding “unity” with “good, Christian” people before mentioning the county recorder. Stephen Richer.
Richer is the elected official responsible for overseeing elections in the county, along with the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. He became a target for Arizona Republicans because, despite being a Republican, he himself defended the integrity of the elections It is debunked unfounded conspiracy theories about widespread fraud. (He is also running for re-election this year.)
“Let’s pretend this gentleman here was running for county clerk and he’s a good Christian man who believes what we believe. We can work with that, right? That’s unity,” Busch said, pointing to someone in the crowd. “It means, ‘Hey, let’s shake hands and agree that we’re going to run a good Christian foundation campaign, and we’re going to treat each other well, and we’re going to get through this together, right? This is unity.”
She continued: “But if Stephen Richer walked into this room, I would lynch him. I do not unite with people who do not believe in the principles we believe in and the American cause that founded this country. And so I want to make that clear when we talk about what it means to unify.”
“If Stephen Richer walked into this room, I would lynch him.”
This is Shelby Busch.
She is second in command of the Maricopa County Republican Committee (Image: Getty Images)@MaricopaGOP). She was the county party’s 2023 “volunteer of the year.” She is a councilor for Kari Lake and others.
Her too… pic.twitter.com/L7lWTm3oSk
– Stephen Richer — MaricopaCountyRecorder (prsnl account) (@stephen_richer) June 24, 2024
Richer posted a clip of Busch’s March 20 comments to X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, saying in another post that the clip was “shared with me this weekend.”
Busch denied that his comments about religion were related to Richer’s Jewish faith and said his comment about the lynching was made “in jest.”
“Everyone knows I don’t like getting rich,” Busch wrote in an email to HuffPost on Tuesday. “The statement was a joke and was said in jest. I do not and would never tolerate violence against anyone. This was a small event from several months ago. These comments had nothing to do with his Jewish faith. I didn’t even know he was Jewish.”
In a longer time video From that same campaign event, Busch tells the crowd, “The word ‘unity’ gives me the creeps” because “there is so much earthly, false, vile talk about ‘unity’ circulating in our state.”
She added: “So what does unity mean to me? It means uniting with those who share the basic biblical, Christian-Jewish principles that we share. I think it was Paul who told us that we should not unite with the swindlers, and the adulterers, and the filth, and bring that into our world, and so we have to be careful when we talk about unity, and make sure that we really I understand what that means.”
At this point, Busch praised Don Hiatt, a Republican running against Richer for the nomination of the party county recorder, who was in the room. She said he was “a good Christian man and believes what we believe” before proceeding with the attack on Richer.
Neither the Maricopa County Republican Committee nor the Arizona Republican Party immediately responded to HuffPost’s requests for comment.
Busch is also president of the We The People AZ Alliance, a right-wing election conspiracy theory group it has receivedfinancing former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne’s group, The America Project, as First edition It is AZ Mirror has reported.
