A right-wing sheriffs’ group that challenges federal law held a bizarre rally in Las Vegas last week featuring felons and conspiracy theorists as the country’s presidential election is just months away.
The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, founded in 2011 by former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, held its annual conference in Las Vegas last week at the Ahern Luxury Boutique Hotel conference center.
The group, known as CSPOA, teaches that elected sheriffs must ‘protect their citizens from the overreach of an out-of-control federal government’ by refusing to enforce any law they deem unconstitutional or ‘unjust.’
The right-wing ‘constitutional sheriffs,’ claim legal power in their jurisdictions that exceeds U.S. federal government and state authorities.
In particular, this time around, the organization is urging its members to seize voting machines while investigating claims of ‘rampant voter fraud’ that during the 2020 election proved to be baseless.
This time around, the group want to form a group that will patrol polling places and have the power to seize voting machines while investigating Democrats and other countries that are sending immigrants to the the U.S. in order to vote illegally, they claim and reported by NBC News.
In 2022, the group continued to promote baseless conspiracy theories that the last presidential election was stolen from Trump are have recently been pushing a dubious theory that county sheriffs can access voting machines and intervene in how elections are run – and also have virtually unchecked power in their counties.
Voting-rights advocates and election experts said any attempts by law enforcement to interfere in elections would be alarming and an extension of the threat posed by the continued circulation of Trump’s claims about the 2020 election.
‘The safest way to actually achieve that is to have local law enforcement understand that they have no obligation to enforce such laws,’ Mack said during a recent interview. ‘They’re not laws at all anyway. If they’re unjust laws, they are laws of tyranny.’
‘The sheriff is supposed to be protecting the public from evil,’ Dar Leaf, the chief law enforcement officer for Barry County, Michigan, said during last year’s conference. ‘When your government is evil or out of line, that’s what the sheriff is there for, protecting them from that.’
The sheriffs’ group has railed against gun control laws, COVID-19 mask mandates and public health restrictions, as well as the alleged election fraud.
It has also quietly spread its ideology across the country, seeking to become more mainstream in part by securing state approval for taxpayer-funded law enforcement training.
The public-facing image of the sheriffs group, prominently features the American flag and the experiences of black civil rights icons who pushed back against unjust laws.
But details of its operations are closely held, and its finances are shielded from public scrutiny.
It was briefly registered as a nonprofit in Arizona, but internal records indicate it is now a private company.
The group does not release its list of dues-paying members, nor does it publicize information about where or how it conducts trainings.
The sympathies of the group’s leaders for right-wing, white-nationalist extremist causes, however, are well documented.
The CSPOA is also unequivocal about gun rights and supports the right of criminals and the mentally ill to carry firearms, opposing gun registration or background checks.
Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13334169/Trump-Sheriff-conference-Las-Vegas-CSPOA.html