Utah Rep. Jon Stanard
Republicans put on quite a display of their "family values" recently, according to an article at the Wayne Madsen Report (WMR). In one 24-hour news cycle, three Republicans were hit with legal issues connected to sexual misconduct. And that did not include another GOPer's use of public funds to help pay for trysts with a prostitute -- in one of our most conservative states. That missed the list only because it came just before the infamous news cycle.Gee, imagine how bad it would be if conservatives weren't so virtuous. Madsen dubbed them the GOP (Gross Old Perverts), and the phrase seems to fit. From the article at WMR:
Within a 24-hour news cycle, three top Republican officials in three states were mired in legal trouble stemming from sex scandals. One, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, was arrested. Rhode Island State Senator Nicholas Kettle resigned as he faced certain expulsion from the body. In Louisiana, Secretary of State Tom Schedler was accused of sexual harassment and stalking.
These three latest sex scandals follow dozens of others that have abruptly ended the careers of Republican politicians in the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures across the country. The party that claims to represent "family values" and "Judeo-Christian" ethics has been found to be the party of anti-gay closeted homosexuals, pedophiles, and those who engage in the "rough trade" of bondage and sadomasochism.
Madsen notes the "Party of Lincoln" has become the "Party of Marquis de Sade." Then, he provides plenty of evidence to back it up, starting with Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who has been the subject of numerous posts here at Legal Schnauzer. (See here, here, here, and here.)
Governor Greitens was indicted by a St. Louis grand jury on February 22 for felony invasion of privacy. In 2015, before being elected governor, Greitens blackmailed a woman after he took a photograph of her in his basement while she was nude and blindfolded with her hands bound. Greitens threatened the woman that he would publicize the photo if she ever spoke about their affair. Greitens was scheduled to appear at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington, DC, where it was expected he would have ample opportunity for a photo op with Donald Trump, who is facing his own multiple accusations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape.
Greitens, an ex-Navy SEAL, is Missouri's first Jewish governor and the Republican Jewish Coalition immediately came to Greitens's defense. The Israeli media began reporting on how Greitens's arrest was hard on the governor's wife Sheena and his two sons, Joshua and Jacob.
Tom Schedler, like Greitens, comes from a reliably red state:
Secretary of State Schedler is accused in a lawsuit of sexual harassing a female state employee for over ten years. Schedler is also accused of stalking the employee by going as far as buying a home across the street from her residence, sending her sex videotapes, and ordering state security employees to monitor her activities. Schedler also ordered state employees to run official state data searches on the woman's boyfriend and publicize the results.
Then, we have Nicholas Kettle, from blue-state territory:
State Senator Kettle resigned from the Rhode Island Senate a week after his arrest for twice extorting sexual favors from a male page in 2011, as well as engaging in video voyeurism by bartering nude photographs of his ex-girlfriend and a New Hampshire woman without their consent.
As for the Gross Old Pervert who fell outside the news cycle, that would be Utah Rep. Jon Stanard, who resigned his position on Feb. 6. From a Salt Lake City Tribune article on Feb. 8:
A British newspaper reported Thursday that Rep. Jon Stanard, R-St. George, resigned abruptly Tuesday after he met a Salt Lake City call girl twice for sex, and it released racy texts that it says he sent to her.
The Daily Mail of London said call girl Brie Taylor alleges Stanard paid her for sex during two business trips to Salt Lake City in 2017. Taylor asserts he paid her $250 for each of the one-hour sessions in June and August — on dates when the Legislature held interim meetings.Stanard is married and voted for stricter laws against pornography. He also said on his website — which has since been deleted — “I am a strong advocate for conservative family values. I am pro life, as well as for traditional marriage.”
"Traditional marriage," in Stanard's world, apparently includes having a few prostitutes on the side. Here's more from the Trib:
Taylor alleges Stanard first approached her March 7, 2017 — near the end of last year’s general session of the Legislature.
He allegedly wrote: “Looking at your website. Can you meet?”
In a second text he added: ‘Would need to be tonight. Only in town a little. Anytime. Can do in or out. At hotel in downtown SL.”
They exchanged a string of messages but Taylor was unavailable because her 10-year-old son was sick.
He messaged her again the following month but she was again unavailable, and they met for the first time at the Fairfield Inn by Marriott Hotel in Downtown Salt Lake City on June 20.
Where did it go from there? The Trib tells us:
Taylor said: “I already knew who he was because I screen all my clients using a phone number service and I Googled him.
“He opened the door and he was very nice. He was a gentleman.
“We chatted just briefly and then I got changed out of what I was wearing into lingerie.
“Then the adult stuff started to happen.”
She said she had researched who he was online, and they talked about his work as a representative.
“He said he comes up to Salt Lake a lot and he would like to see me again. He said he never does this sort of stuff in St. George because it is really culturally strict down there.”
According to the newspaper, the escort of three years, who has appeared in porn films, says Stanard returned on a business trip that summer and they met at the same hotel on Aug. 22.“He doesn’t drink so we didn’t do anything like that,” she said, “but during that session they were trying to pass medical marijuana so we talked about that.”
Those Republicans, always trying to mix business with pleasure. Stanard was so nailed that even his lawyer couldn't figure out a way to lie about it:
The Daily Mail said that Stanard’s attorney, Walter Bugden, told it, “Given the current climate in this country with misconduct allegations and the way things are happening in the media right now, there isn’t any explanation that my client could give that would overcome the shadow of these allegations.”
Madsen puts things in perspective of the long-running GOP "family values" charade -- and he notes that more scandals are brewing, involving Donald Trump and his supporters:
A sex scandal involving Kentucky Republican State Representative Dan Johnson -- who committed suicide last year after he was accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year old female teen in 2013 -- resulted in an 80-point swing to a Democrat in last week's special election to fill his vacant seat. Linda Belcher won handily over the GOP's Rebecca Johnson, the widow of the late representative. Trump won the district in 2016 with 72 percent of the vote.
In the past year, other GOP sex scandals involving underage sex saw prison sentences for former Kentucky state judge Tim Nolan and former Oklahoma State Senator Ralph Shortey for the sexual trafficking of minors. Shortey was also initially charged with possession of child pornography but that count was dropped in a plea deal with the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Both Nolan and Shortey were state-level officials of the Trump presidential campaign.
Sex scandals have also recently seen the end of other Republican political careers in Pennsylvania, Texas, Alabama, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, and Kentucky, which include the Speaker of the Kentucky House of Representatives.
WMR continues to pursue leads in the 1994 child rape allegations against Trump and his friend, billionaire investment banker Jeffrey Epstein. We are also investigating a story concerning a suspicious death surrounding aberrant sexual behavior and a sitting pro-Trump member of the U.S. House.
