‘Game of Thrones’: Crisis Consumes Michigan GOP amid Internal Struggle for Leadership

Kristina Karamo
Sarah Rice for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Nick Gilbertson

The Michigan Republican Party is in disarray ten months before the 2024 presidential election, as party members voted to remove Chairwoman Kristina Karamo and General Counsel Dan Hartman, a vote they both insist was illegitimate. 

The Saturday result led to co-Chair Malinda Pego — who was elected with Karamo in February — claiming she is acting chair as Karamo claims she remains chair, marking a chaotic dynamic with little clarity as to who is currently in charge of the Michigan GOP. 

In a statement to CNN, GOP State Committeewoman Bree Moeggenberg said that Karamo had been removed with 88 percent of the vote among those in attendance, though Karamo quickly refuted the vote’s legitimacy to the outlet. The Detroit News reports the move was accomplished in part through proxy votes and a rule change at the meeting:

Overall, there are about 100 members of the state committee, which manages the party and has the power to unseat officers, like Karamo.

Attendees said there were enough proxies, representing state committee members, in attendance to establish a quorum. And the removal vote is based on the number of state committee members present and voting under the bylaws.

The threshold to remove a chair is normally 75%. But those in attendance Saturday voted to change it to 60%.

The vote came as the party is reportedly deep in debt, and a coalition had been growing against Karamo over lack of fundraising and accusations she is “working to destroy the party,” CNN reported. 

“A report released last month by Warren Carpenter, a former congressional district chair and one-time Karamo supporter, said the state party was mired in debt, on the ‘brink of bankruptcy’ and ‘essentially non-functional’ under her leadership,” noted Nathan Layne of Reuters. 

However, Karamo — who was the 2022 GOP nominee for secretary of state in Michigan and refused to concede after losing by double digits — and Hartman have contended the meeting was illegitimate. 

“Once again, we do not recognize the actions of January 6 and this group of people who have conspired to steal the party. 37% does not constitute a super majority,” wrote Hartman in a press release shared to the Michigan Republican Party website Monday evening. 

Breitbart News spoke with Karamo on Monday, who said those in attendance at Saturday’s meeting lacked legal authority to “conduct business as the Michigan Republican Party.”

“These individuals have been informed that their gathering on the sixth, which people have a complete constitutional right to do – not trying to say people can’t organize or them gathering is illegal… but they can’t conduct business as the Michigan Republican Party,” she said. “That’s what they did not have the legal authority to do, and I informed them of this. Our general counsel, who is the general counsel for the party, informed them of this, and so did our policy committee — again, these individuals don’t work for me, they worked for the party — our policy committee chair also informed these individuals that they had no legal authority to conduct business on Saturday, and yet they chose to proceed and pretend as though now there’s a new administration. We will deal with it accordingly, per our bylaws, and we will move forward to ensure that Republicans are successful in 2024.”

When asked how the dispute will be addressed, Karamo said it will be on the agenda this coming Saturday at a scheduled meeting.

“That’s something that we’re working on at the moment…We’re fulfilling the bylaws-compliant process to handle these types of matters,” she noted. “Unlike these individuals, I believe that rules are to be followed not just to make sure of fairness but to minimize conflict because, you know, if a person, if I was removed, per the rules, then it wouldn’t be much chaos. Yes, there may be some angry feelings, but, you know, people can say, ‘Hey, rules were followed. It is what it is. It’s clean.’ But these individuals are not; they worked in a very illegal, messy process that’s created confusion, and it’s really selfish because, at the end of the day, we have a country to save.”

“And then it does piss me off when we’re trying to fight to save our kids’ future, and these people want to play Game of Thrones. It’s pathetic,” she added after slamming Democrats for “collapsing our Republic.”

It appears as though Karamo’s faction of the party maintains control of the Michigan GOP website, email, and social media accounts. 

Breitbart News obtained a copy of a press release from Pego’s camp on Monday night that stated that Karamo and others spread false rumors that Pego resigned.

“Although some seek to divide, now is the time for our party to come together and work to elect Republicans across our great state. I believe the best is yet to come,” Pego said. 

The release, which dubs Pego “Acting Chair,” has a Michigan GOP header, though the contact email listed on the release was one key different from the contact for the website that Karamo’s camp still controls. Breitbart News reached out to the email for comment on Tuesday but did not receive a response.

The Pego faction appears to have set up a website, as well, under the domain listed on the email address Mi-GOP.org. Pego’s image appears on the currently lone page on the site, along with a statement where she contends the process to remove Karamo was consistent with the bylaws: 

Petitions with the required signatures requesting the meeting and vote to remove former Chairwoman Kristina Karamo and former General Counsel were submitted accordingly and pursuant to the Michigan Republican State Committee Bylaws prior to the vote taken. The vote passed exceeding the needed threshold.

…

For me, this is not a happy day. It’s a somber day. However, the bylaws process and rules were followed.

Republican National Committee (RNC) spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Saturday that the RNC would review the matter once it had all of the information on the meeting from the Michigan GOP, according to Detroit News reporter Craig Mauger. An appeal from the anti-Karamo group to the RNC is in the works, Bridge Michigan reported Tuesday.

As Saturday’s meeting to remove Karamo unfolded, her “administration announced it would consider a plan under which candidates for elected office would no longer be chosen by voters in a primary but by precinct delegates in a caucus,” as Layne of Reuters noted. 

Tudor Dixon, Michigan’s 2022 Republican gubernatorial nominee, slammed the idea of caucuses.

“Instead of trusting voters, the Michigan Republican Party is now attempting to consolidate power into the hands of 2,000 people. The MIGOP leadership has become what it claims it despises,” Dixon wrote in an emailed release.

“The proposal today is another example of a misguided party that is attempting to force unnecessary procedural change rather than bringing attention to Joe Biden’s catastrophic failures and the long-term damage Gretchen Whitmer has done to our state,” she added.

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