Conflicting Interests Steering Party Chair Josh McKoon’s Actions

Conflicting Interests Abound in Georgia

There are more con­flict­ing inter­ests in Geor­gia Repub­li­can pol­i­tics than onions in Vidalia. Just when you think you have an indi­vid­ual tak­ing office for the right rea­sons, to serve the inter­ests of con­stituents or par­ty mem­bers, new facts come to light dash­ing all dreams that those rep­re­sent­ing the grass-roots will do so with their heads down, focused on the issues that are impor­tant to those they serve. That’s where we are in the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty today. 

Last June, I was con­tent to vote for Josh McK­oon to become Chair­man of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty. I fig­ured he would try his best to win an elec­tion for the Repub­li­can Par­ty in 2024. I expect­ed he had the best inter­ests of Geor­gia Repub­li­cans as a high lev­el concern. 

Now, I’m not so sure. 

This hasn’t been an overnight devel­op­ment. It’s real­ly been build­ing since, oh, prob­a­bly July, one month into McKoon’s term as Repub­li­can Chair. That’s when local GOP efforts to enlist McKoon’s help resolv­ing a mat­ter regard­ing who would right­ful­ly sit on the Forsyth Coun­ty Board of Elec­tions, demon­strat­ed that McK­oon and his emis­saries, osten­si­bly try­ing to help jus­tice pre­vail, were not help­ing that pur­pose at all, but sim­ply help­ing to run out the clock, ensur­ing the estab­lish­ment indi­vid­ual, unlaw­ful­ly appoint­ed to that seat, would ulti­mate­ly be sworn in. 

Then came Sep­tem­ber, and the rev­e­la­tion that Chair­man Josh McK­oon was not real­ly head­ing up a polit­i­cal par­ty as its chair­man, but instead head­ing up a cor­po­ra­tion as its CEO. That was a shock. I’m still work­ing on all that. As I pur­sued my deep dive into that rev­e­la­tion, once again, I dis­cov­ered Josh McK­oon was not inter­est­ed in nor­mal mat­ters a ded­i­cat­ed par­ty chair would find impor­tant. Instead, he appeared more inter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing the cor­po­ra­tion, the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty Cor­po­ra­tion. I have writ­ten exten­sive­ly on that sub­ject, and do not want to get bogged down slay­ing the same drag­on here. If you have not read those arti­cles, please start with the one enti­tled, “Kem­p’s Ulti­mate Goals Now Com­ing Into View-Pri­va­ti­za­tion of Geor­gia’s elec­tion process­es,” and read for­ward. The fact that the elect­ed Chair­man of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty is unmoved that the par­ty for which he was elect­ed, accord­ing to all avail­able infor­ma­tion, is and has been non-com­pli­ant with respect to Geor­gia law since 2015, should set off alarms. And the fact that nei­ther the Sec­re­tary of State nor the Geor­gia Archives will pro­vide any records of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, dat­ing back to the the dawn of time, is also alarm­ing, and should be to all Repub­li­cans, cer­tain­ly the party’s head man. 

Some­thing is up, friends. And it looks very much like grass-roots Repub­li­cans have been snookered…again.

Every­one will remem­ber how the “snook­er of all snook­ers,” Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp, dou­ble-crossed Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, select­ing bil­lion­airess and heavy-con­trib­u­tor Kel­ly Loef­fler to suc­ceed the late John­ny Isak­son, to work against Trump in the US Sen­ate. And every­one will remem­ber the gov­er­nor cer­ti­fy­ing an obvi­ous­ly stolen elec­tion in 2020, an elec­tion about which he expressed deep con­cern, right up to the time he signed his name on the order. Did the Kemp dou­ble-cross of Trump start with those two events? Like­ly not. Those episodes appear planned well in advance. The first dou­ble cross may have been Sen­a­tor David Per­due plead­ing for Pres­i­dent Trump to endorse Kemp in the 2018 pri­ma­ry. Trump did, Kemp won the pri­ma­ry and took the governor’s seat. Now that we know of all the Kemp dou­ble-cross­es against Trump, it appears increas­ing­ly obvi­ous that Per­due may have been put up to the task of ask­ing Trump for the Kemp endorse­ment. Thus, the orig­i­nal dou­ble-cross could eas­i­ly have been by Per­due, which ulti­mate­ly set up the 2020 elec­tion fraud, plac­ing Biden in the White House, tilt­ing the world on its axis. Any­one seen David Per­due lately? 

Since 2020, Georgia’s Gov­er­nor has been act­ing in a way I call, “squir­rel­ly.” That’s a term mean­ing, to me, the guy just ain’t quite right. Notwith­stand­ing the dou­ble-cross of the man who endorsed him into the governor’s seat, which is squir­rel­ly enough, Bri­an Kemp declared last Feb­ru­ary, “We can no longer rely on the tra­di­tion­al par­ty infra­struc­ture to win in the future.” Huh? Then we saw Kemp’s old col­lege bud­dy, and high­ly-paid Kemp board appointee, Brent Her­rin, draw­ing up paper­work and estab­lish­ing Kemp-sup­port­ing “Repub­li­can Coali­tion cor­po­ra­tions” in coun­ties all around the state. Sub­se­quent­ly, we watched a mem­ber of one of those cor­po­ra­tions win a board of elec­tions appoint­ment in Chero­kee Coun­ty, appar­ent­ly over­rul­ing the coun­ty ordi­nance, and defeat­ing the law­ful­ly-nom­i­nat­ed true Repub­li­can Par­ty can­di­date. Short­ly there­after, in Sep­tem­ber, shock­ing­ly, we dis­cov­ered the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty is not a polit­i­cal par­ty at all, but just anoth­er one of those cor­po­ra­tions, very sim­i­lar to Kemp and Herrin’s Repub­li­can Coali­tions. The Geor­gia Par­ty of Lin­coln has turned out to be anoth­er splen­did exam­ple of Kemp’s “non-tra­di­tion­al par­ty infra­struc­ture.” And all the while, nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. Sec­re­tary of State Raf­fensperg­er doesn’t care. Gov­er­nor Kemp doesn’t care. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Carr doesn’t care. And frankly, a lot of estab­lish­ment Repub­li­cans don’t care. 

Amaz­ing­ly, the elect­ed Chair­man of the seem­ing­ly non-exis­tent, for­mer Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, now CEO of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty Cor­po­ra­tion, doesn’t care either. Why is that? 

The answer to that ques­tion may be begin­ning to come clear. 

Because my sens­es have been telling me that there is more than meets the eye in the rela­tion­ship between Josh McK­oon and Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp, I decid­ed to look into that rela­tion­ship to see what might come up. And that is where we start today. 

The Kemp-McKoon Connection

Meet Greg Dozi­er. Although you may not rec­og­nize the name, as the arti­cle below indi­cates, Mr. Dozi­er is an extreme­ly influ­en­tial indi­vid­ual, in fact, one of the MOST influ­en­tial indi­vid­u­als in Geor­gia. Gen­er­al­ly, that would mean a per­son who has cer­tain deep finan­cial con­nec­tions, and who uses those con­nec­tions to gar­ner influ­ence. I don’t real­ly know, but that makes sense because, pri­or to tak­ing Gov­er­nor Kemp’s tap to become Com­mis­sion­er of Georgia’s Tech­ni­cal Col­lege Sys­tem, Mr. Dozi­er, a “trust­ed ally of Gov­er­nor Kemp,” was so trust­ed that he served the governor 

as his chief finan­cial officer. 

As you will see below, in Decem­ber of 2019, the Kemp-appoint­ed board of the Tech­ni­cal Col­lege Sys­tem of Geor­gia (TCSG), vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to hire the governor’s ’s trust­ed ally, long-time advis­er and Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer, Greg Dozi­er, to become its new Commissioner. 

The close­ness between Dozi­er and Kemp is unmis­tak­able. Kemp admits it. So let’s be clear, the Dozi­er appoint­ment was not one made by an “inde­pen­dent” TCSG board. Dozi­er was select­ed by Bri­an Kemp. That’s how this works. The gov­er­nor selects the board mem­bers. The board mem­bers receive cushy jobs and serve at the plea­sure of the gov­er­nor. So, if the gov­er­nor wants Dozi­er, that’s who the board mem­bers select and vote him in unanimously. 

Why is the Greg Dozi­er appoint­ment to head up TCSG important? 

The Dozi­er appoint­ment in which Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp select­ed his “trust­ed ally,” a “long-time advi­sor,” a man who because of that rela­tion­ship is rec­og­nized one of the “most influ­en­tial per­sons in Geor­gia,” is impor­tant because prac­ti­cal­ly the first order of busi­ness for Greg “trust­ed ally” Dozi­er, was to announce the hir­ing of Josh McK­oon to become gen­er­al coun­sel, the very same Josh McK­oon who now serves as Chair­man of the appar­ent­ly non-exis­tent Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty, oper­at­ing that role in dual capac­i­ty as CEO of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty Corporation. 

Like Mr. Dozi­er, and like every one of the TCSG board mem­bers, Josh McK­oon could only have been select­ed with Kemp’s bless­ing for that posi­tion, the now par­ty chair serv­ing, like the oth­ers above him, at the plea­sure of our “squir­rel­ly” gov­er­nor. Obvi­ous­ly, to remain in their appoint­ments, it would be incum­bent that each mem­ber of the governor’s cast, includ­ing McK­oon, remain in Kemp’s favor. Should any of them step out of line, and per­haps become over­ly ener­getic in express­ing pub­lic pro­nounce­ments con­cern­ing, oh, maybe the need for bet­ter elec­tion integri­ty in Geor­gia, or in sup­port for, say, Pres­i­dent Trump in 2024, as was on dis­play at the recent Mid­dle Geor­gia Repub­li­can Fish Fry, that even­tu­al­i­ty would like­ly not make Georgia’s Gov­er­nor hap­py. For that rea­son, there exists an unavoid­able con­flict-of-inter­ests between Josh McK­oon pleas­ing Gov­er­nor Kemp, ver­sus act­ing in the inter­ests of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty (what­ev­er that terms evens means at this point), its mem­bers now indi­cat­ing over­whelm­ing pref­er­ence to sup­port Don­ald Trump in next Spring’s Repub­li­can Pres­i­den­tial Pref­er­ence Primary. 

The office of gen­er­al coun­sel for TCSG is no small-time, or part-time posi­tion. That is Josh McKoon’s day job. It pays him a com­men­su­rate salary, like­ly with state ben­e­fits. Josh McK­oon would miss that income were he to lose his posi­tion. Would Greg Dozi­er, such a long-time, trust­ed advis­er to the Gov­er­nor, hire a gen­er­al coun­sel, in Josh McK­oon, who was not also an indi­vid­ual high­ly-trust­ed by Gov­er­nor Kemp as well? I do not expect so. 

Hous­ton, Geor­gia MAGA has a big problem. 

As Gen­er­al Coun­sel for TCSG, we can expect Josh McKoon’s work involves review­ing con­tracts over which his agency receives and dis­pens­es funds. In so doing, that places McK­oon at the very heart of the process by which those funds are secured and spent. What if the Geor­gia Repub­li­can con­ser­v­a­tives McK­oon rep­re­sents in his role as Repub­li­can Chair dis­agree with, say, the Biden Admin­is­tra­tion pack­ag­ing grant mon­ey for McKoon’s employ­er, TCSG, under the pro­gram­ming of “Build Back Bet­ter?” Accord­ing to Matthew, “No one can serve two mas­ters, for either he will hate the one and love the oth­er, or he will be devot­ed to the one and despise the oth­er.” Matthew 6–24. We should now under­stand why that is. 

“Build Back Bet­ter,” sounds nice. But what does it real­ly mean? Well, to the World Eco­nom­ic Forum it means, “rein­vent­ing cap­i­tal­ism.” Why would con­ser­v­a­tive Geor­gians want to “rein­vent cap­i­tal­ism?” Is it broken? 

“Build Back Bet­ter” means Klaus Schwab’s “The Great Reset.” To Fox News, “Build Back Bet­ter” means, “A grave threat to lib­er­ty and free mar­kets in the Unit­ed States.”

How is it appro­pri­ate for Georgia’s Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair­man be work­ing to secure funds pro­mot­ing social­ist inten­tions of Klaus Schwab and Joe Biden? How can Georgia’s Repub­li­can Par­ty Chair­man even be asso­ci­at­ed with pro­grams such as this? Again, accord­ing to Matthew, a man in Josh McKoon’s posi­tion, “will hate the one and love the oth­er, or he will be devot­ed to the one and despise the oth­er.” Which of those options do Georgia’s con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­cans expect their par­ty chair­man to favor? The con­flicts-of-inter­ests an indi­vid­ual such as Josh McK­oon faces dai­ly would ren­der any indi­vid­ual help­less to serve all inter­ests to which he or she has committed. 

How does Josh McK­oon feel about his boss par­tic­i­pat­ing in last Winter’s World Eco­nom­ic Forum? Was that okay? It’s not okay with most Geor­gia con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­cans, demon­strat­ing anoth­er con­flict-of-inter­ests. But a Repub­li­can chair­per­son who works for Kemp, and who is behold­en to Kemp, is hard­ly in posi­tion to com­ment negatively. 

It is a shame the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Chair is in no posi­tion to offer an opin­ion whether it’s OK to hack humans… 

…or whether “Total bio­met­ric sur­veil­lance” arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence is a good thing, which is what Georgia’s HB520, sit­ting in sen­ate com­mit­tee await­ing the 2024 Gen­er­al Assem­bly is all about. You will like­ly not hear a neg­a­tive word about either from Repub­li­can Chair­man Josh McKoon. 

What did Repub­li­can Chair Josh McK­oon say about his boss sign­ing a Sep­tem­ber 1 exec­u­tive order estab­lish­ing the gov­ern­men­tal infra­struc­ture to pro­vide an inter-agency data­base to house all that bio­met­ric sur­veil­lance data the World Eco­nom­ic Forum is push­ing? Not a peep. 

What does Georgia’s Repub­li­can Chair­man have to say about Pres­i­dent Biden using Georgian’s tax dol­lars to fund infra­struc­ture in devel­op­ing coun­tries? Noth­ing. Josh McK­oon can­not speak against the very pro­grams he helps to admin­is­ter in his job work­ing under Georgia’s Gov­er­nor Bri­an Kemp. 

To be fair, Josh McK­oon did say the fol­low­ing about the 19 defen­dants in Ful­ton Coun­ty being pros­e­cut­ed by Fani Willis for var­i­ous rea­sons sane peo­ple find dif­fi­cult to under­stand, “We have a right of free speech and free asso­ci­a­tion in this coun­try. And the idea we’re going to crim­i­nal­ize, it is incred­i­bly disturbing.”

Whoa! That’s a pret­ty bold state­ment for the par­ty chair, cor­po­ra­tion CEO and Gen­er­al Coun­sel, Josh McK­oon, which is about as bold as it gets for the Kemp appointee. 

So, whether con­ser­v­a­tive, MAGA Repub­li­cans knew this before, or not, their par­ty chair­man is a con­flict­ed indi­vid­ual. He works for Gov­er­nor Kemp, whose anger toward any­thing MAGA or to do with any­one pro­mot­ing elec­tion integri­ty, is tem­pes­tu­ous. To keep his job, Josh McK­oon can­not go there, even though a vast major­i­ty of the Geor­gia Repub­li­can Par­ty mem­bers iden­ti­fy with MAGA, and demand new poli­cies to ensure elec­tion integri­ty. How can Josh McK­oon bal­ance both sides of that polit­i­cal tug of war and win for both? He can’t. Some­one is going to lose. That some­one appears to be MAGA. McK­oon like­ly will not risk los­ing his liveli­hood, step­ping out bold­ly for con­ser­v­a­tive, MAGA issues. 

Where does that leave MAGA Repub­li­cans? Well, I’ve called for it twice now, McKoon’s res­ig­na­tion. This makes the third. MAGA Repub­li­cans ought to con­sid­er the facts and the fac­tors influ­enc­ing Josh McKoon’s actions against serv­ing their inter­ests, and seri­ous­ly con­sid­er doing the same.