Officials from one of the largest constitutional sheriffs organizations have been traveling the country, meeting with local Republican groups, election deniers, and conspiracy theorists. The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) is an antigovernment organization that spreads the false idea that sheriffs are the highest power at the county level, and thus can ignore state and federal mandates (see GPAHE’s reporting on CSPOA here). Concerningly, in August, the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR) disclosed that CSPOA has been secretly making plans “for the next insurrection.”
The organization is led by former Arizona Sheriff Richard Mack, who has been involved in antigovernment groups for decades, and Sam Bushman, who is a longtime supporter of the antisemitic publication American Free Press. During the Clinton administration, Mack made his bones on the far right by successfully suing the federal government in Mack v. United States over a provision in the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.
Mack was a founding member of the antigovernment militia the Oathkeepers, many of whose leaders have been imprisoned for their roles in the January 6th insurrection. Mack, along with other CSPOA members participated in the 2014 stand-off with the federal government at the Bundy ranch in Nevada. In the past, Mack has had ties with local Tea Party groups, the conspiracist John Birch Society, and appeared on The Alex Jones Show. More recently, Mack and his fellow constitutional sheriffs have been making inroads with election-denying groups and other elements of the far right.
Over the past year, Mack has met with local Republican party organs, far-right activist groups, principals in the MAGA movement, and others involved in election denial conspiracy theories.
In May 2024, Mack and his colleagues toured Florida. They had meetings with the Republican Women SW Volusia County in DeBary, the Republican Liberty Caucus Polk, the Heart of Florida Republican Women in Deland, the St. Johns Republican Assembly in Flagler, and a Republican Assembly in Palm Coast. Other meetings were held with two members of the Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC) of Northeast Florida Duval County, and the Pinellas County Watch Dogs in Pinellas Park. Their point of contact with the RLC, Ken Morrow, claims to be a member of the CSPOA. He also arranged a meeting with CSPOA supporter Mike Cartwright, who recently appeared on The Sheriff Mack Show. The month prior, Richard Mack traveled around Virginia, with events in Lynchburg, Marshall, Richmond, and Virginia Beach.
Mack has also been meeting with activists in the election denial movement. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell was invited as a speaker at the CSPOA’s 2024 Las Vegas conference and appeared on Sheriff Mack’s podcast in 2023. Lindell made a name for himself during the 2020 election for spreading conspiracy theories about the election being “rigged” and falsely claimed that the Smartmatic and Dominion voting machines were fixed by foreign governments to ensure that Joe Biden won the election, resulting in a multimillion dollar lawsuit for defamation (see GPAHE’s reporting on Lindell here). Since then, Lindell has been involved in several election denial efforts including organizing a “Cyber Symposium” event to “prove” election fraud and the development of the apps FrankSpeech and Frank Social to organize efforts to expose election fraud.
Other election deniers Mack has become closer to include Tina Peters, former county clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, who appeared on the The Sheriff Mack Show in 2023 and was also present at the 2024 Las Vegas conference. Peters is a prominent activist among election deniers, and was found guilty of election interference for a security breach during the 2020 election after providing an “expert” affiliated with Lindell access to the Mesa County election system and deceiving other officials about that person’s identity.
Mack was seen with Arizona election denier Kari Lake at the 2nd Annual U.S. Constitution Rally in Lake Havasu, Arizona, which took place in September 2023. CSPOA’s Randy Miller was a featured speaker, alongside Peters and others. Mack appeared at Turning Point USA’s America Fest in December 2023, a well-funded far right election denial group with deep ties to Project 2025, an authoritarian and rights-stripping plan for the next conservative president (see GPAHE’s reporting on Turning Point USA here). There, Mack was interviewed by “The New Federal State of China,” a right-wing movement organized by Guo Wengui and Steve Bannon that advocates overthrowing the Chinese Communist Party. In June 2024, Mack was a guest on Bannon’s “War Room,” where they discussed the sheriff’s power to “stop the federal and FBI attacks against Trump” and “investigate election fraud and the crimes committed by the FBI.”
Mack and the CSPOA also appear to have supporters in Congress. At a CSPOA training event in September 2023, where Mack and fellow CSPOA sheriff of Barry County, Michigan, Dar Leaf were speaking, a representative for Congressman Chuck Edwards (N.C.) presented Mack with a challenge coin and an official letter thanking him and the CSPOA for their years of work “protecting the constitution.” During the CSPOA podcast later in the week, Mack read the letter to his audience. In it, Edwards wrote, “For years, you and your organization, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) have been trailblazers for law enforcement officers across the country. It is the work of constitutional law enforcement officers like yourself and so many others that allows us all to sleep easier every night. We know that when those who seek to destroy our country rise, you act as a strong line of defense for the soul of our nation.”
The CSPOA conference in Las Vegas on April 17, 2024 was touted as a “groundbreaking training” event that included the presence of “media from Russia, London, Australia, CBS, ABC” and elected officials. Its agenda was stacked with election deniers and conspiracists. In addition to Peters and Lindell, Mack also had as speakers QAnon influencer Michael Flynn, Flynn’s co-author Boone Cutler, former Arizona State Representative Mark Finchem, who was a member of the Oathkeepers and was present on January 6, Alex Newman from The Epoch Times and the Foundation for American Christian Education, radio host Wayne Allyn Root, multimillionaire and election denier Patrick Byrne, and Shane McFarland, the mayor of Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Bannon was scheduled to speak at the event but ended up not appearing.
Several CSPOA sheriffs attended as well, including CSPOA board member and sheriff of Klickitat County, Washington, Bob Songer; Sierra County, New Mexico, Sheriff Glenn Hamilton; and Barry County, Michigan, Sheriff Dar Leaf. Hamilton previously caught the attention of the media when he sought to deputize members of the New Hope Revival Church to aid the sheriff’s office in the event they were to be infected with Covid. Hamilton claimed that the act was just a “symbolic” gesture. Beyond CSPOA, Hamilton has had ties to an armed militia from Albuquerque, as well as the Cowboys for Trump group, whose co-founder was prosecuted for his role on January 6. For his part, Songer claims to have a “posse” of up to 150 armed community volunteers that he relies on for tasks such as cougar hunting as well as courtroom security and claims that he only enforces laws that he deems constitutional. Leaf, who is on the CSPOA advisory board, was investigated, but not charged, by Michigan authorities in relation to the alleged illegal seizure and breach of vote-counting machines in 2020. He also appeared at a rally with two men who were later charged in the conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
In a nod to the January 6 insurrectionists, the conference featured appearances from Casey Cusick and Tom Hamner. Hamner spent over two years in prison for the felony charge “interfering with law enforcement” for his actions on January 6, while Cusick was convicted alongside his father for crimes committed that day. During the conference both men referred to the insurrectionists as “political prisoners.”
The growth of CSPOA links with far-right activists, election deniers, and conspiracists is especially concerning given the recent discovery by IREHR of CSPOA’s secret “blueprint for the next insurrection.” Put out by the CSPOA-backed Florida Foundation for Freedom (FFF), the plan is a seven-page internal document that seeks to “target sheriffs, county commissioners, and supervisors of elections,” with a particular focus on Florida. The group claims that they can “nullify” anything that they deem “unconstitutional,” from local statues, international treaties, to Supreme Court decisions. The plan aims to persuade local grassroots groups to push for “Lesser Magistrates,” a concept outlined in conspiracist Matthew J. Trewhella’s book The Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates, which implies a political entity on the country level could refuse to follow laws from higher authorities.
While no respectable legal expert gives credence to these beliefs, antigovernment and constitutional sheriff groups believe that they have legal authority from the Constitution to refuse to follow state and federal government laws. The insurrectionary plan also mentions using election officials to refuse to certify election results and local “posses” to help remove elected officials. Given what happened during the January 6, 2021, insurrection, such plans cannot be taken lightly.
CSPOA’s organizing is continuing. Under the banner of the Florida Foundation for Freedom, the group has a conference scheduled for September 6-7, 2024, in Orlando, Florida. Many of the same organizations that Mack met with in Florida are helping to sponsor the event that will bring together attorneys, county supervisors, far-right activists, and sheriffs. Among the individuals listed as speakers are former Sheriff of Elkhart County, Indiana, Brad Rogers; Collier County Commissioner Chris Hall; Pinal County, Arizona, Sheriff Mark Lamb (who once had his own constitutional sheriffs organization, Protect America Now); Mary Flynn O’Neill from Mike Flynn’s election-denying organization America’s Future, Inc.; and Indian River County, Florida, Sheriff Eric Flowers. Also on the bill is an “allied attorney,” Kristina S. Heuser, from the Christian Nationalist legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom, whose Supreme Court cases overturned Roe and have restricted LGBTQ+ rights.
