Over the past few weeks, a substantial number of U.S. Marine Corps personnel have appeared in the relatively quiet border town of Douglas, Arizona. Fresh-faced buzz-cut youths in civvies are rumored to be walking the city’s streets, tight-lipped when asked what they are doing here. And, oddly enough, it appears they’ve bivouacked at the historic Gadsden Hotel, with its grand pink marble staircase and ghosts of Pancho Villa and foregone mining magnates.

Diana LaMar, a Douglas resident and founder of the town’s chapter of Indivisible, first noticed something odd was afoot when she booked a room for a few guests at the Gadsden early this month.

“I booked the room, and by the end of the day, I got a call from the Gadsden informing me that they were going to have to cancel my reservation due to ‘major renovations’ that I was told were going to start on April 6,” said LaMar.

She waited a week, then checked back with the Gadsden to see if the situation remained the same. She says she was told that the ‘major renovations’ had begun, and was surprised to find that the hotel had completely closed itself to any new bookings until sometime this coming autumn.

Then the rumors began to circulate, said LaMar-- that U.S. Marines had completely occupied the Gadsden; that they were here for “training,” or to help with some new iteration of interminable border wall construction, or that they may be involved in coming immigration enforcement raids, or even that there may be some contra-cartel action in the works.

All speculation, all rumors-- just a sleepy border town abuzz. Though it is true that several hundred active-duty U.S. Marines were deployed to support federal immigration raids in Los Angeles just last summer.

This fact, of the Trump administration’s previous domestic use of Marines, along with other potential aspects of this military presence in Douglas, is enough to cause concern for LaMar and other area residents. Douglas is not only a border town, but it is a predominantly Hispanic town-- with more than 14,000 of the town’s total population of about 16,500 being “Hispanic or Latino,” according to 2020 U.S. Census Bureau data.

Whatever the purpose of this military presence may be, Cochise Regional News has confirmed that a sizable number of U.S. Marines have arrived in Douglas, and that they have completely booked the Gadsden-- for the foreseeable future. According to a source familiar, the Gadsden Hotel, which has 30 guest rooms, is completely booked and not accepting any reservations until October 1. These bookings are due to occupancy by U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) personnel, who began their stay in the hotel earlier this month.

The Best Western hotel situated in Douglas also has a number of USMC bookings, according to a source familiar.

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Mysterious, ill-defined, military “national defense areas”

The purpose of this USMC presence is not clear. Douglas is a border town that butts right up against the sometimes-razor-wire-festooned steel border wall that separates it from Agua Prieta, Sonora-- but it is not part of areas on, or near, the U.S./Mexico border that have been placed under military control by the Trump administration.

Through 2025, the U.S. Department of the Interior and Department of Defense, acting in accordance with executive orders and memoranda issued by President Donald Trump, created four “National Defense Areas” (NDAs) running in piecemeal fashion along the U.S./Mexico border. These areas consist of portions of the Roosevelt Reservation (a 60-foot wide strip running along much of the Southwest Border in New Mexico, Arizona and California), as well as other federal lands-- some of which are situated well inland from the border.

These properties were transferred from DoI ownership to DoD-- and, in its hands, the Pentagon placed the areas under the jurisdiction of a number of military bases, so that military personnel may patrol and apprehend anyone found to be present without authorization.

Though DoD states that military personnel work within the NDAs to “support” U.S. Department of Homeland Security agencies like Customs and Border Protection, creation of the areas was a clear workaround to federal law prohibiting direct military enforcement of civilian law on American soil.

Two of these NDAs span portions of the border in Texas and fall under the purview of bases in that state. Another covers a portion of New Mexico’s southern border and is the responsibility of U.S. Army base Ft. Huachuca (situated in Cochise County, Arizona). The fourth NDA consists of a 140-mile portion of land adjacent to the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range near Yuma, according to DoD materials.

Because federal ownership of land along, or near, the Southwest border is not uniform or contiguous, the NDAs are not contiguous easily-defined areas. And, given the fact that the “defense areas” are essentially extensions of the military bases that oversee them, those who wander onto them without DoD authorization may face substantial criminal penalties (including a possible year in prison) and substantial fines. Yet-- despite the fact that the public may want to know where these NDAs are, so they do not wander onto them-- the “National Defense Areas” are shrouded in opacity; there this a dearth of published information from DoD comprehensively detailing the boundaries of each NDA, and information pertaining to military activities on, or near, the NDAs is even harder to come by.

So what are U.S. Marines doing in Douglas? Given that the town is not on, or near, an NDA, this is a very good question.

The Yuma NDA, the only such area in Arizona, is operated under the auspices of Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, near Yuma, Arizona (on the western side of the state). There appears to be no publicly-available map showing where, exactly, the Yuma NDA is. Nevertheless, the town of Douglas (which is situated in southeast Arizona) is at least 120 miles from the nearest possible boundary of the Yuma NDA-- if scant materials currently published by DoD are accurate.

Similarly, Douglas is a fair distance from the New Mexico NDA, with its city limits falling about thirty miles to the west of the nearest portion of that “defense area,” which is operated under the purview of Ft. Huachuca (situated about 75 miles west of the “defense area”). Both Douglas and Ft. Huachuca are situated in Cochise County.

Ft. Huachuca Public Affairs Officer Angela Camara told CRN that, while the New Mexico NDA is an extension of the U.S. Army’s Ft. Huachuca, command of operations on the NDA (as is the case with all four NDAs) falls under DoD Northern Command’s “Joint Task Force-Southern Border.” As such, Camara said she was not able to speak to the purpose of any USMC presence in the area, or operations on the NDA-- if this Marine presence is even related to the NDA-- and referred such questions to the Northern Command task force. Camara did note, however, that there are currently “a lot more Marines on our Army post than we’ve had before.”

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Silence and a postscript

Cochise Regional News submitted written questions pertaining to the presence of Marines in Douglas to the Department of Defense Public Affairs Office, which declined to comment and referred our questions to USMC.

CRN attempted to reach public affairs personnel by phone, and also submitted written questions to: USMC, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, and Northern Command JTF-Southern Border. None have responded.

A side note of interest: as Cochise Regional News has previously reported, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels was a participant in a Project 2025 subgroup called the Border Security Workgroup [read more about Dannels’ involvement here and here].

The group worked throughout 2024 to craft implementing plans for Trump’s promised mass immigrant deportations and other national security objectives.

Plans created by the group called for military occupation of the Southwest border, merger of military with domestic law enforcement nation-wide, and even phased military deployment across the nation in the form of joint task forces. These documents discuss initial military operations on the Southwest border as a “‘pilot’ for future operations,” and clearly contemplate integration of military forces with domestic law enforcement throughout the entire nation.

Notably, some involved in crafting these plans for the merger of military and domestic law enforcement in the hands of President Trump have deep ties to Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 presidential election.

Several of the individuals who worked within this Project 2025 subgroup to craft these plans now occupy consequential positions within the Trump administration.

For his part, in a February 2025 Cochise County Board of Supervisors meeting, Sheriff Dannels-- who is now a member of Trump’s Homeland Security Advisory Counsel and frequently mentions his relationship with “border czar” Tom Homan-- stated that he anticipated a substantial military presence would be coming to Cochise County.

[Update: on April 15, following publication of this article, Joint Task Force-Southern Border spokesman Navy Lt. Justin Truong responded to written questions submitted by CRN.

“U.S. Marines in Douglas, Arizona are with Combat Logistics Battalion 7, 1st Marine Logistics Group, which deployed to the southern border in April 2026 under Joint Task Force – Southern Border,” said Truong.

“There are approximately 400 Marines operating in the U.S. Border Patrol Tucson sector [Douglas and Cochise County are within this Border Patrol operational sector]. As a logistics unit, these Marines are tasked with conducting barrier reinforcement and road improvements as part of the Department of War support to the Department of Homeland Security.”

As to the presence of Marines in a town that has not been subsumed by a military base through “national defense area” designation, Truong stated that military service members assigned to the task force are not confined to NDAs, but conduct operations along the entirety of the U.S./Mexico border.

Under the Posse Comitatus Act, federal military personnel are generally barred from conducting direct civilian law enforcement operations. As such, military forces are generally used domestically in a “support” capacity to civilian law enforcement agencies, such as those of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It is in this “support” capacity to DHS that Truong said task force personnel deployed along the border outside of NDAs are deployed (Truong admitted that military personnel do apprehend and “temporarily detain” individuals within NDAs, who are then handed over to federal law enforcement-- though he insists this is not tantamount to military performance of law enforcement duties).

This “support” role has been increasingly abused. When, in June of last year, Northern Command dispatched armed active duty Marines to Los Angeles-- a move widely seen as one meant to intimidate Americans protesting the administration’s immigration raids-- the mission was stated to be one of “support” to federal law enforcement agencies.]

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News-- April 14, 2026

If you find this reporting to be of value, please support CRN through a donation or become a paid subscriber.

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As we move deeper into this second Trump presidency, we have seen escalation of two troubling trends. First: we have seen an all-out assault by federal immigration agents on cities governed by the Democratic Party. Second: as this assault has intensified, so too have the administration’s rhetoric and actions seeking to cast doubt on the integrity of elections— both past and future.

Many have speculated that these two threads are related. Our work indicates they may well be.

For the past year, Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times have undertaken an investigation into a secretive subgroup of Project 2025 that crafted plans throughout 2024 for the creation of a new nationwide militarized law enforcement command system— one that would ultimately answer directly to President Donald Trump.

Through the course of this investigation, a pattern has emerged: a number of individuals involved in crafting these plans have deep ties to Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election, as well as to other efforts aimed at undermining our electoral systems. Deeper still, the world that produced these plans was one where anti-democratic actors-- hungry for power at any cost-- merged their agenda with a powerful rising tide of white Christian nationalist ideology.

Many of the individuals involved in this milieu now hold prominent positions within an increasingly militarized law enforcement apparatus that increasingly resembles the one they worked to create— and which does seem to respond to Trump’s slightest whim.

If the plans these individuals worked to create come into fruition, there could be grave cause for concern— particularly as we, a nation facing many challenges and divisions, move closer to elections that seem less and less likely to favor the administration.

This is a continuation of our “Big Takeover” investigative series detailing these plans, and the individuals and organizations who crafted them.

Insurrectionist brunch: indicted 2020 elections plot conspirator urges use of Insurrection Act, domestic military deployment-- in name of “border security”

On May 25, 2024, a number of individuals working under the banner of Project 2025 to craft policy for an anticipated second Trump presidency attended a brunch at the Army Navy County Club in Arlington, Virginia.

The private members-only club-- which boasts a number of presidents, congressional and military leaders among its legacy roster-- is a scene of antebellum pretense, situated only five miles from the heart of the nation’s capitol. The club bills itself as an exclusive “backyard” to the District of Columbia’s political and military “elite”-- set among some 500 rambling acres of Virginia greenery, cut through with championship golf courses and innumerable tennis courts. It is a place for the “exceptional” to luxuriate, unwind-- a place for D.C.’s creme de la creme to enjoy diner dances, card rooms, fitness training, wine events, “roof top socials”-- and even hold meetings, brunches and banquets. All within sight of the Washington Monument.

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, the Army Navy Country Club was the preferred meeting site for certain elements of Project 2025 though the course of the 2024 election year.

Project 2025 was the name of an effort led by right-wing think tank, The Heritage Foundation. Its purpose was to craft plans and policies for a second Trump presidency. The effort included input from a coalition of various right-wing public policy foundations and individual contributors.

Policies proposed by Project 2025 centered largely around two central pillars. One was the obscure “unitary executive” legal theory, which essentially consolidates executive power in the hands of the president. Critics of “unitary executive” theory argue that it is unconstitutional and essentially reframes the presidency as something akin to a dictatorship or monarchy. The second pillar was hard-line Christian fundamentalism.

Subjects of discussion at these events were far from mundane.

The keynote speaker at this particular May 25, 2024 “brunch” urged assembled Trump loyalists, right-wing activists and policymakers to find avenues through which the U.S. military may be deployed on American soil during a second Trump presidency-- in the name of securing the nation’s borders. In furtherance of this objective, the brunch speaker urged his audience to become intimately acquainted with the Insurrection Act, according to documentation we’ve obtained.

The Insurrection Act grants the president extraordinary powers to do things like seize control of state National Guard units, and dispatch both National Guard and active military forces to American states and cities in order to quell domestic “insurrections.”

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, among those in attendance at this brunch, which was largely focused on Project 2025 Department of Defense policy efforts, were members of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup, along with members of the Project 2025 Army Work Group and other Project 2025 participants and leaders.

The Border Security Workgroup had been tasked with creating plans and policies to implement Trump’s promised mass immigrant deportations and other national security objectives. Documentation we’ve obtained indicates that the May 25, 2024 Project 2025 brunch was particularly noteworthy, in that the Border Security Workgroup had only just been formed-- largely as an offshoot of the Project 2025 Army Work Group-- about a month prior. As such, the Border Security Workgroup was still feeling their way-- filling out their membership, establishing work plans and policy priorities. Documents demonstrate that guidance received by the Border Security Workgroup from the keynote speaker at this event likely played a substantial role in setting the tone and trajectory of plans and policies they would produce for Trump’s Resolute Desk.

The source of that guidance was brunch “keynote speaker” Jeffrey Bossert Clark.

Despite the border security theme of guidance given by Clark at this May 2024 Project 2025 brunch, he is not a man with a background in homeland security, border security, military maters, or criminal law enforcement. In fact-- quite to the contrary-- at the time of this brunch, Clark was under criminal indictment (along with Trump and several others), facing felony prosecution in relation to his role in Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times (which consists largely of internal workgroup emails and documents produced by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup), group leader Leon Rios took notes of “key talking points” from Clark’s address and distributed them among workgroup members. According to these notes, Clark spoke of the need for the federal government to “provide protection” to states under threat from “transnational criminal organizations.” In service of this federal “protection” of states, read Rios’ notes of Clark’s remarks, “the President has authority to employ military.”

According to Rios’ notes, Clark went on to urge use of capabilities that would merge domestic law enforcement with the military, in Trump’s hands.

“The President uses powers as chief law enforcement officer as well as the Commander in Chief of military forces. Powers have not been unified for border security for some time. Need to operationalize the capacities of the President’s national powers,” read Rios’ notes of Clark’s guidance.

“Recent events have led to the misconception that the military cannot be used at borders due to possession comitatus [sic],” continued Rios’ notes. As such, Clark stated that the assembled Project 2025 participants crafting policy for Trump needed to “become experts” on sections of federal law codified under the Insurrection Act.

Use of federal military forces as agents of domestic law enforcement is generally prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act [not “possession comitatus” as Rios’ notes have it]. Federal military forces may provide support to civil authorities, and often do in cases of emergencies (particularly natural disasters). Both federal active duty military and state National Guards have been employed, at various times, in such support roles on the border-- by both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations and state governments. But, per Posse Comitatus, federal military forces are prohibited from exceeding this support capacity and acting as civilian law enforcement agents.

Because state National Guard units (which, per federal law, are under the command of state governors) are typically not under federal control, they are not generally seen as being subject to the prohibitions of Posse Comitatus. But, then, therein lies the rub for supporters of extreme presidential power: state guard units under the command of governors are not under the command of the president.

There are a few exceptions to the prohibitions of Posse Comitatus-- chief of which is presidential invocation of the Insurrection Act. Statutes under the Insurrection Act cited by Clark during the Project 2025 brunch would, among other things, allow Trump to seize control of state National Guard units and deploy both federalized state guards and active-duty military forces-- in an active domestic law enforcement capacity-- to quell “insurrections.”

Where the extraordinary powers of the Insurrection Act are concerned, it is important to note that there is no codification of “martial law” in federal law; the Insurrection Act is about as close as we get, within the confines of statute.

One of the sections of the Insurrection Act that Clark told the assembled Project 2025 crowd they needed to become “expert” in was Section 253 of the Insurrection Act, which states:

“The President, by using the militia [National Guard] or the armed forces, or both, or by any other means, shall take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy [...]”

Further, according to Rios’ notes, Clark told assembled Project 2025 military and Border Security Workgroup personnel to become intimately acquainted with sections of the Insurrection Act that would allow the president to seize control of state National Guards and use them, along with regular federal military, to suppress “rebellions” and “insurrections” against federal and/or state authority.

These are not “border security” laws.

Strangely, according to Rios’ notes of Clark’s remarks, the chief rationale cited by Clark in his attempt to tie such extraordinary actions to border security was Army deployment during the 1915 Bandit War (not an actual declared war) wherein bandits from Mexico attacked towns in Texas. This was not an instance in which the Insurrection Act was invoked.

At the moment of this May 25, 2024 brunch, “border security” was shaping up to be buzzword of the 2024 election. Nikki Haley, the last of Trump’s GOP challengers, had dropped out of the race just a few months prior in March, and the Trump campaign was beginning to build steam moving into the Republican Party’s July nominating convention. The principal winds propelling the Trump campaign were fears of a porous southern border, promised mass immigrant deportations, and promises of “retribution” against his perceived political enemies. This later category stemmed largely from Trump’s repeated lies regarding the 2020 presidential election.

Interestingly-- given Clark’s status at the time, as a man facing criminal charges for his role in Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election-- the final line of Rios’ notes on Clark’s brunch remarks urging use of the Insurrection Act states:

“Cannot apply law against people who prepare or execute actions in border security related cases. Need private effort to protect persons committed to border security operations against ‘law-fare’ (prosecution for nefarious reasons).”

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Attempted coups don’t die, they just go to Hell to regroup

In August 2023, roughly nine months before his remarks at this Project 2025 brunch, Clark and 18 others had been indicted in Fulton County, Georgia. The wide-ranging indictment sought criminal prosecution in relation to the efforts of Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Trump, his former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and a number of Trump-aligned attorneys-- including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro-- were among those indicted, along with Clark.

Following his electoral loss to Joe Biden in November 2020, Trump refused to accept the results of the election and falsely claimed that the election had been “stolen” from him. These claims metastasized into an effort aimed at undermining the results of the election in several states instrumental to Biden’s victory-- chiefly (but not limited to) Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona. Trump-aligned attorneys were dispatched to these states and undertook various efforts to undermine their election results. These efforts included false allegations of voter fraud, work to encourage state Republican lawmakers to void the will of their constituents and award state electoral votes to Trump, as well as efforts to falsify state electoral results through groups of individuals falsely posing as state Electoral College electors.

This insurrectionist period of Trump’s first presidency (which roughly spanned the time between the November 3, 2020 election and Biden’s inauguration on January 20, 2021) was defined by a number of key events-- the most visible of which was the January 6 attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

One important event that took place during this period was a meeting held in the White House on December 18. Among those present in this meeting were Trump, Powell, Emily Newman (a former White House staffer), Trump millionaire supporter Patrick Byrne, and Trump’s former National Security Advisor retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn.

Prior to this meeting, Powell had unleashed what she called “the Kraken”-- a slew of litigation in various courts across the nation, seeking to overturn the results of the election. Newman was an attorney who worked with Powell in this “Kraken” litigation. These cases were roundly rejected by courts as baseless. By the time of this December 18 White House meeting, the “Kraken” had fallen flat and the Trump team was getting increasingly desperate. During the meeting, Flynn-- who is an avowed Christian nationalist who had also seemingly embraced the QAnon conspiracy theory, and who had also urged imposition of martial law a number of times following the election-- again urged Trump to declare martial law. This group of election deniers also presented Trump with a variety of plans to overturn the election. These materials included a draft executive order that would direct the secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense to seize voting machines and data.

By all accounts, the December 18 White House meeting devolved into chaos-- with the pro-martial law group of Trump advisors and White House staff screaming at each other. White House Counsel Pat Cippolone is reported to have vehemently opposed the recommendations presented by Powell, Byrne, Flynn, and Newman. That opposition may have been the thin barrier that stood between imposition of “martial law” in 2020, and Trump’s eventual decision to leave the White House a month later.

Remember this meeting. We will return to it later.

This chaotic period of Trump’s first presidency also saw the departure of cabinet-level officials who were not sufficiently supportive of Trump’s efforts to overturn the election.

Among these was U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Secretary Mark Esper, whom Trump fired less than a week less than a week following his election loss. Esper had reportedly been among those to pull Trump back from the brink of invoking the Insurrection Act and deploying military forces against Americans during widespread protests against police violence that took place in the summer of that year, following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. On the day he fired Esper, Trump installed Christopher Miller (then head of the National Counter Terrorism Center) in his place. Following Miller’s appointment-- among widespread concern that he may be willing to accommodate some of the extreme rhetoric surrounding Trump regarding military intervention-- a number of surviving DoD secretaries admonished Miller to follow his oath of office, should Trump order domestic deployment of military forces.

Miller drew criticism for his actions at DoD in the twilight of the first Trump presidency. This included criticism for his decision to delay deployment of the D.C. National Guard to aid embattled Capitol Police on January 6, 2021, as well as obstruction of Biden transition team access to the Pentagon.

Miller would go on to serve a key role in Project 2025.

Another cabinet departure in the wake of the election was that of Attorney General William Barr. In late December 2020, Barr departed his post as head of the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ). Though Barr had been a staunch supporter of the president, he publicly contradicted Trump’s assertions regarding the election and this resulted in a rift that ultimately led to his resignation. Barr was succeed by Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who assumed the role of acting attorney general on December 24.

On December 27, Trump attempted to enlist Rosen and DoJ in his efforts to overturn the results of the election, telling Rosen: “Just say that the election was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

Rosen declined to accommodate Trump’s wishes, but the president had an ally within DoJ who was willing to advance these false claims.

The following day, Jeffrey Clark, then an assistant attorney general for DoJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, emailed a draft letter to Rosen for his signature. The letter, addressed to the governor and state legislative leaders of Georgia, falsely stated that the Department of Justice had “identified significant concerns that may have impacted the outcome of the election in multiple states, including the state of Georgia.”

Again, Rosen refused.

DoJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division handles litigation relating to things like the fossil fuel industry and related regulatory matters. Prior to this posting at DoJ, Clark was a private sector attorney specializing in these matters. He was far from his wheelhouse when he chose to inject himself in matters relating to the election. Nevertheless, in Clark, Trump had found a warm body at DoJ willing to advance his lies regarding the election.

On January 3, Clark met with Rosen and advised him that Trump had offered Clark Rosen’s job as acting attorney general. Clark told Rosen he had accepted the offer.

This precipitated an emergency White House meeting between Rosen, other DoJ leadership, and Trump and his advisors. At this meeting, Trump was confronted by the threat of mass DoJ resignations if he carried out his plan to place Clark at the head of the agency. Trump backed down, and the Department of Justice never issued statements falsely claiming irregularities in the 2020 election.

So, why was Jeffrey Clark-- a man with this background-- the keynote speaker at a May 25, 2024 “brunch,” wherein he urged the assembled “border security” and military wing of Project 2025 to enable a future President Trump to deploy U.S. military forces on American soil through invocation of the Insurrection Act?

A clue to this may be found in a conversation that took place amid the tumult of the first Trump administration’s waning months. In March 2024, former White House Deputy Counsel Pat Philbin gave testimony to the District of Columbia Bar as part of that association’s disciplinary actions against Clark, stemming from Clark’s role in the 2020 elections plot. In his testimony, Philbin described a conversation he had with Clark during the tense days surrounding Trump’s attempt to place Clark at the head of DoJ. In this conversation, as Philbin recounted it, he delivered a warning to Clark relating to Trump’s plots to overthrow the election.

“I tried to explain to him that it was a bad idea for multiple reasons,” Philbin testified. “He would be starting down a path of assured failure ... If by some miracle somehow, it worked, there’d be riots in every major city in the country and it was not an outcome the country would accept.”

Following the ignominious end of the first Trump administration, many of Trump’s co-conspirators and their allies found refuge in the world of Project 2025.

As we have discussed, Project 2025 was an effort comprised of several right-wing policy groups, led by The Heritage Foundation. Their purpose was to craft plans and policies for a hoped-for second Trump presidency.

According to materials published by Project 2025 listing contributors and members of its “advisory board,” many involved were unabashedly Christian nationalist. Individuals and entities of the anti-immigrant network founded by white nationalist John Tanton were also among the project’s leading contributors and advisory board members. Further, examination of groups and the individuals involved in the world of Project 2025 reveals a deep culture of anti-democratic actors who have long worked to restrict voter access, and/or have taken part in efforts to overthrow elections and undermine election systems. As such, Project 2025 was a synthesis of these pernicious threads of Christian nationalism, white nationalism and those who would seek to seize political power — seemingly at any cost.

Heritage was co-founded in 1973 by right-wing political luminary and Christian nationalist Paul Weyrich. Through the 1970s and 1980s, Weyrich founded or co-founded several influential policy groups that would serve, for decades to come, as the nucleus of the Christian and “conservative” movements in American politics. These included Heritage, the Council for National Policy, and the American Legislative Exchange Council-- all of which had deep ties to Project 2025.

At the time of Clark’s guidance during this Project 2025 “brunch,” we was working as a senior fellow and director of litigation at the Center for Renewing America-- which was a Project 2025 advisory board member, and heavy contributor. Center for Renewing America was under the leadership of its founding president Russell Vought. Vought had served as head of the White House Office of Management and Budget during the first Trump term. Prior to his work in the first Trump administration, Vought had served as “vice president for grassroots outreach” for Heritage Foundation’s lobbying arm, Heritage Action for America.

Vought is an avowed Christian nationalist and the given mission statement of his Center for Renewing America was “to renew a consensus of America as a nation under God [...].”

In April 2023, Heritage published a 922-page policy handbook titled “2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” The document contained Project 2025’s vision for agencies and offices of the executive branch. Vought wrote the chapter in this document detailing policy for the Executive Office of the President. In this chapter, Vought gave special thanks to Clark for his contributions.

Vought’s Center for Renewing America, like several other groups (such as the America First Legal Foundation, whose founding president was longtime Trump advisor, Stephen Miller), were essentially spinoffs of the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI). CPI had been founded in 2017 by former Heritage president Jim DeMint, former Heritage Vice President for Policy Promotion Ed Corrigan, and Heritage Vice President of Communications Wesley Denton. According to CPI materials, the group practices “incubation,” through which it works to “launch new organizations to fill strategic voids in the conservative movement.” CPI was a member of the Project 2025 advisory board, and a number of CPI-incubated spin-offs (including Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Foundation) were leading Project 2025 contributors/advisory board members as well.

In 2021, CPI hired former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows as “senior partner,” with a half-million-dollar annual salary, according to tax records. In the months following Trump’s November 2020 election loss, Meadows had been instrumental in the efforts of Trump and his allies in attempting to overturn the election’s results-- particularly in Georgia.

In August 2023, Meadows was indicted in Fulton County-- alongside Trump, Clark, and several others-- for his role in this plot. The primary count against Meadows in this indictment related to his role in attempting to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to falsify the state’s election results. The most overt example of this pressure campaign took place during a January 2, 2021 phone call in which Trump, Meadows and their allies, told Raffensperger to “find” the requisite number of votes needed for Trump to claim victory in that crucial state.

Another party to this now-infamous call was Cleta Mitchell. Mitchell is a longtime right-wing activist who heads up a number of organizations specializing in voter restrictions and false claims of voter fraud. She took part in efforts to overturn 2020 election results in several states, including Georgia and Arizona. In December 2022, A Fulton County grand jury recommended indictment of Mitchell in relation to both the Raffensperger phone call and her role in the Georgia fake electors plot.

Though Mitchell and a number of others involved in Trump’s machinations were ultimately not indicted in Fulton County, Trump attorney Kenneth Chesebro was. Chesebro was the originator of the fake electors plot, which sought to assemble false electors in crucial states (like Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania) for the purpose of presenting fraudulent election results favoring Trump. Cheseboro pleaded guilty to Fulton County charges relating to this in October 2023.

According to tax records, at the time of Mitchell’s involvement in the 2020 election plot, she was secretary of CPI’s board of directors-- a position she had held since 2019. In 2021, following her role in Trump’s attempted coup, CPI promoted Mitchel to the role of “senior legal fellow” (while retaining her position as secretary of the board), with a quarter-million-dollar annual salary, according to tax records. Mitchell was listed as a CPI contributor to Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” policy blueprint.

Another organization of special note in the realm of Project 2025 was the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). During the time of Project 2025, Heritage was led by Kevin Roberts. Roberts had joined Heritage from TPPF, where he had served as chief executive officer. TPPF was a Project 2025 advisory board member and one of the effort’s leading contributors.

In the months following the 2020 presidential election, Jacki Pick-- who is the wife of longtime TPPF director, billionaire Evangelical activist and Trump mega-donor, Doug Deason-- worked as an attorney aiding the Trump campaign’s efforts to overthrow the results of the election in Georgia. According to court documents, Pick presented false evidence to Georgia state lawmakers that purported to show election workers in Fulton County introducing “suitcases” of unlawful ballots. Pick was a senior fellow at TPPF at the time of these actions in Georgia.

Though a Fulton County grand jury later recommended her prosecution along with the other Georgia conspirators, Pick was ultimately not indicted.

According to Texas Secretary of State records, in 2022 Pick joined the board of directors of Salem Media Group, a broadcaster and producer of right-wing and Christian content (Salem’s offerings include podcasts of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and and Lara Trump). In that same year, Salem released “2,000 Mules,” a film created by Trump ally Dinesh D’Sousa that advanced a false conspiracy theory in which paid “mules” deposited unlawful ballots in ballot drop boxes in key states during the 2020 presidential election. This film-- perhaps more than any other single piece of propaganda-- played a major role in stoking public distrust in elections throughout the nation.

Through the 2024 election cycle, the Deasons, through their Deason Foundation, also provided substantial support to the Blexit Foundation and Turning Point USA (an Evangelical youth organization founded by Trump ally Charlie Kirk), according to tax records. Blexit was founded and led by right-wing propagandist and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens. It was a joint effort with Turning Point USA whose mission was to peel off Black support for candidates of the Democratic Party, in favor of Trump and other MAGA candidates. In 2021, Doug Deason (who is white) joined several other white billionaires on the Blexit board, according to tax records. Among these was longtime Heritage board member and trustee Rebekah Mercer. Mercer and her father, Robert Mercer, had played a key role in Trump’s rise to power in the 2016 election cycle, largely through their underwriting of data firm Cambridge Analytica and right-wing propaganda mill Breitbart News. The data firm worked with the Mercers and another of their beneficiaries, Steve Bannon (former Breitbart head who was employed at times during this period by the Trump campaign and Cambridge Analytica), to sway voters in Trump’s favor through the use of highly-targeted social media manipulation, crafted through user personal data obtained from Facebook

Another longtime TPPF director of note is Evangelical preacher and oil billionaire Tim Dunn. In late 2020, following Trump’s election loss, Dunn and several other TPPF leaders, including TPPF past-president and longtime director Brooke Rollins (now Trump Secretary of Agriculture), founded America First Policy Institute. This organization essentially served as a Trump surrogate mill during the 2024 election cycle-- employing the likes of former Trump acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, televangelist and former Trump White House spiritual advisor Paula White, along with several others from the first Trump administration. America First Policy Institute appointed longtime Cleta Mitchell ally and elections activist J. Kenneth Blackwell to head up their “election integrity” efforts.

Blackwell has long served in leadership positions within the Weyrich co-founded Council for National Policy (CNP) and its related groups. Since its founding in 1981, CNP has worked to merge the far-Christian-right with the mainstream Republican party. It’s leaders and members include a veritable honor roll of right-wing policy and propaganda-- including, prior to his death in 2023, Salem Media Group founder and president Stuart Epperson. Following the 2020 presidential election, CNP members and leaders (many of whom are also leaders and members of Heritage, CPI and other entities involved in Project 2025) worked with Mitchell (who was on CNP’s board of governors in that year) in attempts to persuade lawmakers to reject the results of the election.

The thread of anti-democratic actors in the realm of Project 2025 goes deeper (for example, former Trump attorney and Fulton County co-defendant John Eastman is a “senior fellow” at Project 2025 advisory board member, Claremont Institute-- and is founding director of Claremont’s “Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence”). For now, we will leave it-- with one final thought:

In a September 2025 interview on Family Research Council President Tony Perkins’ “Washington Watch” podcast, Conservative Partnership Institute Senior Legal Fellow Cleta Mitchell discussed avenues through which President Trump may assert federal control over elections (per the U.S. Constitution, elections are administered by state governments). FRC is a faith-based policy group founded by televangelist James Dobson. FRC was a Project 2025 advisory board member and heavy contributor. FRC president Perkins has long held roles in CNP, and CNP’s Blackwell is an FRC “senior fellow.”

“But, look, the President’s authority is limited,” said Mitchell. “The chief executive is limited in his role with regard to elections-- except that where there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States, as I think we can establish, with the porous system we have. Then I think that maybe the President is thinking that maybe he will exercise some emergency powers, to protect the federal elections going forward.”

Mitchell’s remarks echoed themes of extraordinary presidential power wielded in the name of national security, as discussed by fellow 2020 conspirator Jeff Clark during the May 25, 2024 Project 2025 brunch. In his brunch remarks, Clark called for extraordinary presidential powers through invocation of the Insurrection Act. The impetus cited by Clark was one of securing the nation’s borders against “border invasion.” The recurrent words used by Mitchell in this September 2025 conversation were “threat to national sovereignty.”

A substantial portion of the “Washington Watch” episode in which Mitchell made these remarks was dedicated to discussion of expanding Trump’s National Guard deployments to American cities. By the time of this discussion, Trump had seized California’s National Guard and deployed both guard and active duty marines to Los Angeles-- in the name of immigration enforcement. Trump had also deployed National Guard to the streets of the District of Columbia, in a supporting role to local law enforcement and to aid in federal immigration enforcement. Trump had also threatened, or attempted to execute, National Guard deployments in several other cities-- including Portland, Chicago, New Orleans, and Charlotte. This has since been followed by Minneapolis (where two American citizens were killed by federal agents in January). Nearly every case of these threatened or executed troop deployments has been accompanied by threats of presidential invocation of the Insurrection Act. Every city involved in these threats is governed by the Democratic Party and home to large numbers of Democratic Party voters.

Following successful efforts of Trump allies to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecutions stemming from the 2020 elections plot, charges against Trump and his indicted co-conspirators-- including Clark and Meadows-- were dismissed in November 2025.

After Trump’s 2024 election victory, he again tapped Vought as head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which operates within the Executive Office of the President at the White House. Clark joined Vought at this White House office, where he is currently associate administrator of the OMB Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

CRN/New Times submitted several written questions for Clark to the White House Office of Management and Budget. These questions pertained largely to his Insurrection Act guidance at the May 25, 2024 Project 2025 brunch and his involvement in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup.

We also asked Clark whether his guidance involving the Insurrection Act had anything-- whatsoever-- to do with elections or potential civil unrest relating to elections.

Clark did not respond to any of these questions directly. Rather, in total response to these questions, White House Office of Management and Budget Communications Director Rachel Cauley stated:

“Please use this on record from me: ‘The Phoenix New Times is a communist rag that no one reads.’”

[Sadly, Cauley had no criticism of CRN to offer.]

It is worth noting that Cauley, like Clark, had been employed by Vought at Center for Renewing America prior to this work at the White House.

[Note: CRN/New Times received this response from Cauley on February 27. Less than a week later, Clark stepped down from his position at OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, according to reporting in other media.

Upon learning of Clark’s departure from OIRA, we asked Cauley what the reason for Clark’s departure was, and whether he is remaining on at the White House in any capacity.

Cauley’s sole response to these questions was to again call Phoenix New Times a “communist rag that no one reads.”

In reply to this, we reminded Cauley that-- regardless of her opinion of New Times-- these questions were also being asked on behalf of the readers of Cochise Regional News. And we also reminded Cauley that we were not asking for her opinion of our publications, but were asking straightforward questions regarding staffing in public (and taxpayer-funded) offices of the White House. As such, we again asked her to answer these questions.

Cauley did not respond.]

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A conspiracy of silence

The work of Project 2025 throughout 2024 was broken down into subsets, each handling different issue areas. For example, documentation obtained by CRN/New Times shows that there were specific environments within Project 2025 dedicated to crafting policy for various federal executive agencies-- such as the Department of Defense (DoD), Department of State (DoS), Department of Justice (DoJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), etc. Documentation we’ve obtained demonstrates that these various agency-specific environments were further broken into subgroups. For example, one of the subgroups of the Project 2025 DoD environment was the Project 2025 Army Work Group.

Documentation obtained by CRN/New Times demonstrates that the Border Security Workgroup emerged, in large part, from an April 25, 2024 meeting of the Army Work Group.

The Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup was tasked with creating implementing plans and policies for Trump’s promised mass immigrant deportations and other national security objectives. Throughout the 2024 election year, the group worked in concert with other related Project 2025 issue area/agency groups (such as those working to craft policy for DHS and DoS) as well as other policy groups engaged in the Project 2025 effort, to ensure that these plans and policies would be available for immediate action upon the day of Trump’s inauguration, according to documentation we’ve obtained. Toward this aim, work product produced by the group included detailed policy papers, plans and timelines for the rollout of a “whole of government” anti-immigrant militarized law enforcement machine, and even draft executive orders and emergency declarations awaiting the president’s Sharpie.

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup filled out over its first few months of operation to include more than 30 participants. Though some of the group’s key members were civilians working in areas of law enforcement, propaganda and policy, at least a third of the group’s members had substantial military and intelligence backgrounds-- and many were were part of the larger Project 2025 DoD environment, including the Army Work Group.

According to documentation we’ve obtained, leadership of the Border Security Workgroup remained, through the course of their work in 2024, in the hands of career military personnel who also held leadership positions in the Army Work Group.

Chief among these, according to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, were retired Army colonels Leon “Leo” Rios and Sergio de la Pena. Rios served as the overall leader of both the Army Work Group and the Border Security Workgroup. De la Pena seemed to serve as a kind of member-at-large, acting as connective tissue between these subgroups, leaders of other Project 2025 issue areas, Project 2025 leadership, and the Trump “team,” according to documents. De la Pena had worked in the first Trump presidential transition team-- and later as “deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere affairs” during the first Trump administration.

Throughout the course of the 2024 election, Trump loudly and repeatedly denied any knowledge of, or involvement with, Project 2025-- which he even described at campaign events as being of the “extreme” political right. Despite these claims, documentation obtained by CRN/New Times shows that de la Pena briefed these Project 2025 workgroups on expectations of the “candidate’s team” as early as May 2024-- and, as a matter of fact, documentation we’ve obtained demonstrates that de la Pena delivered such guidance, relating to the expectations of Project 2025 and the “candidate’s team,” during the May 25 Clark brunch.

“The candidate’s team will provide insight -- guidance -- once we get into the swing of the campaign process,” read Rios’ notes of de la Pena’s comments, emailed to Army Work Group participants on May 28. “Thereafter, upon a favorable election, the team will have access to government records, will receive briefings, and will take up residence in Washington offices. What this means is that we have about the 75% solution in our current policy proposals -- the remainder will come from guidance, detailed information (briefings, etc.,), [sic] and unforeseen changes to the security environment. [...] Sergio reiterated these points to DoD Brunch attendees on the 25th of May.”

Let’s take a step back and look at the picture that emerges. Here, we have one of Trump’s indicted 2020 elections plot co-conspirators telling a largely military subset of Project 2025 to develop plans in which a hoped-for future president Trump may use the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces on American soil. At the same time, this very same military subset of Project 2025 is clearly coordinating its efforts with candidate Trump’s “team”-- contrary to the candidate’s loud denials.

Where this apparent work throughout 2024 with the Trump “team” is concerned, documentation obtained by CRN/New Times also demonstrates that the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup was used as a recruitment pool for “transition team” personnel as early as June 2024, and that the group assembled their plans and policy proposals for presentation to “the transition team” following the November 2024 election.

Documentation obtained by CRN/New Times also demonstrates that the group received regular briefings relating to transition efforts throughout 2024 (including briefings long before the November election), and that de la Pena continued briefing the Border Security Workgroup on “transition update[s]” as late as January 2025.

And, as the world of Project 2025 was quite deferential to Trump, documentation shows that the Border Security Workgroup was quite conscientious-- and supportive-- of Trump’s denials of any involvement with Project 2025. Rios’ minutes of a meeting held by the group in July 2024 (right around the height of Trump’s denials) make this plain:

“The Border Security Work Group Touchpoint Meeting was held on the 5th of July at 2000 EST. [...] There were as many as 27 participants on the call. [...] During the introduction to the meeting, it was stressed that we did not have any information to share regarding the relationship between President Trump and the Heritage Foundation.”

De la Pena did not respond to multiple requests for comment and written questions from CRN/New Times.

CRN/New Times submitted several written questions to Rios. These included questions relating to the Border Security Workgroup’s apparent ties to the Trump team, questions relating to Clark’s Insurrection Act guidance, and several questions relating to plans and proposals created by the group.

Rios declined to answer these questions, stating only:

“The Border Security Working Group was a private group of citizens engaged in informal meetings and policy discussions with myriad persons and organizations. It had no formal affiliation with — nor reporting relationship to — any outside organization, including Project 2025. [...] The Working Group produced several informal discussion papers for internal use only. These drafts were not finalized and were never formally submitted.”

In response to this statement, CRN/New Times provided Rios with a summary of documentation describing the “Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup,” its role within Project 2025 (to include multiple meetings with Project 2025 leadership), internal group emails that demonstrate the group’s preparation of materials for delivery to both Project 2025 and the transition team, as well as the group’s apparent links to the Trump “team.”

In reply to this, Rios stated that he chose to “stand by” his initial statements regarding the Border Security Workgroup, but did acknowledge his role in the Project 2025 Army Work Group.

CRN/New Times then summarized documentation linking the Border Security Workgroup to the Army Work Group, and asked Rios whether the Border Security Workgroup was essentially an outgrowth of the Army Work Group. Rios then ceased responding to our inquiries.

CRN/New Times asked the White House whether the Trump campaign or transition team had any contact with Project 2025, its Army Work Group or Border Security Workgroup-- and whether the campaign or transition team had received any materials from these Project 2025 groups or recruited personnel from them.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson’s sole response to these questions was:

“President Trump is delivering on the promises he campaigned on directly to the American people. Only the Fake News media would continue to peddle a bogus narrative that no one – except big time loser Kamala Harris – cared about in 2024 and no one cares about now.”

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Concerns ignored, group plans for militarized police system-- under Trump command

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, Clark’s guidance during the May 25, 2024 Project 2025 brunch didn’t sit right with at least one member of the Border Security Workgroup.

“I don’t know if DoD has ever been used for interior enforcement. I wasn’t sure if the brunch speaker was saying that DoD could or not. I suspect that [National Guard] could be used in a similar role to the border with logistical support and the like,” wrote John Whitley in a May 27, 2024 email to Rios.

Whitley has a long military career and served for a period in 2021 as acting secretary of the U.S. Army. According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, Whitley was a “Project 2025 member-at-large” who was taking part in several DoD groups, including participation in the Army Workgroup and leadership of the “Budget work group.”

“The support within US has historically been [National Guard] for supporting roles,” continued Whitley. “The brunch speaker may have been saying DoD could be used in other ways, e.g., active duty in a direct interdiction role (e.g., with arrest authority). We could obviously do that if it is legal and the President decides to do it, but I am not sure it would be helpful for a few reasons:

“[...] It would make the actions much more politically contentious and, thus, undermine their support and increase the risk of failure,” continued Whitley. “It probably wouldn’t help DHS much. They have Border Patrol agents and ICE officers that can make the arrests, the role of DoD is in freeing their time by providing support.”

“[...] It probably wouldn’t help DoD much. The Army would provide the bulk of forces and is already exceeding DoD guidance on deployment to dwell time in some cases,” he added, going on to describe the shell game the Department of Defense would need to play in order to cycle active, reserve, and National Guard components, while still meeting the Pentagon’s other foreign deployment obligations.

As well-reasoned as Whitley’s reservations may have been, they apparently didn’t move Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup and Army Work Group leader Rios. On May 28, he wrote members of the Border Security Workgroup an email in which he recounted the key points of Clark’s Insurrection Act guidance and stated:

“I have asked Mr. Clark (and / or his colleagues) [sic] to participate in the Border Security Work Group.”

Documentation obtained by CRN/New Times shows that Clark was included in Border Security Workgroup email correspondence relating to the development of hybrid military/domestic law enforcement plans, as well as ongoing guidance the group received relating to this from other Project 2025 leaders.

Documentation also demonstrates that Julia Haller, another individual with deep ties to efforts to overthrow the 2020 election, was included on Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup emails pertaining to merging domestic law enforcement with the military, ongoing guidance relating to this, and other aspects of the group’s proposals.

Haller had risen to MAGA notoriety as one of the “Kraken” attorneys working with Sidney Powell, Emily Newman, and other Trump-aligned attorneys in their attempts to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election. Following the failure of this litigation, Powell and Newman joined Flynn in the December 18, 2020 White House meeting in which they urged Trump to used military forces to seize voting machines and voter data.

By the time of her involvement in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup, Haller had been hired as “senior counsel” at the CPI-incubated America First Legal Foundation, headed by longtime Trump advisor Stephen Miller.

Documentation obtained by CRN/New Times demonstrates that the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup likely took direction given by Clark at the May 25 “brunch” to heart. They continued to work through the course of 2024 to develop plans to link military forces with all levels of domestic law enforcement, under Trump’s command.

Documents show that toward this aim, the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup received continued guidance from “Chris Miller (Project 2025 DoD lead)” at multiple points through their work following the Clark brunch.

Former Trump acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller-- who, as we have discussed, served in this role during the insurrectionist period of Trump’s first presidency-- wrote the Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” chapter on DoD. In this chapter (when not ranting about Marxist indoctrination, reversal of DEI practices, and calling for the purging of transgender members of the military), Miller listed a number of “priorities” for DoD policy. One of these priorities was provision of military support to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS, which encompasses agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Custom and Border Protection) for “border protection operations.” In this writing, the former Trump acting DoD secretary also called for establishment of “true alignment between DoD and DHS both to improve the defense of critical U.S. infrastructure and national border integrity.” [Read about Miller’s more recent activities here.]

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times Border Security Workgroup members attended a number of Project 2025 “DoD Brunch[es]” held at the Arlington Army Navy County Club through the course of their work. The group would receive continued guidance from Project 2025 leadership and Project 2025 “DoD leads” at these and other meetings.

As a result of this work, the group crafted a number of avenues through which active military forces under federal command, as well as National Guard units (operating either under the command of willing governors or under imposed federal command), could provide support to law enforcement-- or serve in direct law enforcement capacity.

Records of guidance given by “Chris Miller (Project 2025 DoD lead)” to Border Security Workgroup members reflects this posture. According to workgroup records detailing a “P25 DoD lead” briefing that took place on June 30, 2024, Miller had provided guidance to the group calling for “comprehensive implementing plans” to include “DoD constabulary roles” and “support to LEAs [law enforcement agencies],” ready for execution “upon inauguration.”

And, according to records obtained by CRN/New Times, the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup continued discussion of the Insurrection Act well into September 2024, the period in which they were finalizing their plans and proposals for Project 2025 review. According to documentation, this was also the time period in which the group expected to “[r]eceive guidance and input from the Presidential candidate and other key members of the executive team.”

To be very clear: documentation obtained by CRN/New Times demonstrates that the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup envisioned militarized “border security” operations to take place in all 50 states-- not just on the border.

The “main operational effort” of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup was planning for the creation and implementation of a new nationwide “multi-jurisdictional” fusion center-style system of law enforcement, according to documents. A core objective of this “main operational effort” was to find workarounds to laws prohibiting or limiting military involvement in domestic law enforcement, according to documents obtained by CRN/New Times. Plans produced by the group by the end of 2024 proposed linking military forces with every level of American domestic law enforcement (local, state, tribal, and federal), in all 50 states, through the new fusion-center-style system of command.

For example, according to a Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup document laying out this proposed new “multi-jurisdictional law enforcement” system, the nation would be broken up into several “districts,” each consisting of several states. “District commands” would supervise operations of “state commands” within each state in each district’s jurisdiction. Each state command, in turn, would manage the many “regional command” task force units within each state. Documents produced by the Border Security Workgroup indicate that these proposed regional task forces would include local law enforcement (such as municipal police and county sheriffs), state and tribal law enforcement, and federal law enforcement.

According to documentation, aspects of the military would be interwoven with domestic law enforcement, even at this highly localized “regional” task force level.

As is stated in plans produced by the group for this new command system, these “regional command centers” would be directed by a “federally-appointed director of operations” and would also “have a board of directors functioning as part of a unified command system which is designated to provide input from all levels of participating agencies.”

Accompanying this text in the document is a flow chart illustrating the proposed “Regional Taskforce Unified Command” and the referenced “board of directors.” The chart shows a “military” unit, along with other units (such as “intel” and “investigations”) within the command structure overseeing local law enforcement agencies.

According to documents obtained by CRN/New Times, this new militarized law enforcement apparatus proposed by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup would be under the ultimate command of a “Commander of Domestic Security Operations,” operating out of a “Headquarters Command” that all of the nation’s “district commands” would report to. This “Commander of Domestic Security Operations” would be appointed by President Trump-- and answer only to President Trump. [Read more about this proposed “multi-jurisdictional law enforcement” fusion center-style system here.]

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, plans and proposals created by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup in 2024 called for the implementation of this new militarized multi-jurisdictional command structure through the course of “Operation Demonstrate Resolve,” which was to be rolled out in phases as the administration pursued its mass immigrant deportation and other national security efforts. “Demonstrate Resolve” timelines contained in Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documentation bear a striking-- though imperfect-- resemblance to actions undertaken by the administration through the course of the first year of this Trump presidency.

Materials produced by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup also recommended plans to facilitate the deployment of up to one million Army soldiers (reserve, active forces, and National Guard) on American soil. These Border Security Workgroup documents note that presidential declaration of emergency would be required to enact these plans. Documentation obtained by CRN/New Times demonstrates that-- toward this aim-- the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup prepared a number of draft emergency declarations intended for Trump.

Further, documentation shows that, following a June 2024 briefing with “Chris Miller (Project 2025 DoD lead)” in which Miller provided guidance to the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup, the group created timelines for what appears to be a phased deployment of military forces, working in conjunction with domestic law enforcement agencies in task forces, to all 50 states through the course of 2025 and 2026-- with initial militarization of the Southwest border serving as “‘pilot’ for future operations.”

Timelines and other documentation produced by the workgroup indicate that, following initial phases of immigrant detentions and deportations under “Operation Demonstrate Resolve,” the militarized multi-jurisdictional law enforcement fusion center system created through these operations would shift to an attitude of “sustained operations”-- “in perpetuity thereafter”-- and pivot to mitigation of “all threats,” including perceived “domestic” threats.

To be clear: creation of this new militarized “multi-jurisdictional law enforcement” system would constitute the most substantial reworking of American domestic law enforcement since that which followed the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This era gave us the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and our current nationwide network of fusion centers, as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence-- among many other programs and entities that have had a deep impact on domestic law enforcement and intelligence. Like this new proposed system, the post-9/11 system eventually shifted from its mission of ‘counter-terrorism’ to one of ‘all threats/all hazards’ mitigation. In doing so, the post-9/11 system has frequently infringed on the civil liberties of Americans engaged in things like constitutionally-protected speech and assembly (to say nothing of how the ‘counter terrorism’ apparatus targeted Muslim American and immigrant communities long before this shift). [Read more about this here and here.]

Given these facts, as well as the insurrectionist and anti-democratic backgrounds of many involved in Project 2025, it is important to note that Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documentation we’ve obtained specifically contemplates “counter-intelligence” work to combat an “insider threat” working “to subvert the President’s plan.” In total, documentation we’ve obtained contemplates the targeting-- through a variety of means-- of activists (including college students protesting Israel’s actions in Gaza), certain non-governmental organizations, government agencies, judicial districts, and a number of states or cities governed by the Democratic Party.

Documentation obtained by CRN/New Times demonstrates that “counter-intelligence” plans to target those seen to be “working to subvert the President’s plan” came out of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup “intelligence team,” which was primarily led by retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Tony Cothron.

Cothron has a long career in military intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency and several roles within Naval Intelligence. Among these roles, Cothron served as Director of Naval Intelligence, and as executive assistant to the Director of National Intelligence.

At the time of Cothron’s involvement with the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup, he was employed as director of national security and intelligence programs at Liberty University, where he is also an associate professor of government.

As we have discussed, Heritage and a number of other key groups involved in Project 2025 (such as the American Legislative Exchange Council and Council for National Policy) were co-founded by right-wing political luminary and Christian nationalist Paul Weyrich.

Weyrich also played a founding role, along with Jerry Falwell, Sr. and other televangelists, in launching the Moral Majority in 1979. This influential group galvanized support of the religious right behind Ronald Reagan’s presidential candidacy, whose motto was “Make America Great Again.”

The impetus behind Falwell’s emergence on the political stage was, in large part, opposition to the civil rights movement. The southern Evangelical preacher had owned and operated a whites-only school and actively opposed desegregation. His political crusades later branched out to opposition of abortion and homosexuality. In 1971, Falwell founded what is now Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. The Evangelical school has long served as an incubator for right-wing and Christian nationalist leadership in the United States.

During the 2016 election cycle, Jerry Falwell, Jr., then-head of Liberty University, was instrumental in cementing Evangelical support for Trump. [Prior to this endorsement, then-Trump attorney/fixer Michael Cohen helped Falwell, Jr. bury a sex scandal, which eventually broke and ended Falwell’s leadership of Liberty.]

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, proposals created by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup intelligence and related teams sought integration of domestic law enforcement and military intelligence capabilities, as well as system-wide sharing of a number of law enforcement, intelligence, military, and other government databases-- accompanied by AI-driven data mining of these unified databases.

Cothron and his team proposed creation of a new “Border Security Intelligence Officer” who would oversee these domestic intelligence operations and and report to the overall “Commander of Domestic Security Operations.”

“We will need a senior Intel professional (3-star equivalent) reporting directly to the Director of Border Security [likely early terminology for what the group would later dub the “Commander of Domestic Security Operations”] and empowered by DNI [Director of National Intelligence] to synchronize all intelligence operations to improve national collection/analysis for tactical support,” wrote Cothron in a July 12, 2024 email to Border Security Workgroup members.

“The Border Security Intelligence Officer should also have a small staff that is focused on evaluating/improving Fusion Center operations and integration of tactical surveillance data with national data. He’ll also be responsible for the counter-intelligence mission,” he added.

The “counter-intelligence mission” mentioned by Cothron in this email is described further in a policy paper drafted by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup in September 2024, describing “lines of effort” called for by the intelligence team.

“An insider threat to this strategy can be expected that works with nation-state, transnational and non-governmental entities to subvert the President’s plan,” reads a portion of the paper detailing proposals crafted by Cothron’s intelligence team.

“An active counter-intelligence effort must be organized, integrated across all levels, and actively conducted to identify and prosecute any individuals working for and providing classified or operationally sensitive information on border security plans and activities.” [sic]

Again, plans crafted by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup did not end on the border, but were proposed for action in every state and territory of the United States.

Cothron did not respond to written questions from CRN/New Times relating to the “insider threat” contemplated in these Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documents. Cothron also did not respond to questions pertaining to the scope and nature of the proposed “counter-intelligence mission.” Cothron also did not respond to questions asking whether activists or journalist may have been contemplated as potential targets, given language in these documents pertaining to those who provide “operationally sensitive information” relating to “border security plans and activities.”

However, internal Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup emails shed some light on the kinds of “insider threat” the group may have had in mind. This documentation suggests that some in the group may have been more concerned with ideological purity than immigration status-- or even constitutional rights of speech and religion.

“One area that we don’t mention, which is part of the threat inherent in illegal immigration, is the entry of those whose loyalties lie elsewhere. We have dramatic and plentiful examples in the widespread actions in support of Hamas and the Palestinians,” wrote intelligence team member Collin Agee in a July 12, 2024 email to other workgroup members.

Agee is “senior Army operations advisor” to the Department of Defense National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, according to his LinkedIn profile. At the time of this email, the group was developing a draft “border security” document.

Through 2024, college campuses across the county were scenes of protests against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Project 2024 Border Security Workgroup documents containing timelines for what appear to be phased deployments of joint military/law enforcement task forces throughout the nation specifically list “deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again” among “directives” of this “border security” plan. [Note: this language in this document regarding college campuses was lifted directly from Trump’s Republican Party platform.]

“Both legal and illegal immigrants who, under the guise of free speech, conduct protest that are not peaceful, that threaten and impinge on the rights of American citizens, sometimes for extended periods, such as occupying and disrupting college campuses,” continued Agee. “We have entire communities (see Michigan) where the loyalty is to other nations, groups or causes, rather than America and Americans.” [parenthetical original.]

Dearborn, Michigan, is known for having one of the largest Muslim and immigrant communities in the nation.

CRN/New Times submitted multiple questions to Agee. This included a number of questions pertaining to this July 12, 2024 email and the “counter-intelligence” mission outlined by the group’s “intelligence team.” In these questions, we asked Agee if this reference to Michigan pertained to Dearborn’s Muslim population. We also asked Agee whether, in his view, the intelligence community should target individuals or communities on the basis of religion, ethnicity, country of origin, speech, or political beliefs. Agee did not respond to any of these questions.

CRN/New Times submitted several written questions to Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup leader Rios concerning these plans and proposals. Many of these questions specifically sought clarity on aspects of plans crafted by the group which appear to seek military involvement with domestic law enforcement in the nation’s interior. Still other questions we posed to Rios pertained to various avenues of law discussed by the group (including the Insurrection Act) through which these plans may be accomplished.

CRN/New Times also asked Rios why Clark and Haller were involved with the Border Security Workgroup and what their contributions were-- particularly given their involvement in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and apparent lack of “border security” experience.

Rios declined to answer all of these questions.

Haller did not respond to written questions submitted by CRN/New Times.

Whitely did not respond to written questions from CRN/New Times pertaining to plans produced by the group, Clark’s involvement with the group, or his stated concerns with Clark’s guidance.

Christopher Miller did not respond to questions from CRN/New Times. Questions we posed to Miller specifically sought clarity on aspects of plans crafted by the group which appear to seek military involvement with domestic law enforcement in the nation’s interior, as well as Clark’s Insurrection Act guidance and involvement in the group, among other questions.

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To the east, to meet the Czar

Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documentation obtained by CRN/New Times indicates the group proposed that either Trump’s “border czar” or DHS secretary serve as “Commander of Domestic Security Operations,” overseeing their proposed militarized fusion center system. Further, documentation demonstrates that, between these two choices, the group clearly favored now-Trump “border czar” Tom Homan for this position.

Like many in the realm of Project 2025, Homan had cultivated strong ties to anti-democratic extremists tied to efforts to overthrow elections.

America Project, Inc. was incorporated in early 2021 by right-wing activist Carl Johnson, millionaire Trump supporter and conspiracy theorist Patrick Byrne, and Joseph Flynn. Flynn is a brother of former Trump National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn. Following the first Trump presidency, Michael Flynn devoted his efforts to cultivating a Christian nationalist movement, and partnered with Joseph Flynn in a number of endeavors.

As we have discussed, in the waning days of the first Trump presidency, Michael Flynn and Sidney Powell met with Trump and urged him to take extreme measures, including the imposition of martial law and use of military forces to seize voting machines. This particular meeting took place in the White House on December 18, 2020. Other allies of Flynn and Powell present in the oval office during this meeting were Byrne and Powell “Kraken” attorney Emily Newman.

By all accounts, the meeting devolved into a screaming match between the Flynn/Powell cohort and seemingly less-insane White House staff, like White House Counsel Pat Cipollone-- who strongly urged Trump away from the path of martial law.

Following this meeting, Byrne, Flynn, and Powell would all play substantial roles in events precipitating the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Following this failed insurrection, in April 2021, the Flynn brothers, Byrne and Johnson launched America Project, with Newman joining them as a director and president for a period, according to records. And, though Michael Flynn’s name does not appear in America Project corporate filings or tax records, in a July 2022 interview with the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on U.S. Capitol, Byrne stated that he had co-founded America Project with Michael Flynn, who served as an advisor to the group.

In this same January 6 Committee interview, Byrne stated that America Project had been founded in response to the implosion of another entity, Defending the Republic, in order to carry on their “election fraud” work.

According to Florida Division of Corporations records, Defending the Republic had been founded in February 2021 by Joseph Flynn, My Pillow founder/MAGA conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, and Newman. Records list Powell as “chairman of the board,” and as president of a related non-profit organization of the same name.

According to court and tax records, Defending the Republic had financed a number of the “Kraken” attorneys and was listed as the entity employing “Kraken” attorney Julia Haller in a number of cases related to the 2020 election (to refresh your memory, Haller went on to work as senior counsel at Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Foundation and was involved in Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup emails pertaining to the merger of military forces with domestic law enforcement).

In 2023, America Project filed a report with the Florida Department of State, listing former Trump acting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Tom Homan as “director and CEO.” In that same year, Homan incorporated a number of entities under the name “Border911,” according to Virginia Corporation Commission records. Florida Department of State records show that Homan stayed on as a director with America Project into 2025, and list Homan as a director at the time of the entity’s voluntary dissolution later in that year.

These two groups, America Project and Border911, would hold a number of tandem campaign-style events throughout 2023 and the 2024 election year (including gala fetes held at Trump’s Mar a Lago resort), with America Project promoting Border911 events as their own. Border911 and America Project promotional materials show that a central theme of these events was one of “every state is a border state,” and events often combined-- or conflated-- issues of border security and elections security.

Review of tax records detailing America Project’s run through the years following Trump’s 2020 election loss reveal a pattern: while the group did spend tens of thousands of dollars in relation to “border security” causes and often used Homan and Border911 to fill seats at their events, the group expended millions of dollars in relation to efforts to undermine the results of the 2020 presidential election and 2022 elections.

Tax records show that America Project funded efforts to undermine elections, or otherwise support those working to undermine elections, in a number of crucial swing states. These included Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Such expenditures included-- but are definitely not limited to-- around $710,000 in “legal support” to Michigan attorney Stefanie Lambert, who had worked alongside Powell, Newman, Haller and others, as part of the Powell “Kraken” team that attempted to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election. [Note: Lambert appeared in this litigation under the name “Stefanie Lynn Junttila.”]

As part of her efforts in this vein, Lambert was alleged to have illegally gained access to voting machines and non-public voter data in several Michigan counties. She is currently awaiting trial in Michigan on charges stemming from these activities. Lambert also undertook attempts to undermine the results of the 2020 election in other states, including Pennsylvania. These Pennsylvania efforts, as well as Lambert’s criminal defense relating to the Michigan allegations, were underway when America Project paid her this money during 2022 and 2023.

In 2021, America Project also paid at least $2.75 million to Cyber Ninjas, the firm hired to conduct the lengthy “audit” of Maricopa County votes cast in the 2020 election. Cyber Ninjas chief executive, Doug Logan, was involved in Lambert’s Michigan election subversion activities during this year as well.

America Project also funded We The People AZ Alliance, which received additional funding directly from America Project co-founder Byrne and My Pillow founder/MAGA conspiracy theorist Lindell. We The People AZ worked to undermine results in a number of 2022 Arizona midterm elections, as well as sow widespread distrust of voting systems during that election cycle. During this period, the group employed attorney Bryan Blehm, who represented both Cyber Ninjas and failed 2022 gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake in her attempts to overthrow her election loss.

Homan acted as something of a lynchpin between various players in the realm of Project 2025-- particularly where these themes of border security and elections were concerned.

During his time as acting ICE director in the early years of the first Trump presidency, Homan implemented the administration’s family separation policy, which saw countless immigrant families torn apart-- some permanently. Upon his exit from the first Trump administration in June 2018, Homan took his newfound MAGA celebrity for a ride-- seemingly with his hand extended to any far-right group that wanted to insert a dollar.

[Speaking of Homan’s apparently cash-hungry hand, in 2024 the FBI reportedly recorded Homan accepting $50,000 in cash, supposedly for his help in securing contracts from the next Trump administration. Once Trump took office, his Department of Justice reportedly shut down that investigation.]

According to Virginia Corporation Commission records, Homan incorporated Homeland Strategic Consulting, LLC just a month prior to his departure as acting ICE head, in May 2018. Through this consultancy, Homan would go on to collect at least $480,000 in “media consulting” fees paid to him by the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), according to tax records.

IRLI is the legal arm of the anti-immigrant network founded by white nationalist John Tanton. To be very clear, the Tanton network is not anti-illegal immigrant, it is anti-immigrant-- having long worked to close pathways of legal immigration into the United States. IRLI and other Tanton groups, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), were heavy contributors to Project 2025. CIS served on Project 2025’s advisory board, and at least one member of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup-- Jon Feere, who had served as Homan’s chief of staff at ICE-- was employed by CIS at the time of his involvement.

By April 2023, Homan was employed as a director of America Project (paid $120,000 by that organization in that year, according to tax records). Around this same time, he was also listed as a contributor to Project 2025-- in his capacity as a Heritage “visiting fellow.” And, by September 2023, Homan was listed as a member of Texas Public Policy Foundation’s “Border Security Coalition.”

This TPPF coalition included Heritage President (and former TPPF chief executive) Kevin Roberts, Conservative Partnership Institute leaders Jim DeMint and Ed Corrigan, CPI spinoffs (like Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Foundation), and right-wing elections activist J. Kenneth Blackwell-- among others.

Also included in this TPPF “Border Security Coalition” were two retired Army colonels who would serve in key leadership positions within the Project 2025 Army Work Group and Border Security Work Group: Leon Rios and Sergio de la Pena.

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, TPPF personnel worked directly with the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup throughout 2024, and a number of the workgroup’s key members had deep ties to this organization.

This included Goliad County, Texas, Sheriff Roy Boyd. According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, Boyd was a participant in the Project 2025 Army Work Group and a founding member of the Border Security Workgroup. As the efforts of the Border Security Workgroup progressed in the spring of 2024, Boyd became the primary leader of the workgroup’s “multi-jurisdictional law enforcement” team, which was tasked with creating plans for the new nation-wide fusion center-style law enforcement apparatus. One of the principle tasks of this Boyd team was to merge military forces with domestic law enforcement-- and this followed along lines of guidance given to the group by Clark and Miller.

Boyd had also cultivated a relationship with CPI (the “incubator” which had spawned Vought’s Center for Renewing America and Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Foundation, among others) along his road into Project 2025. In February 2024, just a few months prior to the genesis of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup and subsequent Project 2025 Clark brunch, CPI flew Boyd to Coral Gables, Florida to speak at an event held in the luxury Biltmore Hotel for members of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Freedom Caucus. Other speakers at this event included Mark Meadows, Cleta Mitchell and fellow right-wing elections activist Blackwell-- along with Jeff Clark’s employer at Center for Renewing America, Russell Vought.

In any event, Homan was a man who had positioned himself at the confluence of these various Project 2025 threads, and he was the man favored by the Border Security Workgroup to serve as their “Commander of Domestic Security Operations.”

A heavily redacted December 10, 2024 internal Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup email obtained by CRN/New Times indicates that members of the group likely met with Homan-- with their proposals in hand-- following the 2024 election.

The email, sent by Rios to other workgroup members, indicated that on December 6, he and Boyd had met with an individual [name redacted] to present their plans for the new militarized fusion center system, discuss the structure of that individual’s “nascent office”-- and “seek guidance on the way ahead.”

As Rios stated in the email, the “nascent office” of the person they met with would have “the authority to develop, coordinate, and provide oversight for national interagency operations dealing with border security and deportation,” and would likely follow a similar “organizational design” as the Office of National Drug Control Policy. ONDCP is an entity that operates under the purview of the White House and is led by an individual colloquially referred to as the nation’s “drug czar.” Further, of this “nascent office,” Rios wrote: “resourcing options [...] for Border Czar activities are being considered.”

The email, though heavily redacted, also states that this meeting took place in Fredericksburg, Virginia. According to Virginia Corporation Commission records, Homan has long maintained a residence in Fredericksburg.

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, immediately following this meeting, members of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup began drafting plans for the “proposed organization” of the “Office of the Border Czar.”

CRN/New Times submitted written questions pertaining to this meeting to both Rios and Boyd. Rios declined to answer these questions and Boyd did not respond.

As Boyd was head of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup team tasked with creating plans for this new militarized fusion center-style law enforcement system, CRN/New Times also asked Boyd to what extent guidance or input from Clark, Haller, or Christopher Miller shaped these plans. Boyd did not respond to these questions.

CRN/New Times submitted several written questions to Homan, both through the White House (“border czar” Homan operates under purview of the White House) and a private email address.

We asked Homan what the nature of his involvement in America Project was-- particularly in light of their focus on elections, and his background in immigration enforcement.

We asked Homan whether he was the individual who met with members of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup on December 6, 2024 in Fredericksburg. We asked Homan what he thought of plans and proposals presented by the group, and whether these materials have informed either the administration’s mass immigrant deportation/border security efforts, or the organization of his office.

CRN/New Times also asked Homan whether his potential role as head of the new militarized “multi-jurisdictional law enforcement” system was discussed during this meeting, and what his thoughts are relating to proposed engagement of military forces in domestic law enforcement.

Further, we asked Homan if he was aware of Clark’s guidance to the group concerning use of the Insurrection Act-- and what he thinks of this, given Clark’s background. CRN/New Times also asked Homan if, in his current capacity as “border czar,” he would support such domestic military deployment through use of the Insurrection Act.

Homan did not respond to any of these questions directly. Rather, in total response to our questions, White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson stated:

“Tom Homan is an American patriot and career law enforcement officer with decades of experience effectively protecting American communities. In doing so he continues to adhere to the federal ethics and conflicts of interests rules while working to implement President Trump’s agenda on behalf of the American people. As a private citizen and government official, Tom has met with and heard from many different organizations who want to share their opinions – this is standard practice. Meetings have never been considered an endorsement of independent organizations’ ideas.”

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This is happening

It is not known exactly what sort of reception the Trump “team” gave to the plans and proposals crafted by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup. It is clear, however, that since the president’s inauguration, many events have unfolded that do bear a striking resemblance to these plans.

What’s more, many of the individuals involved in crafting these plans are now in key positions within the administration.

Where military aspects of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup’s plans are concerned, consider this: group participant Earl Matthews was confirmed as general counsel at the Department of Defense in late July, 2025. In this position, Matthews is the top attorney consulted by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

CRN/New Times submitted written questions to Matthews (both through the Pentagon and a private email address), asking about his involvement in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup and plans produced by the group-- including aspects of these proposals that appear to seek military engagement with domestic law enforcement in the nation’s interior. We also asked whether he, as DoD general counsel, is supportive of military involvement in domestic law enforcement within the nation’s interior.

Further, we asked Matthews if he was aware of Clark’s guidance to the group concerning use of the Insurrection Act-- and what he thinks of this, given Clark’s background. CRN/New Times also asked Matthews if, in his current capacity as DoD general counsel, he would support domestic military deployment through use of the Insurrection Act.

Matthews did not respond to our questions.

Another Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup participant, Joseph Humire, was hired on at DoD in June 2025 as “deputy assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense integration and defense support of civil authorities.” This placement occurred right around the time Trump decided to seize California’s National Guard and deploy them, along with active U.S. Marines, to Los Angeles. Humire has since been promoted to “deputy assistant secretary of War for Americas security affairs.”

Another participant in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup was Jon Feere. At the time of his involvement in Project 2025, Feere was employed as “director of investigations” at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Prior to his work as an immigration policy advisor to the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, Feere had worked for at least the preceding decade as a policy analyst at CIS. In his time at CIS, Feere championed harsh anti-immigrant policies, including advocacy for an end to the constitutional right of birthright citizenship-- a cause the current Trump administration has worked to accomplish.

Feere went on to work in the first Trump transition team, and following Trump’s first inauguration he was appointed as chief of staff at the office of the director of ICE. He served in this capacity throughout Trump’s entire first term. This tenure included work as advisor and chief of staff to acting ICE Director Homan and his successor, acting ICE Director Ronald Vitiello.

Under this second Trump presidency, Feere was once again appointed as ICE chief of staff. He served in that role until December 2025, at which point he became “senior advisor” to acting ICE Director Todd Lyons.

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, Vitiello was also a participant in the Border Security Workgroup. He is now a “senior advisor” to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (the agency in command of U.S. Border Patrol).

Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s “border czar,” Michael Banks, was also a participant in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup, according to documentation we’ve obtained. He is now Trump’s Border Patrol chief.

Another Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup member, Jason Killmeyer, replaced Feere as ICE chief of staff in December. Prior to this role, Killmeyer had served as chief of staff at DHS’s Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans since August 2025.

According to documents obtained by CRN/New Times, Killmeyer was among the earliest members of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup. Through the course of the group’s work in 2024, Killmeyer headed up the group’s policy efforts and played a leading role in the group’s propaganda efforts, according to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times. [Read more about these propaganda efforts here.]

Another individual who was very active in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup and is now working within the Trump administration is David Vandenberg. Since August 2025, Vandenberg has been employed as an attorney in the Voting Section of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. In this position, Vandenberg is heading up several lawsuits seeking to gain access to voter registration records in states governed by the Democratic Party.

To name a few...

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Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times-- March 10, 2026

This article is a continuation of the “Big Takeover” series of investigative reporting, detailing plans created by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup and the individuals involved in crafting them. The series is jointly published by Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times.

This joint CRN/New Times reporting is part of Phoenix New Times’ Arizona Watchdog Project, which receives support from the Trace Foundation.

If you would like to support Cochise Regional News though a donation, you may do so here. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

If you would like to support Phoenix New Times through a supporting membership, you may do so here.

More in the “Big Takeover” series:

— “The Big Takeover: inside secret plans to create a nation-wide militarized law enforcement system under Trump’s command”

— “Cochise Cronyism, Part 1: a rural Arizona sheriff, ICE, and a quarter of a million dollars”

— “Cochise Cronyism, Part 2: sheriff used office to shill for Canadian drone company seeking to cash in on militarized law enforcement.”

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Cochise County, with its 84 miles of international border and vocally MAGA-alligned sheriff, appears to be a nexus for unfolding cronyism and profiteering under this new Trump administration.

The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office recently received a million dollar federal taxpayer-funded grant-- at least a quarter of which appears to be earmarked largely for the travel expenses of Sheriff Mark Dannels, so that Dannels may spread the gospel of “standing united and border security.” This is an interesting expenditure of taxpayer dollars, given Dannels’ history of ties to far-right extremists and dubious border security claims [read more here and here].

Further, Dannels has seemingly used his public office and public law enforcement agency to undertake an advertising campaign for a private defense contractor. This campaign has not only benefited the profit-driven corporation in its quest to attain contracts under the reign of Trump, but has also likely enriched the corporation’s board members and others receiving equity compensation. Among this defense contractor’s board members is a Trump ally who served in a Project 2025 leadership position, and appears to have provided guidance to the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup.

The Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup was an entity Dannels was also also involved with. This group worked throughout 2024 to shape policy and plans meant to implement Donald Trump’s mass deportation and other national security objectives.

A core effort of this group was the creation of plans meant to implement a new nationwide fusion center-style law enforcement command structure that would merge all levels of domestic law enforcement (from municipal and county, to state and federal) with the military. This new command structure would ultimately fall under the command of President Trump [read more about this here].

“Cochise Cronyism” is a continuation of the “Big Takeover” series of investigative reporting detailing these plans and the individuals involved in crafting them. The series is jointly published by Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times.

“Cochise Cronyism” is broken into two parts. This is the second part. If you have not read the first part, please do so here.

“Backyard to Borders”

In the first part of “Cochise Cronyism,” we discussed a $1 million federal grant the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) received related to their involvement in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) 287(g) program.

According to a September 30 award letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Grant Programs Directorate, $250,000 of that grant was earmarked specifically for “travel.” The description provided in the letter relating to this “travel” seemed to dwell largely on Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels’ leadership positions in various sheriffs’ groups, and stated that the funding may be used for travel and other expenses related to conferences. The sheriffs’ groups named in the letter all hold conferences-- and many of those conferences are held in luxury hotels, resorts, and casinos. [For more on this, read the first part of “Cochise Cronyism.”]

The final sentence of the “travel” description contained in the September 30 FEMA award letter reads:

“The grant if approved will also help fund the Backyard to Borders program where the CCSO offers law enforcement, politicians, and anyone wanting to learn about the border an opportunity to visit Cochise County to learn about creative ways CCSO has helped secure the border and deal with challenges both from a criminal and humanitarian aspect we are faced with daily.”

CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas did not respond to CRN/New Times’ repeated questions seeking information on what portion of the $250,000 awarded in “travel” expenses would be spent on this “Backyard to Borders” program, how this federal grant money may be used in relation to this program, or who may be visiting Cochise County as part of this program.

Notably, CCSO personnel did engage in border education activities earlier this year with representatives of the Center for Immigration Studies, which is a public policy organization that is part of the anti-immigration network created by white nationalist John Tanton. It is not known, however, if this was formally part of CCSO’s “Backyard to Borders” program.

[Note: Dannels has a history of association with far-right extremists and of making dubious border security claims (read more here and here), and the Tanton network has a long history of activity in Cochise County.]

In any event, CCSO doesn’t seem eager to share how they may, or may not, be spending federal tax dollars on such activities-- but lets take a look at some of the recent border-related educational efforts the agency has only been too eager to share with (some) members the press, the law enforcement community, and public.

Through the course of this year, CCSO has definitely undertaken educational efforts to share “creative ways” the agency has approached border security-- particularly where those efforts have involved Canadian drone manufacturer, Draganfly, Inc.

Crafting plans for a nationwide militarized law enforcement command structure answerable only to Trump

As previously discussed, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels took part in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup throughout 2024.

Project 2025 is the name of an effort led by right-wing think tank, The Heritage Foundation. The effort included input from a coalition of various right-wing public policy foundations and individual contributors.

In April 2023, the group published a 922-page policy handbook titled “2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.” In essence, the handbook laid out plans to reshape the federal government under a second Trump administration around two pillars.

One was the obscure “unitary executive” legal theory, which essentially consolidates executive power in the hands of the president. Critics of “unitary executive” theory argue that it is unconstitutional and essentially reframes the presidency as something akin to a dictatorship or monarchy.

The second pillar is hard-line Christian fundamentalism.

The Heritage Foundation was co-founded in 1973 by right-wing political luminary and Christian nationalist Paul Weyrich. A number of other groups in the Project 2025 sphere had also been co-founded or had legacies of partnership with Weyrich. And other involved groups, such as the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the Center for Renewing America, have Christian nationalists and/or far-right Evangelical activists among their leadership.

Border Security Workgroup documents obtained by CRN/New Times demonstrate that Project 2025 continued working, well beyond the 2023 publication of the “Mandate for Leadership” tome, to craft policy for a hoped-for second Donald Trump presidency.

This work was delegated, in part, to various Project 2025 subgroups, according to documents we’ve obtained. The Border Security Workgroup was one such group. Specifically, the group was tasked with creating implementing plans and policies for Trump’s promised mass immigrant deportations and other national security objectives.

Just as Project 2025, writ large, has deep roots in Christian nationalism, documentation obtained by CRN/New Times indicates that many involved in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup had substantial ties to Christian nationalists. The group also had ties to other far-right elements, like the anti-immigrant network founded by white nationalist John Tanton, and insurrectionist/election denying actors within the MAGA movement.

The “main operational effort” of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup was planning for the creation and implementation of a new nationwide “multi-jurisdictional” fusion center-style system of law enforcement, according to documents. Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup materials indicate that this system would merge all levels of American domestic law enforcement (local, state, tribal, and federal) with military components. And, according to documents, this new law enforcement apparatus would be under the command of a “Commander of Domestic Security Operations,” appointed by President Trump-- and answering only to President Trump. [Read more about this here.]

Border Security Workgroup documentation obtained by CRN/New Times indicates that the group proposed that either Trump’s “border czar” or Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretary serve this “Commander of Domestic Security Operations” function. Trump border czar Tom Homan was listed, as a Heritage fellow, among contributors to Project 2025’s “Mandate for Leadership” document.

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, plans and proposals created by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup in 2024 called for the implementation of this new militarized multi-jurisdictional command structure through the course of “Operation Demonstrate Resolve,” which was to be rolled out in phases as the administration pursued its mass immigrant deportation and other national security efforts.

“Demonstrate Resolve” timelines contained in Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documentation bear a striking resemblance to actions undertaken by the administration through the course of the first year of this Trump presidency.

As is stated in these timelines and other documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, “Operation Demonstrate Resolve” and the creation of the militarized “multi-jurisdictional” law enforcement command structure were to shift to an attitude of “sustained operations” and an eventual shift to “all threats” following initial phases of immigrant detentions and deportations.

Given this fact, as well as the insurrectionist and anti-democratic backgrounds of many involved in Project 2025, it is important to note that Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documentation we’ve obtained specifically contemplates “counter-intelligence” work to combat an “insider threat” working “to subvert the President’s plan.” In total, documentation we’ve obtained (which consists largely of the group’s work product and internal group emails) contemplates the targeting-- through a variety of means-- of certain non-governmental organizations, government agencies, judicial districts, and a number of states or cities governed by the Democratic Party.

[Note: we are detailing these Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup plans through an investigative series called “The Big Takeover.” This reporting is part of that series. The first installment of this series, detailing this proposed militarized law enforcement system, was published in May-- just weeks before the Trump administration began sending military forces into American cities. Further installments of this series are forthcoming.]

Which all brings us to Christopher Charles Miller and the apparent cronyism related to Trump’s national security and immigration policy underway in Cochise County [for more on this, read the first part of “Cochise Cronyism.”]

Miller served as acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) during the insurrectionist period of the first Trump administration. This period followed Trump’s November 2020 electoral loss and ended on the date of the inauguration of President Joe Biden (January 20, 2021). The months that followed Trump’s electoral defeat were marked by the lunatic fringe in Trump’s circle (people like attorney Sydney Powell and former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn) urging things like martial law-- and, of course, by the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

On November 9, 2020 (less than a week following Trump’s election loss), Trump fired DoD secretary Mark Esper. Esper had reportedly been among those to pull Trump back from the brink of military deployment against Americans during widespread protests against police violence that took place in the summer of that year. On the day he fired Esper, Trump installed Miller in his place.

Miller drew criticism for his actions at DoD in the twilight of the first Trump presidency. This included criticism for his decision to delay deployment of the D.C. National Guard to aid embattled Capitol Police on January 6, as well as obstruction of Biden transition team access to the Pentagon.

Following the first Trump administration, Miller entered the world of private defense contractors, becoming an “executive” with “private autonomous flight company” DZYNE Technologies in 2022, according to records. DYZNE materials show that the company produces drone technologies for the defense sector.

During this period, Miller also authored the Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” chapter on U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) policy. Interestingly, a good portion of Miller’s DoD chapter dealt with the optimizing DoD “acquisition and sustainment” practices, relating to DoD “ability to acquire and field new and existing technologies.”

Miller’s “Mandate for Leadership” chapter also listed a number of “priorities” for DoD policy. One of these priorities was provision of military support to DHS for “border protection operations.” In this writing, the former Trump acting DoD secretary also called for establishment of “true alignment between DoD and DHS both to improve the defense of critical U.S. infrastructure and national border integrity.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is an agency that oversees several federal law enforcement agencies, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Several DHS offices and component agencies work to protect critical infrastructure nationwide. Military performance of domestic law enforcement functions is generally prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act, though— as Miller noted in his “Mandate for Leadership” chapter— DoD may provide limited assistance and support to civil authorities and domestic law enforcement under certain circumstances, such as domestic emergencies.

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, a “Chris Miller” worked as Project 2025’s overall “DoD lead” throughout 2024. Documentation also indicates that Project 2025’s broader DoD efforts were distributed across a number of subgroups, and that these subgroups ultimately worked under the guidance of a “Chris Miller” and other Project 2025 personnel.

Among these DoD subgroups was the Project 2025 Army Work Group. Documentation we’ve obtained indicates that it was from this Army Work Group that the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup sprang in late April 2024.

According to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times, the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup filled out over the course of May and June 2024. By the end of June, the group had more than 30 participants, at least a third of which had military or intelligence backgrounds. Through the course of their work, leadership of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup remained in the hands of retired military personnel who served in leadership positions within the Project 2025 Army Work Group and broader Project 2025 DoD environment, according to documentation.

In May 2024, the Border Security Workgroup designated multiple “teams,” each of which were tasked with “lines of operation” deemed essential to implementing Trump’s mass immigrant deportation and national security agenda. The team tasked with planning the creation of the new militarized “multi-jurisdictional law enforcement” command structure constituted the Project 2025 subgroup’s “main operational effort” and was the group’s largest team, according to documents obtained by CRN/New Times.

According to this documentation, by May 20, 2024 the primary leader of this “multi-jurisdictional law enforcement” team, Goliad County, Texas Sheriff Roy Boyd, had asked Cochise County Sheriff Dannels-- with his rising MAGA celebrity and leadership status in various sheriffs’ and law enforcement groups-- to join the Border Security Workgroup’s efforts. Documentation indicates Dannels accepted the invitation and remained a participant in the Project 2025 subgroup throughout that year.

Dannels’ most influential position among the various law enforcement groups he is a part of is likely his position as chairman of the National Sheriff’s Association’s (NSA) Border Security Committee [for more on Dannels and these groups, see the first part of “Cochise Cronyism”].

According to records obtained by CRN/New Times, Dannels’ NSA Border Security Committee co-chair, Brooks County, Texas Sheriff Urbino “Benny” Martinez,” served as one of two co-leads (along with Boyd) of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup “multi-jurisdictional law enforcement” team. Another influential NSA member, Collin County, Texas Sheriff Jim Skinner, was also a participant in the Border Security Workgroup, according to documentation obtained by CRN/New Times. Skinner is chairman of the NSA Government Affairs Committee.

Documents obtained by CRN/New Times indicate that, throughout the course of their work, Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup members took part in Project 2025 DoD functions, and met multiple times with Project 2025 “DoD leadership.”

According to Border Security Workgroup internal emails we’ve obtained, this included meetings/briefings with “Chris Miller (Project 2025 DoD lead).” A “Christopher Miller” was among recipients of workgroup emails discussing these meetings/briefings.

During some of these meetings, the group briefed “Project 2025 DoD lead” Miller on their ongoing work and received guidance from Miller, according to documents.

To be clear, the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup was tasked-- from its very beginning-- with “providing defense support” to domestic law enforcement, and overcoming prohibitions on military performance of domestic law enforcement associated with “border security.” Military performance of domestic law enforcement functions is generally prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act. And-- as is clearly stated in documentation obtained by CRN/New Times-- the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup envisioned these “border security” operations to take place in all 50 states-- not just on the border.

Records of guidance given by “Chris Miller (Project 2025 DoD lead)” to Border Security Workgroup members reflects this posture. According to workgroup records detailing a “P25 DoD lead” briefing that took place on June 30, 2024, Miller had provided guidance to the group calling for “comprehensive implementing plans” to include “DoD constabulary roles” and “support to LEAs [law enforcement agencies],” ready for execution “upon inauguration.”

Documents detailing plans and policies crafted by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup show that the group certainly took this guidance to heart. And, as we’ve watched the administration attempt to flood city after city with military forces, it would appear as though Trump and friends took these plans to heart as well.

CRN/New Times attempted to contact Christopher Miller and submitted written questions pertaining to Project 2025 and other matters relevant to this reporting. We received no response to any of these questions or attempts at contact.

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Cashing in on militarized law enforcement in the age of Trump

Following Trump’s electoral victory and subsequent inauguration, some members of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup continued their work within the Trump administration.

According to documents obtained by CRN/New Times, this has included freelance consultancy within Trump’s Department of Homeland Security on the part of key Border Security Workgroup members who lead the effort to create the new militarized “multi-jurisdictional law enforcement” command structure.

Other Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup participants were appointed or hired to terrifying positions within the Trump administration.

One example of this is Earl Matthews, who was confirmed as general counsel to the Department of Defense in late July. Matthews is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s chief legal advisor.

Another example would be Joseph Humire, who was hired on at DoD in June (right around the time Trump decided to seize California’s National Guard and deploy them, along with active U.S. Marines, to Los Angeles) as “deputy assistant secretary of Defense for homeland defense integration and defense support of civil authorities.” Humire has since been promoted to “deputy assistant secretary of War for Americas security affairs.” [In case anyone missed it, Trump declared the U.S. Department of Defense to be the “Department of War” in September.]

Miller went another route. After helping to create plans for a nationwide militarized law enforcement command structure answerable only to Trump, the former acting DoD secretary chose to remain in the private sector.

On March 19, 2025 Miller joined the board of directors of Draganfly, Inc. Draganfly is a Canadian drone manufacturer and developer of AI-driven autonomous drones, headquartered in Saskatchewan, specializing in defense and law enforcement markets.

In statements filed with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), Draganfly (which is a publicly-traded corporation) stated that the “extensive experience” of “former Acting U.S. Secretary of Defense under President Donald Trump” Christoper Miller was “expected to guide Draganfly’s strategic initiatives in government, defense, and aerospace sectors.”

According to statements filed with SEC, Draganfly had been working to enhance its “positioning and preparedness to support the enhancement of border security” during the early months of this Trump presidency.

These efforts also included the March 10 opening of a “U.S. location in Tampa, Florida,” “strategically positioned near key military and government clients,” according to SEC records. Delaware Division of Corporations records indicate that Dragnfly had incorporated a U.S. subsidiary, Draganfly Innovations USA, in that state in January 2020.

Records obtained through a public records request to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office demonstrate that Draganfly reps, including company founder and CEO Cameron Chell, visited Cochise County on March 6, 2025. During the visit, the Draganfly team went on border “ride-alongs” with CCSO personnel and “conducted real-world testing on active illegal border crossings,” according to records.

Records suggest that this visit marked the outset of a joint CCSO/Draganfly “drone project” for the agency’s Southern Arizona Border Region Enforcement Team (SABRE). SABRE is headed by CCSO Special Operations Division Captain Tim Williams, and records indicate Williams served as Draganfly’s primary point of contact within the agency.

Not long after Draganfly appointed Miller to their board on March 19, CCSO started what can only be described as a campaign of very actively promoting the company.

Apparently, Williams was pleased with Draganfly’s performance-- so much so that in April he decided to promote them through a presentation to the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), according to records. According to email correspondence obtained by CRN/New Times, Williams “cleared” this idea with Draganfly CEO Chell. IACP is yet another law enforcement association that holds conferences at which cops and corporate vendors/sponsors mingle. [See the first part of “Cochise Cronyism”.]

On April 16, Draganfly further bolstered their efforts to tap into the homeland security market by announcing the formation of its Public Safety Advisory Board, with “homeland security and law enforcement expert” Paul Goldenberg serving as its chair.

Goldenberg is chairman and president of Cardinal Point Strategies (CPS), a private “public policy consulting firm specializing in homeland security, intelligence, law enforcement and public safety matters,” according to the group’s website. CPS bills itself as “the go-to firm for government agencies in the U.S. and abroad, C-suite executives, non-governmental and faith-based groups, as well as law enforcement.”

Among his other credits, Goldenberg is a member of the National Sheriff’s Association (NSA) Border Security Committee, which has long been chaired by Cochise County Sheriff Dannels.

In an email exchange over the course of May 8 and 9, Goldenberg told Williams of his plans to leverage an upcoming NSA conference to secure federal funding. Chell, along with other Draganfly and CPS personnel were cc’ed.

“I’m also scheduled to present at the NSA Border Committee meeting next month in Fort Lauderdale, as an official member. I’d like to use that platform to share an after-action report, and-- ideally-- with the support of the NSA, present a cohesive proposal to the U.S. government to fund our platform,” wrote Goldenberg. “With Tim’s involvement [...] we have the potential to deliver a comprehensive and impactful plan.”

Williams is a “committee member” of NSA’s “Board of Technology,” according to biographical materials posted by Williams. [For more on sheriffs’ organizations and their conferences, see the first part of “Cochise Cronyism”.]

Incidentally, it was during the course of this National Sheriffs’ Association conference (held June 23 through 26) that Dannels’ appointment to Trump’s Homeland Security Advisory Committee was announced, on June 24.

By the time that conference rolled around, Dannels and CCSO had shifted their promotion of Draganfly into high gear.

On June 6, Trump issued an executive order “Unleashing American Drone Dominance.”

“The United States must accelerate the safe commercialization of drone technologies and fully integrate [unmanned aircraft systems] into the National Airspace System,” read the order. “The time has come to accelerate testing and to enable routine drone operations, scale up domestic production, and expand the export of trusted, American-manufactured drone technologies to global markets.”

For those in the drone industry, and for the investing public, this was a sign of a potentially heating market.

According to records obtained by CRN/New Times, on June 8, Williams sent Dannels and CCSO Chief of Staff Tom Alinen an email forwarding a press release Draganfly had sent him, promoting their partnership with CCSO.

The Draganfly press release, dated June 7, was written in the voice of CCSO:

“The Cochise County Sheriff’s Department [sic] is proud to announce the launch of a cutting-edge drone pilot program and has selected Draganfly, Inc (NASDAQ: DPRO) to support enhanced surveillance and operations along the Southern Border [sic]. This initiative aligns with President Donald J. Trump’s executive order, ‘Unleashing American Drone Dominance,’ aimed at reasserting America’s leadership in unmanned aerial systems for security and defense.”

And on it went, heaping praise on CCSO and Canada-headquartered Draganfly-- which described itself as “an industry leader” whose “drones are manufactured in North America.”

Email records demonstrate that Dannels forwarded the Draganfly press release to CCSO Public Information Officer Capas. Records indicate that CCSO subsequently adopted adopted the press release, though they took Draganfly’s text and put it on their letterhead, and changed Draganfly’s “Cochise County Sheriff’s Department” to the correct agency name.

Neither CCO nor Draganfly responded to CRN/New Times’ questions relating to this press release.

On June 9, Draganfly CEO Chell sent Williams a “memo,” outlining a “Pilot Program” agreement between CCSO and Draganfly, “to support the integration of Drones & AI solutions within the border surveillance and security procedures.”

Once again, according to records provided by CCSO, it appears as though the memorandum, written in CCSO’s voice, had in fact been written by Draganfly.

In June 9 emails, Chell asked Williams to sign the memo and address any issues with Draganfly’s copy as soon as possible. “If possible, if we can sort today, that would be helpful,” wrote Chell. In another June 9 email, Chell explained to Williams that, “[f]rom a regulatory perspective, we need to have something signed.”

Records indicate that Williams made some very minor adjustments, signed the agreement on June 9, and then forwarded it on to both Chell and Dannels.

Neither CCSO, Draganfly, nor Chell responded to CRN/New Times’ questions relating to this memo, its authorship, or the “regulatory perspective” cited by Chell.

The “regulatory perspective” Chell mentioned to Williams may have been in relation to SEC regulations that require statements issued to investors and shareholders to be (reasonably) honest. Draganfly had their press release set to go, on the heels of Trump’s executive order (and is required to file all such press releases with the SEC upon issuance), but-- up to the moment Williams signed the “memo” on June 9-- there was no actual signed agreement between CCSO and the drone manufacturer.

Indeed, the only agreement produced by CCSO in response to CRN/New Times’ public records request seeking any/all agreements, contracts, etc. entered into between the agency and Draganfly was the June 9 “memo.”

According to SEC filings, upon receiving the signed CCSO memo on June 9, Draganfly issued a press release on June 10. The press release filed with the SEC was essentially the same as the release Draganfly had sent to CCSO on June 7 (complete with “Cochise County Sheriff’s Department” errors), but in the company’s own voice.

The following day, June 11, Draganfly issued a press release advertising a U.S.-only public offering of 5.5 million units, with a value of $13.75 million. Sale of these units was expected to end the following day, according to the release. The purpose of the offering was “to accelerate growth, deepen defense market penetration, and expand [Draganfly’s] R&D pipeline,” according to Draganfly materials.

Then the media blitz began.

“Co-branded” media blitz-- public agency shills for profit-driven defense contractor

The memo signed by Williams on June 9 contained provisions through which CCSO agreed to promote the joint program with Draganfly through “co-branded announcements, media engagements, and speaking opportunities.” Draganfly, for their part, agreed to “furnish all necessary aircraft, sensors, and support-- covering equipment, staffing, logistics and development-- at no cost to the County.”

According to records obtained by CRN/New Times, CCSO dated their version of the Draganfly press release June 17, and likely began distributing it among its media contacts at that time.

Review of media coverage from June through August reflects a fair amount of credulous stenography in both the Arizona and national press. Many print and television “news” outlets dutifully, and perhaps unwittingly, bought into the public relations campaign-- essentially producing infomercials for Draganfly.

Much of this “news” coverage featured slick promotional graphics and videos created by Draganfly, along with interviews and quotes from CCSO captain and SABRE lead, Tim Williams.

For example, according to email records we’ve obtained, Chicago-based News Nation reporter Jeff Arnold contacted Dannels on July 8 to ask about the drone program.

“I wanted to reach out after I received a pitch from a public relations firm about a pilot drone program that you’re doing in Cochise county to help monitor the border,” wrote Arnold. “Is this something that has been happening for a while, or is using drones to assist Border Patrol something that is happening on a larger scale? If it’s relatively new, I’d love to chat with you about how your program is working.”

Emails we’ve obtained show that Dannels put Arnold in touch with Capas and Williams, who made themselves available for interviews and information.

Following his interview with Williams, Arnold submitted a followup question to Williams and Capas, asking how the drone program was being paid for, and what the cost was to the sheriff’s office. Neither Williams or Capas informed the reporter through their written responses to this question that Draganfly had been providing the equipment free of charge in exchange for CCSO’s participation in their media campaign.

While CCSO was shilling for Draganfly, Draganfly and their public relations machinery were singing loud hosannas of CCSO’s praise.

Perhaps shrewdly-- perhaps opportunistically-- on July 23 Williams got into the vendor game himself when he co-founded the private for-profit limited liability company, Spyderweb Technologies. According to Spyderweb materials, the company produces “surveillance solutions” clearly meant for the homeland security and defense marketplace. Williams-- while remaining a CCSO captain and head of SABRE-- serves as Spyderweb’s chief executive officer and is the public face of the company, according to Spyderweb materials.

The CCSO/Draganfly partnership didn’t end with mutual “co-branded announcements” and “media engagements.” Records obtained by CRN/New Times show that a Draganfly representative put Ontario Provincial Police Intelligence Bureau Commander Patrick Morris in touch with Williams in August, so that Morris could learn about CCSO’s use of Draganfly products, and potentially even visit Cochise County for a demonstration. According to emails obtained by CRN/New Times, Morris stated that he had “been provided presentations” on work underway in Cochise County and had also received updates through IACP (as previously discussed, Williams had “cleared” an idea with Chell for a presentation on Draganfly to be given at IACP earlier in the year).

It appeared as if the media blitz and CCSO’s shilling paid off for Draganfly. On August 11, the company issued its second quarter performance report, according to SEC records. In this release, Draganfly claimed a 37-percent increase in sales over the the previous year’s second quarter performance. The company also reported a 9.3-percent increase in gross profit over the same period in the previous year. Among key contributing “operational highlights,” the company again touted its partnership with CCSO, among other factors. And, through the summer and fall, Draganfly announced a number of DoD contracts.

By October 13, Draganfly stock reached its peak performance of 2025, at $13.77 per share-- up from $2.91 per share on March 17, which was three days before the company announced Miller’s placement on its board of directors, according to data compiled by CNN.

It seemed the Canadian drone manufacturer’s efforts to gain inroads to the realm of American defense and homeland security were paying off.

Then came the proverbial cherry on the cake.

The June 9 “Pilot Program” agreement/”memo” also stated that Draganfly and CCSO had “slated a multi-day, in-field demonstration for later 2025” to demonstrate use of their drones on the border.

In October, Draganfly began hyping this event as the grand unveiling of its newest offering, the “Outrider Southern Border Multi-Mission Drone,” which would engage in a “live exercise” right on the border. This was to take place, according to corporate press materials, during the “Cochise County Border Drone Summit”-- hosted in partnership with CCSO November 16 through 17. The “summit” was billed as an exclusive “invitation-only” event, through which “select leaders from law enforcement, defense, and security areas,” as well as invited press, could learn about Outrider’s great utility.

CRN/New Times responded to a press release soliciting media RSVPs for the event. At first, Moore Media International CEO Alvina Alston (the public relations person handling press for the event) enthusiastically welcomed us to the event. Then, a few hours later, Alston rescinded our invitation, stating only that “the reporters guest list has closed.”

In any event, according to Draganfly’s subsequent press release, the event was a smash success-- replete with “federal, state, local, and military stakeholders,” as well as national and local media outlets who “were on site to capture the live exercises, underscoring the growing public and governmental focus on advancing border-security [sic] operations through UAS technology.”

Social media posts made by Draganfly Public Safety Board Chair Goldenberg claimed that nearly a hundred members of law enforcement agencies, from both within and outside of the United States were in attendance.

And, according to Goldenberg social media posts, National Sheriff’s Association Executive Director Justin Smith was also in attendance, along with Howard Buffett. Buffett is the son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett and has given tens of millions of dollars to the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office and related entities, largely in relation to “border security” efforts [read here, here, here, and here]. Buffet has enjoyed a close relationship with NSA (having received awards and honorary membership from the group) and has given substantial amounts to a number of sheriffs’ offices and associations.

CRN/New Times asked CCSO PIO Capas if the “Cochise County Border Drone Summit” was a part of the “Backyards to Border Program” and whether any of the agency’s million-dollar 287(g)-related FEMA award [read the first part of “Cochise Cronyism”] was expended in relation to it, or any other Draganfly-related promotional events. Capas did not respond to this question.

Draganfly SEC filings indicate that Draganfly board members are compensated through equity compensation, such as stock options. It is not known whether, to date, Miller has been awarded or exercised any such options. However, it is known that Draganfly’s market share and stock value has increased through the course of the company’s dealings with Dannels and CCSO, according to SEC filings.

CRN/New Times submitted written questions to Draganfly and its CEO Cameron Chell relating to Miller’s compensation. These questions were not answered.

CRN/New Times submitted written questions to Draganfly, CEO Chell, and board member Miller, relating to Miller’s relationship-- if any-- with Dannels, and how that relationship may, or may not, have informed any relationship with CCSO. These questions were not answered.

CRN/New Times submitted written questions to CCSO relating to Dannels’ relationship-- if any-- with Miller, and how that relationship may, or may not, have informed any relationship with Draganfly. These questions were not answered.

CRN/New Times attempted to reach Miller-- through various means, including through Draganfly-- to confirm whether he is the same “Chris Miller (Project 2025 DoD lead)” who met with and advised the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup throughout 2024. These questions were not answered and requests for contact/comment were not responded to.

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times-- January 15, 2026

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This article is a continuation of the “Big Takeover” series of investigative reporting, detailing plans created by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup and the individuals involved in crafting them. The series is jointly published by Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times.

This joint CRN/New Times reporting is part of Phoenix New Times’ Arizona Watchdog Project, which receives support from the Trace Foundation.

If you would like to support Cochise Regional News though a donation, you may do so here. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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Cochise County, with its 84 miles of international border and vocally MAGA-alligned sheriff, appears to be a nexus for unfolding cronyism and profiteering under this new Trump administration.

The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office recently received a million dollar federal taxpayer-funded grant-- at least a quarter of which appears to be earmarked largely for the travel expenses of Sheriff Mark Dannels, so that Dannels may spread the gospel of “standing united and border security.” This is an interesting expenditure of taxpayer dollars, given Dannels’ history of ties to far-right extremists and dubious border security claims [read more here and here].

Further, Dannels has seemingly used his public office and public law enforcement agency to undertake an advertising campaign for a private defense contractor. This campaign has not only benefited the profit-driven corporation in its quest to attain contracts under the reign of Trump, but has also likely enriched the corporation’s board members and others receiving equity compensation. Among this defense contractor’s board members is a Trump ally who served in a Project 2025 leadership position, and appears to have provided guidance to the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup.

The Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup was an entity Dannels was also also involved with. This group worked throughout 2024 to shape policy and plans meant to implement Donald Trump’s mass deportation and other national security objectives.

A core effort of this group was the creation of plans meant to implement a new nationwide fusion center-style law enforcement command structure that would merge all levels of domestic law enforcement (from municipal and county, to state and federal) with the military. This new command structure would ultimately fall under the command of President Trump [read more about this here].

“Cochise Cronyism” is a continuation of the “Big Takeover” series of investigative reporting detailing these plans and the individuals involved in crafting them. The series is jointly published by Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times.

“Cochise Cronyism” is broken into two parts. This is the first part. [Read Part 2.]

Cochise County signs on with ICE

In August, the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO) quietly executed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) through its 287(g) program.

This program delegates authority to enforce federal immigration law to state and local partners through section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

287(g) has been a controversial program, virtually since the time of its creation in 1996. Critics argue that conversion of local law enforcement officers into immigration enforcement agents causes reluctance among minority communities to seek help from law enforcement.

A large part of this fear is based in the sense that 287(g) encourages racial profiling. This fear in not unfounded. in 2011, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS, which has purview over ICE) revoked the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office 287(g) agreement upon findings that the agency, under Sheriff Joe Arpaio, systematically engaged in discriminatory and profiling tactics against Hispanic residents-- regardless of citizenship or immigration status.

The Trump administration has pushed hard for the expansion of 287(g) as part of its mass immigration enforcement and deportation efforts.

According to ICE materials, there are three “models” through which state and local partners may participate in this program: the Task Force Model (which allows state/local cops to act as immigration agents during routine duties), the Jail Enforcement Model (which is “designed to identify and process removable aliens-- with criminal or pending criminal charges-- who are arrested” by state/local agencies), and the Warrant Service Officer (WSO) model.

It is this later model that CCSO chose to participate in, according to the agency’s MOA with ICE. The WSO model of engagement “allows ICE to train, certify and authorize state and local law enforcement officers to serve and execute administrative warrants on aliens in their agency’s jail,” according to ICE materials.

The WSO model is the least aggressive form of 287(g) participation, and CCSO has only two such designated employees.

ICE, abetted by both state and local law enforcement and, at times, military forces, has been carrying out widespread and indiscriminate immigration raids through this first year of Trump’s second presidency. Such raids have recently taken place in southern Arizona— including in Cochise County’s largest town, Sierra Vista. According to national polling, public opinion of these actions is quite low and does not seem to be a high priority at a time when most Americans struggle to afford even basic groceries.

Perhaps in light of unfavorable public sentiment, CCSO seems eager to downplay their role in ICE operations.

“Under [the 287(g) Warrant Service Officer program], delegated officers get training and are only authorized to have a single function, which is to execute ICE administrative warrants within the jail [boldface original]. Under this program, Sheriffs [sic] can hold people for up to 48 hours-- in the local jail, but technically in ICE custody under the WSO authority-- before they are transferred to longer-term ICE detention,” CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas told Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times in a written statement.

“These officers can only serve warrants and can only do it in the jail. They have no authority outside the jail,” she added.

According to the MOA, 287(g)-designated CCSO personnel may also transport prisoners subject to these warrants to ICE facilities, once prisoners’ criminal cases in the local jurisdiction are concluded. It is not clear whether any CCSO personnel are performing this function.

During an October 21 public meeting of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors, Supervisor Kathleen Gomez (whose supervisory district includes the largely Hispanic town of Douglas) asked CCSO personnel what 287(g) is an what CCSO involvement with it is.

“287(g) is a warrant service officer, and they will be trained by ICE to, um, serve immigration warrants inside the jail-- and only have authority inside the jail,” responded CCSO Detention Commander Kenny Bradshaw.

“So, just inside the jail-- because you know somebody’s gonna look that up-- and they’re gonna say, ‘you’re going to be taking kids off the school, you’re going to be going into homes’-- and I just want to reiterate, for the public, that this is just within the jail. You’re not kidnapping people off the bedrooms, right?,” Gomez followed up.

“Yeah-- we don’t want to get a bunch of furries and blow-up animals runnin’ around with signs in front of our jail, so... yeah,” affirmed Bradshaw, apparently referencing ICE-related protests involving such costumes in cities like Portland, Oregon. Protestors in that city adopted the tactic of dressing up as lovable cartoon characters after President Trump falsely described the city as a burned-out war zone and attempted to deploy military forces to it in September.

Whatever the cause for CCSO’s impulse to downplay their involvement with ICE, one thing is clear: the August MOA marked a substantial reversal for Sheriff Dannels.

Though Dannels is a border hawk whose star has been rising in the MAGA sphere (largely on the back of his persona as a border sheriff), he has long resisted programs or other efforts that would delegate enforcement of aspects of federal immigration law to his agency.

This has included resistance to Arizona Proposition 314, which was approved by voters in November 2024. The proposition sought, among other things, to create an Arizona state-level criminal offense for being in the country without documentation. As such, this provision of the initiative (which has not been enacted, due to ongoing litigation) would have converted state and local law enforcement into enforcers of immigration law-- which is traditionally the responsibility of the federal government, as immigration law is typically federal law.

“Long story short is it places a real hard burden on local jurisdictions, sheriffs, police chiefs, in the fact that it’s unfunded. We don’t have the infrastructure, we don’t have more personnel-- so, until there’s a funding or a path forward, by each county attorney, by the state-- this is a state law, it’s not a county law,” said Dannels of his view of Prop. 314 in an interview with News 4 Tucson following the election.

Where 287(g) is concerned, Dannels has long stated his agency simply does not have the resources to enforce federal immigration law. And, in February, when asked by Cochise County Supervisor Frank Antenori whether CCSO would be signing up for 287(g), in light of the Trump administration’s promised immigrant mass deportation efforts, Dannels said that he would not.

According to minutes of this meeting, Dannels raised a number of concerns relating to participation in 287(g). The sheriff cited concern that 287(g) would result in a shift of focus from local law enforcement to federal immigration law enforcement (odd, given the fact Dannels has built a career by playing up his proximity to the border). He also stated that CCSO had no need to cross-designate personnel for the purpose of transferring prisoners to ICE, as CCSO already coordinates with U.S. Border Patrol to transport undocumented individuals.

Further, Dannels told county supervisors that participation on 287(g) could result in “immediate jail shutdowns due to compliance issues,” according to minutes of the meeting.

Indeed, Dannels spent much of the past two years trying to sell Cochise County voters on a new county-wide sales tax, proceeds of which are to be used to replace the county’s existing jail. According to Dannels and proponents of the initiative, this was needed due to the existing jail’s age, obsolescence, state of disrepair, overcrowding, and overall concerns for staff and prisoners alike.

Cochise County voters initially approved the tax in May 2023, though that was enjoined though litigation. Voters re-approved the jail sales tax initiative in November 2025, and completion of the new facility is anticipated by 2029.

Further, where this jail and detention of federal immigration prisoners is concerned, Dannels has long complained of the cost of housing undocumented persons in his county’s jail.

For all these reasons, Dannels has historically not been a fan of 287(g) and similar measures.

Nevertheless, on August 7, Dannels signed a 287(g) MOA with ICE. Absolutely none of the sheriff’s historic concerns were addressed in that agreement.

According to the MOA, CCSO’s partnership with ICE does not alleviate any jail population issue-- and the MOA certainly did not provide any funding to address jail safety, repair, or issues of compliance with federal detention standards.

Per the MOA: “[CCSO] is expected to pursue to completion all criminal charges that caused the alien to be taken into custody and over which it has jurisdiction. ICE will assume custody of an alien only after said individual has been released from [CCSO] custody.”

Further, the ICE MOA signed by Dannels in August placed the full financial burden of any and all costs incurred by CCSO through fulfillment of delegated federal immigration authority on CCSO (and the taxpayers of Cochise County). The ICE MOA was so explicit on this point, in fact, that it stated that not only would CCSO bear all personnel costs (man-hours, overtime pay, costs associated with mandated training, materials, equipment, etc.)-- but ICE would not even pony up a dime for “printer toner.”

Special money for a special sheriff

Dannels signed this MOA on August 7. On August 28, the agreement was executed with the signature of ICE Deputy Director Madison Sheahan.

On September 2, DHS issued a press release announcing financial incentives for agencies partnering with ICE. Beginning October 1, according to the press release, state and local law enforcement agencies may receive salary and some overtime reimbursements for “eligible” 287(g) personnel.

The press release also announced “performance” awards, which appear to essentially be bounties paid to participating agencies, on the basis of “successful location of illegal aliens.”

Both this DHS press release and subsequent ICE 287(g) promotional materials indicate that this reimbursement, and various other perks, are available to agencies participating in the 287(g) Task Force Model, and make no mention of reimbursements associated with the either Jail Enforcement or Warrant Service Officer models (CCSO’s agreement is for the later).

Then Christmas came early to CCSO-- and, seemingly, to Sheriff Dannels in particular.

Through a letter dated September 30, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) awarded $1 million to CCSO through DHS’ Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program (TVTP).

FEMA is a DHS agency whose Grant Programs Directorate distributes several homeland security and counter-terrorism grants.

The majority of the money awarded through the letter was for CCSO’s involvement in the Warrant Service Officer 287(g) model.

CRN/New Times asked CCSO PIO Capas whether Dannels had foreknowledge of this funding when he signed the ICE MOA nearly two months prior. Capas did not respond to this question.

CRN/New Times asked both DHS and ICE whether they are typically reimbursing costs associated with 287(g) models other than the Task Force Model. Neither agency responded.

CRN/New Times attempted to reach the FEMA Grant Programs Directorate with questions pertaining to the award as well, using contact information contained in the CCSO award letter. The phone number provided in the letter routed to a FEMA help desk meant to help agency personnel with IT issues. FEMA personnel there had no idea how to reach the Grants Program Directorate or those involved in distributing TVTP funds (attempts to transfer us to other offices were rerouted back to the same IT help desk). These FEMA employees expressed their own bewilderment to CRN/New Times, noting that the only phone number they could find pertaining to this grant program was 9-1-1, which they said was the phone number provided through the DHS TVPT webpage.

CRN/New Times sent questions relating to the CCSO grant award, 287(g) and the TVTP program to multiple email addresses associated with DHS, relevant DHS offices/agencies, and TVTP. None of these emails received any reply.

The most recent information available through DHS web pages relating to this grant program detail TVTP awards for fiscal 2024 (October 1, 2023 to September 30, 2024). According to that information, the median award issued in that year was around $500,000. Awardees included non-profits, educational institutions, and law enforcement entities. Available abstracts describing the purpose of these awards did not include any mention of 287(g). According to these materials, the largest grant in that year ($962,704) went to a Pennsylvania group called “Eradicate Hate,” which claimed to be working to “prevent violent extremism.” TVTP priorities for that year were aimed at reducing recidivism, helping “underserved communities,” addressing online radicalization, and “preventing domestic violent extremism,” according to DHS materials.

Though the DHS web pages dedicated to the TVTP program state that “application guidance” relating to the program “will be published in Spring 2025,” it does not appear as though it ever was (at least, not publicly)-- nor does it appear as though the majority of DHS web pages related to TVTP have been updated since 2024. The primary TVTP web page does link to an “infographic” posted on January 23, 2025, which seems to have been created with the intent of demonstrating how the program “saves lives-- and money.” This was posted just three days following Trump’s inauguration, a time in which many federal employees feared the imminent deployment of chainsaw-wielding billionaire Elon Musk and his new “Department of Government Efficiency.”

In any event, today’s DHS seems to be an informational black hole. Bear this in mind, considering the fact that memoranda of understanding entered into between ICE and agencies participating 287(g)-- including CCSO-- contain provisions requiring all public or press requests for information or records pertaining to state/local agency involvement in 287(g) be routed through ICE’s Office of Public Affairs.

Setting aside the question of whether DHS typically issues awards for 287(g) involvement outside the Task Force Model, another oddity of this million dollar grant is that CCSO appears to be the only Arizona agency to sign on to the 287(g) WSO model this year to receive such a grant.

Through the course of this year, as the Trump administration has sought to implement its mass immigrant deportations agenda, the administration and their allies have worked to aggressively expand 287(g) involvement. According to DHS materials, as of December 12, ICE had entered into 1,255 287(g) MOAs with agencies in 40 states. At the outset of this Trump administration, there were only 135 such agreements in place, nationwide.

As part of this push, CCSO and a number of other Arizona law enforcement agencies signed on with ICE through the course of 2025. The other agencies, according to ICE records, were: the Navajo County Sheriff’s Office (WSO model, effective date April 16), the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office (WSO model, effective date June 3), and the Pinal County Attorney’s Office (Task Force Model, effective date August 28).

Neither the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office or Pinal County Attorney’s Office responded to CRN/New Times’ questions asking whether they are receiving any federal funding relating to their 287(g) involvement. However, in order for either agency to accept such a grant, if awarded, the grants would need to be approved by their respective county boards of supervisors. Review of available supervisory meeting minutes and agendas for both Yuma and Pinal counties show no trace of any such awards.

Navajo County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Tori Gorman told CRN/New Times that the agency is working to bring a total of five Warrant Service Officers online for their county jail, and that they will be receiving no federal funding.

So, CCSO with it’s two WSOs, appears to exist in a league of its own.

According to the FEMA CCSO grant letter, $825,000 of the million-dollar award was to be used, from September 2025 to September 2028, to: “fund two CCSO Detention Officers’ [sic] salaries, employee related expenses. These two Detention Officers [sic] will be 287G qualified warrant service officers to process and handle illegal immigrants held at the Cochise County Jail.”

Specifically, the total million-dollar grant is broken down into several award amounts-- though the math is far from transparent.

The most easily decipherable amount of the award was of $42,539, for the purchase of a portable X-ray imaging system used in explosive ordinance disposal operations.

The remainder is where the math seems to get a bit fuzzy.

According to the FEMA letter, a total of $315,000 was awarded for “personnel.” Another $234,966 for “fringe benefits,” another $250,000 for “travel,” and another $157, 495 for “indirect charges.”

Bear in mind that, according to the FEMA award letter, $825,000 of this amount ($957,461-- which is the remainder of the million, after the X-ray machine) is to be spent on two WSOs who, by CCSO’s own admission, don’t seem to do much.

It is the quarter of a million dollars for “travel” that stands out the most, as this is the portion of the million dollar award that seems, largely, to have Dannels’ name on it.

As is stated in the award letter’s description of this specific amount:

“$250,000.00 for travel, training, conferences and expenses associated with issues and challenges as an International Border [sic] community. Sheriff Mark J. Dannels has a strong commitment to the Southern Border [sic] and challenges faced being a border community. Through collaboration and leadership with the American Sheriff’s Alliance [sic] which includes the National Sheriff’s Association (NSA), Southwestern Border Sheriff’s Coalition, Texas Sheriff’s Coalition (SWBS & TXSC), Major Counties Sheriff’s Association [sic] (MCSA), and Western States Sheriff’s [sic] Association (WSSA), Sheriff Dannels is spotlighting the importance standing united [sic] and border security. [...]” [parentheticals all original.]

To be clear, while “training” is listed among possible expenditures of this quarter of a million dollars, the WSO model of 287(g) involvement is the least demanding-- and requires the least amount of training. In the past, WSO officers required eight hours of training. Reporting indicates that this second Trump administration has reduced that training requirement to only four hours. Further, according to Congressional Research Service materials, WSO officers undergo their training “either at a local site or online.”

Given these facts, it seems like a stretch to say CCSO’s two WSOs could spend $250,000 on this kind of training-- rigorous as it might be.

So what makes Dannels so special? Why are his name, and the names of these various sheriffs’ groups, all over this quarter of a million dollars earmarked for “travel”?

The Cochise County sheriff, who has a history of association with far-right extremists and of making dubious border security claims [read more here and here], has used his office’s proximity to the border to leverage a burgeoning political career-- particularly in the era of Trump. Dannels has made frequent mention of his relationship with Trump “border czar” Tom Homan. During the 2024 election cycle, Dannels took part in Trump and Homan-related political events.

Dannels is a key player in a number of committees and councils, including Operation Desert Guardian, which was created by Governor Katie Hobbs (a Democrat) in early 2025-- and he does seem to have the ear of the governor. And, in June, Dannels was appointed (along with such luminaries as the founder of Bikers for Trump and several investment fund managers) to Trump’s Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). He served on HSAC during Trump’s first term as well.

Perhaps most notably: throughout 2024, Dannels took part in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup, according to documents obtained by CRN/New Times. This group crafted policy proposals and plans intended to implement then-candidate Trump’s promised mass immigrant deportations and other national security objectives.

According to documents obtained by CRN/New Times, the “main operational effort” of this Project 2025 subgroup was creation of plans for the implementation of a new nationwide “multi-jurisdictional law enforcement” fusion center-style law enforcement structure. This new system would unite state, local, and federal law enforcement, along with components of the military to be used in matters of domestic law enforcement-- under the direct command of Donald Trump.

A major component of implementing these Project 2025 plans, according to documents, was to be a drastic expansion of 287(g) participation.

Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documents obtained by CRN/New Times demonstrate that the group worked to craft “strategic communications” strategies for the advancement of their objectives. A component of this propaganda campaign was advocacy through participating and/or sympathetic sheriffs, according to documents.

Dannels is not only an acolyte of the Trump/Project 2025 vision, but is in a position to serve as a prime evangelist.

Within Arizona, Dannels is chair of the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board and holds leadership positions in various state councils relating to homeland security and border security.

On the policy stage, the rural Arizona sheriff has long held leadership positions within several influential law enforcement groups. This includes: the Arizona Sheriffs’ Association (where Dannels has served as president); the Southwestern Border Sheriffs’ Coalition (SWBC, an offshoot of the Texas Border Sheriff’s Coalition), where Dannels is as an executive board member; the National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA, where Dannels has long chaired the Border Security Committee); and the Western States Sheriffs’ Association (WSSA, where Dannels is currently president).

These associations hold a number of conferences each year where members hobnob with fellow sheriffs, private sector vendors (who often underwrite these conferences and are rewarded with market access), and policymakers alike.

Private sector vendors who underwrite these events are often companies that sell law enforcement and defense-related technologies-- such as drones, biometrics systems, surveillance systems, etc.

As such, conferences held by these various groups are something of a nexus between the realms of public policy (NSA, for example, has a substantial lobbying presence) and private profiteering.

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“The beautiful, modern Peppermill Resort and Casino”

Given the fact that the September 30 FEMA award letter seems to bestow a travel fund of up to $250,000 in federal taxpayer revenue to CCSO for travel and expenses seemingly related to such conferences, it is worth noting that these conferences are often held at resorts, casinos, and luxury hotels.

For example, NSA’s winter conference is to be held January 31 through February 4, 2026 in Washington, D.C., at the the luxury JW Marriot, situated right down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, according to NSA materials.

WSSA’s next conference, according to a statement signed by WSSA President Mark Dannels, is the group’s “annual gathering,” to be held February 28 through March 4, 2026, at “the beautiful, modern Peppermill Resort and Casino which features a beautiful conference center, first class restaurants and the opportunity to see the sites of the greater Reno area.”

This event is explicitly marketed as a “trade show” and the group solicits sponsorships from private vendors to underwrite the event. According to WSSA materials, an official “conference sponsorship” (which gets a vendor two booths in the “exhibit hall” as well as corporate logo placement on WSSA materials and speaking opportunities for company reps at the conference) runs $20,000.

“This is the annual gathering of Sheriffs [sic] and their command staff from across 18 western states. Our trade show provides the perfect opportunity for you to showcase your law enforcement-related company,” reads WSSA conference promotional materials signed by Dannels. “If you would like to obtain maximum exposure to the Sheriffs [sic] in the Western United States - this is your chance! [sic]”

Similarly, SWBSC solicits corporate contractor/vendor sponsorships and holds their various events at fun locations. In September, the group held its “Annual Fall Cooperative Meeting,” in conjunction with the Texas Border Sheriffs’ Coalition, at the Gila River Resort and Casino in Chandler, Arizona.

You get the idea. Attendance at these conferences is important work that surely warrants up to a quarter of a million dollars in federal taxpayer revenue.

CRN/New Times repeatedly asked CCSO Public Information Officer Capas if, as the description provided in the FEMA grant letter suggests, this money is earmarked-- either in full or in part-- for Dannels’ travel to such conferences. Capas did not respond to this question.

CRN/New Times asked DHS if any portion of this award of “terrorism prevention” monies was intended for Dannels’ travel to conferences, and how that fits into the objectives of the TVTP program. DHS did not respond to these questions.

In a public hearing held on October 21, the Cochise County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to approve CCSO’s acceptance of this grant relating to their 287(g) partnership with ICE. Not much information was provided in this public meeting by CCSO relating to how this quarter of a million dollars in “travel” money was to be spent-- other than a terse statement offered by a CCSO representative, saying: “$250,000 will be for travel, training, conferences, and expenses associated with, ah, promoting, ah, er, talking about the border and the border issues that we face on a daily basis.”

During this meeting, supervisors indicated that the board had been briefed on the grant award during a private work session prior to the October 21 public meeting. CRN/New Times asked all three Cochise County supervisors (Kathleen Gomez, Tom Crosby, Frank Antenori) whether, to their knowledge, any portion of this $250,000 in “travel” funds was to be spent on Dannels’ travel to conferences, as the FEMA letter seems to indicate. None of the supervisors responded to this question.

CRN/New Times repeatedly submitted multiple written questions to CCSO Public Information Officer Capas regarding the million dollar FEMA award associated with the agency’s involvement in 287(g). Among other things, we asked if any portion of the million dollar award would be spent in relation to Dannels’ travel, salary, or any benefit/expenses of any kind. Capas did not respond to any of these questions.

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times-- January 13, 2026

Read Part 2 of “Cochise Cronyism.”

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This article is a continuation of the “Big Takeover” series of investigative reporting, detailing plans created by the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup and the individuals involved in crafting them. The series is jointly published by Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times.

This joint CRN/New Times reporting is part of Phoenix New Times’ Arizona Watchdog Project, which receives support from the Trace Foundation.

If you would like to support Cochise Regional News though a donation, you may do so here. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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If you would like to support Phoenix New Times through a supporting membership, you may do so here.

This week, representatives of the Cochise County Sheriffs Office and a number of county supervisors attended an event in Tombstone to honor billionaire Warren Buffett’s son, Howard Buffett.

The billionaire’s scion has made a lasting mark on Cochise County for more than a decade. As part of this legacy, he has given tens of millions of dollars to CCSO, largely to support the agency’s border enforcement efforts. And, as such, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels was on hand at the Tombstone event to praise his benefactor. [Read about Dannels’ ties to far-right extremists and his dubious border security claims, here and here.]

Over the years, a number of entities controlled by Howard Buffett have acquired large areas of land in the Chiricahua Mountains, the Huachuca Mountains, and along Border Rd. The billionaire’s son has used some of these properties for his own personal border enforcement-related activities. And, in his time in Cochise County, Howard Buffett has rubbed elbows with many tied to the county’s long legacy of border vigilantism and anti-immigrant activism.

Through his influence with local ranchers, the sheriff, and a number of other institutions and policy makers, Howard Buffett pioneered the aerial application of certain herbicidal poisons in Cochise County. This program was publicly touted as one of “grasslands restoration,” though to Howard Buffett, certain right-wing ranchers and the sheriff, a driving purpose of the program was to kill trees and defoliate certain areas of the county for the benefit of border-related surveillance and enforcement activities.

This is who Cochise County officials honored in Tombstone this week.

Throughout 2019, I published an investigative series with Phoenix New Times relating to Buffett’s activities in Cochise County. If you would like to learn more, that series is here:

— Part 1: “Howard Buffett’s Border War”

— Part 2: “Border Cowboys: Howard Buffett is a perfect fit with Cochise County’s legacy of vigilantism.”

— Part 3: “‘Cryin’ wolf’? Reality versus rhetoric of border crime in Cochise County.”

— Part 4: “The War on Mesquite: collateral damage in Howard Buffett’s border crusade.”

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News-- November 21, 2025

If you would like to support Cochise Regional News though a donation, you may do so here. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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A proposed feedlot in McNeal is raising serious concerns among local residents who fear it will adversely impact their homes through stench, water consumption, and other potential issues.

According to a letter sent out to area property owners on May 9 by Elfrida resident Ramon Bojorquez, he is proposing to seek permits for the construction and operation of a feedlot situated on 1,052 acres of land just south of the intersection of Davis Rd. and U.S. Route 191.

Under Cochise County code, such a feedlot would require a special use permit, which requires notification of surrounding property owners and a period of public input and hearings before the Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission.

The proposed feedlot would also be situated in the heart of the Douglas groundwater Active Management Area (DAMA). Creation of DAMA by local ballot initiative in 2022 was a response to rapidly diminishing groundwater resources-- which was largely attributed to production of feed for other cattle feedlots and dairy operations throughout the Sulphur Springs Valley.

Since Bojorquez sent out his letter advising area property owners of his plans, residents have banded together-- creating a website in opposition to the proposed lot and registering their concerns with the Cochise County Planning and Zoning Division and District 2 Supervisor Kathleen Gomez.

According to Cochise County Planner Matthew Taylor, he has received a substantial amount of correspondence from concerned community members in response to the proposed feedlot. Conversely, he said he has not received any correspondence from area residents in favor of the feedlot's construction.

"We have received about 25 responses in the last five or six days. None of them have been favorable," said Taylor. "The majority of them have cited water concerns as well as odors."

According to county officials, Bojorquez has not yet submitted any permit applications or cite plan.

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Supervisor dismissive of residents' concerns

Gomez, for her part, seems dismissive of public concern.

A Republican, Gomez was elected to her first term on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors in November. She has been an outspoken advocate of the expanded Douglas Port of Entry, slated for construction about 18 miles south of the proposed McNeal feedlot. This expanded port of entry will rely heavily on U.S. Route 191, and Gomez is a proponent of long-dormant plans to widen U.S. Route 191 into a major trade corridor.

"I think there is a lot of emotion and reaction to a feedlot but I do not know enough about the project yet. I plan to investigate the pros and cons of the feed lot. Who is behind it and if it is up to 1000 cattle or less," [sic] said Gomez in an email to Cochise Regional News. "I would encourage you to find out as much info as you can before reacting to the negativity of the concept. Will it use more water possibly, but we do not have the answers if we do not know exactly how the feed lot would be used. Feed lots are considered a better approach to cattle than grazing. Again, people divided on both sides, but I want solutions and not just the negative aspect. We need economic development and the people who have been here for generations cant be dismissed vs those who have retired here." [sic]

"There must be an informed public so an industry that has been here for decades has a chance to survive. From the email I have seen, and there has been a lot, they are using the same information to the period. I just feel that there is misinformation out there," added Gomez, speaking of concerned community members who have written her in opposition to the lot.

Regarding these concerns voiced by her constituents, Gomez went on to state: "I have [been] finding it more and more bewildering that people are buying land that is zoned for [agricultural use] and then want to rezone and get upset of neighboring lots being used as it is zoned for."

The new District 2 supervisor seems, however, to miss the boat in her dismissal of constituent concerns.

While much of the land in the area of the feedlot is zoned for "rural" use (typically "RU-4," which means rural use, minimum of four acres), this is not necessarily an agricultural designation; lands that are rurally designated may be used for many purposes-- including both agricultural and residential use.

Furthermore, Arizona law governing the Douglas Groundwater Basin Active Management Area designates commercial feedlots as an "industrial" use of groundwater resources-- not an agricultural use.

And, finally, Cochise County regulations (which you'd hope Gomez would be familiar with) requires a "special use" permit for a commercial feedlot such as the one Bojorquez wishes to build. County code recognizes that this is not a standard use of land in Cochise County, because of "unique characteristics and oftentimes high potential to adversely impact surrounding properties"-- hence the need for a "special use" permit.

Gomez did not respond to questions from CRN, asking whether she has discussed the feedlot with Bojorquez or any other involved party.

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Mystery of the feedlot

At least for the time being, the issue of this proposed feedlot seems shrouded in mystery. Bojorquez has not yet submitted any plans or proposals to the county-- and even ownership of the property he has identified as the site of the feedlot is not clear.

In his May 9 letter to area property owners, Bojorquez identified two adjacent parcels of land as the future site of the proposed feedlot. According to the Cochise County Assessor's Office, both of these parcels are held in trust by Pioneer Title Agency. No information regarding the members or beneficiaries of this trust are available to the public through county records.

Pioneer Title agency declined to provide any information to Cochise Regional News relating to the ownership of this trust or property.

According to Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) records, Bojorquez is a principal of three active Arizona corporations: White Water Creek Pecan Farm LLC, Las Tres Rosas Cattle Company LLC (formerly Las Tres Rosas Dairy Products), and Tres Rosas Maakov Cattle LLC.

Both the pecan farm and Las Tres Rosas Cattle, according to records, are companies Bojorquez has owned for several years-- dating back to at least 2017.

Tres Rosas Maakov Cattle, on the other hand, was incorporated just a few days ago.

According to ACC records, Tres Rosas Maakov Cattle was incorporated on May 23. It has three corporate members: Nicolas Reynoso Carmelo, Maakov Cattle LLC, and Ramon Bojorquez.

Reynoso Carmelo is a Hermosillo, Sonora-based businessman who has been ranked among the top business leaders of that Mexican state by some trade publications focused on that area.

According to ACC records, Reynoso Carmelo is also a corporate member and manager of Maakov Cattle, LLC-- which, as stated above, is also a principal of Tres Rosas Maakov Cattle, LLC.

According to ACC records, Reynoso Carmelo reserved the business name "Maakov" in September 2024 and is corporate manager or member of several Arizona domestic corporations sharing the "Maakov" name. These include: Maakov Snacks, Maakov Real Estate, Maakov Holdings, and Maakov Cattle.

While ACC records demonstrate that these "Maakov" Arizona corporate entities are represented by a Tucson-based statutory agent, records also demonstrate that all of their corporate members and managers are based in Hermosillo, Sonora.

According to the "Maakov" website, Reynoso Carmelo is chief executive officer of "Maakov," which consists of several "divisions," focusing on things like pecan production, cattle production, snack foods, and "raising mule deer for hunting experiences."

On February 1, President Donald Trump imposed a 25-percent tariff on all goods imported to the United States from Mexico. This marked the outset of a series of tariffs and tariff postponements that have wrought a fair amount of uncertainty and chaos for Mexican businesses seeking to import goods to the United States.

It is not known if there is a relation to Trump's tariff policy, but it is worth noting that, according to ACC records, Reynoso Carmelo and another Hermosillo-based associate incorporated Maakov Cattle in Arizona on February 20-- a few weeks following Trump's initial tariff salvo.

Review of corporate records for Tres Rosas Maakov Cattle LLC (the entity created in partnership between Elfrida's Ramon Bojorquez, Nicolas Reynoso Carmelo and Maakov Cattle LLC on May 23) demonstrates that Bojorquez is the sole U.S.-domiciled human principal of that partnership.

[Note: Maakov Cattle LLC is listed as a corporate principal of the Bojorquez/Maakov partnership. It is a domestic Arizona corporation, though all of its principals, including Reynoso Carmelo, are based in Sonora.]

Bojorquez, thus far, has been the sole public face of the proposed McNeal feedlot.

Bojorquez did not respond to repeated requests for comment and written questions from Cochise Regional News concerning his plans for this proposed feedlot. Among questions not responded to were several seeking information on the role-- if any-- of Maakov in the proposed McNeal feedlot. Bojorquez also did not respond to questions asking whether the proposed feedlot or his partnership with Maakov Cattle has any relation to current U.S. trade policy.

Neither Nicolas Reynoso Carmelo or Maakov Chief Commercial Officer Santiago Reynoso responded to written questions submitted by CRN. Among questions not responded to were several seeking information on the role-- if any-- of Maakov in the proposed McNeal feedlot. These Maakov corporate officers also did not respond to questions asking whether the proposed feedlot or their partnership with Bojorquez has any relation to current U.S. trade policy.

Numerous attempts to submit written questions to Maakov CEO Nicolas Reynoso Carmelo using the email address provided on the Maakov website were met with delivery failure notifications.

If you have questions or concerns, or would like to take part in public hearings concerning the proposed McNeal feedlot, contact the Cochise County Planning and Zoning Commission or Development Services.

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— May 28, 2025

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Since President Donald Trump's inauguration in January, his administration has ruthlessly prosecuted promised mass deportations. He has sent deportees to Guantanamo Bay and a “terrorist” prison in El Salvador. He has placed control of the southern border in the hands of the military. And, despite promising to focus on hardened criminals, the administration has widened its immigrant dragnet by targeting documented and undocumented immigrants alike.

Trump has done much of this in defiance of the judiciary, while claiming an amount of executive power previously unseen in American history.

To the casual observer, this administration's approach may appear haphazard or incoherent. However, these anti-immigrant measures echo a plan that was meticulously crafted, out of public view, over at least the year preceding this Trump presidency.

The purpose of that plan is to drastically restructure domestic law enforcement— nationwide— under the command of the president. This restructuring will ensure that Trump has the machinery in place to target immigrants and crack down on those who oppose him.

The Big Takeover: "Border Security Workgroup" documents detail plans to integrate all levels of law enforcement under Trump's command

Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times (CRN/New Times) have obtained a trove of documents laying out these plans. The documents were crafted by a subgroup of Project 2025 and contain several timelines for these actions, which are set to unfold throughout this year.

The contents of these documents and the identities of their authors have— until now— been unknown to the American public.

Project 2025 was an effort by several far-right think tanks to craft a policy playbook for a second Trump presidency. Per materials we've obtained, documents in our possession were created by a subgroup of the larger Project 2025 effort called the "Border Security Workgroup." This subgroup was tasked with crafting immigrant mass deportation plans, along with other law enforcement and national security policy.

Though candidate Trump repeatedly denied any involvement with Project 2025 during the election cycle, documents obtained by CRN/New Times strongly suggest that the group worked closely with Trump and his team— right through the election and up the White House steps.

It is unclear whether the set of Project 2025 documents we have constitute the group's final policy proposals, or whether Trump accepted these policies. It is clear, however, that many of the agenda items laid out in these internal Project 2025 documents have come to pass during the early months of this Trump presidency.

We have also seen items, which seem to have been crafted largely for propagandistic purposes, come to pass. This has included the administration's demonization of some immigrant groups— Venezuelans accused of being members of Tren de Aragua, in particular— as 'terrorist' threats. The administration has deported many of these so-called terrorists on the basis of flimsy evidence and without due process of law.

Internal Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documents obtained by CRN/New Times clearly state that targeting these alleged immigrant 'terrorists' has been a vital part of a proposed communications strategy, intended to galvanize political support for the implementation of a broader plan.

The core objective of that plan is a dramatic restructuring and militarization of law enforcement, nationwide, under the command of President Trump.

In coming months, CRN/New Times will deliver reporting under the header "The Big Takeover," revealing the contents of these documents, their implications for the country, and the identities of their authors. This article is the first in that series of investigative reporting.

Project 2025 and Trump

Project 2025 is the name of an effort led by right-wing think tank, The Heritage Foundation. The effort included input from a coalition of various right-wing public policy foundations and individual contributors.

In April 2023, the group published a 922-page policy handbook titled "2025 Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise." In essence, the handbook laid out plans to reshape the federal government under a second Trump administration around two pillars.

One was the obscure "unitary executive" legal theory, which essentially consolidates executive power in the hands of the president. Critics of "unitary executive" theory argue that it is unconstitutional and essentially reframes the presidency as something akin to a dictatorship or monarchy.

The second pillar is hard-line Christian fundamentalism.

The Heritage Foundation was co-founded in 1973 by right-wing political luminary and Christian nationalist Paul Weyrich. And, according to Border Security Workgroup materials we've obtained, many involved in crafting these specific law enforcement and mass deportation plans also have substantial ties to Christian nationalists— among other far-right extremists.

Border Security Workgroup documents obtained by CRN/New Times demonstrate that Project 2025 continued working, well beyond the 2023 publication of the "Mandate for Leadership" tome, to craft policy for a hoped-for second Trump presidency.

While that work was occurring, then-candidate Trump repeatedly denied any knowledge of, or relationship to, Project 2025.

In response to this Trump claim, critics noted that several publicly-known contributors to the project had served in the first Trump presidential administration. Several have since been appointed to his current administration.

Furthermore, documents we've obtained demonstrate that about one third of the individuals involved in crafting these specific Project 2025 law enforcement and mass deportation plans had also served in some capacity under the first Trump administration.

According to document metadata, contributors to the Border Security Workgroup— whose identities will be explored in subsequent reporting in this series— worked to craft these proposals between May and September 2024, all while Trump was denying any involvement with Project 2025.

The authors of these documents clearly expected to work in tandem with the campaign and subsequent administration. They specifically discuss intentions to "receive guidance and input from the Presidential candidate and other key members of the executive team," through the latter half of 2024, into the presidential transition period following the election, and well into the first year of the administration.

It is not clear from documentation we have obtained whether the Border Security Workgroup policy proposals found purchase with Trump. But, if there has been coordination between the administration and the authors, it would hardly be surprising— as several of the policy proposals contained in the documents have already been executed.

These have included things like the widespread revocation of immigrant parole programs and the revocation of status for many immigrants in the U.S. legally. The administration has also sent immigrants to Guantanamo Bay and placed control of the U.S./Mexico border in the hands of the military. And, Trump has directed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to help identify immigrants for deportation— breaking with long-held federal norms, while clearly embracing draconian tactics laid out by the Border Security Workgroup.

More disturbing, however, are those items which have not yet fully fleshed out.

Domestic law enforcement realignment and militarization

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, aspects of all levels of American law enforcement were integrated for the ostensible purpose of preventing further terrorist attacks. Over time, that infrastructure was applied to a more inclusive "all hazards" detection and mitigation objective. This has had civil liberties consequences, with such law enforcement personnel monitoring and surveilling activists and critics of law enforcement. [Read more about this here and here.]

One of the most concerning proposals in the Border Security Workgroup documents would create a similar structure, but ostensibly for identifying and deporting immigrants. This proposed system would be under the direct command of Donald Trump— a man who has demonstrated disregard for things like due process of law, and who has stated desire for retribution against those he perceives to be political enemies.

According to documents, the Border Security Workgroup recommendations revolved around one central "line of operation": to dramatically restructure and militarize domestic law enforcement through the course of this year.

If enacted, this proposal would constitute the most drastic restructuring of American law enforcement since 9/11.

The post-9/11 restructuring created a system of law enforcement and intelligence "fusion centers" nationwide. It also created entities like the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which assumed command of such entities as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

Fusion centers, as they exist today, integrate the efforts of state and local law enforcement with DHS and other federal agencies like the FBI. While the current fusion center system does investigate and interdict crimes committed by transnational criminal organizations such as Tren de Aragua, local law enforcement (for the most part) does not engage in matters of federal immigration law enforcement.

Internal Project 2025 documents obtained by CRN/New Times propose creating a wholly new fusion center-style system.

This new law enforcement infrastructure, according to documents, would incorporate four tiers of command: Regional Command (i.e. local sheriffs, municipal police, state troopers, game wardens, etc.), State Command (which would oversee and support all "regional command" units within each state), District Command (which would oversee, support, and coordinate actions of "state command" units within geographical districts throughout the nation), and Headquarters Command (which would direct it all).

To facilitate the administration’s mass deportation goals, several proposals in the Border Security Workgroup materials would expand use of programs that extend federal immigration enforcement powers to local law enforcement officers. For example, documents contemplate waiving 287(g) training requirements for sheriff’s deputies and municipal police working in “regional command” units. The 287(g) program allows local law enforcement to work in concert with ICE in such matters as immigration raids.

[For more on the involvement of certain sheriffs and sheriffs’ organizations in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup, read here and here.]

Per the internal Project 2025 documents, Headquarters Command is to be directed by a Commander of Domestic Security Operations, who will be "appointed by the President of the United States and take direction on how to conduct operations in a manner decided by the President."

Headquarters Command would also contain a "multi-jurisdictional law enforcement liaison group," which would consist of representatives from all levels of the integrated law enforcement command structure — from county sheriffs to the FBI, the DHS, the IRS and others.

Headquarters Command would also be the level at which the military melds with local law enforcement to provide operational support, according to the documents.

[Editor’s Note: since the publication of this reporting in May 2025, CRN/New Times has obtained further documentation detailing the work of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup. That documentation contains what appears to be a more mature iteration of this law enforcement militarization/restructuring plan, finalized toward the end of 2024. In this version of the plan, the military is to be joined with law enforcement at all levels of government, to include involvement in local “regional command” units.]

Where military support for domestic law enforcement is concerned, internal Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documents obtained by CRN/New Times discuss several potential workarounds to laws that prohibit most military engagement in matters of domestic law enforcement.

Furthermore, the documents recommended mobilization of up to one million troops to aid in proposed domestic security operations, and identified specific military air bases to be used for rapid deportation flights.

Documents also show the group crafted presidential actions directing military support to civilian law enforcement— and contemplated invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow for active military participation in domestic law enforcement.

To be clear, these recommendations may well have teeth. CRN/New Times' review of these documents and associated metadata shows that at least half of those involved in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup were career high-level military and intelligence personnel.

The documents lay out timelines and several "lines of operation" for accomplishing this domestic law enforcement restructuring by the end of this year.

[For more on the military roots of the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup within the broader Project 2025 Department of Defense effort, please read here.]

Propaganda: immigrants as 'terrorists'

Already this year, Americans have watched the spectacle of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. The administration has posted videos of shackled immigrants being loaded onto deportation flights and photo ops at El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison, where the Trump administration has sent supposed Venezuelan “terrorists” (without due process of law).

These actions fit a proposed communications strategy contained in the Border Security Workgroup documents obtained by CRN/New Times. The intent of this strategy: to bolster political support and gain stakeholder buy-in for the central effort to overhaul and militarize domestic law enforcement.

A "strategic communications" timeline in the documents suggests propaganda for selling the country on the law enforcement restructuring and militarization plan. A section detailing “Pre-Election” communications strategy reads:

"Our law enforcement agencies can help save so many victims — Americans and the illegal aliens held captive, indentured, and trafficked here. We must find and capture any potential terrorists or malign actors as a priority.”

Documents explicitly state that the target “audience” for this messaging was the “American public.”

Recommended communications for the pre-inauguration period encouraged “interagency cooperation and assistance” among all levels of law enforcement and included the following messaging intended for the “American public” and “opposition politicians”:

“Our fine border patrol agents and immigration officials can do this job and we will be asking Congress to provide them with the necessary tools and resources. Together, we can stop the trafficking, the misery, and the murder.”

Last, the messaging strategy timeline carries us through the first 100 days of the Trump presidency by driving home the “terrorist threat”:

"Coordination, coordination, coordination. We ask all state and local authorities to help the U.S. find the dangerous terrorists and remove criminals from preying on the public. (Audience: American public, state, and local politicians)." [Parentheses original.]

Counter-intelligence and the "insider threat"

Over time, the post-9/11 fusion center system turned on the American people in ways the general public did not anticipate. By contrast, the new militarized law enforcement structure contemplated in the Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documents has civil rights ramifications built into its DNA.

A significant portion of the documents discuss domestic counter-intelligence. The draft proposals contain recommendations to investigate, prosecute and even seize the assets of non-governmental organizations, along with state, municipal and federal agencies that provide services to immigrants and refugees.

Documents describe some NGOs and specific government agencies as potential targets because they are perceived to oppose the priorities of the president, and because they are "accomplices to immigration crime."

"An insider threat to this strategy can be expected that works with nation-state, transnational and non-governmental entities to subvert the President's plan," the documents state further. "An active counter-intelligence effort must be organized, integrated across all levels, and actively conducted to identify and prosecute any individuals working for and providing classified or operationally sensitive information on border security plans and activities." [sic]

“Operationally sensitive information” might very well describe the contents of this reporting. Indeed, such directives could be used to target reporters, press outlets, lawyers, activists and concerned citizens who publish or post information relating to immigration raids — or who are otherwise seen to be working to "subvert the President's plan."

Laying the groundwork

Through the first 100 days of his term, Trump issued a number of executive orders that seem intent on creating the nation-wide militarized law enforcement realignment contemplated in Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documents obtained by CRN/New Times.

These orders have caught the eye of Jessica Pishko, an attorney and journalist who has written a book on the far-right radicalization of American law enforcement. Though Pishko is not privy to the documents obtained by CRN/New Times, she has noticed an emergent pattern in Trump’s executive orders.

That pattern is one in which a supreme leader works to curry favor and loyalty among law enforcement, while simultaneously positioning them as potential tools of authoritarianism.

"I think that what Trump and his administration imagine is something like the unitary executive all the way down — directing what the priorities are for all law enforcement personnel,” she told CRN/New Times. “It's not really about enforcing the 'law,' but ensuring that the specific directives of the president are carried out.”

Among other things, Trump’s executive orders have placed control of the southern border in the hands of the U.S. Department of Defense and called for "provision of military and national security assets" to local law enforcement agencies.

Trump has also used his executive orders to decry a "lawless insurrection against the supremacy of federal law," which he says is underway among state and local officials whom the administration views as being insufficiently compliant with its mass deportation plans. Furthermore, through executive order Trump has called on the heads of DHS and DOD to craft recommendations on whether he should invoke the Insurrection Act.

Other provisions of these executive orders have called for the unification of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies through the creation of "Homeland Security Task Forces" (HSTFs) in all states, unified under one "operational command center."

Strongly echoing recommendations contained in the documents we’ve obtained, Trump has ordered these fusion-center-like HSTFs to pursue his immigrant mass deportation agenda, and to also engage in enforcement actions against state and local officials whom the administration views as working contrary to their objectives.

These executive orders have also granted greater immunities, legal protections, and resources (including military assets) to state and local law enforcement agencies and officers. The executive orders also called for enhanced sentences for those convicted of "crimes against law enforcement officers.”

Taking a step back and looking at Trump’s executive orders, Pishko sees a troubling scenario emerging— namely, the creation of an apparatus that could be redirected to punish targets of Trump’s choosing.

"The biggest concern I have is that if [Trump] decides to bring all of local law enforcement under his purview and use it to conduct mass deportations and/or mass surveillance of certain groups of people, that it would be very easy to do that — he would have a lot of manpower," Pishko said. "Right now, it's immigrants. It could change [...] things could switch pretty quickly to other groups. It could switch to protestors. It could switch to academics. It could switch to journalists."

Project 2025 Border Security Workgroup documents obtained by CRN/New Times detail the creation of this new militarized law enforcement structure — nationwide — through the course of this year. Though crafted outside of the democratic process, without input from the public or their representatives, recommendations contained in these documents are seemingly becoming reality with each passing week.

If this pattern hold true, more developments— many which may have grave civil liberties consequences— are to come.

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times-- May 15, 2025

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This article is the first in an investigative series, "The Big Takeover," exploring the contents, implications and authors of heretofore unreported Project 2025 documents obtained by Cochise Regional News and Phoenix New Times.

More in the “Big Takeover” series:

— “Cochise Cronyism, Part 1: a rural Arizona sheriff, ICE, and a quarter of a million dollars”

— “Cochise Cronyism, Part 2: sheriff used office to shill for Canadian drone company seeking to cash in on militarized law enforcement.”

— “Insurrectionist Brunch: 2020 election plot conspirators, Project 2025, and the plan to deploy military within the United States— in the name of ‘border security.’”

This joint CRN/New Times reporting is part of Phoenix New Times' Arizona Watchdog Project, which receives support from the Trace Foundation.

If you would like to support Cochise Regional News though a donation, you may do so here. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

If you would like to support Phoenix New Times through a supporting membership, you may do so here.

Interim Cochise County Elections Director Marisol “Marty” Renteria has submitted notice that she intends to leave her position. This marks the fourth loss of an elections director since 2023, in a county that has made national headlines for elections-related mayhem in recent years.

Renteria, a county-employed information technologist, had been appointed to head the Elections Division, in an interim capacity, following the resignation of Elections Director Tim Mattix in April 2024.

“I am going back to IT, as much as I am appreciative of the opportunity, I miss my work in IT,” Renteria told Cochise Regional News. “I was asked to get them through the 2024 election cycles when the previous director stepped down unexpectedly and I agreed to do that. I did, and I think it is time to go back home now.”

“As with the many, many directors that I have helped before, I will continue to help in the background with anything they need me to. I have always assisted with programming the equipment and election reporting, website stuff, training poll workers etc. I don't expect that to change. As long as they need me I will be here,” added Renteria.

The 2024 elections cycle in Cochise County had been marked by issues with tabulation delays and ballot printing issues, attributed to voting machine vendor ES&S.

Other Arizona counties experienced similar issues with ES&S equipment during the 2024 election as well.

And, on the day of the election in November, Cochise County election workers, volunteers, and voters, were treated to a bomb threat targeting the County administrative offices (which house the Elections Division) in Bisbee.

Several other polling places, both in Arizona and throughout the nation, were subject to similar bomb threats on election day.

Cochise County District 2 Supervisor Kathleen Gomez, who was elected in November, said Renteria had “just given notice” and that she intended to stay on until a new elections director is hired and trained.

The District 2 supervisory race in which Gomez was elected had been subject to one of the glitches attributed to ES&S. When early ballots went out in October, voters in a Douglas precinct received ballots in which the entire second district race had been omitted. This was atributed to an ES&S “mapping” issue, and quickly corrected by Renteria and the Elections Division.

“I told Marty, they [the Elections Division] were thrown under the bus,” Gomez said. “Because they had no experience [and were] put into probably one of the most heated, most looked-at elections, with such a turnout.”

“But, there were so many mistakes… my gosh. I tell people: if I was on the sitting Board of Supervisors, I wouldn’t have certified it,” added Gomez.

The results of the 2024 general election were certified by the Cochise County Board of Supervisors in late November. Gomez and other newly-elected Supervisor Frank Antenori (District 3) took their positions on the board in January.

Cochise County’s troubled elections past

Following the November 2022 midterm elections, Cochise County Recorder David Stevens, along with Supervisors Peggy Judd (Disrict 3) and Tom Crosby (District 1, still in office) refused to certify the results of the election and embarked on a campaign through which they sought a full hand count of ballots.

These actions were undertaken, despite repeated warnings from then Cochise County Attorney Brian McIntyre, that they were unlawful.

Prior to these actions, Stevens had co-founded the Elections Fairness Institute (EFI) with prominent Arizona elections denier Mark Finchem. Finchem also has ties to anti-government right-wing extremists. EFI’s board has consited of several prominent elections deniers and even a field organizer of the conspiratorially-minded John Birch Society. [Read more about all this here and here.]

Also prior to the 2022 election, Judd had attended the January 6, 2021 “Stop the Steal” rally at the U.S. Capitol, which culminated in the January 6 insurrection—though Judd has statedshe did not enter the Capitol building.

Around the time of the 2020 January 6 insurrection, Judd also indicated apparent belief in the Q Anon conspiracy theory.

Records of email communications obtained by CRN indicate that, around the time period surrounding the 2022 election, Judd had engaged fairly heavily with groups of constituents who were deeply immersed in an ecosystem of right-wing conspiracy theory and disinformation relating to the 2020 presidential election (which President Donald Trump falsely claimed to have won) and the 2022 election, as well as other highly politicized issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several of these radicalized members of the public appeared regularly at Board of Supervisors meetings around the time of the 2022 election, and peppered county adiministrators with misinformation, conspiracy theory, and anger.

Eventually, in 2023, Judd told CRN that she had grown fearful of some of these people.

Refusal to certify the 2022 election resulted in felony indictements for both Crosby and Judd.

Judd decided not to seek re-election to the Board of Supervisors in 2024, and accepted a misdemeanor plea agreement, in exchange for pleading guilty in October of that year.

Crosby awaits trial.

Though Stevens was re-elected in Novemeber, he announced his resignation in January of this year, citing health and personal issues.

In January of 2023, longtime Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra tendered her resignation, citing a toxic environment within County administration, as well as threatening behavior from members off the public.

In May 2023, Marra was replaced by Bob Bartelsmeyer, who had served as elections director in La Paz county in 2022.

Bartelsmeyer resigned his post in Speptember 2023.

At the time of his detarture, he summed up his reasoning, telling Cochise Regional News:

“This is a toxic environment. I have to think about my health and stress."

Though Bartelsmeyer had made public statements questioning the validity of the 2020 election, he said his time in Cochise County had opened his eyes to the corrosive dangers of disinformation. [Read more about it here.]

Folowing Bartelsmeyer, the County hired Tim Mattix in October 2023.

Mattix resigned in April 2024, citing “personal family reasons.”

Renteria, a county information technology specialist, was appointed as interim elections director at the time of Mattix’s April 2024 departure— just three months before the July primary elections.

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— March 5, 2025.

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Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels bills himself as “a sheriff for all the people.” However, records obtained by Cochise Regional News cast doubt on this claim, showing that Dannels has gone far out of his way to cozy up to Christian nationalists, far-right “patriot” groups, elections denying conspiracy theorists, and individuals with close ties to various extremist militias.

Far from being inclusive of the rights of “all the people,” this strange milieu Dannels has inserted himself into holds at its center a patchwork of ideologies that hold non-European immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, and non-Christians (particularly Muslims) in extreme contempt.

This is the fourth part of a four-part investigative series. [All of this will make much more sense if you read Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 before continuing.]

Dannels, Rapacki, a white nationalist child sex crimes offender— and extremely dubious border security claims

Bear in mind that all of this madness involving the Coalition of Western States [COWS, see Part 3] had already transpired-- and was, in fact, old news-- by the time leadership of the Arizona Senate decided to partner up with Lyle Rapacki in the 2021 “audit” of the 2020 election [see Part 1]; by the time Cochise County Recorder David Stevens decided to found the Election Fairness Institute with Mark Finchem in 2018 [see Part 1 and Part 3]; by the time Dannels appeared on stage at Richard Mack's CSPOA event in 2019 [Part 3]; and by the time Dannels accepted the invite to Rapacki's Yavapai Patriots event in 2021 [see Part 2].

It was old news, and it just didn't seem to matter.

Similarly, when, in 2021, Dannels began sitting down for a series of lengthy interviews conducted by Rapacki for his “Arizona Today” “videocast,” the Cochise County Sheriff was seemingly unperturbed by the white nationalist leanings of Rapacki's child-sex-offender publisher.

In 2018, David Stringer, then a Republican member of the Arizona House of Representatives representing the Prescott Valley, made multiple headlines as a result of a number of overtly white nationalist public statements.

According to reporting in Phoenix New Times, an unnamed “tipster” in Baltimore, Maryland, happened across some of these news reports, recognized Stringer, contacted New Times and urged them to look into the lawmaker's criminal past in Baltimore.

New Times followed up on the tip and learned that Stringer had been arrested by the Baltimore Police Department and charged with multiple counts relating to sexual abuse of two minor boys in 1983.

[Full disclosure: I have reported for Phoenix New Times.]

In January 2019, New Times published its findings. According to that reporting, Stringer was 35 at the time and his victims were aged 15 and 13. One of the children was reported to be mentally handicapped. The boys alleged that “Mr. Dave” paid them small amounts to engage in acts of felatio and sexual penetration. The abuse reportedly occurred at least ten times over a one-year period.

According to New Times, rather than face trial on the charges (which, in addition to molestation, also included child pornography charges), Stringer accepted a plea deal, entering pleas to at least five charges of sexual misconduct. He was sentenced to five years' supervised probation, community service, and ordered to seek treatment at Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic.

Stringer's sentencing judge later faced allegations of sexual misconduct with minors himself, and committed suicide in 2004.

In 1990, according to New Times, Stringer successfully had his pleas to these charges expunged from his criminal record. He has since denied the charges.

Following New Times' reporting, the Arizona House of Representatives Ethics Committee launched an investigation into both Stringer's white nationalist statements and his 1983 arrest.

In March 2019, rather than complying with a subpoena to provide the committee with records pertaining to the 1983 arrest, Stringer resigned from the Legislature.

It is not known how far back the relationship between Stringer and Rapacki goes, but it is clear that the two men, both residents of Yavapai County, with similar fears of immigration and a multicultural society, have had a close alliance-- and, apparently, the stink of child sex abuse charges was not sufficient to scare 'Watchman of the Remnant Church' Rapacki from Stringer's side.

In 2020, fresh from his ignoble retreat from the Arizona House, Stringer launched a campaign for the office of Yavapai County Attorney.

According to Yavapai County campaign finance records, Stringer's campaign, “Conservatives for Stinger” (which was financed almost entirely by Stringer), employed the services of “event/meeting coordinator” Lyle Rapacki.

Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN, asking whether he was aware of the 1983 child sex abuse charges against Stringer, or Stringer's history of white nationalist statements.

Following Stringer's ultimately unsuccessful bid for county attorney, both men turned to other endeavors.

According to Arizona Corporation Commission records, when Rapacki incorporated Yavapai Patriots, LLC in 2021, he gave the address of Specialty Publishing, LLC as his physical address.

According to Arizona Corporation Commission records, Stringer had become the sole member and agent of Specialty Publishing, LLC in April 2020.

The company's primary offering appears to be “prescottenews.com” (Prescott eNews).

Prescott eNews is a far-right publication that, aside from local items (often no more then published press releases) and national/regional reporting reprinted from other publications, offers little original content.

Original content on tap at Prescott eNews consists largely of “videocasts” by the Oath Keepers of Yavapai County, the Yavapai County Preparedness Team (an extension of the Yavapai Oath Keepers, led by Yavapai Oath Keepers leader Jim Arroyo [see Part 1 of this series]), some creationist and Christian devotional content creators, and Rapacki (whose “videocast” for Stringer was called “Arizona Today with Lyle Rapacki”).

Other than that, it appears Prescott eNews serves as an organ for the dissemination of Stringer's white Christian nationalist views.

For example, in a 2023 opinion piece commemorating the Fourth of July, Stringer wrote the following comments, which closely mirror the 2018 white nationalist remarks that precipitated the end of Stringer's tenure in the Arizona Legislature:

“Although the men who invented the historic American nation declared that 'all men are created equal' they were not themselves a 'diverse' or 'inclusive' group. To a man they were people of Christian faith and European stock.

“Jefferson himself and many other signers of the Declaration of Independence were unapologetic slave owners. In the context of history, there was no hypocrisy between the ideas they professed and the lives they lived. They saw no contradiction between the idea that 'all men are created equal' and the natural and inevitable inequality of mankind in their social station and political status. [Emphasis mine.]

“We need not offer apology or make excuses for their views. They were Bible readers and men of faith. From time immemorial, slavery was an accepted system of labor sanctioned by scripture and tradition. To judge men of the 18^th century by today's standards is a form of intellectual dishonesty uninformed by history.

“Although our Founders created a nation based on religious freedom and tolerance, every delegate to the Second Continental Congress was white, male, and Christian. Although ANTIFA [anti-fascist] zealots and anti-white politicians may deplore America's origins, it is a historic fact that the founders of our nation were a homogenous group in language, culture, race and religion.

“Most of our Founders were educated men, better schooled in history than most of us are today. They were not trying to create an 'inclusive' or 'diverse' multicultural society. […]

“They understood that a stable government based on the 'consent of the governed' requires a common culture. They knew that racial and cultural diversity would inevitably lead to resentment, conflict and the loss of social cohesion. It is no accident that America's first immigration law, enacted in 1790, restricted immigration to those of European stock.

“This policy promoted the unity and social cohesion essential to a functioning democracy. A specific racial and cultural identity was foundational to the historic American Nation. Our founders' restrictions on non-white immigration led to the the creation of a relatively homogeneous country that, until the 1960's, was roughly ninety percent white. It allowed the United States to remain culturally unified and economically and militarily strong. We became a free and prosperous country and a force for great good in the world.

“That country no longer exists.

“According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Americans of European stock are now less than 60% of the total population. White Americans under the age of 18 are now a racial minority. In Arizona, the K-12 school population is 38% white, down from 40% just a few years ago.

[Note: I have not independently verified Stringer's claims.]

“The American workforce and essential cultural and educational institutions including the media and the U.S. Military are rapidly becoming majority non-white. White Americans are fleeing decaying urban centers and even entire states. The overall racial transformation of the United States, unprecedented in the history of nations, is now irreversible.

“No one really knows what this portends for America's future. But for whites, the evidence to date is not encouraging. Anti-white media and elected officials have proliferated. Cultural debasement, lower standards of living, shorter life spans, urban squalor and violent crime, dysfunctional schools, and government corruption have become entrenched features of American life. […]

“The Great Replacement is now irreversible. We are in the midst not simply of a demographic transformation, but a form of national dissolution.

“The questions before us are as obvious as they are unsearchable. Who did this to us? Where have our leaders been? Why didn't they warn us? [...]”

And so on. Stringer's Fourth of July ethnocentric lament is pretty much the definition of white nationalist ideology.

As previously discussed, the white nationalist/supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory is one in which malignant forces, often Jews, work to open the borders of a nation to non-white immigrants (including, or especially, Muslims) in order to rob white Christians of their dominance.

Sentiments of this sort also appear in Rapacki's various writings-- from the allegations that the Obama administration deliberately flooded Republican-dominated states with diseased Muslim criminals and various non-white immigrant scourges, to “globalist manipulator and villain George Soros'” role in the plot to “permanently erase American sovereignty and eliminate the founding principles by which our Nation, under God, was so conceived.” [See Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.]

In any event, Dannels joined Rapacki for lengthy interviews on border security and immigration on Rapacki's Prescott eNews “Arizona Today” segment at least twice in 2021.

Others featured in Prescott eNews' “Arizona Today with Lyle Rapacki” during this time included fellow COWS leadership alumni Mark Finchem and Richard Mack. [See Part 3 of this series.]

According to email correspondence obtained by CRN, Dannels' “Arizona Today with Lyle Rapacki” interviews, published by blatant white nationalist David Stringer, attracted enthusiastic fans to the Sheriff-- some of whom offered to help CCSO secure the southern border.

For example: on July 28, 2021, an individual named Fred Stickler wrote Dannels, saying he had been inspired to “think of ways to help” after watching Dannels on the Rapacki's show.

“I propose extending the posse concept to what I call a Shadow Posse,” wrote Stickler. “After vetting volunteers, these folks would be assigned a deputy to shadow during their shifts. Another set of eyes, so to speak, that would be watching from a distance to insure that the deputy was protected.

“In addition, the Shadow Posse would assist with illegals crossing the border again, providing another pair of eyes at the scene.

“When I spoke with you at the border rally last month, you mentioned governmental immunity, or words to that effect, for all official members of the posse […] I would love to sit down with you, or someone in the department, to brainstorm this idea.”

[Note: correspondence did not elaborate further on the “border rally” referenced by Stickler.]

According to records obtained by CRN, Dannels seemed intrigued by the “Shadow Posse” idea, responding to Stickler on August 2:

“I appreciate your thoughts and will share them with my team for input/thoughts? Currently, we have been using portions of our volunteers for extra patrols around our rural schools and patrols within the neighborhoods. To date, that's truly been beneficial!! But, with the 'Open Border' concept being played out, the challenges continue! […] As I have preached, the more eyes and ears reporting that our community can share, the more accurate and accountable we can be in stopping this madness. […] I'll be in touch, and let me know your thoughts too.”

At some point in November 2021, Rapacki began publishing his “Arizona Today” segments through “arizona2day.com,” rather than Prescott eNews.

Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN regarding his relationship with Stringer, or whether he agrees with Stringer's white nationalist beliefs.

[Note: Stringer is running for the office of Yavapai County Attorney in this year's election. Review of available elections documentation does not show Rapacki involvement in this present campaign.]

CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN, asking whether Dannels was aware of Stringer's past sexual misconduct charges, white nationalist beliefs, or ownership of Prescott eNews.

CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN, asking whether Dannels is sympathetic to Stringer's white nationalist beliefs.

CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN, asking whether Dannels is sympathetic to Rapacki's Christian nationalist beliefs.

Dannels' refusals to comment aside, it is clear that our Cochise County Sheriff has used his considerable influence within law enforcement circles to further legitimize Rapacki.

From November 2021 through September 2022, Dannels joined Rapacki on his “Arizona Today” show at least more five times, discussing matters of border security and immigration.

The final segment featuring Dannels was filmed by Rapacki in September 2022 at the annual fall meeting of the Southwest Border Sheriffs Coalition (SWBSC), a law enforcement association consisting of sheriffs serving counties throughout the border Southwest.

According to records obtained by CRN the SWBSC meeting, held in Sierra Vista from September 11 through 13, was hosted by Sheriff Dannels and CCSO.

Email records obtained by CRN disclose that on August 23, 2022, Dannels forwarded notice of the meeting, along with other details, to Rapacki.

It is unclear whether Rapacki was featured as a speaker at the CCSO-hosted event, or whether Dannels was simply using his law enforcement bona fides to help Rapacki network, but in response to the SWBSC meeting invite email from Dannels, Rapacki wrote: “Thank you Mark! Use the attached as you choose.”

Attached to the email was a document titled “Introductory Remarks.”

The document, written under the letterhead of “Sentinel Intelligence Services, LLC,” contained biographical information meant to introduce Lyle Rapacki, “Ph.D.” to some audience.

Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN regarding his involvement in this event.

Dannels' and CCSO's border-related rhetoric during this period of time was not dissimilar from the Rapacki Middle-Eastern-immigrants-as-diseased-criminals “intelligence briefing” shared with CCSO command in June 2021.

In a December 30, 2021 interview with Rapacki, Dannels stated that Cochise County was seeing a surge in undocumented border crossers from “countries of interest,” as well as aggressive “bad people” who successfully evade both his deputies and Border Patrol officers.

“They're not coming here to build the American Dream. They're coming here to exploit our country in a negative way. The national media, this administration-- to include President Biden-- continues to turn... it's willful neglect. It's orchestrated, and what they want to talk about is the children in the moms' arms-- that's what the national media wants to show the American public,” said Dannels.

“What's so sad about this, Lyle, is that it's almost like we forgot that 9/11 ever existed,” added Dannels. “The worst thing that could happen is that [we] forget 9/11-- and I'm not trying to stretch emotions or be drama on that-- but if we don't start securing our borders, I guarantee you some really bad things are going to happen, because not everybody likes the United States of America. We have those countries of interest that do not like us-- and now, what a prime opportunity to come in and harm us.”

Rapacki chimed in:

“So, I would not be theatrical or sensational if I said that in the next six months to twelve months, we may see-- it's really plausible-- we may see some really serious conflicts or clashes internally. I'm not even talking about the border right now-- let's leave that alone. […] But based on the soft intelligence I've received, that I receive weekly, we've got enough bad guys-- serious bad guys […] very serious criminals and terrorists already in this nation.”

As the interview wore on, Rapacki prompted Dannels to speak more on the perceived international terror threat.

“Lyle, you can't have more than 164 countries-- which is the last known number I had, and that was a couple of months ago-- and not be having countries of interest, countries of concern, to America, breaching our back door-- the Southwest border. We're having that, we know that,” said Dannels.

“I've had Iraqis in my county-- I'll give you a story. I've had Iraqis in my county, walking through our county. And we address them-- we seen 'em on our cameras and we address them. What they've told us is 'we're just lost.' Folks, that ain't lost-- and if you buy into that [chuckles], stand by. That is intentional. They are here for a reason-- and it is not a good reason, and that goes for all the others.”

Dannels went on to state that Mexican cartels are paid top dollar to smuggle persons from “countries of interest” into the United States.

“We know that because we debrief them, we talk to them, we gather this intel,” said Dannels.

Less than two weeks following this Rapacki/Dannels interview, during a January 11, 2022 joint meeting of CCSO and the National Sheriffs Association, CCSO Sergeant Tim Williams said that “males between the ages of 16 and 35, which I call military age males, dressed head to toe in camouflage,” were passing through Cochise County.

Williams is head of the Southeastern Arizona Border Region Enforcement (SABRE) unit. Dannels is chair of the National Sheriffs Association's Border Security Committee.

By the time the September 2022 CCSO-hosted Southwest Border Sheriffs Coalition meeting in Sierra Vista rolled around, it seemed Cochise County was under total siege by such menacing “military age males.”

“We heard from Cochise County Sheriff Mark J. Dannels and his deputies, most born in the area with decades of valuable experience in the complex terrain of southern Arizona,” wrote Chuck DeVore of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, in a piece detailing the SWBSC meeting for Fox News. “In Cochise County alone, some 300 military age men in full camouflage, most wearing booties with shag carpet soles to hide their tracks, head north daily.” [Emphasis mine-- in case you don't have a calculator handy, that comes to 109,500 camouflaged “military-age men” sneaking through Cochise County per year.]

In August 2023, CRN submitted a public record request to CCSO, seeking all records pertaining to apprehensions of undocumented border crossers from the “countries of interest” referenced by Dannels in the Rapacki interview. The records request sought all records, of any kind, in possession of CCSO pertaining, in any way, to such apprehensions that had occurred from January 1, 2019 to August 1, 2023.

In response to this public records request, CCSO public Information Officer Carol Capas told CRN that the Sheriff's Office had no responsive records. No records of “intel” derived from debriefing such apprehended persons, no records/footage of mysterious lost Iraqis. Nothing.

CRN asked Capas and Dannels which countries are the “countries of interest” referenced by Dannels in the Rapacki interview. Capas and Dannels declined to comment.

CRN submitted written questions to Capas and Dannels, asking if any persons apprehended in Cochise County from “countries of interest” had been found to be terrorists, foreign combatants, or carriers of new and exotic strains of disease. CRN also requested that CCSO provide names, dates, locations, and the names of agencies involved, pertinent to such apprehensions. Capas and Dannels did not respond.

CRN asked both Capas and Dannels whether CCSO personnel had, in fact, claimed during the September 2022 SWBC meeting that 300 “military-age men in full camouflage” were passing through Cochise County “daily.” Neither Capas or Dannels responded.

[Read more about other instances of Dannels’ dubious border security claims.]

CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN pertaining to Dannels' relationship with Rapacki.

Dannels is currently running, unopposed, for his fourth term as sheriff of Cochise County.

Please Note: “A Sheriff for Some” was originally published in its entirety by CRN in May 2024. Dannels was re-elected in November 2024. In light of recent events, this investigation is being reprinted as a series.

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— February 25, 2025.

Support Cochise Regional News through a PayPal donation or become a paid subscriber through Substack— help keep this community resource alive.

Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels bills himself as “a sheriff for all the people.” However, records obtained by Cochise Regional News cast doubt on this claim, showing that Dannels has gone far out of his way to cozy up to Christian nationalists, far-right “patriot” groups, elections denying conspiracy theorists, and individuals with close ties to various extremist militias.

Far from being inclusive of the rights of “all the people,” this strange milieu Dannels has inserted himself into holds at its center a patchwork of ideologies that hold non-European immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, and non-Christians (particularly Muslims) in extreme contempt.

This is the third part of a four-part investigative series. [Read Part 2.]

Ties between Dannels and right-wing extremists: COWS, et al., and the Christian Nationalist holy civil war

Just as Christian nationalism is (in broad strokes) the belief that the United States was founded as a Christian nation that will forever exist as a nation under Christian dominion, white nationalism is the belief that America was founded as a nation for white people, to be forever dominated by white people.

“White Christian nationalism” is the overlapping of these two extreme and anti-democratic beliefs.

The majority of American Christians and white citizens are neither Christian nationalists or white nationalists. Nevertheless, as tides of far-right anti-democratic sentiment have risen, these beliefs have gained currency.

White Christian nationalism, as we know it today, shares lineage with the modern American “patriot movement.”

Like the words “under god” in our Pledge of Allegiance, the modern American patriot movement tracks back to the Red Scare of the 1950s and the foundation of the John Birch Society.

The John Birch Society, founded in 1958, organized around the conspiratorial belief that a globalist communist conspiracy had infiltrated every facet of the American government. The group's founder, Robert Welch, even accused then-president Dwight Eisenhower of being a part of this global communist plot-- despite the fact that Eisenhower and his vice president, Richard Nixon, were ardent anti-communists.

True to its reactionary impetus, the John Birch Society sought to safeguard and enshrine American capitalism and Christianity. Communism is inherently antithetical to capitalism, and religion was oppressed in the communist Soviet Union.

The group was also an early progenitor of the now-ubiquitous conspiracy theory that holds that the United Nations is intent on erasing the borders (and sovereignty) of every nation in order to implement a malignant “New World Order.”

At its peak, the group had around 100,000 members, spread through chapters nationwide. Members of this movement promoted certain candidates in local elections, sought the removal of officeholders whose beliefs did not align with their own, and sought to ban books from schools.

Though the John Birch Society publicly disavowed antisemitism, it is widely accepted that many of the group's largely white Christian membership held less-than-tolerant beliefs, and the group publicly opposed racial integration throughout the civil rights era of the 1960s.

The Society's belief that a vast globalist communist conspiracy had infiltrated and was controlling the federal government often overlapped with “globalist” Jew/communist paranoias of white supremacist groups like the Christian Identity movement (which holds that white Europeans, not Jews, are the true 'chosen people' of the Abrahamic god).

A proponent of these “Christian Identity” beliefs in the early twentieth century was Michigan newspaper, The Dearborn Independent (also known as The Ford International Weekly), owned by antisemite and Nazi sympathizer Henry Ford.

The white supremacist beliefs of the Christian Identity movement were further codified, in the 1940s, through the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian by California pastor, Ku Klux Klansman, and founder of the antisemitic Christian Defense League, Wesley Smith.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the beliefs of the John Birch Society and active field organizing of the Christian Identity movement began to coalesce around economic crises confronting agricultural communities in the western United States.

This resulted in the “posse comitatus” and “sovereign citizen” movements, which saw an increase in militant activity-- particularly in the Pacific Northwest-- aimed at the federal government and its perceived puppet masters among “globalists,” “international Jewry”/bankers, the United Nations, New World Order, etc. Those active in such activities often saw themselves as righteous 'patriots' standing against unjust tyranny.

Aryan Nations, an outgrowth of the Christian Identity and posse comitatus movements, would go on to conduct a campaign of murder, robbery, and terrorism throughout the United States during the 1980s and 90s.

“Birchers,” as the John Birch Society's adherents were called, were often seen as fringe figures in the American political landscape, and seemed to largely disappear from sight as the decades rolled on, the communist scare cooled, and the Soviet Union crumbled.

In the 1990s, however, there were signs that a violent white power militia movement was on the rise in the United States.

In 1992, federal agents killed the Weaver family at Ruby Ridge in Boundary County, Idaho. The agents had been attempting to arrest the father, Aryan Nations associate Randy Weaver, for selling a sawed-off shotgun to a federal agent posing as a member of Aryan Nations.

In 1993, federal agents laid siege to, and ultimately destroyed, a compound occupied by a Christian sect known as the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. Federal agents killed 82 members of the group on April 19, 1993.

On April 19, 1995, Timmothy McVeigh, a white supremacist with ties to various far-right militia groups, and Terry Nichols, an adherent of the sovereign citizen movement, also with ties to far-right militias, bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Field offices of the FBI and a day care center were situated in the Murrah Building. 168 people were killed. McVeigh claimed the bombing to be revenge for the federal government's actions at Ruby Ridge and Waco.

At the time, this kind of homegrown white supremacist right-wing terrorism was not at the forefront of the American psyche-- which apparently preferred to imagine enemies from with-out, rather than within.

In the immediate aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, travelers of Middle Eastern origin were detained at a number of airports. Islamic extremist terror group al-Qaida had conducted its bombing of the World Trade Center in February of 1993.

The election of Barack Hussein Obama to the office of president in 2008 saw a resurgence in “Bircher”-type rhetoric and reinvigoration of the American patriot movement.

Following the 2008 election, whispers and proclamations that the nation's first Black president was a secret Islamic Marxist worked their way through the reactionary tide of the Tea Party movement.

“Patriot” militia groups like the Oath Keepers and Three-Percenters (so named for their false belief that only three percent of the American colonial population took up arms to overthrow British rule during the American Revolution) sprang up throughout the nation.

The Oath Keepers, founded by now-convicted January 6 seditionist Stewart Rhodes in 2009, purport to consist of current and former law enforcement and military personnel, and was named after the oath that service members make to “defend the Constitution of the United states against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” [Emphasis mine.]

Both the Oath Keepers and Three Percenters have a long history of anti-Muslim bigotry. These groups, whose members often held, as central tenants, their Christian faith and their fear of Obama as a Trojan Horse of the globalist Islamic Marxist New World Order conspiracy, often found common cause and formed ties with anti-Islam hate groups like Act! For America (founded in 2007).

A number of anti-Islam hate groups, like Act!, had grown out of heightened anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant sentiment following the al-Qaida terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

As previously mentioned, Dannels’ associate Lyle Rapacki has a longstanding relationship with militant Christian nationalist Matt Shea [read Part 1 and Part 2 of this series]. The Coalition of Western States (COWS) was founded in 2014. Shea served as the group's chair, and Rapacki as its vice chair.

At the time of COWS' founding, Shea had been serving as a Republican member of the Washington State House of Representatives, since 2009.

Shea is also the organizer of the Spokane chapter of anti-Muslim hate group, Act! For America, and has ties to the white supremacist Christian Identity movement.

COWS grew out of Shea's participation in an armed standoff that occurred in Bunkerville, Nevada in April of 2014.

In this conflict, Shea and Washington State Liberty for All III% (LFA III%) militia leader Anthony Bosworth helped to coalesce the Oath Keepers and a group of around 1,500 members of the nation's growing “patriot”/militia/sovereign citizens movements in an armed standoff against federal agents in Clark County, Nevada. At issue was illegal cattle grazing conducted by the Bundy ranching family on public lands managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management.

A 2015 press release issued by COWS claimed that the group was comprised of more than 50 state legislators and community organizers throughout the western United States, who were “dedicated to stopping federal overreach.”

The press release identified eleven individuals who served as COWS' leadership, alongside chairman Shea and vice chairman Rapacki.

According to the document, Washington LFA III% leader Bosworth had been appointed COWS' northwest “grassroots coordinator.”

The document also listed then-Arizona State Representative Mark Finchem as COWS “Arizona coordinator.”

As previously discussed, Finchem has close ties to Cochise County Recorder and former Arizona state representative David Stevens. In 2018, Finchem and Stevens founded the Election Fairness Institute/Pathway Research and Education (EFI). EFI directors include prominent elections deniers and a 'field organizer' of the John Birch Society.

In addition to Rapacki and Finchem, other Arizona personnel listed on the 2015 COWS press release included then-Greenlee County Supervisor Robert Corbell as COWS' “county elected coordinator.”

LFA III% Arizona leader and White Mountain Militia member Cope Reynolds was listed as COWS' “grassroots coordinator.” Reynolds is currently running as a Republican candidate for sheriff in Apache County.

COWS documentation lists former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack as the group's “peace officer coordinator.” Mack also served as an early board member of the Oath Keepers and was involved with both that organization and COWS during his participation various armed standoffs.

Mack also has ties to the John Birch Society. He announced an ultimately unsuccessful bid for Congress at a Texas Bircher event in 2011.

In 2010, Mack launched the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA). The organization incorrectly asserts that only county sheriffs hold the authority to determine which laws are constitutional and, therefore, enforceable.

In the vision of the 'constitutional sheriff,' county lawmen are miniature emperors of mini nation-states-- the ultimate arbiters of what government and citizens may, or may not, do-- regardless of what is written in statute, the Bill of Rights, or judicial case law.

In 2022, Mack handed nominal leadership of CSPOA to Sam Bushman, owner of far-right Liberty News Radio. According to other reporting, Bushman and his talk radio company have documented ties to neo-Confederates and white supremacists.

CSPOA currently claims membership of several thousand active law enforcement personnel nationwide.

Both Dannels and Rapacki have ties to Mack.

Dannels was a featured speaker at a 2019 CSPOA event, which also featured Oath Keepers founder (and now-convicted January 6 seditionist) Stewart Rhodes as keynote speaker.

In addition to serving as COWS vice chair alongside COWS “peace officer coordinator” Mack, Rapacki claims to be a founding member of the Oath Keepers, and claims founding membership in CSPOA.

From 2014 through 2016, COWS and their members played roles in various armed standoffs with the federal government, including those involving the Bundy ranching family in Nevada and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.

The occupation and armed standoff with federal authorities at the Malheur National Wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon's Harney County took place over 41 days in January and February of 2016.

In 2012, Harney County ranchers Dwight and Steve Hammond had been convicted of several charges relating to acts of arson they had committed on federal lands in the early 2000's (one of these fires had apparently been set with the intent to conceal the Hammond's illegal slaughter of a herd of deer on federal land).

Following the Hammonds' convictions, the case became a rallying cry for the Bundys, who had become far-right activist celebrities following the 2014 Bunkerville standoff, and various far-right 'patriot'/militia groups.

Though the Hammonds eschewed attention and offers of support from these factions, the various groups laid siege to the wildlife refuge in early 2016. COWS was among them.

COWS, LFA III%, and the various other groups engaging in the standoff at Malheur, demanded that the federal government turn federally-managed lands over to local control.

Though, on the surface, these various confrontations seemed to be stands against federal overreach and protests in favor of individual liberty, there was something more substantive-- and sinister-- beneath the surface.

In 2018, a document authored and distributed by COWS Chairman and Washington State Representative Shea was provided to Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich by a concerned citizen.

The document was titled “The Biblical Basis for War.” In it, Shea provided a detailed roadmap, complete with purported Christian theological basis, for civil war-- the purpose of which would be to replace American secular democracy with Christian theocracy.

“The document Mr. Shea wrote is not a Sunday school project or an academic study,” Knezovich told the Spokane Spokesman-Review. “It is a 'how to' manual consistent with the ideology and operating philosophy of the Christian Identity/Aryan Nations movement and the Redoubt movement of the 1990s.”

The American Redoubt movement is one that seeks to forge a separatist white Christian theological nation in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountain regions. It has seen substantial resurgence in recent years.

Portions of the Pacific Northwest-- particularly eastern Washington State, eastern Oregon, and Idaho-- have served as the nucleus of the American Redoubt and Christian Identity movements (including Aryan Nations and other related violent hate groups) since at least 1974.

In that year, Richard Butler, a devotee of Christian Identity evangelist Wesley Smith, purchased land in Hayden Lake, Idaho with the intent of building his own “Christian Posse Comitatus” compound. This soon morphed into Butler's own Church of Jesus Christ Christian, which soon gave birth to Aryan Nations-- which was meant to serve as the church's political arm.

Aryan Nations is an unabashedly violent white supremacist terrorist organization.

Butler was an early advocate of the Northwest Territorial Imperative, an envisioned white ethnostate that served as forerunner to the current American Redoubt movement.

Knezovich found Shea's call to war sufficiently disturbing to forward it on to the FBI.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of Shea's “Biblical Basis for War” document was his cavalier approach to violence. In the document, Shea asserted that “assassination to remove tyrants is just, not murder.”

Shea went on to say that the enemy in his holy war “must surrender on terms of justice and righteousness” or face dire consequences. To Shea's mind “terms of justice and righteousness” meant that abortion, same-sex marriage, “idolatry or occultism,” and communism, must all be prohibited-- and that the nation “must obey Biblical law.”

“If they yield,” wrote Shea. “[Conquered American citizens] must pay share of work or taxes.”

“If they do not yield -- kill all males.”

By the time the press and public got hold of Shea's “Biblical Basis for War” manifesto, troubling rumblings concerning the Washington state representative had been circulating for some time.

Apparently, the call for holy civil war and the murder of all non-compliant male citizens was a bridge too far for the Washington State House of Representatives, and in July 2019 that legislative body engaged the services of private investigators, Rampart Group LLC, to conduct an investigation into Shea's activities.

In December 2019, Rampart delivered its findings to the Washington State House of Representatives in the form of a 108-page report. The report was based on witness interviews, email communications between Shea and his co-conspirators, and open source intelligence (i.e. social media posts and press reports).

According to the Rampart report, metadata associated with the Shea “Biblical Basis for War” document demonstrated that the file had been created in July 2014, only a few months from the April 2014 Bundy standoff in Nevada that had served as the impetus for Shea's creation of COWS.

Shea has a long standing and close relationship with Anne and Barry Byrd, pastors of Marble Country Community Fellowship. In turn, the Byrds had a close relationship with COWS.

According to encrypted email communications obtained by Rampart Group through the course of their investigation, Shea (suing codename “verumbellator”) and Rapacki (codename “excubitor”), along with other COWS members (including LFA III% leaders Bosworth and Reynolds), engaged in planning relating to the armed standoff at Malheur with Anne and Barry Byrd.

In the 1990s, the Byrds founded Marble Country (a fundamentalist Christian 'intentional community') in eastern Washington's Stevens County.

The Byrds have close ties to the white supremacist Christian Identity movement.

Barry Byrd was one of the 14 signatories of the “Remnant Resolves,” a core document of the Christian Identity movement, written in 1988. Anne Byrd's brother, Brad Bulla, was also a signer of the document.

“Remnant Resolves” stated, among other things, that “aborticide” and “sodomy” are “sins against God,” and that “interracial marriage pollutes the integrity of the family.”

The signers of the document further “resolved” to “promote only virtuous and God-fearing men to positions of authority at all levels of Government both religious and civil.”

Rapacki, like the Byrds, makes frequent mention of the “Remnant Church” in his writings. The “Remnant Church,” as described by Rapacki, is a fundamentalist organization meant to mirror the Christian Church of the first century, anno domini, described in the Bible's Book of Acts.

Shea, for his part, has publicly referenced the Byrds as being his spiritual advisors.

At the time the Byrds founded Marble Country, the town of Marble was virtually a ghost town. The marble mining industry from which the town and general area derived its name had long since dried up.

In 2007, Barry Byrd, along with other leaders of Marble Country and other area landowners, founded the private nonprofit corporation, Marble Community Landowner's Association (MCLA). MCLA was essentially an end-run around any democratic process, which sought to create a fundamentalist theocratic society in Marble.

According to court documents, MCLA bylaws stated that it sought to “bring forth in this place an Intentional Biblical Christian Covenant Community, a Holy Commonwealth, for the benefit of Ourselves and our Posterity.”

As stated in court records, in order to obtain this end, Marble Country Community Fellowship was given a perpetual seat on MCLA (a right not extended to any other member property owner), and MCLA sought to “exercise godly dominion over their common resources and to regulate themselves and their property in a manner that establishes liberty and justice and maintains a spirit of Christian unity within her gates.”

Toward this aim, members of MCLA were required to record religious covenants to their property deeds, and agree to certain limitations pertaining to their use of their property, as well as to limitations on the types of persons they may sell, lease, or rent their property to.

MCLA bylaws also stated that they would have the power to own, lease, and maintain the local water utility, and to decide which parcels of property would be provided with access to this water.

In short, according to court records, Marble property owners who recorded religious covenants to their property deeds would be granted water and other infrastructure services (such as road maintenance). Those who did not were denied access.

[Note: MCLA's discriminatory activities were cut short in 2020 through the intervention of the Washington State Attorney General's Office. Several Marble land owners who did not wish to comply with MCLA's theocratic vision had filed complaints with that office.]

According to the Rampart report, it was in 2016-- a time in which Marble Country's miniature Christian Identity-rooted theocratic MCLA “commonwealth” was in full swing-- that Shea, COWS, and the Byrds, began preparing for full-out religious civil war.

According to the Rampart report, Shea held a private meeting in early August 2016. That meeting took place in the same Spokane office building in which his office as Washington state representative was situated.

According to a confidential witness cited by Rampart, the meeting had at least thirty attendees. Among them were numerous COWS members, both known and unknown to the witness. These included Washington LFA III% leader Bosworth, Idaho State Representative Heather Scott, and Nevada State Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore.

Also present were Marble Country Community Fellowship pastors Anne and Barry Byrd.

Apparently, COWS, the Byrds, and other far-right militant groups, feared that federal reprisals for the Malheur standoff, which had taken place in January and February of that year, were imminent. As such, they reasoned, the time for holy war was upon them.

Rampart Group investigators alleged that in the months leading up to this meeting, Shea and other COWS members-- along with LFA III% leaders, members of various “patriot”/militia/American Redoubt groups, and at least one representative of the John Birch Society-- had taken part in activities the Byrd's Marble Country Community Fellowship compound, meant to promote the call for holy civil war and to train combatants (including youth tactical training).

According to the Rampart report, the August 2016 Spokane meeting had been called by Shea for the purpose of planning for the creation of a “provisional government.”

At the meeting, Shea distributed a number of packets to attendees. These contained the “Biblical Basis for War” manifesto, along with documents detailing survivalist tactics, the use of encrypted communications, the use of various weapons, and a “recipe for Tannerite based explosives.”

The packets also contained another document, titled “Restoration.” This document apparently outlined Shea's vision for the theocratic government that would replace our existing systems of governance following the holy war.

According to the Rampart report, key points of “Restoration” were as follows:

Establishment of a militia-based military; the termination of all local law enforcement; “liaison with gangs who have honor”; the establishment of “patriot banks”; repealing all taxes and all non-criminal laws and regulations; the decentralization of government services, such as education and healthcare; the transfer of public lands to private homesteaders; a final settlement with Indian tribes to become part of the state; a revision of the existing U.S. Constitution to sanctify Jesus Christ; bans on all abortions and euthanasia; and capital punishment for murder, rape, molestation, bestiality, kidnappings, adultery, treason, and sodomy.

Such is the American theocratic Christian state envisioned by Shea, COWS, and the Byrds.

[Note: Rapacki's involvement in COWS during the summer of 2016 is not known; the Rampart Group report makes no mention of him beyond the January 2016 “excubitor” Malheur Shea/Byrd/et al. emails. However, Rampart analysis of metadata associated with the “Biblical Basis for War” manifesto demonstrated that the document had been created around the time of COWS' creation, in July 2014.]

Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN pertaining to his involvement in COWS during the summer of 2016, the “Biblical Basis for War” or “Restoration” documents/meetings, or the nature of his relationships with Shea or the Byrds.

To recap: Cochise County Sheriff Dannels has demonstrably close ties to COWS Vice Chairman Lyle Rapacki. According to public statements made by both Rapacki and Dannels, the two men have known each other since about 2011.

Dannels also has demonstrable ties to COWS “peace officer coordinator,” CSPOA founder, and former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack.

Cochise County Recorder Stevens has close ties to COWS “Arizona coordinator” Mark Finchem.

COWS Southwest “grassroots coordinator” and Arizona LFA III% leader, Cope Reynolds, is currently running for sheriff in Apache County.

Though Rampart Group, in its report to the Washington State House of Representatives, concluded that COWS Chairman Shea had “participated in an act of domestic terrorism against the United States by his actions before and during the armed takeover and standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge,” neither Shea or any of COWS leadership have been criminally charged in connection to this event.

In 2020, Shea chose not to seek another term in the Washington State House of Representatives.

In 2021, Shea incorporated On Fire Ministries & Kingdom Christian Academy in Spokane. He currently serves there as a senior pastor.

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— February 17, 2025.

Please Note: “A Sheriff for Some” was originally published in its entirety by CRN in May 2024. In light of recent events, this investigation is being reprinted as a series.

Support Cochise Regional News through a PayPal donation or become a paid subscriber through Substack— help keep this community resource alive.

Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels bills himself as “a sheriff for all the people.” However, records obtained by Cochise Regional News cast doubt on this claim, showing that Dannels has gone far out of his way to cozy up to Christian nationalists, far-right “patriot” groups, elections denying conspiracy theorists, and individuals with close ties to various extremist militias.

Far from being inclusive of the rights of “all the people,” this strange milieu Dannels has inserted himself into holds at its center a patchwork of ideologies that hold non-European immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, and non-Christians (particularly Muslims) in extreme contempt.

This is the second part of a four-part investigative series. [Read Part 1.]

Dannels goes to Yavapai County-- a very special place in the heart of right-wing chaos and disruption

Setting aside the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office’s refusal to confirm or deny whether Sheriff Dannels had been among CCSO command personnel to receive Lyle Rapacki's anti-Middle-Eastern-immigrant "Medical Time Bomb" tract on June 8, 2021, records indicate that Dannels had received plenty of other correspondence from Rapacki by that time-- all of which should have served to make Rapacki's views very clear to the Sheriff. And, according to public statements made by both Rapacki and Dannels, the two men have known each other since about 2011.

Apparently, Dannels liked what he saw in Rapacki and his associates. Records obtained by CRN show that, by the time Rapacki's Middle-Eastern-immigrants-are-diseased-criminals "briefing" was delivered to CCSO command, Dannels had accepted an invitation to serve as keynote speaker at an upcoming event of the Yavapai Patriots.

According to Arizona Corporation Commission records, Yavapai Patriots, LLC was incorporated by Rapacki, a resident of Yavapai County, on March 26, 2021. [Note: Rapacki/Sentinel Intelligence Services had been signing certain correspondence under the banner of “Yavapai Patriots” and conducting social media for the group for at least a year prior to its formal incorporation.]

A mission statement posted by the group to their website at some point in 2021 suggested that the group mirrored Rapacki's Christian nationalist values and conspiracist leanings, in that they advocated for “Judeo-Christian values,” and emphasized “legitimate” elections, border security and support for law enforcement.

Rapacki and then-Yavapai Patriots chair Mona Patton did not respond to queries from CRN concerning the group's beliefs or purpose.

Email records obtained by CRN show that, around March 24, 2021, Dannels had been invited to join the group as keynote speaker, on issues of immigration and border security, during an event to be held at the Hassayampa Inn in Prescott (Yavapai County) on July 17.

Records of email correspondence between Dannels and Yavapai Patriots chair Patton demonstrate that Dannels gladly accepted the invitation to the group's speaking engagement. Dannels evidently viewed speaking to Rapacki's group as such an honor that he declined the honorarium the group had offered to pay him, opting instead to foot the bill himself for travel and lodging, for both himself and his wife, at the event.

According to Arizona Secretary of State records, Yavapai Patriots registered as a political action committee (PAC) on February 23, 2021. Rapacki would serve as the PAC's single largest contributor.

Records indicate that the Yavapai Patriots PAC, with Rapacki serving as its single largest donor, paid for July 17 event at which Dannels served as keynote speaker.

Apparently, the Dannels keynote event was a big success.

“What an awesome event we held in Prescott because of you!!!,” Patton wrote Dannels on July 18. “You were wonderful and packed so much valuable information into a short amount of time. Everyone's attention was captured and they were attentive to every word you spoke. Our many thanks to both you and Nickie [Dannels' wife] for your long drive to join us. Please let us know if there is ever a way that we can ever repay you.”

Dannels responded: “I truly appreciated the invite and opportunity to spend some time with your organizations and yes, community. Nickie and I truly enjoyed it.”

According to email records obtained by CRN, some of Dannels' fan mail stemming from his Yavapai Patriots speaking engagement had a darker, more seditious, tone.

“Sheriff, I attended the Yavapai Patriots meeting in Prescott today. Thank you for sticking with the Constitution and America First. I wish everyone held similar beliefs,” wrote an individual named Bruce Moeller to Dannels on July 17.

“There are too many who fail to honor their oath of office, and frankly, there ought to be a simple remedy to remove those shills. Any ideas on how? I believe that our constitutional republic depends on removing traitors to the principles of freedom and the rights of the individual over the increasing power of a centralized and growing federal government.

“I went to law school, and have a deep affection for what this country represents. We're under attack daily, and the enemy is unrelenting. Thank you for your remarks today.”

Dannels responded:

“Good evening Bruce. Truly appreciate the feedback and supporting words regarding our country! We need to all stand united, thank you!! Glad you enjoyed the presentation, it was my honor to address you all!!”

Where the “traitors” and “enemy” referenced in the Moeller email are concerned, it should be noted that Dannels had provided Yavapai Patriots with an informational “packet” prior to the July 17 event. The packet contained multiple documents that alleged that some in the Biden administration and federal law enforcement were in violation of their oaths of office, relative to border security (at least one such document had been authored by Dannels himself, in his capacity as president of the Arizona Sheriff's Association).

CRN's public records requests to CCSO turned up no written remarks prepared by Dannels for the Yavapai Patriots event, and the Sheriff declined to comment on his relationship to the group. Patton and Rapacki also did not respond to written questions from CRN concerning this event or Dannels' speech.

However, it is not likely that the tone or tenor of the event at which Dannels spoke on matters of immigration and border security varied from the exclusionary tone of Rapacki's Middle-Eastern-immigrants-are-diseased-criminals "briefing."

Indeed, Rapacki and Dannels appear to have a close relationship (even exchanging warm Christmas emails), to be cut from a similar cloth, and travel in the same exclusionary circles.

For example: Rapacki claims to have previously taught criminal justice at Wayland Baptist University. According to biographical information provided by Dannels to Patton ahead of the July 2021 Yavapai Patriots event, Dannels was then a current teacher at Wayland Baptist University.

Wayland is a hard-right religious institution of higher education affiliated with the Southern Baptist Church. The university strictly prohibits homosexuality among its student body, as “contrary to God's purpose, and thus sinful.”

As stated in Wayland's “Policies and Procedures Manual,” students who engage in “homosexual relations or activities” may face disciplinary action, including expulsion.

Email records detailing Rapacki communications with Dannels (much of which are comprised of Sentinel Intelligence “briefings,” articles by Rapacki, and various Rapacki rants) suggest that the exclusionary views seemingly held by the men may extend beyond non-European immigrants and homosexuals.

Rapacki writings contained in emails sent to Dannels and CCSO command personnel contain frequent references to “diabolical” attacks underway against the United States by the United Nations, Islam, Marxism, and the shadowy globalist cabal/New World Order-- all of which seek to erase the borders of the United States and flood it with a fearful tide of non-white humanity.

Where this vast conspiracy is concerned, it should be noted that, according to email records, Rapacki makes mention of the “globalist manipulator and villain George Soros.”

According to Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Intelligence Project Senior Researcher and Analyst Joseph Wiinikka-Lydon, Soros has become something of a lynchpin in understanding modern antisemitism.

George Soros is a Jewish Hungarian-born billionaire hedge fund manager whose family survived Nazi occupation of Hungary during the Second World War. Due to his decades of support to progressive causes and the Democratic Party, Soros has become something of a boogieman to the political right.

“'Globalists' is a dogwhistle for 'Jews',” said Wiinikka-Lydon.

Framing Jews as an international threat to sovereign nations is an old trope, tracing back centuries, he said. “It's this awful antisemitic story, that Jews don't have their own homeland, so they're not actually loyal to the countries that they're in.”

Such mistrusted individuals, said Wiinikka-Lydon, have served a galvanizing purpose for nationalists through history. “Germany is for Germans, France is for the French,” and so on, said Wiinikka-Lydon.

The white nationalist/supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory is one in which malignant forces, often Jews, work to open the borders of a nation to non-white immigrants (including, or especially, Muslims) in order to rob white Christians of their dominance.

Sentiments of this sort appear in Rapacki's various writings-- from the allegations that the Obama administration deliberately flooded Republican-dominated states with diseased Muslim criminals and various non-white immigrant scourges, to “globalist manipulator and villain George Soros'” role in the plot to “permanently erase American sovereignty and eliminate the founding principles by which our Nation, under God, was so conceived.”

[Note: the words “under God” were not added to the American Pledge of Allegiance until 1954. The words were added amid the fervor of the Cold War and high anti-communist sentiment. Soviet communism, particularly under the rule of Joseph Stalin, opposed religion.]

Since border security and immigration are Dannels' stock-in-trade and were the subjects he was asked to discuss with Rapacki's Yavapai Patriots, it is also worth noting that Rapacki's vision of a fearful influx of disease-ridden criminal Middle Easterners bears striking resemblance to the infamous anti-immigrant book “The Camp of Saints” by Jean Raspail.

In short, the work of fiction depicts the destruction of Western civilization at the hands of mass non-white migration. Some of the diseased immigrants depicted in the book ate their own feces.

Trump administration senior advisor and immigration policy architect Stephen Miller has cited the book, as have Bannon and white nationalist former Iowa congressman Steve King (whom has met with Dannels to discuss border policy).

“Camp of Saints” is distributed in the United States by anti-immigrant activist John Tanton's Social Contract Press. This distribution was initially financed by Cordelia May Scaife, heiress to the Mellon-Scaife banking dynasty. Scaife was one of the primary funders (to the tune of many tens of millions of dollars) of Tanton's influential anti-immigration network, which includes the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Immigration Law Reform Institute (IRLI).

Dannels and several of his compatriots in Cochise County have ties to the Tanton network. [Read about it here and here.]

Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN concerning his familiarity, if any, with “Camp of Saints,” or his current views on Middle Eastern immigrants and refugees.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations-Arizona (CAIR-AZ) is an organization that works to counter anti-Islamic hate and protect the civil rights of Muslims in Arizona. CAIR-AZ Executive Director Azza Abuseif told CRN that when she reviewed Rapacki's “Medical Time Bomb” “briefing,” the only word that occurred to her was “disgusting.”

“The people described in this document are monsters. They're not immigrants or refugees. These are monsters,” said Abuseif, herself the daughter of a Sudanese immigrant who fled an attempted theocratic coup in that country during the 1980s.

“Everybody deserves basic human rights-- no matter your faith, your background, your sex, your ethnicity, the color of your skin. There is nothing that can justify anything in this document-- because you are dehumanizing a whole community [...] you're dehumanizing other humans. What makes [Rapacki] better than these immigrants and refugees? This country was built by immigrants.”

[Full disclosure: I am, myself, the son of a Middle Eastern immigrant who fled Iran following the 1979 theocratic Islamic Revolution in that county.]

The fact that Cochise County Sheriff Dannels only deepened his ties with Rapacki after CCSO command had received Rapacki's Middle-Eastern-immigrants-are-diseased-criminals document should be cause for significant concern, said Abuseif.

“Public figures like Dannels play a crucial role in shaping public opinion and policies,” said Abuseif. She went on to say that she believes Dannels is misusing that influence, catering to the far-right. “You should be protecting the communities. You should be dismantling false narratives. You should stop the misinformation and disinformation.”

Unfortunately, said Abuseif, “we have people in power who are not de-escalating-- they're just instilling fear in peoples' hearts. […] There are many like Dannels. He's not the only one, there are many.”

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks of the Islamic extremist terror group al-Qaeda, American domestic law enforcement infrastructure saw a vast restructuring. Through federal legislation like the Patriot Act and Homeland Security Act, law enforcement agencies (from federal to state and local) were focused on terrorism prevention. In practice, this often meant the surveillance and infiltration of American Muslim communities, immigrant communities, and mosques.

Arguably, the more than two decades intervening have seen the cultivation of bias within the American 'counter-terrorism' law enforcement community-- segments of which have clearly aligned themselves with the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant, anti-civil rights sentiments of our political far-right.

Abuseif told CRN that Islamophobia within law enforcement is more prevalent than ever. “It's getting worse,” she said.

“This article by Rapacki is a prime example […] Even if it was written in 2016, it's now 2023 and we're [CAIR-AZ] still getting Islamophobic calls. It's like we have not learned a thing. This is not what this country was supposedly built on. People flee here for a better life […] When people go places in fear for their lives, they are for a better life. To dehumanize that is unreal.”

CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN, asking whether Dannels agrees with the description of Middle Eastern immigrants contained in Rapacki's “Medical Time Bomb” briefing.

[Note: CRN interviewed Abuseif in October 2023, not long after the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel. Where the attack and resultant war between Israel and Hamas is concerned, Abuseif said CAIR-AZ condemns the violence and suffering perpetrated against “both our Jewish brothers and sisters and our Muslim brothers and sisters-- [against] all humans.”]

According to SPLC Intelligence Project Senior Researcher Wiinikka-Lydon, hatred and mistrust of Jews, in particular, received a shot in the arm in the early twentieth century through the publication of anti-Jew propaganda such as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and “The International Jew”-- both of which were published and widely circulated by Henry Ford, and both of which served as seminal works for the German NAZI party.

During Ford's time, and the time of the German Nazi Reich, the malignant “International Jew” was typified by hatred and suspicion of the Rothschilds, a wealthy European Jewish banking family active in Germany, Austria, Vienna, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom in the nineteen and early twentieth centuries. To this day, phrases such as 'globalist banker cabal,' 'international bankers' cartel,' 'globalists,' etc. are dogwhistles harkening back to the Rothschilds.

According to Wiinikka-Lydon, conspiracy theories involving 'globalist' elites often also contain some nexus to perceived related “Marxist” or “Communist” threats (one need look no further than the writings of people like Lyle Rapacki to find examples of this). To be sure, this is contradictory-- given that bankers are the paragon of capitalism and Marxists are the antithesis of capitalism-- but it makes sense in an antisemitic context, given that many leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia were (like the much more fortunate Rothschilds, who did not live in Russia) Jewish.

“And there was good reason for that: Jews were at the very bottom of the totem pole in Tsarist Russia,” said Wiinikka-Lydon. Tsarist Russia saw several waves of anti-Jewish pogroms, and Jews were often relegated to the poorest social and economic standing. So, when a rebellion of the nation's underclass came in the form of the 1917 revolution, there were Jews among them.

German Nazi propaganda used both caricatures of the wealthy International Jew and the Marxist Jew (Karl Marx himself was of German Jewish descent) to substantial effect. The result was the holocaust.

Today, Soros checks all the boxes: he is Jewish, he is wealthy, he has lived in multiple nations, and he has supported progressive causes around the world with the ostensible intent to elevate the less privileged.

“Soros is then the stand-in-- kind of the Boogie Man-- for the international Jewish alliance that is trying to take over and destroy the United States and Western Civilization-- I mean, it's that profound, it's like this existential threat,” said Wiinikka-Lydon, speaking to the utility of the contemporary far-right's scapegoating of Soros.

[Full disclosure: I have reported for a non-profit news organization that received grant funding from Soros' Open Society Institute. CRN receives no funding from Soros or any other organization.]

Forty years ago, Sam Caron helped to found Temple Kol Hamidbar in Sierra Vista. He currently serves as president of the synagogue's board.

Caron is familiar with the trough-lines that bind centuries of antisemitism with our present moment; his grandmother fled the pogroms of Tsarist Russia, and his family eventually made a home in Detroit.

Caron told CRN that the Detroit of his youth was segregated along religious and ethnic lines: “If you were Christian, you lived in the best neighborhood. If you were Jewish, you were in a lower neighborhood. If you were Black, you were in the slums.”

Caron said Jews could not get good jobs at the Ford manufacturing plant-- and on Christmas, when kids went out to see the city's lights on display, the Jewish kids knew to steer clear of Ford's house.

Today, Caron said, he is troubled to see these old divides, including antisemitism, on the rise. He told CRN that he is troubled to learn of Dannels' ties to Christian nationalists like Rapacki.

Christian nationalism, he said, is “just another flavor” of the kind of hate that thrived among men like Ford and Hitler.

“You know when you see wrong, and it's good to speak out-- but people are afraid to speak out because of the consequences,” said Caron. “We're a small county, but that [the office of sheriff] is an important role in the community. The fact that probably half or more of the population is going in that direction [to the political far-right] … that's, that's real scary.”

CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas and Sheriff Dannels declined to respond to requests for comment from CRN, asking whether Dannels agrees with Rapacki's Christian nationalist and other extreme beliefs.

Beyond its antisemitic roots, the term “Globalist” has taken on a deeper meaning, said Wiinikka-Lydon, being something of an umbrella term for grievance (take your pick) in this age of often disparate conspiracy theories.

“When somebody gets up and says, 'ah, it's the globalists,' they may have in their mind 'international Jewry,' that old term-- but then the people in the audience can be like, 'yeah, the globalists!,' and they'll kind of infer, or fill in the blanks, the groups that they feel they have grievance against.”

Such are the manifold threads of paranoia running through the rhetoric of people like Rapacki-- where at once, you may be attacked on all sides by a vast and seemingly misaligned coalition of enemies: a Jewish “globalist” billionaire supervillain, Marxist Muslims, 'open-borders' Democrats, the United Nations and it's evil “Agenda 21” plot-- all united under the banner of Satan.

Rapacki did not respond to written questions from CRN regarding his beliefs concerning the alleged global 'diabolical'/'satanic' New World Order conspiracy, nor did he respond to written questions from CRN regarding his views on Soros, Jews, Muslims, or Middle Eastern immigrants.

“When we talk about the extreme Right now, these groups, they're awash in conspiracy, and it's not intellectually coherent-- and that actually works to their advantage,” said Wiinikka-Lydon. “It's almost like what Trump is doing, and what they've done in Silicon Valley. It just disrupts everything-- even how people can just sit and reason together. It just cuts out that ability to be a neighbor with anybody else. It just disrupts all of that.”

Rapacki is a man who seems to inhabit a special place in the nucleus of contemporary American chaos and disruption-- and it appears that his group, the Yavapai Patriots, fell victim to that very chaos and disruption shortly after Dannels' keynote appearance at their Hassayampa Inn event in July 2021.

At some point following the event, likely in early 2022, Yavapai Patriots chair Mona Patton (with whom Dannels had corresponded at length prior to, and following, his speaking engagement) posted the following statement to the group's website [note: at the time of the posting, the group had apparently changed its name to “Yavapai Rising”]:

“Yavapai Rising has been silent for the past two months and I have an explanation for you.

“An attempt against my life was made and a friend of mine who was with me was shot in the head. He suffered a fractured skull, severe concussion, had bleeding and swelling on his brain. My friend spent one week in intensive care and two weeks in rehabilitation. He is still healing from that injury. It was a horrendous experience for both of us. By the grace of God, we are both blessed to be alive.

“During the weeks following the incident, three members of the Yavapai Rising Advisory Board decided to attempt a coup. As I was extremely distressed and distracted, they felt that it was a perfect moment to seize control of the organization and oust me as Chair. They failed to remove me.

“1 Peter 5:8 'Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.'

“After much agonizing and extensive prayer the standing Board of Yavapai Rising has decided to discontinue monthly meetings and disband the organization. This has been a difficult decision to make and there are many regrets as our work is not done.

“God Bless you and keep you safe from harm!”

Patton did not respond to CRN's requests for comment concerning this incident.

Rapacki did not respond to CRN's request for comment concerning this incident.

[Read Part 3.]

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— February 10, 2025.

Please Note: “A Sheriff for Some” was originally published in its entirety by CRN in May 2024. In light of recent events, this investigation is being reprinted as a series.

Support Cochise Regional News through a PayPal donation or become a paid subscriber through Substack— help keep this community resource alive.

Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels bills himself as “a sheriff for all the people.” However, records obtained by Cochise Regional News cast doubt on this claim, showing that Dannels has gone far out of his way to cozy up to Christian nationalists, far-right “patriot” groups, elections denying conspiracy theorists, and individuals with close ties to various extremist militias.

Far from being inclusive of the rights of “all the people,” this strange milieu Dannels has inserted himself into holds at its center a patchwork of ideologies that hold non-European immigrants, members of the LGBTQ community, and non-Christians (particularly Muslims) in extreme contempt.

This is the first part of a four-part investigative series.

Rapacki: “these people bring nothing of value with them.”

On June 8, 2021, a document was sent to Cochise County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) command personnel bearing the alarming header:

"Medical Time Bomb -- Illegals and Refugees flowing into the United States."

The document, which professed to be an "intelligence briefing" of a "confidential" nature, for "restricted distribution," looked, at least superficially, like the kinds of intelligence "situational awareness" alerts, advisories, and briefings that have become common in the American law enforcement and counter-terrorism world since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

However, despite the pro forma resemblance to an official intelligence or law enforcement product, this "briefing" was not. Rather, the document was written by Lyle Rapacki, on the letterhead of "Sentinel Intelligence Services,” a private Arizona limited liability company owned by Rapacki.

The warnings contained therein were dire-- but, before we get into that, let's take a minute to consider the source.

Rapacki, who claims to be a “private sector intelligence, behavioral analysis and threat assessment specialist,” founded Sentinel in 2009 and claims to have been providing “select” members of the Arizona Legislature with “closed-door intelligence briefings” on border security and “threats to Arizona sovereignty” since 2010.

Rapacki often refers to himself as “Dr. Lyle,” owing to his claim that he holds a doctorate degree “specializing in the treatment of psychological disorders” from the “Clayton College of Natural Medicine.”

CRN could find no trace of a “Clayton College of Natural Medicine.” The Clayton College of Natural Health, however, was an unaccredited online correspondence college, now defunct.

Rapacki claims past membership in FBI Infragard (a public-private intelligence partnership administered by the FBI), the Association of Former Intelligence Officers Arizona chapter, the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals Arizona chapter, and various other intelligence-related organizations.

According to records of Rapacki email correspondence obtained by CRN, Rapacki is a trafficker in conspiracy theories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 presidential election, satanic 'globalist' plots to eradicate American sovereignty (variously involving Bill Gates, the United Nations, George Soros, the Muslim Brotherhood, and various other “demonic” actors), and so on.

Perhaps most importantly, Rapacki believes the United States was founded as a Christian nation whose laws must be in conformity with Christian beliefs-- an ideology that fits some definitions of “Christian nationalism.”

He bills himself as an expert in Satanism and a “watchman” for the “Remnant Church,” whose duty it is to blow the “Shofar of Warning” as to the demonic forces at the gate.

Rapacki did not respond to questions from CRN, asking whether he considers himself a Christian nationalist. Nevertheless, we can quote some of Rapacki's own writing on Christian theocratic dominion over the nation:

“America is a covenant nation-- the only surviving nation on earth whose origins and determination are found in the papers and decrees of the Founding Fathers who established a country 'to the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.' A Covenant Nation is one that recognizes that God and His purposes are supreme over the nation, that the highest role a nation can play is to reflect God's righteousness in national policy, but also in domestic service.”

[Note: the “founding fathers” quote given by Rapacki is a quote from the Mayflower Compact of 1620. Many of the authors and signatories of this document were Puritans-- the people who, in 1692, gave us the Salem Witch Trials. Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States (Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Monroe, Madison) were practicing Diests, who favored human reason over theocratic/scriptural rule.]

Rapacki has not been hampered by these fringe beliefs. To the contrary, he seems to have gained considerable influence in recent years.

In 2021, at the time the “Medical Time Bomb” Sentinel Intelligence “briefing” was shared with CCSO command personnel, Rapacki had been playing a key role in the Arizona Senate's audit of the 2020 residential election results. Prior to that, Rapacki had played a key role in Arizona Legislative hearings in which Donald Trump's attorney, Rudy Guiliani, made false allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

[Note: Guiliani has since been indicted in multiple prosecutions related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election, has been disbarred, and has been subjected to civil judgement for defamation related to such claims. The Arizona Senate's audit of the 2020 election found no evidence of fraud.]

Apropos Rapacki's involvement in various attempts to undermine and challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election in Arizona, it is worth noting that, according to email records obtained by CRN, Rapacki's email distribution list contains contacts for Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn. Epshteyn was recently indicted in this state, alongside former Cochise County Republican Committee chair Robert Montgomery, in relation to the Trump “fake electors” plot. Contacts for Sheriff Dannels (a Republican), a number of state and federal lawmakers (including LD-14 Representative Gail Griffin, a Republican), and former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn (previously convicted of lying to the FBI in relation to undisclosed contacts with Russia) also appear in the same Rapacki email distribution lists.

Flynn is an extremely influential figure in the American far-right, and is a proponent of both the Q Anon conspiracy theory and Christian nationalism.

According to tax records, in 2021, America's Future, Inc., a private non-profit corporation chaired by Flynn, provided nearly one million dollars to Cyber Ninjas, Inc., the Florida-based private company hired by the Arizona Senate to conduct the audit of the 2020 election.

Further, Rapacki has ties to Phil Waldron and Mark Finchem. Through 2020 and 2021, Waldron worked closely with Rapacki, then-Arizona Senate President Karen Fann, Guiliani, Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, and then-Arizona State Representative Mark Finchem (among others-- all Republicans) to challenge the Arizona results of the 2020 presidential election.

Finchem co-founded the Election Fairness Institute/Pathway Research and Education (EFI) with former Arizona state representative David Stevens, in 2018. Other EFI directors include prominent elections deniers and a 'field organizer' of the John Birch Society.

Stevens (a Republican) is, and was at the time he co-founded EFI with Finchem, Cochise County Recorder.

Given the Cochise County focus of this reporting, it is worth noting that EFI incorporation records show that Finchem and Stevens retained the services of attorney Timothy La Sota as the organization's incorporator and registered agent.

La Sota would go on to represent failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and failed Arizona attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh (both Republicans) in their efforts to challenge the state's 2022 elections results.

Finchem also ran, unsuccessfully, as the Republican candidate for Arizona Secretary of State in the 2022 election. Finchem, like Lake and Hamadeh, also unsuccessfully challenged the results of the 2022 election through litigation.

In 2023, La Sota represented Finchem in an appeal stemming from a unsuccessful attempt on Finchem's part to sue a Democratic Arizona lawmaker who had sought an official inquiry into Finchem's potential involvement in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

In early 2023, longtime Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra (a Republican) resigned. Marra had been subject to harassment, largely due to her opposition to an unlawful refusal on the part of county supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby (both Republicans) to certify the 2022 election results, as well as a related attempt on the part of Judd, Crosby, and Recorder Stevens to conduct hand counts of all ballots cast. [Note: Crosby and Judd have since been indicted in relation to their refusal to certify the 2022 election results.]

Following Marra's departure, the Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with the Recorder's Office, transferring elections duties to Stevens (Judd and Crosby voting for, and the board's lone Democrat, Ann English, voting against). Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (a Democrat) then sued the Board of Supervisors and Recorder Stevens, arguing the transfer of duties of Elections Director to the Office of the Recorder was illegal.

In defense of their attempt to hand elections duties to Stevens, the county hired La Sota.

Corporate records from this period list Stevens, Finchem, La Sota, along with other prominent elections deniers, as principals of the Elections Fairness Institute.

Rapacki and Finchem's relationship, however, long predates Arizona's recent spates of elections-related mayhem.

A 2015 press release issued by the Coalition of Western States (COWS) lists Finchem as COWS “Arizona coordinator.” Rapacki was COWS “vice chairman.” The chairman of the group was militant Christian nationalist Matt Shea.

From 2014 through 2016, COWS and their members played roles in various armed standoffs with the federal government, including those involving the Bundy ranching family in Nevada and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.

It was in this context-- with Rapacki seemingly at the center of, or in close proximity to, every recent far-right cause celebre-- that CCSO command personnel received Rapacki's “Medical Time Bomb” anti-immigrant 'intelligence brief' on June 8, 2021.

According to Rapacki, the document was based on a “closed-door intelligence briefing” he had provided to members of the Arizona Senate on August 17, 2016.

The briefing began:

"While the rhetoric regarding illegal crossings flowing into America and the concomitant influx of Middle Eastern 'Refugees' into targeted states rages, the intelligence contained in this Briefing Summary transcends the debates, issues of political correctness, and politics in general.”

Rapacki then delved into claims that "illegals" carrying "scurvy, measles, chicken-pox, acute explosive diarrhea with third-world bacterial agents, and unknown bacteria and parasites attempting to resist antibiotics, as well as pernicious and new forms of lice and worms" were being deliberately funneled into Republican-led states by the administration of then-President Barack Obama (a Democrat).

The document further claimed that information relating to the diseases and parasites allegedly carried by these immigrants (particularly the unaccompanied children among them) was being deliberately concealed from affected state governments by the federal government.

In essence, the document charged-- without substantiation-- that the Obama administration was using human beings (refugees seeking shelter from violence and persecution in the Middle East) as agents of biological warfare against Republican American citizens.

Rapacki continued:

"The Federal Government has now increased the speed and volume of third-world populations into the United States; interestingly, especially into politically conservative states. The calculated work of the Feds has led to Muslims by the thousands from mostly terribly underdeveloped and deteriorating Muslim countries, including those Islamic Nations hostile to the United States, now arriving. The U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest has presented official figures depicting a massive spike in Green Cards for Middle Easterners; most notably, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, and Iran. [...] These numbers do not reflect the numbers of illegals and Middle Easterners successfully entering America from our unsecure southern Border. There are unknown numbers of third-world humanity stemming from Haiti, Central America, and South America.

"The influx of humanity that is being discarded by these third-world Muslim countries is astounding, and fearful. These people bring nothing of value with them; no skills, no education, no work ethic or even moral framework. In point of fact, the preponderant majority of these people are hardened criminals, many purposefully released from prisons, and warriors who have only known civil war and strife by opposing gangs and warlords. Their health conditions are terrifying which will demand a response to stem the epidemic." [Emphasis mine.]

Though sent to CCSO command personnel in June of 2021, the “briefing” was dated September 9, 2016 and was addressed to then-Republican Party presidential nominee Donald Trump, and Ben Carson. Carson, a medical doctor, had previously been a 2016 Republican presidential candidate. At the time Rapacki drafted the document, Carson was acting as an advisor to Trump's campaign.

Trump had issued a press release in December 2015 stating his intent to completely "shut down" the entry of Muslims into the United States, and rhetoric demonizing immigrants and Muslims had been central to the Trump campaign.

At the time of the document's authorship, the Syrian civil war was well into its fifth year. Syrians fleeing the violence of both Russian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria), along with populations of other Middle Eastern nations facing violence from ISIS and other Islamic extremist groups, were seeking refuge in the United States, Europe, and other more stable nations.

Nativist fears of these refugees were harnessed in service of rising political tides of right-wing nationalism in Western democracies such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and the United States.

In the United States, Trump had entered the American political arena in 2011 by espousing the false “birther” conspiracy theory, which held that President Barack Hussein Obama was not born in the United States. Trump consistently played on voters' fears of immigrants from Muslim-majority nations throughout the 2016 election cycle.

According to public statements made by both Rapacki and Dannels, the two men have known each other since about 2011, and Rapacki has said that his “intel” is informed through his relationships with men like Dannels.

Deeply questionable intelligence and hate-- inside the fever dream echo chamber

Cochise Regional News obtained this Rapacki "intelligence briefing" as part of records produced by the Cochise County Sheriff's Office in response to a public records request seeking (in part) all documents and communications from, and pertaining to, Rapacki in possession of Sheriff Dannels and other CCSO command personnel.

It should be noted that many of the records of email communications delivered by CCSO in response this public records request contained incomplete email metadata fields-- particularly metadata which would divulge to whom within CCSO's command structure certain emails had been sent.

This was the case with records detailing the June 8, 2021 delivery of this Rapacki brief to CCSO command personnel; the record produced by CCSO simply stated that the brief had been sent from a sender identified as "Ron Thompson," but records contained no information as to whom within CCSO command it had been sent.

When asked to identify the CCSO email account from which the Rapacki brief had been produced, CCSO Public Information Officer Carol Capas stated that she could not, and that she could only specify that the email had been sent to someone (or possibly multiple someones)-- possibly Dannels, or possibly someone else-- within CCSO's command structure.

[Note: CRN provided CCSO Pubic Information Officer Capas and Dannels with a copy of Rapacki's “Medical Time Bomb” document and asked whether the Sheriff agrees with its contents. Capas and Dannels declined to comment.]

Nevertheless, records produced by CCSO show that "Ron Thompson" had sent multiple emails to Dannels, Rapacki, Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb, former Arizona Oath Keepers vice president and current Yavapai County Oath Keepers leader Jim Arroyo, as well as others affiliated Oath Keepers in southern Arizona, on multiple occasions.

The Oath Keepers are a far-right extremist group founded by Stewart Rhodes. Members of the group's leadership, including Rhodes, have been convicted of seditious conspiracy and other crimes related to the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol in which supporters of outgoing President Trump attempted to stop the U.S. Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election (which Trump lost).

According to Rapacki, he is a "charter member" (founding member) of the Oath Keepers.

Both Dannels and Lamb, who is currently running for U.S. Senate, have spoken at events of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), of which Rapacki also claims "charter" membership.

CSPOA was founded by former Graham County Sheriff Richard Mack, and has ties to the Oath Keepers-- in fact, Rhodes was featured as keynote speaker at a 2019 CSPOA event which also featured Dannels as a speaker.

Sheriff Dannels declined to comment on his relationships with either Rapacki or "Ron Thompson."

Though CCSO Public Information Officer Capas told CRN she does not know who Thompson is, it is clear that he may be a little more than a random wingnut who is fond of sending Dannels unsolicited anti-immigrant diatribes scribed by Rapacki.

For example, according to CCSO email records obtained by CRN, on October 14, 2020, Thompson sent Dannels, Rapacki, Lamb, Arroyo, and others an email containing "OSINT" ("open source intelligence") describing the "shit show" which would soon be wrought on the United States by the 'radical left.'

The "OSINT" cited by Thompson was an article written by right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Adams (also known as "The Health Ranger"), posted to Adams' Naturalnews.com website the day earlier.

[Full disclosure: I worked briefly as a reporter for Adams' "Newstarget.com" in 2006. At that time Adams was based in Tucson and the more extreme beliefs that now dominate his publication efforts were not evident.]

In his article, which was based largely on a Breitbart.com article, Adams claimed that "battle plans" had been posted by a "radical left-wing group" that intended to "unleash mass chaos and shoot Trump supporters in the streets" in the event Trump were to win the upcoming November 2020 presidential election.

Breitbart is a far-right publication whose co-founder and editor-in-chief, Steve Bannon, decamped in 2016 in order to serve as "chief executive officer" of the Trump presidential campaign. Bannon also served as a senior advisor to the subsequent Trump presidential administration.

The Breitbart article linked to a document entitled "Stopping the Coup: the Disruption Guide for 2020," which had apparently been publicly posted by leftist activist group, the War Resistors League.

The document's stated intent was to help activists counter election disruption which many on the political left feared would be conducted by those on the political right (such as voter intimidation by armed "poll watchers" and false declarations of victory on the part of Trump and his allies-- all of which would occur during and after the 2020 election). The manual did not call for chaos, violence, or the shooting of Trump supporters in the streets.

Nevertheless, emails obtained by CRN show that, following Thompson's "OSINT" email of October 14, 2020, on November 1 Rapacki sent out a "Sentinel Intelligence Services" briefing detailing the "captured anarchist manual" and claims of an imminent leftist attack on select targets in Washington, D.C.

In this "briefing"-- which Rapacki emblazoned with bright red text alerts, warning that its contents were "FOUO" and "LES" ["For Official Use Only" and "Law Enforcement Sensitive"]-- Rapacki claimed that he was indebted to a mysterious "intelligence specialist" with whom he had enjoyed email correspondence.

"The intelligence specialist who sent me the attached captured report wrote me a personal communication thanking me for a consistently good job, and bringing dimensions into play not heretofore considered. Included with the communication was the attached 38-page manual of the anarchists with the comment I was at liberty to forward to trusted allies [...]"

According to email records obtained by CRN, Rapacki apparently attached the War Resistors League "Stopping the Coup" manual to this “FOUO/LES” intelligence briefing, along with the October 14 email "Ron Thompson" had sent to Rapacki, Dannels, Lamb, Yavapai Oath Keepers' Arroyo, and a few other individuals associated with southern Arizona Oath Keepers and right-wing politics, in which Thompson shared Adams' October 13 Naturalnews.com article.

“Mike [Adams] isn't usually too far out there with his assessments,” Thompson wrote in the October 14 email.

Such is the source of Rapacki's “intelligence.”

In October 2022, the League of Women Voters filed a federal lawsuit against Yavapai County Oath Keepers leader Arroyo, the Yavapai County Preparedness Team (YCPT, an offshoot of Yavapai County Oath Keepers, incorporated by Arroyo in 2019), Lions for Liberty (the political arm of YCPT), and other related defendants, many of which resided in Yavapai County.

Ironically, given the claims of the Rapacki/Thompson/Adams radical left shit show “briefing” of November 2020, the League of Women Voters suit alleged that the defendants, through their practice of heavily-armed patrols of ballot drop boxes, dissemination of elections-related disinformation, and even doxxing of some voters during the 2022 elections cycle, had launched “schemes to surveil, harass, and intimidate voters at drop boxes to deter them, and those who are lawfully assisting voters, from exercising the right to vote.”

The League of Women Voters complaint alleged that the Yavapai Oath Keepers' actions constituted unlawful voter intimidation in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

The “Ron Thompson” Rapacki/Oath Keepers/Dannels correspondence is only one example. Email records obtained by CRN show that Dannels receives a stream of far-right-conspiracy-theory-themed correspondence.

Records indicate that a regular correspondent of Dannels' is a man named Bruce Piepho. According to to email records, Piepho publishes an email newsletter, which he regularly sends to Dannels. The Piepho emails to Dannels are a veritable litany of anti-Islamic rhetoric, antisemitic tropes, anti-LGBTQ sentiment, and conspiracy theories ranging from claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, to assertions that the COVID-19 pandemic is a part of a vast “globalist” genocidal conspiracy. Piepho consistently serves up these theories couched in Biblical references and written prayer.

For example: on January 7, 2022, Piepho forwarded an email from Carl Goldberg to several recipients, including Sheriff Dannels, Legislative District 14 Representative Gail Griffin, Cochise County Recorder David Stevens, Cochise County Superior Court Clerk Amy Hunley, and then-Cochise County Republican Committee Chair (now indicted Trump “fake elector”) Montgomery.

The email was titled: “Watch out for Muslims running for public office-- and oppose them!!!” Contained in it was a list of candidates of Muslim faith who were running for various offices nationwide. Speaking to this, Piepho expressed his wish that voters in states with “Islam politicians” would “wake up.”

According to Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Goldberg is an Arizona-based anti-Islam activist and member of the Arizona chapter of the anti-Islamic hate group, Act! for America. According to published announcements, he frequently speaks at events on the perils of “Islamic ideology” and Muslim immigration to the United States.

According to SPLC, at a 2017 Act! for America rally in Phoenix, Goldberg stated that Islam is a “totalitarian and imperialist ideology” similar to communism or Nazism, and accused then-Arizona U.S. Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain of being “on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

But, Piepho's ire in communications with the Sheriff is not restricted to Muslims. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Piepho sent a number of emails to Dannels, which, in a nutshell, seemed to indicate that COVID-19 vaccines were part of a “globalist” conspiracy to harm or kill people, that a U.S. Military coup may be necessary, and that we may be living out “biblical end times.”

In support of this thesis, Piepho regularly attached several documents to his emails. These often consisted of articles written by the likes of Rapacki, Goldberg, Dr. Joseph Mercola (a leading purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation), and various far-right Christian publications.

Several other articles supplied to Dannels by Piepho were published by “Video Rebel's Blog.” This blog posits numerous conspiracy theories in which Jewish “globalist” bankers run the world. Video Rebel's Blog also asserts that the Nazi murder of six million Jews, along with a number of gypsies, homosexuals, and other 'undesirables,' never occurred (this is referred to as the “Holohoax” by Video Rebel's author).

Seemingly to avoid leaving any marginalized group out of his conspiratorial correspondence with Dannels, Piepho got in some good digs at the LGBTQ community as well.

In an email sent to Dannels in early 2021, Piepho wrote:

“We are at a pivotal crossroads. There is a crisis at the Southern Border. Congress seems to only discuss Trump impeachment. Most Americans do not go to church. The name of Jesus or referring to God is not politically correct. […] The real make or break fight is between political correctness, LGBTQ, sex transformations surgery based on orientation, satanism in the United Nations and the list goes on and on.”

This was followed by a Christian tract through which Piepho expressed his belief that LGBTQ persons should not be allowed any position of authority within the Christian church.

Neither Sheriff Dannels nor CCSO Public Information Officer Capas responded to written questions from CRN inquiring about the nature of Dannels' relationship with Piepho.

Nevertheless, it does appear as though “sheriff for all the people” Dannels and Piepho do have some form of relationship. On September 12, 2021, Dannels responded to one of Piepho's emails pertaining to the globalist COVID-19 conspiracy with the following email, evidently referring to an event involving the Sheriff and a religious group Piepho is part of:

“Good morning Bruce! I just wanted to share my appreciation to your prayer group for the invite and spiritual messages! In a time where our country needs a plethora of prayers, it truly means a lot to my office and the dedicated men and women!! Thank you again, Mark.”

The email did not elaborate further, and Dannels clearly prefers not to answer CRN's questions regarding his relationship with Piepho.

In any event, this is the far-right, factually-lacking, and hate-filled echo chamber Cochise County Sheriff Dannels appears to be immersed in, and part of.

In light of these facts, consider this:

Dannels has served as a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Advisory Council and regularly testifies on matters of border security and immigration before Congressional committees tasked with crafting federal legislation. In 2021 (the time of much of the correspondence we have discussed) Dannels was serving as president of the Arizona Sheriffs Association. He also serves as chair of the National Sheriffs Association's (NSA) Border Security Committee, and as vice president of the Western States Sheriffs Association (WSSA). Dannels also serves in a leadership role of the Southwest Border Sheriffs Coalition (SWBSC).

NSA, WSSA, and SWBSC are influential law enforcement organizations. NSA, in particular, has significant lobbying presence.

Dannels has been shown-- by my own reporting-- to use his bully pulpit to make questionable and misleading claims about border-related crime in Cochise County, including in testimony to the U.S. Congress.

[Read Part 2.]

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— February 3, 2025.

Please Note: “A Sheriff for Some” was originally published in its entirety by CRN in May 2024. In light of recent events, this investigation is being reprinted as a series.

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I understand that people voted against [a groundwater Active Management Area administered by the Arizona Department of Water Resources] for the Willcox Basin, but as contained within Arizona statute, as it stands today, the state has an obligation by law that isn't weighted by a political campaign.

[Read about the Willcox AMA designation here].

The Department of Water Resources is required by law-- strengthened in 2022-- to review all Arizona groundwater basins with ‘Supply & Demand Reports’ to protect all rural Arizona citizens’ water supplies for the long term future, and that's what they're doing by the data and in accordance with the specific criteria outlined in state statute.

Since 2016, when my colleague from Mohave County, Regina Cobb, introduced the first rural water management bill, we have been advocating, educating, and warning that this very scenario could happen [i.e. the implementation of an AMA through executive action], and we wanted a local and customizable new rural groundwater management framework to be implemented into state law that would be balanced and equitable for all water users within a specific rural water basin.

With regards to an AMA, those of us in rural Arizona agree that it is not an ideal solution, but in the absence of another localized and customizable rural framework, at least future generations know that there will be some level of conservation built into an AMA.

According to the ‘Supply & Demand Report’ on the Wilcox Basin published by ADWR in December 2023, the annual groundwater deficit in the Willcox Basin is currently estimated at 100,000 acre-feet per year.

That’s the amount of water that the Tucson Metro Area uses and clearly not sustainable.

More importantly, though, the Department of Water Resources is mandated by law to protect all rural Arizonans that are depending on the health of a rural basin to safeguard citizens' private property values and to prevent more international and out-of-state corporate operators from coming in and exploiting Arizona’s rural aquifers.

At the end of the day, all this could be laid at the feet of Gail Griffin [Arizona State Representative based in Hereford, Republican].

Since 2016, myself and a growing group of county supervisors and locally elected officials have been advocating and educating for rural groundwater protections that would've helped the Willcox Basin avoid an AMA.

We have never been given even one committee hearing or floor discussion because Gail Griffin, as [Arizona House Natural Resources Energy and Water Committee] chair, refused to hear it.

The fact there isn't a third rural groundwater management framework tool is on her, as is this AMA.

If it can happen to the Wilcox Basin, it can happen to any rural basin in Arizona.

The water management challenges of the Wilcox Basin are not isolated and reveal the need for a third, customizable rural groundwater framework that addresses the specific needs of different rural communities.

We believe that meaningful legislative participation in rural groundwater negotiations-- conducted in good faith on behalf of all rural Arizonans, not just agricultural interests—is essential.

These negotiations must involve legislators who have no real or perceived conflict of interest or financial stake in the outcome. Only with such participation can Arizona craft a rural groundwater management framework that is balanced and that truly protects all rural Arizonan’s water resources.

As part of this effort, we also urge legislative leadership to review the web of influence shared in Cochise Regional News’ three-part investigative series, “She Has Sold Us Out,” which captures the complexities of those currently involved in these rural groundwater negotiations.

[Read CRN’s investigation into the role of Griffin and monied special interests in the death of water legislation here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.]

We hope you will support this request by encouraging legislative involvement that is transparent and equitable on behalf of all rural Arizonans.

There are 1.5 million of us that call rural Arizona home. Your legislative leadership is crucial to ensuring sustainable water solutions for all rural Arizonans.

-- Editor's Note: the author of this Cochise Regional News Letter to the Editor, Travis Lingenfelter, is District 1 Supervisor for Mohave County.

A Republican, he was one of several community leaders and stakeholders from across the state who comprised the Governor's Water Advisory Council.

The Council was convened by Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs (Democrat) in 2023 in order to make policy recommendations to modernize and strengthen Arizona water law.

The state is in a historic decades-long drought, deeply exacerbated by human-caused climate change.

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According to a statement issued today by the Arizona Department of Water Resources (DWR), the director of the state’s water regulatory agency designated the Willcox Groundwater Basin as a groundwater Active Management Area (AMA) yesterday, December 19.

This marks the first time in state history when DWR has taken executive action to create an AMA.

The Willcox basin spans, roughly, from the Leslie Canyon area between the Swisshelm and Chiricahua mountains, through the areas of Sunizona, Pearce/Sunsites, Cochise, Dragoon and Willcox in Cochise County, and north to Bonita and Mt. Graham in Graham County.

The AMA designation will result in some level of regulation— including a freeze on the expansion of irrigable acres, permitting requirements for non-exempt wells (producing more than 35 gallons per minute), grandfathered non-exempt groundwater allotments, and the creation of a Groundwater Users Advisory Council which will advise DWR in the creation of management goals and plans (to be determined subsequent to this designation).

Prior to this point, the Willcox Basin has been subject to no groundwater regulation of any kind, which has made it a desireable location for out-of-state industrial agricultural interests flooding into the area in recent years.

The basin has long suffered substantial effects of groundwater depletion, with many residential and even municipal wells running dry, and is frequently the site of earth fissures.

These later cavernous features have often occurred in roadways, and are due to land subsidence and aquifer compaction.

Once an aquifer becomes compacted, it can no longer recharge or store water.

Under Arizona law, DWR is required to conduct period reviews of areas that are not under groundwater active management in order to determine whether active management is necessary.

As stated in Arizona law, findings of such reviews that may trigger AMA designation include the need to “preserve the existing water supply of groundwater for future needs,” or that “land subsidence or fissuring is endangering property or potential groundwater storage capacity.”

According to records obtained by Cochise Regional News, DWR personnel were quite aware of the level of aquifer degradation and severity of the occurrence of earth fissures in the basin as far back as 2015.

Records obtained by CRN also demonstrate that the agency received numerous complaints and requests for help from concerned Willcox Basin homeowners and residents over this past decade. Many wrote to the agency, sounding alarms of neighbors’ and their own wells running dry.

Nevertheless, records requests submitted by CRN demonstrated that DWR conducted no statutorily-required review of the Willcox Basin— or any other unregulated groundwater basin in the entire state— during this time period, from at least 2015 through 2021.

During the near decade of inaction that has elapsed up to the current AMA designation, industrial agricultural interests— many of which are based out-of-state— have purchased tens of thousands of acres of land in the Willcox Basin. These growers have sunk scores of new irrigation wells into the completely unregulated aquifer— some of which are a half-mile deep.

In 2021, local residents of the Willcox and Doulas groundwater basins (the Douglas Basin borders the Willcox Basin, to the south) initiated a voter referenda through which area residents were granted an opportunity to vote on AMA designations for the two basins. [Full disclosure: I voluteered my time in support of these ballot initiatives.]

The vote occurred in November 2022, with voters of the Douglas Basin approving AMA regulations for their basin, and voters of the Willcox Basin rejecting regulation.

Since 2022, the crisis has only deepened in the Willcox Basin, with the occurrence of earth fissures and well failures ongoing.

Earlier this year, the City of Willcox had a number of its municipal wells run dry— a particularly doomful event, as an increasing number of area residents whose residential wells had also run dry depend on hauling water to their homes from these municipal wells.

Against this backdrop, a number of concerned Willcox Basin residents and smaller growers attempted to find remedies through the Arizona legislature. These efforts culminated with a framework of policy recommendations from a water policy council convened by Governor Katie Hobbs and a 2023 bill which sought to create a new “Local Groundwater Stewardship Area” (LGSA) designation in Arizona groundwater law.

The LGSA bill was sponsored by State Representative Leo Biasiucci (Republican— Lake Havasu), and was an evolution from several pieces of “Rural Management Area” (RMA) bills crafted by former State Representative Regina Cobb (Republican— Kingman).

Both the LGSA and RMA legislation sought to place greater control of groundwater resources in the hands of affected communities, rather than DWR bureaucrats (often seen as being unresponsive) in Phoenix.

Arizona groundwater law was created in its present form almost entirely through the passage of the Arizona Groundwater Management Act of 1980.

This law created DWR and the two forms of regulated areas it oversees: AMAs and Irrigation Non-Expansion Areas (INAs).

The AMA is the most stringent form of regulation offered— with a freeze on irrigable acres, permitting requirements for new non-exempt wells (wells that produce more than 35 gallons per minute), annual reporting of non-exempt water usage, grandfathered allotments for non-exempt usage, and management goals and plans which may mandate non-exempt groundwater use reductions over time.

An INA is the least restrictive form of regulation offered. It creates a freeze on irrigable acres and mandates annual reporting of non-exempt groundwater withdrawals.

A criticism that arose of AMAs during the 2021-2022 AMA voter referenda period— particularly in the Willcox Basin— was that AMAs, as currently provided under Arizona law and administered by DWR, do not provide adequate local control of community groundwater resources.

As such, a number of Willcox basin residents as well as community leaders from other similarly effected counties, had a hand in crafting and supporting the 2023 LGSA legislation, which sought to provide a greater level of local control.

The bill— like every other legislative attempt at local water protections— was killed by Arizona State Representative Gail Griffin (R-Hereford), who is the longtime chair of the House Natural Resources Energy and Water Committee.

[Read CRN’s detailed exploration of Griffin and special interests in the death of the LGSA and other water legislation here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.]

Following the death of the LGSA bill, a number of Willcox Basin residents told CRN that, in their view, it was likely that Arizona Governor Hobbs (a Democrat) would likely compel an executive AMA designation from DWR.

This executive action, they said, would be due to Griffin’s refusal to grant a hearing or a vote on any community-supported piece of groundwater legislation. As such, there would be no alternative but this executive action forcing an AMA— which voters had already rejected in 2022.

Following a DWR announcement in October of this year, signaling their intent to possibly designate the Willcox Basin as an AMA, CRN interviewed a number of basin residents, growers, and outgoing Cochise County District 3 Supervisor Peggy Judd (a Republican).

The shared sentiment was that the AMA is an imperfect solution for their community (and that they still hope for some future legislative action), that other potential alternatives would have been preferred, and that inaction on the part of Griffin contributed in a very large way to the situation now faced in the Willcox Basin.

“An AMA will not work here. People will freak out— because so many people have been working to try and make something that would work. Actually, we would have just taken an INA— if they had given us anything— but Representative Griffin didn’t want us to have anything. That would have kept us from getting where we are,” said Judd.

A number of community leaders in other counties facing similar issues, who have also worked towards other potential legislative solutions voiced similar sentiments.

These included La Paz County District 3 Supervisor Holly Irwin (a Republican) and Mohave County District 1 Supervisor Travis Lingenfelter (a Republican). Both Irwin and Lingenfelter worked on the Governor’s Water Policy Council, which was tasked, in 2023, with crafting water policy recommendations.

“I worked with Regina Cobb when she was trying to run the RMA legislation, worked with her on several bills, and the frustration has been what you’ve probably already heard— that we get blocked by Gail Griffin. We don’t get hearings, we don’t get anything moving forward,” said Irwin. “And now you have a governor that, basically, in my opinion, is like putting her foot down and saying, ‘if you guys can’t get an alternative to the AMAs and the INAs, then I will step in and do it for you.’ That’s kind of the takeaway that I got from her.”

Speaking to Griffin’s stonewalling in the Legislature, Irwin added: “It’s very frustrating that our voices aren’t being heard. […]

“I think the Governor is listening to the voice of leaders and also addressing the conditions of our groundwater basins, when they’ve been being ignored for years. Something’s got to change. We can’t keep going on the way we are,” she added.

Irwin said she is still hoping that some legislative action will occur in the coming session that would create some more desirable form of regulation for groundwater basins in crisis in La Paz County.

Lingenfelter said he is also hoping for some fruitful work in the Legislature, before more AMAs are enacted.

“With regards to an AMA, those of us in rural Arizona agree that it is not an ideal solution, but in the absence of another localized and customizable rural framework, at least future generations know that there will be some level of conservation built into an AMA,” said Lingenfelter.

“According to the ‘Supply & Demand Report’ on the Wilcox Basin published by DWR in December 2023, the annual groundwater deficit in the Willcox Basin is currently estimated at 100,000 acre-feet per year. That’s the amount of water that the Tucson Metro Area uses and clearly is not sustainable. […]

“At the end of the day, all this could be laid at the feet of Gail Griffin,” said Lingenfelter.

“Myself and a growing group of county supervisors and locally elected officials have been advocating and educating for rural groundwater protections for since 2016 that would've helped the Willcox Basin avoid an AMA. We have never been given even one Committee hearing or floor discussion because Gail Griffin as Chair refused to hear it. The fact there isn't a third rural groundwater management framework tool is on her, as is this AMA.

“If it can happen to the Wilcox Basin, it can happen to any rural basin in Arizona,” he added.

[Read full CRN Letter to the Editor from Lingenfelter here.]

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— December 20, 2024

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According to final ballot tabulations of the Cochise County Elections Division, Kathleen Gomez (Republican) has won the seat for the county’s second supervisory district, beating out Democratic Party candidate, Joni Giacomino.

Gomez will join fellow Republicans, Tom Crosby (incumbent, District 1) and Frank Antenori (District 3), comprising the county Board of Supervisors.

This marks the first time in more than a decade that all three supervisory seats have been filled by Republicans.

District 2 had been represented by Ann English (a Democrat) since 2009. English decided not to seek reelection in this cycle.

The district contains Bisbee and Douglas, both of which contain substantial numbers of voters registered as Democrats. The district stretches northward from the border to the areas of Tombstone, Elfrida, and Paradise.

English’s presence on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors, in recent years, has often been the sole counter-balance on the three-seat board, as supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd (outgoing Republican, District 3) have embraced COVID and elections-related conspiracy theories and refused to certify the 2022 election results.

Judd and Crosby have been criminally indicted for their refusal to certify the 2022 elections results, and are facing trial.

Judd decided not to seek reelection this cycle, and will be replaced by Antenori who won the race in that district.

Earlier in this week, votes tabulated for the District 2 race began to show Giacomino closing in on Gomez’s early lead. As ballot tabulations wore on through the week following the election, this District 2 race was the only supervisory race which seemed at all competitive, showing substantial deviation from trends laid out in early ballot tabulations.

In the end, Gomez beat Giacomino by only 668 votes.

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— November 17, 2024.

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At about seven on the evening of November 5, the long slog through 2024 elections cycle was drawing to a close in Cochise County. The county's voting centers were getting ready to shut their doors, and all that should have remained was the quiet work of the Cochise County Elections Division in tabulating the votes.

This quiet ending to a grueling election year was not to be.

Instead, Cochise County got to take part in a pattern of strange violent threats against voters and poll workers that had been unfolding across Arizona and other states pivotal to the outcome of the presidential election.

Bomb threat and response

According to records obtained by Cochise Regional News, it was about this time, 7 p.m., November 5, that Cochise County Information Technology Manager Alan Gordon called 911 and reported a bomb threat targeting the Vote Center housed at the county administrative office building at 1415 Melody Lane in Bisbee.

According to records, the threat, entitled "My Manifesto," had been emailed to voterreg@cochise.az.gov-- the email address associated with voter registration services administered by the Office of the Cochise County Recorder.

Records indicate that Cochise County Recorder David Stevens also directly advised Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels of the bomb threat around the time of Gordon's 911 call.

Available records do not indicate at what time the email had been sent.

According to records, the threatening email read as follows:

"Hello, I've planted a bomb (lead azide) in your office's building at 1415 Melody Lane. It is small and hidden very well. It will not cause much damage to the building but there will be many wounded people when it explodes. I plan on remotely detonating the device as soon as there is a large police presence."

Records indicate that personnel of the Cochise County Sheriff's Office (CCSO), Bisbee Police Department, Bisbee Fire Department, and Arizona Department of Public Safety responded and evacuated the building.

At around 7:25, CCSO personnel contacted military police at Fort Huachuaca and requested the assistance of their canine bomb detection unit, according to records.

According to a CCSO incident report, around 7:30 p.m., CCSO Criminal Interdiction Team personnel were advised by Cochise County Department of Emergency Management Director Dan Duchon that "many Arizona counties and elections offices in other states received the same threat," and that Emergency Management had "already deemed the threat 'not credible.'"

Records indicate that, shortly after obtaining a copy of the threatening email from Gordon and beginning their analysis of it, CCSO investigative personnel were contacted by an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation who advised "[FBI] were investigating the same threat and also did not believe the threat was credible."

According to records, FBI Special Agent Jewell (first name not given) stated that "they have received the same threat from multiple counties across Arizona [and] further advised they had similar threats occurring all over the country on the night of this election, however none were deemed credible or came to fruition."

According to records, this contact from the FBI likely occurred between 7:30 and 8 p.m.

At about 8:25 p.m., according to records, the Fort Huachuca bomb unit arrived at the Melody Lane offices. The canine unit and other responding law enforcement personnel swept the property.

By about 9:10 the sweep was complete. No explosives were found.

Who is "MAGA Earl"? Trail leads to infamous Icelandic Penis Museum

Throughout the day of the election, poling locations in Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona received similar bomb threats.

In Arizona, bomb threats targeted locations in Navajo County, La Paz County, Pinal County, Pima County, Maricopa County, and Cochise County.

All of the states targeted with the false threats were seen as being pivotal in the presidential contest between former president Donald Trump (Republican) and Vice President Kamala Harris (Democrat).

Many of the locations targeted were areas that served substantial numbers of Democratic Party voters.

In Cochise County, a high concentration of Democratic Party, or liberal-leaning independent, voters reside in Bisbee. The Vote Center at the Melody Lane county administrative building serves this population.

On November 5, following a number of these threats, the FBI issued a terse press release stating:

"The FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains. None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far."

The Russian regime of Vladamir Putin is widely believed to have favored Trump in this election.

Records obtained by CRN state that the bomb threat mailed to the county voter registration email address was sent from "maga_earl@mailum.com."

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) registration records indicate that mailum.com is a domain registered through a company called named Withheld for Privacy.

Withheld for Privacy was created by Phoenix-based domain registrar and hosting company Namecheap.com is 2021, and is a proxy service intended to conceal identifying information and data of domain owners who retain their services.

Mailum.com, formerly Cyberfear.com, is a company that advertises an encrypted anonymous email service with servers stored outside of the jurisdiction of the "14 Eyes" intelligence partnership.

14 Eyes is an intelligence sharing partnership involving several Western European countries (many of which are NATO members), Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. It is focused on the acquisition and sharing of "signals intelligence"-- which means intelligence gleaned from communications (emails, phone calls, etc.).

Ownership of Mailum and Cyberfear is unclear, as ICAAN records for both Mailum and Cyberfear disclose only the address, contact email, and telephone number of Withheld for Privacy.

Interestingly, the given address for Withheld for Privacy in registration records associated with these domains, and others shielded by its proxy service, is Kalkofnsvegur 2, Reykjavik, Iceland.

According to Google Maps, there are a few businesses at this location: an audio software company called Treble Technologies, an H&M clothing store, a Regus office space rental location, and The Icelandic Phallological Museum.

This later is the world's largest, and possibly only, penis museum.

Sadly, it likely was not the Phallological Museum that attracted Withheld for Privacy to Icelandic shores. Following Iceland's economic collapse of 2008, the nation sought to institute strong laws to protect press freedoms-- as coercion of the press away from reporting on circumstances which led to the financial collapse were seen as a contributing factor to the crisis. As such, Icelandic lawmakers sought to make the nation an international safe haven for journalists, world-over. These efforts included strong Internet privacy laws meant to protect servers housed on Icelandic soil.

Sadly, what bloomed from this soil was not a renaissance of press freedom, but a pirate bay for malicious actors seeking anonymity.

Perhaps unsurprisingly-- given that Mailum.com features customer testimonials from "hackforums.net" and "blackhatworld.com"-- Mailum and Cyberfear have been used in numerous ransomware attacks.

Similarly, many other domains registered through the proxy services of Withheld for Privacy have been used in numerous ransomware attacks, phishing hustles, frauds, scams, etc.

Some notable cases among these have been linked to Russian hacker groups believed to be working in concert, or at the behest of, the Kremlin.

In a federal court filing from September of this year, Microsoft (which is a major vendor of software and operating systems supplying agencies at all levels of American government, as well as nongovernmental organizations working with government) alleged that a Russian cybercrime group called Star Blizzard has been engaged in a longstanding pattern of "spearfishing" cyber attacks targeting Microsoft software used by American governmental actors and aligned NGOs.

The spearfishing attacks, said Microsoft, were meant to steal the credentials of targets and gather intelligence, in line with Russian state interests involving that nation's invasion of Ukraine.

As part of the filing, Microsoft identified several domains that it alleged were utilized by Star Blizzard in their attacks-- most of which had been purchased from Namecheap.com and registered through Withheld for Privacy.

In a December 2023 press release, U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) stated that a number of American and allied intelligence agencies had assessed that "Star Blizzard is almost certainly subordinate to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB)."

This is far from the only notable incident in recent years.

The Colonial Pipeline Company operates the nation's largest refined petroleum product pipeline, supplying gasoline from Texas to New York. On May 7, 2021, the company was struck by a ransomware attack.

A hacker group calling itself DarkSide claimed responsibility and demanded nearly $4.5 million in Bitcoin in order to restore operation of the pipeline to Colonial. Eventually, the ransom was paid-- and the attack to this critical infrastructure cased severe hardship as the Eastern Seaboard starved for fuel.

DarkSide is a cyber criminal organization believed to be based in Russia.

In July 2021, following the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, CISA released a malware analysis report of the DarkSide ransomeware.

This report identified a number of domains utilized in the DarkSide attack. According to CISA, Namecheap.com was the registrar of each domain, and the identities of the operators of each domain were cloaked through the proxy services of Withheld for Privacy.

This context and history of Russian intelligence and cyber criminals, Mailum.com, Withheldforprivacy.com, and Namecheap.com aside (and it is substantial context), it is worth bearing in mind that Phoenix-based Namecheap is one of the largest hosting and domain registrar companies in operation-- and that anyone can purchase and make use of these products, just as easily as an FSB-aligned Russian.

The FBI has not publicly offered substantiation or further statement relative to the November 5 press release in which it stated the election day bomb threats appeared "to originate from Russian email domains."

Law enforcement records obtained by CRN relating to the Melody Lane bomb threat contain no information regarding any subsequent investigation of "maga_earl@mailum.com."

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— November 15, 2024

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It has been a week since the November 5 elections and the Cochise County Elections Division is still counting ballots. While other local races followed by Cochise Regional News maintain leads established in early tabulations, the race for Board of Supervisors District 2 is showing some signs of life.

Updated ballot tabulations released by the Elections Division this evening show that, for the first time since election day, the number of tabulated ballots cast for Joni Giacomino (a Democrat) are eroding the lead thus far held by Kathleen Gomez (a Republican).

Up to this point, according to tabulations released throughout the week, Gomez has held a steady dominance over Giacomino of about 1,100 votes. Today’s tabulation is the first time that lead has shown a substantial slip— with Gomez now having a 958-vote lead over Giacomino.

According to the Elections Division, 40,336 ballots have now been tabulated, with 19,986 ballots awaiting tabulation. The majority of these remaining ballots are early ballots.

Gomez and Giacomino are vying for representation of a district that has been represented by Ann English (a Democrat) since 2009.

District 2 contains Bisbee and Douglas, both of which contain substantial numbers of voters registered as Democrats. The district stretches northward from the border to the areas of Tombstone, Elfrida, and Paradise.

English’s presence on the Cochise County Board of Supervisors, in recent years, has often been the sole counter-balance on the three-seat board, as supervisors Tom Crosby (Republican, District 1) and Peggy Judd (outgoing Republican, District 3) have embraced COVID and elections-related conspiracy theories and refused to certify the 2022 election results.

Updated tabulations released by the Elections Division today show that Crosby has a lead of about 3,000 votes over Democratic challenger Theresa Walsh.

These most current tabulations show that Republican Frank Antenori is enjoying a lead of more than 3,000 votes over Democratic candidate Joy Banks in District 3.

Both Crosby’s and Antenori’s leads have widened as the week’s tabulations have continued.

Similarly, leads held by Republicans in other local races followed by CRN have grown or remained essentially static as the weeks’ tabulations have worn on.

These races include those for county attorney (lead held by Republican Lori Zucco), county recorder (lead held by incumbent Republican David Stevens), county sheriff (lead held by Republican Mark Dannels, who ran unopposed).

Gomez’s slip is the only real change in any trend we are seeing so far in these races, as the tabulation process hits the one-week mark.

As CRN previously reported, this year’s election in Cochise County has been marked by a bomb threat and multiple issues with Oklahoma-based elections equipment vendor ES&S. As previously reported, similar issues have been experienced in a number of Arizona counties.

[You may follow vote tabulations as they are updated here.]

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— November 12, 2024.

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The Cochise County Elections Division is still working to tabulate ballots cast in Tuesday’s election. This year’s election has seen some difficulties, in the form of a bomb threat and issues with a ballot counting machine.

According to social media posts from the Cochise County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO), the Elections Division received a bomb threat on Tuesday at around 7 p.m. The threat targeted county administrative offices building in Bisbee where the Elections Division is housed.

CCSO stated that they and the Department of Defense bomb squad evacuated, swept, and cleared the county building by 9:45 p.m. No bombs were discovered.

The Bisbee bomb threat was one of several false bomb threats targeting elections facilities in Arizona. Similar threats were received in Navajo County, La Paz County, Pinal County, Pima County, and Maricopa County.

Arizona was one of seven “swing states” seen as being pivotal to the outcome of Tuesday’s presidential and legislative contests. False bomb threats targeted polling locations in several of these swing states, and on Tuesday the FBI issued a press release stating that several of these threats “appear to originate from Russian email domains.”

It is not clear whether the Cochise County bomb threat is part of this pattern. Neither CCSO or the Elections Division have responded to Cochise Regional News’ questions pertaining to this incident.

According to Cochise County Interim Elections Director Marisol Renteria, tabulation of ballots cast has been further delayed by mechanical issues with a voting machine.

According to a statement issued by the Elections Division, as of 5 p.m. November 7, the Elections Division had tabulated 25,950 ballots, with another 34,799 awaiting tabulation.

The Elections Division released updated early/unofficial tabulations at this time as well.

Though the numbers of ballots tabulated has changed, the trends in races previously reported on by CRN have not. This includes early tabulations which indicate a strong lead in Cochise County’s second supervisory district, long held by Democrat Ann English (who did not run for re-election this year), in favor of the Republican candidate. [Follow updated tabulations here.]

Renteria told CRN that much of the drag in the County’s tabulation of ballots has been owed to an issue with a voting machine provided to the county by Oklahoma-based vendor ES&S (Elections System and Software).

“The trays on the feeder [are] having difficulty. So the trays periodically won’t raise or lower and cause delays in feeding the ballots, so tabulation is taking a lot longer. A batch that normally would take minutes is taking up to 30 minutes or more,” Renteria told CRN around 3:30 p.m. Friday, November 8. “We are limping through this in the meanwhile. A new machine is due to arrive to us from Omaha tomorrow. The State will come on Sunday and we will test the new machine and hope to get back on track soon with the new tabulator. The machine vendor is ES&S. We have a technician on site but he has not been able to fix the problem with our current machine.”

Renteria later advised CRN, around 7:45 Friday evening, that the problem machine had been fixed, and that the additional “loaner” machine is still heading to Cochise County. “So hopefully we’ll catch up soon,” she said.

This is not the first issue Cochise County has had with ES&S this cycle.

According to Renteria, when early ballots went out in early October, voters in a Douglas precinct received ballots in which the entire second district superviory race had been omitted.

“The whole race was accidentally left off. It was a ballot mapping issue with the vendor. That was the only precinct that was affected. Needless to say, one of the candidates was extremely dissatisfied and the other one was understanding, said Renteria. “We quickly got it corrected […] We had replacement ballots printed the same day we found out about the error and mailed them out the next day.”

“It is unfortunate as any mistakes are. Nothing intentional for sure. We contacted both candidates and let them know what happened, and what we were doing to fix it. We notified all the voter’s in that precinct as well,” she added.

ES&S appears to have caused significant challenges in other areas as well. On election day, officials in Apache County had to close poll access for several hours, and subsequently extend the voting deadline, because of voting machine failures.

According to the most recent available Arizona Secretary of State records of 2024 election cycle voting equipment in use in Arizona counties, ES&S is the sole vendor providing such equipment to Apache County.

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— November 9, 2024.

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The Cochise County Elections Division has released an unofficial tabulation of votes cast in yesterday’s elections.

These are early elections results, based on information released by the Elections Division today. The official results have not been released yet, but these counts give an idea of where races are likely to wind up, once all is said and done.

Here is a summary of early tabulations in some key local races.

— Supervisory District 1:

Tom Crosby (Republican, incumbent): 4,999

Theresa Walsh (Democrat): 2,636

— Supervisory District 2 [Ann English outgoing Democratic Party incumbent]:

Kathleen Gomez (Republican): 3,546

Joni Giacomino (Democrat): 2,426

— Supervisory District 3 [Peggy Judd outgoing Republican incumbent]:

Frank Atenori (Republican): 3,652

Jacob Kartchner (Independent): 1,502

Joy Banks (Democrat): 1,196

Patsy Nyberg (independent): 229

— County Attorney:

Lori Zucco (Republican): 13,981

Scott Eckstein (Democrat): 5,993

— County Recorder:

David Stevens (Republican, incumbent): 13,406

[Read Cochise Regional News’ reporting on Stevens’ ties to right-wing extremists and elections deniers here and here.]

Anne Carl (Democrat): 6,837

— County Sheriff

Mark Dannels (Republican, incumbent): 17,316

[Read CRN’s reporting on Dannels’ ties to far-right Christian Nationalists.]

The Elections Division is reporting that there have been 356 write-in votes tabulated in this race.

The identity of candidates receiving these write-in votes is not given in these early results, but many of these may be for Sandra Lee Bolda, who, on June 20, filed a statement of interest as a write-in candidate for this race.

Her party affiliation is unclear, but in her handwritten statement of interest she stated she decided to run for sheriff because:

“I BELIEVE SHERIFF DANNELS IS A CORRUPT LIAR WHO IS A MAGA TYPE RULER THAT I KNOW MY LOVING TOWN OF BISBEE WILL BE SHOCKED TO FIND OUT IS UNPROFESSIONAL, CORRUPT, INADEQUATE […]

You can read Bolda’s full statement of interest here.

— State Representative District 19

One last race of intrest to CRN readers: Arizona State Representative Gail Griffin (Republican, District 19) appears as though she will retain her seat in the Legislature, by a substantial margin— this, despite widespread criticism of her role, as head of the House water commitee, in repeatedly killing legislative efforts to conserve Arizona’s water resources.

Read CRN’s reporting on Griffin here, here, and here.

For more Cochise County early unofficial results in other races, including state and federal, please read here.

The Cochise County Elections Division will be publishing updates to these early unofficial results here.

For updates on state-wide elections totals, visit the Arizona Secretary of State Elections Division here.

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The U.S. Air Force has extended its period of public comment related to its proposed plans to expand and intensify training activities over much of Cochise County and southwestern New Mexico.

The deadline for public comment had been October 9. On the afternoon of that day, the Air Force pushed the deadline back to November 12.

If you have not commented yet and wish to do so, here is the Air Force’s online comment portal.

According to a draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) issued by the Air Force in August, our area— referred to as the Tombstone Military Operations Area (MOA)— could see more than twice the number of training sorties flown over our homes and communities, sorties flown as low as 100 feet about ground level, lower altitude deployment of chaff and flares, as well as supersonic flight causing ‘sonic booms.’ The overall geographical boundaries of the “MOA” may be expanded as well.

[Read Cochise Regional News’ earlier reporting on this here.]

Opponents of these Air Force plans point to increased fire risk from flares, increased severe noise nuisance from low-flying aircraft and sonic booms, decreased property value, impacts on quality of life, economic impacts on tourism— as well as cumulative impacts on public health and wildlife.

Though required by federal law to seek input from affected communities to the best of its ability, the Air Force has held only one in-person public meeting/hearing on the proposed Tombstone MOA expansion/intensification.

This public hearing was held in September in Animas, New Mexico— far removed from the bulk of the affected population, in Cochise County.

[Read Cochise Regional News’ earlier reporting on this here.]

Peaceful Chiricahua Skies (PCS) is a local group leading opposition to the plans laid out in the DEIS— largely by raising awareness, gathering signatures, and offering resources to the public.

These resources have included accessible information deciphering the Air Force’s DEIS, information regarding the risks/harms this intensification poses to our homes and communities, resources to help residents report nuisances inflicted by training flights, and resources to help members of the public craft effective comments in response to the DEIS.

According to a press release issued by the group today, PCS has submitted 310 pages of comments signed onto by 21 businesses and organizations, as well petition signatures and comments from more than 3,600 individuals opposing the plans laid out in the Air Force DEIS.

"Public opinion, press coverage, and engagement of elected officials are all strong right now,” said PCS representative Karen Fasimpaur.

“As far as the [Air Force], they seem to be doubling down on their resolve. It's definitely an uphill battle, but our coalition and the people opposed to this are in it for the long haul, including litigation if necessary,” she added.

To learn more about the proposed expansion/intensification of Air Force training activities in our area, please see CRN’s earlier reporting on this. This reporting contains links to the Air Force Tombstone MOA DEIS and other resources/information.

If you are interested in learning more about opposition to the proposed MOA expansion/intensification, including how to submit effective comments regarding the plans, visit Peaceful Chiricahua Skies’ website.

The U.S. Air Force’s current deadline for public comment is November 12. Here is their portal to receive online comment.

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News— October 10, 2024