Idaho GOP group busted in plot to infiltrate Democratic Party and steal campaign donations

An Idaho county's Republican Party was busted for a plot to secretly take over their Democratic counterpart and siphon off donations.

Kootenai County resident John Grimm recorded himself speaking by phone Tuesday to a person he identified as the county's Republican Central Committee youth chair Dan Bell, who revealed a plan to infiltrate the local Democratic Party, install an “antisemitic troll” as party chair and then funnel campaign donations to local GOP candidates, reported the Coeur d'Alene Press.

“Long story short," Bell said during the call, "we want to take over the Democrat Party."

Grimm, a self-described staunch conservative who ran unsuccessfully for county sheriff in 2020, said he recorded the call because he doesn't fully trust the central committee, whose members he believes have "gone too far."

“I know from personal observation that certain members of the KCRCC are masters of deception with an ability to twist the meaning of even their own statements,” he said.

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Idaho permits the recording of telephone calls with the consent of at least one person involved in the conversation.

“If we pull this off, this will be national news,” Bell said during the call.

Bell told Grimm that KCRCC chair Brent Regan, who also chairs the conservative Idaho Freedom Foundation, was "totally on board" with the plan to recruit dozens of GOP volunteers to run for precinct captains as Democrats.

Kootenai County has 70 precincts, of which only 21 are Democrats, and 11 candidates have filed to run for Democratic precinct captain positions, including at least one who was reportedly a KCRCC volunteer.

“We’re going to do a bum rush on Thursday and Friday so that our people are on the ballot and theirs aren’t,” Bell said.

He also said he would use the Republican Party's software to access contact information for Constitution Party members and other conservatives to recruit as volunteers to "take out the liberals," and Bell said local Republicans carried out a similar, but largely unsuccessful, plan in 2014.

“We have a much stronger effort than they did in 2014,” Bell said. “I think we can actually pull it off this time.”

Bell said the infiltrators would then elect Pennsylvania transplant David J. Reilly, who he said had been described as a "racist, antisemitic, Holocaust denier," as Democratic Party chair and basically shut down meetings and divert donations to the GOP.

“He’s going to revamp their website,” Bell said. “He’s going to take donations and spend that on conservative causes.”

He also claimed the KCRCC would "expose" local businesses and organizations that he believes secretly support liberal causes.

“We can scatter the freaking cockroaches,” Bell said.

The chair of the state's Democratic Party vowed to pursue every legal avenue available to fight back.

“We are looking into every option, legal and otherwise, to fight back against this plot by the radical and dangerous Kootenai County Republicans to infiltrate the Kootenai Democratic Party,” said party chair Jared DeLoof. “Just when you think they can’t go any lower, they do. They have tried to use these nefarious tactics in the past and are fooling no one.”

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