GOP gov under fire after grand jury busts him springing donor from prison early: report

A grand jury in Oklahoma uncovered evidence that Gov. Kevin Stitt pulled strings behind the scenes to get a political donor released early from prison, KOSU reported on Friday.

"In 2023, Sara Polston was driving in Norman with a blood alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit. While traveling 66 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone, she crashed into another car, grievously injuring a 20-year-old woman," said the report. "Late last year, Polston was sentenced to eight years in prison and seven years on probation. But after just 73 days in prison, she was released as part of an electronic monitoring program that uses GPS to track offenders."

"The grand jury has spent months figuring out how and why that happened, as first reported in The Oklahoman," the report continued. "They found that Stitt called the interim director of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections to discuss other matters, but brought up Polston’s pre-sentence investigation process. Stitt knows Polston and her husband, Rod, who is an attorney and owns a tax firm in Norman."

While the grand jury did not find any criminal wrongdoing in the arrangement, they concluded by blasting “this rank political favoritism, particularly on a crime that nearly took the life of a 20-year-old young woman."

Stitt was elected as a hard-right MAGA candidate but has, in recent years, fostered disagreements with President Donald Trump and come under heavy fire as a result of this revelation.

"Shameful. Stitt’s no better than Trump. Sara Polston drove drunk and almost killed an innocent driver. She served 73 days of her 8-year sentence before her buddy Stitt called in a favor and got her released," wrote Jena Nelson, a Democratic congressional candidate for Oklahoma's 5th District. "When we put the ultra-rich in charge, they only care about protecting and further enriching themselves — everyone else be d---ed."

"It’s essential to our democracy that we elect more working class people and get big money out of politics," she added.