'Zero legal authority': Embattled MAGA GOP chair defiant as party rushes to oust her
Republican nominee for Michigan secretary of state Kristina Karamo campaigns in Lansing on Aug. 27, 2022. (Andrew Roth | Michigan Advance)
January 03, 2024
Kristina Karamo, the conspiracy theory-spreading chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party, is remaining defiant as members of her own party move toward ousting her.
The Detroit Free Press reports that the Michigan GOP has scheduled a Saturday meeting where they will vote on whether to give Karamo the boot after a controversy-filled tenure that critics have said has left the state party on the brink of bankruptcy.
"A 75% vote of the state committee, which has a little more than 100 members, is required to remove Karamo as chair, under Michigan Republican Party bylaws," the paper writes. "But another agenda item would reduce that threshold to a two-thirds vote. Amending party bylaws also requires a two-thirds vote of the committee."
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However, it's not clear that Karamo would willingly step down even if 75 percent of her own party voted her out, as she tells the Detroit Free Press that the scheduled meeting itself if illegal, and she charged that those who called it "have zero legal authority to conduct business regarding the Michigan Republican Party or its State Committee."
Karamo, a failed secretary of state candidate who ran on former President Donald Trump's false claims about the 2020 election being stolen, has long spouted unhinged conspiracy theories, including claims about Democrats "selling baby body parts."