Ben Solis, Michigan Advance

TRAVERSE CITY – U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers was scheduled as one of the keynote speakers at a glitzy Republican dinner on Friday to honor the late state Sen. George McManus of Traverse City, but after an hour of shaking hands and greeting party fixtures, Rogers left early — and never addressed the crowd.

His campaign for the U.S. Senate said Rogers was happy to be there but had another campaign event in Gaylord and that the dinner was running over time, prompting his exit. But the crowd at the dinner appeared to be visibly bewildered when it was announced midway through that Rogers was no longer there and they wouldn’t get to hear him speak, seeing as how he was one of the main draws of the evening.

Few people at the dinner were aware of any other Republican event featuring Rogers in the region that evening.

The campaign did not respond when asked about the nature of the event Rogers left to attend.

The McManus dinner, held in a sprawling conference center space at the Great Wolf Lodge in scenic Traverse City, however, started promptly at 6 p.m. as planned and concluded right around the stated 9 p.m. end time.

There was talk at the dinner that Rogers was upset because he was not speaking first – U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Watersmeet) was scheduled to speak first, and did.

Bergman told the Advance afterward that the rumor of Rogers demanding to speak first was inaccurate, and that last minute scheduling items often come up for candidates seeking important federal office.

The itinerary clearly showed that Bergman was first in the order, but Bergman made a comment at the beginning of his speech that he didn’t think he was supposed to be going first.

Still, Rogers never spoke to the crowd, first or otherwise. He and his campaign staff were present in the room for the opening prayer and pledge of allegiance, but were absent when the speaker portion began.

As the night wore on, some patrons, who were seated close to an area for the Advance and other local press, could be seen whispering to each other and repeatedly pointing to the itinerary of speakers.

Rogers and his wife created a social media video showing them at the Great Wolf Lodge on Friday, saying that the room was packed with Republicans who were fired up for the 2026 contest. It is unclear when the video was taken – before he entered the building or when he was on his way out the door.

His Facebook page, where the video was posted, did not feature a mention of another event later that evening.

Rogers did, however, post pictures from the Cops & Doughnuts location in Gaylord on Saturday morning, which indicated that he had visited the city at some point this weekend.

Dennis Lennox, a political consultant and one of the co-organizers of the event, spoke to the Advance on Saturday in his personal capacity and not as a representative of the group behind the dinner.

Lennox said that he also was unaware of any other event planned in Northern Michigan on Friday evening, nor was there an event that other attendees knew about.

Indeed, the affair on Friday was a venerable who’s who of up north Republicans, party folk from around the state and donors who attended the dinner in honor of McManus, a well-respected regional Republican senator who served in the upper chamber for a decade.

“It’s unfortunate because a lot of people came to the dinner looking forward to hearing the presumptive Republican nominee for United States Senate, and for whatever reason, did not get an opportunity to hear from him,” Lennox said. “Now, with that said, I would also, for the record, say that pretty much everybody in attendance last night is a political person, current or former, and understands that things come up and can, and things can and do happen.”

Lennox did note that the situation was odd, either way.

Still, the event continued on unabated, allowing other Republican candidates an opportunity to speak to donors and GOP faithful in Michigan’s north country.

That included gubernatorial candidate Tom Leonard and attorney general candidate Doug Lloyd, who many at the event said were the stars of the show.

Leonard needed no introduction as the former Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives, the former 2018 nominee for attorney general and a candidate for the same office in 2022.

Yet the dinner, which featured no other candidates for governor on the speaking schedule, used the address as a case for why Republicans should nominate him in the 2026 primary.

“When you look at the state of this state right now, did you know the only state that Michigan beat for population growth the first two decades of this century was West Virginia? We are currently 49 out of 50 in unemployment. We are bottom 10 for income total, and if we don’t change it, the next few years, we’re going to be 49 out of 50,” Leonard warned. “The last thing I want, the last thing anybody in this room wants, is for their child or their grandchild to come to them and say, ‘Dad, Grandma, Mom, grandpa, I’ve got to leave the state for better opportunity.’”

Although Leonard said trips to Florida for family time doesn’t sound half bad, he can’t rationalize giving up the fight and letting nearby states like Ohio steal Michigan’s future.

“We’ve got to turn this around,” Leonard said, and made a case for how he would do it.

The candidate mentioned state occupational licensure reform, which has bipartisan support in the state Legislature, to help reduce hoops for licensed professionals seeking to practice in Michigan.

On education, Leonard made another pitch for Republicans to stand steadfast behind school choice, particularly home schooling, which he said has been under attack for years.

Another issue that Leonard championed on Friday evening was expanded access to mental health care.

That push may very well resonate with people in Traverse City following the recent tragic multiple stabbing event at an area Walmart. The alleged perpetrator reportedly had severe mental health issues that went unaddressed, and many have said that better access to care might have prevented the stabbing.

“Why should Republicans ever shy away from mental health reform? … This is something that’s been near and dear to my heart for nearly 20 years,” Leonard said. “I always ask this question, ‘why is it that we should wait for somebody to hurt themselves or hurt somebody else before we get them the help that they need?’ Republicans ought to be running on this issue.”

Leonard also said Republicans in the next cycle need to run on positivity and solutions and not on old grievances against Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer or any of the candidates seeking to succeed her.

“I talk to police officers that are overwhelmed because of this mental health crisis that is facing our state, and frankly, they don’t want a candidate for governor, they don’t want any politician, that’s going to go out there every single day dividing us, dividing others, and poking others,” Leonard said. They want somebody that’s going to listen to them, and they want something that’s going to bring real solutions to the table and solve their problems.”

Leonard concluded by saying that’s what Republicans are going to see with his campaign over the next several months.

The fight to elect a Republican to the attorney general’s office after eight years of Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel is also of high priority for the GOP faithful across the state.

Lloyd, the current Eaton County prosecutor, said his experience in the office will translate well into the state’s top law enforcement position. He said that the attorney general is also tasked with protecting constitutional rights, not just prosecuting crimes, adding that it takes experience to be able to counsel the Legislature against making bad laws that could harm citizens, and to have the restraint to focus on state issues, a knock on Nessel’s push to repeatedly sue the administration of President Donald Trump on a multitude of federal policies in the opening months of his second term.

“We see local sheriffs and prosecutors who are understaffed and overwhelmed every single day as they battle to fight and continue on with the large case loads that they must carry,” Lloyd said. “But instead of the attorney general using her resources in a way that is beneficial to the state, she decides to play political games, filing suits against the Trump administration, instead of actually being a leader.”

Lloyd asked Republicans in the room to help nominate an attorney general candidate who could actually win the general election, a subtle knock against candidates in the past who lost to Nessel, which includes Leonard and former 2022 nominee Matt DePerno.

To Leonard’s credit, his race against Nessel was incredibly close, with the Republican candidate losing by less than 3 percentage points. DePerno, however, lost to Nessel by nearly 10 percentage points.

“In 2026 what you need to understand is that Republicans must win,” Lloyd said. “We need to nominate candidates who can actually rally the party and the votes. We will need winners, not distractions.”

Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy, who’s also running for the Michigan Senate, held a political fundraiser for U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers last month and coordinated the event using taxpayer-funded resources, according to emails obtained by Michigan Advance.

The documents, obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, show that Murphy used his official Livingston County email address to organize a benefit event for Rogers held on July 29, of which Murphy was a host. The event sold tickets for $100 per person and $175 per couple, with higher tiers reaching up to $3,500 a person.

Donations could be made online and interested benefactors could attend by sending RSVP notices to Aaron Laatsch, deputy director of state development and fundraising with the Templar Baker Group, a political consulting and strategy group, according to an event flyer.

Michigan law prohibits public officials from using their offices and taxpayer-funded resources for outside political purposes, and the emails show that Murphy sent messages discussing what they would eat at the event and ticketing issues during the course of the weekday.

In an interview with the Advance, Murphy was unfazed and said he used very little government time on coordinating the event. He also was not concerned if someone eventually filed a complaint about it.

“Those were basically one-liners, three or five emails, that literally took 30 seconds or less each,” Murphy said. “They were not long diatribes. There was no email to anyone promoting the event. It was just a coordination thing.”

Murphy is currently seeking higher office in the state Senate as a declared candidate to fill the open 22nd District seat currently held by state Sen. Lana Theis (R-Brighton), who is term limited.

This is not the first time that Murphy has faced scrutiny for blurring the lines between his station as the county’s sheriff and party politics: Murphy is still facing a complaint for helping to organize an event for President Donald Trump last year in a county-owned sheriff’s department garage.

The emails obtained by the Advance were loosely redacted, blocking out the surnames and addresses of the email recipients. Murphy’s name remained on the emails, however, which show he helped coordinate aspects of the event using his government work email.

On July 25, Murphy was sent an email containing a draft flyer for the event and was asked to give his approval and offer any edits. The sheriff replied: “Perfect. Send it.”

On July 14, Murphy also coordinated with another person regarding what they would eat that evening, saying they should “nix the shrimp cocktail and the chicken satay.”

In an email sent on July 8 to one of the other hosts of the Rogers event, Murphy discussed an issue with ticketing and record keeping for campaign finance purposes. Murphy wrote that they were not going to have tickets printed, noting that for campaign finance reporting purposes, tickets “are a pain.”

Again, these emails were sent using Murphy’s Livingston County email address.

“Then we have to track people down,” Murphy wrote in the email regarding tickets. “ I would suggest forwarding this to anyone interested and having them fill out the form and bring a check, or pay online, because this will capture all the information needed for reporting.”

It was also in that email exchange where Murphy noted that he was going to reach out to other organizers about the night’s cuisine.

Other emails dated in April show Murphy coordinating with others on when the event would be held.

In all, the communications show a continued pattern of Murphy using his government email account to help organize external campaign events. The Trump event in August 2024 was the subject of numerous complaints with the Michigan Department of State, and it was alleged that Murphy coordinated it while also using his government email account.

Michigan law addresses public employees’ participation in political activities such as joining political parties and running for office. Public employees are defined to include both state civil servants and non-elected employees of political subdivisions.

Public employees can participate in political activities so long as they don’t actively engage in those activities during work hours. Several of the emails obtained by the Advance show that the messages were sent by Murphy during the weekday during his business hours.

It’s also a violation of Michigan law to use public email accounts for campaign purposes, which has been the subject of state complaints in the past.

While it is not against the law for a public official to endorse another candidate, a public official cannot use public resources to promote or advertise the endorsement of himself or another candidate.

In an interview, Neil Thanedar, executive director of the Michigan Campaign Finance Network, said that even though Murphy wasn’t organizing a fundraiser for himself, the use of his government email to do so for Rogers was a violation of the law.

The emails also raised some concern about ticket sales loopholes, and whether Murphy and organizers were trying to get around reporting rules, although Murphy’s insistence of collecting donations online was the route they went.

Per Murphy’s insistence, all donations to Rogers’ campaign and event ticket sales were collected via his campaign’s WinRed account, a Republican campaign fundraising platform, which requires name and address registration.

Thanedar said there were two parts of that equation to consider in the context of campaign finance law – the value of the ticket and the value of the donation on top of that.

“There could be some argument to be made that, even if you were selling tickets online, and they had some portion of the proceeds that were going to the campaign, they would still need to record that,” he said. “Whether money was taken online or in person shouldn’t affect the record-keeping that has to be done for that money.”

Thanedar said ticket registration was important, especially in the context of an issue like foreign nationals donating to American political candidates.

“Foreign nationals are prohibited from making campaign contributions, so if you truly made a ticket or a donation anonymous, that could be a potential workaround for things like foreign donations,” he said. “That would be the reason why you’d want to have to register everyone’s name and then have the process of putting their name and address into the campaign finance system.”

When asked about his history of using public resources like his email for political purposes and the previous complaints against him, Murphy said he was cleared from at least one of the complaints regarding the Trump event last year.

Michigan’s database of resolved complaints also shows that the department found that there was no reason to believe that a violation occurred in the act of hosting the event.

No other complaint filed against Murphy regarding the Trump visit appeared to be resolved in the public database.

Murphy told the Advance that he understood that his state Senate ambitions have put him under a finer microscope, but he still wasn’t bothered by the prospect of a new complaint.

“I’m totally good with that,” he said. “That’s what happens when you run for public office. You’re under a microscope. And you know what, my man? If that’s the best you can do?”

Still, the pattern was something the Michigan Democratic Party said voters should be aware of.

“For some reason Republicans never think that the rule of law applies to them,” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel Jr. said in a statement provided to the Advance. “Once again, Sheriff Murphy has used his position to illegally and unethically support a Republican candidate, first Donald Trump and now Mike Rogers. This behavior demonstrates how deep the corruption runs in this party – clearly, Law and Order is just a TV show to them. Either way, MDP intends on filing a complaint.”

< Barry Croft and Adam Fox, the men convicted of plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the summer of 2020, could be on a list for potential presidential pardons, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s new pardon attorney.

The comments came from Ed Martin Jr., a conservative activist who had been nominated as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia before having his nomination withdrawn earlier this year. Martin is now a pardon attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice.

Appearing on a conservative podcast last week, Martin said that the administration of President Donald Trump “can’t leave” Croft and Fox “behind.”

Martin also called Croft and Fox “victims” and likened their cases to the criminal charges that were brought against the January 6 Capitol insurrectionists, the Associated Press reported. Trump pardoned more than 1,500 defendants charged in the Capitol attack on his first day back in office.

A message seeking comment from Whitmer’s office was not immediately returned.

Conservative activists and conspiracy theorists have long alluded to the plot against Whitmer as a federal government-led operation to entrap the participants, but numerous pieces of evidence shown in court detailed the breadth of Croft and Fox’s involvement in spearheading the plan and recruiting others to join in the plot – including eventually an informant working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Appeals court upholds convictions of 2 men in plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

Martin appears to be among those who viewed the prosecution of Croft and Fox as the weaponization of the federal government, a running theme in the Trump White House. Martin on the podcast vowed to take a hard look at their cases in his new role. Both Croft and Fox are serving nearly 20-year prison terms in a high security federal prison located in Colorado.

Several other men were charged with conspiracy to kidnap Whitmer but were either acquitted of or pleaded guilty to the crimes.

Croft and Fox attempted to appeal their convictions, but the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the federal district court’s decision.