A Washington state sheriff who regularly sparred with white nationalist groups and extremist militias in his state warned Idaho Republicans about the risk they could pose in southeastern Idaho at the Lincoln Day dinner Saturday.
Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich was the keynote speaker at this year’s Lincoln Day Dinner, the annual event thrown by the Region 7 Republican Party that attracts many of the biggest names in state politics. Saturday’s event was themed around law and order in eastern Idaho and included tributes to the nine sheriffs of the region’s counties as well as the guest speech from Knezovich about the biggest threats facing the country.
Knezovich heaped criticism on far-right organizations, including the III Percenter movement, the John Birch Society, and the American Redoubt movement, which have links to some of the most conservative members of the Idaho Legislature. Knezovich compared these groups to white supremacist groups such as the Aryan Nations that have historically operated in northern Idaho.
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“White supremacy is alive and well, and it hides under the guise of Christian Identity... It is real and it is very much centered in the Spokane, eastern Washington and northern Idaho area,” Knezovich said.
Gov. Brad Little and Sen. Jim Risch both spoke at the dinner before Knezovich took the stage. More than a dozen state senators and representatives were among the hundreds of Republicans in attendance at the Melaleuca Events Center.
Knezovich has become best-known for his conflicts with Matt Shea, the controversial Washington state representative. Shea was expelled from the Washington state Republican Caucus in December after an investigation requested by the Washington House of Representatives concluded that he had helped plan an armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge by Ammon Bundy and far-right militia organizations in the Pacific Northwest and had participated in two other armed conflicts with the federal government.
“The extreme right would have you believe that our police officers are coming to disarm you. Over my dead body, because they are not doing that,” Knezovich said.
While the presentation was mostly identical to ones Knezovich has been giving in Washington for years, he highlighted the connection three Idaho Republicans had to Shea. Reps. Heather Scott, Judy Boyle and Sage Dixon had all attended part of the Malheur standoff in 2016 and were in the room with Shea during a negotiation with the county judge.
Scott’s involvement with the movement extended far beyond that. Reporting by the Inlander and the Washington statehouse investigation found that she and Shea had been connected during a previous armed standoff in 2015 and that she may have been part of an inner circle of politicians connected to the separatist movement.
The militias pushing to overthrow the federal government weren’t the only target for Knezovich during his speech. His list of domestic threats to the safety of America and law enforcement included black nationalist groups, far-left violence by ANTIFA, lone-wolf shooting threats, and the national media. He claimed that the Russian Internet Research Agency had begun using social media to sow distrust and false information in the United States in 2014, linking their influence more to the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri following the Michael Brown shooting than the 2016 election.
“You have extremists calling me a racist and a threat to the Constitution all at the same time. Both the far left and the far right hate me, and I’m proud of that,” Knezovich said.
Knezovich concluded his Lincoln Day speech by echoing President George Washington’s concerns about the future of political parties in the country and how they would eventually lead to highly partisan splits.
Earlier in the evening, longtime state Sen. Brent Hill spoke about the connection between the state and Abraham Lincoln, who first organized the territory in 1863.
Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin and state Treasurer Julie Ellsworth printed out a 15-foot-long list of President Donald Trump’s accomplishments while Sen. Risch spoke about the economic growth and appointments of Republican judges over the last few years.
“We are heading judicially and economically in a very different direction than it was a few years ago. Republican economics works,” Risch said as the room applauded.