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Tim Miller was a top aide to Jeb Bush during the former Florida governors 2016 presidential campaign. A Republican insider in the heart of the D.C. political sphere, Miller spent countless hours doing opposition research to smear Democrats.

Miller also worked for Sen. John McCain and was a spokesperson for the National Republican Party. After working for numerous Republican campaigns, Miller separated himself from other conservatives after the rise of Donald Trump. He was also a senior advisor for the anti-Trump group Our Principles PAC.

Nowadays, Miller spends his time as a writer for The Bulwark, a center-right leaning publication, and as a contributor to MSNBC. Miller has burned many of the bridges he once had with other Republican operatives, but he was able to get enough out of his former friends and colleagues to write his new book, Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell.

Miller, who recently visited St. Paul as part of a national book tour, wrote Why We Did It as a form of self-described atonement for his complicity in allowing Republican extremism particularly support for Trump to grow. The subjects of his book are mostly Republican political staffers, candidates and conservative members of the media what Miller describes as the political class.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What I wanted to do was to get at why people who knew better collaborated even when they knew Trump was dangerous. Why did they continue to enable him? We all kind of think we know, with certain things like power and money, but just understanding the psyche of the Republican political class in Washington.

I thought it was important as we move forward, unfortunately, because he might run again. Since I was one of them and knew all these people personally and was at some level also complicit in the things that led to Trump, I thought I could maybe have a unique ability to analyze that so folks could better understand the motivations how people went along with this crazy nonsense.

Well the saddest conclusion, actually, is that a lot of people went along with Trump for reasons that are much more banal than your worst expectations. In some ways thats nice. To think that not everybody is a sociopath and a bigot, but it just makes you feel like, Man, we could have prevented this. We could have stopped this if people just had a little bit of courage in their convictions and more gumption.

A lot of these people went along with Trump for very basic reasons. Inertia. They compartmentalize the bad things and ignore them so they dont have to deal with it. The fact that people go along with someone like Trump is just because they didnt want to take a career risk. Or they were annoyed that the media was nicer to the Democrats. I mean, thats pretty pathetic, and I think that was kind of a revelation for a lot of my interviews with my former colleagues.

I was always a moderate Republican, but this is why I feel like Im partially complicit. A lot of those of us who would want to encourage Republicans to channel their better angels just went right along with it when we were channeling the darker angels as well. I was a communications person and a lot of times my job was to stir up animus against the left. Some of the times it was legitimate. Other times it was hyperbole.

That kind of hypocrisy, that kind of behavior in service to wanting to win and serve only to advance my career I look back on that with a lot of regret and I think thats part of the culture in Washington. This is politics. Everybody has to do what they gotta do, and that was wrong. Sometimes you need to be more of a turd in the punchbowl when people or an organization are doing the wrong thing. In Republican politics in particular, theres just nobody who does that. When you understand that culture, you kind of understand why they went along with Donald Trump. People have gotten very used to making arguments and advancing arguments that they didnt really believe but that they knew would stir up the base vote.

I saw it all. I saw that the party was appealing to these really dark elements. But its like the old (Godfather) line: Every time you think youre out, they just pull you back in. I kept getting sucked back in. Sometimes for earnest reasons, sometimes for bad reasons, like career ambition. I dont know that there was one moment, but obviously Trump getting in kind of shook me. I was opposed to Trump. Probably by the end of Trumps first year I was like, This is it for me. I cant be a part of this at all. Then I felt like I have a responsibility to try to have a little bit of atonement here and do some advocacy and journalism about the state of affairs.

Ive been wrong about a lot, but I was right about one thing. Very disturbingly right, which was that almost everybody who had gone along with Trump up to Jan. 6 would get back on board with him. I know a lot of people thought that was going to be a big breaking point, but most of them went and got back on board. The reason why I felt I knew that was gonna happen was because I understood their motivations for why they were there in the first place. They had gotten on board with Trump, not because they liked Trump or believed that he was ethical or even good, but because they wanted to keep moving up the career ladder. They wanted access to power.

My goal is just for people to understand all these people as humans. That isnt my way of trying to make people empathize with them, because I really think theyre the villains of the book, honestly. But if were ever going to stop this continuing complicity with evil things, we need to figure out how to get people to walk away from the darkness. You cant get people to walk away until you figure out why theyre there in the first place.

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Q&A with Republican operative turned never-Trumper Tim Miller - Minnesota Reformer

By Daniel Dale, CNN

(CNN) -- Republican midterm candidates around the country are running attack ads criticizing their Democratic opponents over crime and policing. But some of their September ads have been deceptive.

An ad from Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott deceptively sliced and diced a quote on police funding from Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke.

An ad from Ohio Republican J.D. Vance baselessly insinuated that his Democratic opponent for the US Senate, Rep. Tim Ryan, supports defunding the police.

And an ad from Mark Ronchetti, the Republican candidate for governor of New Mexico, discussed a frightening break-in at his home before attacking his Democratic opponent Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over crime -- without mentioning that the incident occurred 10 years ago under a Republican governor.

Here is a breakdown of the three ads.

Last November, CNN fact-checked an attack ad from Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that misleadingly rearranged quotes from his Democratic opponent, former congressman Beto O'Rourke.

This week, Abbott released another ad that uses some of the same sneaky editing.

The new ad shows O'Rourke appearing to say this: "I really love that Black Lives Matters and other protesters have put this front and center, to defund police forces."

But O'Rourke never uttered that sentence.

Facts First: The Abbott ad stitches together parts of two different sentences to make O'Rourke's comment about defunding the police seem more categorical than it was.

Here's what O'Rourke actually said in a June 2020 podcast interview. The Abbott ad excluded the words in bold -- attaching the words "police forces" to the word "defund" even though they were, in reality, separated by 55 other words.

"I really love that Black Lives Matters and other protesters have put this front and center, to defund, you know, these line items that have overmilitarized our police, and instead invest that money in the human capital of your community, make sure that you have the services, the help, the support, the health care necessary to be well and not require police intervention. And then also in some necessary cases, completely dismantling those police forces and rebuilding them."

Abbott is entitled to criticize O'Rourke for what he actually said in 2020 about defunding particular police spending. But it's dishonest to turn a sentence about defunding "line items that have overmilitarized the police" into a broad, unconditional sentence about defunding the police, period.

Abbott's campaign did not respond to a request for comment. During the gubernatorial campaign in 2021 and 2022, O'Rourke has consistently expressed opposition to defunding the police.

O'Rourke campaign spokesman Chris Evans said in an email this week: "As both a Congressman and an El Paso City Councilmember, Beto repeatedly voted to increase funding and resources for law enforcement. As governor, Beto will ensure that law enforcement agencies have the resources they need to address violent crime, bring justice to victims, and keep our communities safe. Beto will also invest more resources in mental health services, social workers, and addiction treatment."

An ad released last week by Ohio Republican J.D. Vance, who is running for the US Senate, features Vance making this claim about his Democratic opponent, Rep. Tim Ryan: "Streets are exploding with drugs and violence while liberals like Tim Ryan attack and defund our police."

Facts First: Vance's claim about Ryan is misleading at best: Ryan opposes defunding the police and has not voted to defund the police.

The ad's use of the phrase "liberals like Tim Ryan" allowed Vance to avoid directly saying that Ryan himself has defunded the police or wants to defund the police. Still, Vance's remark certainly creates the impression that Ryan is a supporter of defunding the police. That's just not true.

Ryan's campaign said in an email that Ryan has never voted to defund the police, has never endorsed efforts to defund the police, has run ads in May, June and September expressing his opposition to defunding the police, and has helped secure extensive federal funding to support Ohio law enforcement and first responders. The Ryan campaign also noted that it is Vance, not Ryan, who has called to abolish a law enforcement agency, the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (known as the ATF).

Vance campaign spokesperson Luke Schroeder said in an email that "when Tim Ryan had the chance to condemn the defund the police movement in Congress, he refused." That moment in Congress, though, does not corroborate the ad's insinuation that Ryan supports defunding the police.

Here's what happened. Ryan and other Democrats voted unanimously in March 2021 against a Republican motion known as a Motion to Recommit. The motion proposed to send a major policing reform bill back to the Judiciary Committee -- rather than passing it immediately as Democrats planned -- to express the "sense" of the House that calls to defund, disband, dismantle or abolish the police "should be condemned."

So: Ryan rejected a motion that sought to derail the passage of policing reform legislation by getting the House to condemn calls to defund the police. That's clearly not the same as defunding the police or even expressing support for defunding the police.

Vance spokesperson Schroeder also pointed to a Ryan quote from a 2019 town hall, which was played in the Vance ad itself, in which Ryan said that "the current criminal justice system is racist" and "the new Jim Crow." As PolitiFact noted last week, Ryan never explicitly mentioned the police in these comments, and he wasn't discussing police funding levels; he went on to talk about how a person of color is more likely to go to prison for marijuana crimes than a White person.

Last week, Mark Ronchetti, the Republican candidate for governor of New Mexico, released a dramatic ad attacking incumbent Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham over criminal justice.

The ad featured Ronchetti and his wife, Krysty, telling a frightening story about Krysty and their daughters hiding in a closet, Krysty with a gun, because someone had broken into their home in what the ad calls a home invasion. Krysty said she was relieved to see the police arrive.

Ronchetti said: "Not every situation ends this way. Everybody seems to have a crime story. This is one of the biggest reasons I got into politics. Because we can't keep doing this. Governor Lujan Grisham has made it easier to be a criminal than a cop." He continued by criticizing Lujan Grisham over specific criminal justice policies.

Facts First: The Ronchetti ad left out critical context. The incident discussed by Ronchetti and his wife occurred in 2012 -- during the tenure of Republican governor Susana Martinez, not the Lujan Grisham administration.

Local news outlets including KOAT Action 7 News, KRQE News 13 and the Santa Fe New Mexican reported last week that the incident happened a decade ago. Delaney Corcoran, spokesperson for the Lujan Grisham campaign, said in an email to CNN that the ad "completely distorts the truth," both in its use of the 2012 incident and in its accusations about Lujan Grisham's record on crime.

Ronchetti campaign spokesperson Ryan Sabel argued in an email that "there is nothing to fact-check here," saying that Ronchetti was simply "sharing his family's personal story with crime, which is a reality that most New Mexicans can unfortunately relate to," and that Lujan Grisham "has been part of the problem for a long time." Sabel claimed that the same month as the incident, when Lujan Grisham was serving on the county commission for the Albuquerque area, she voted against a request from the county sheriff to hire more deputies.

But as Sabel then acknowledged after CNN pointed it out, the article he provided about the commission vote actually showed that Lujan Grisham voted to hire five additional deputies that month, just not the 20 the sheriff had asked for. Corcoran of Lujan Grisham's campaign also noted that she voted to defer, not reject, the request for the other 15 deputies, and that these other 15 ended up being approved later the same year (after Lujan Grisham had left the county commission to run for Congress). Also, the incident at the Ronchetti home happened in the jurisdiction of Albuquerque's city police department, not the county sheriff's department.

Regardless, what happened on the county commission is a sideshow here. The ad could have easily specified that the incident at the Ronchetti home occurred 10 years ago. At very least, the omission of the date, in an ad attacking Lujan Grisham's policies as governor, invited viewers to come to the inaccurate conclusion that it was an incident that occurred during the Lujan Grisham governorship.

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Fact check: How three new Republican attack ads deceive on policing and crime - WDJT

Six top Republican elected officials in Chesapeake announced theyre withdrawing their support for City Council candidate Amanda Newins after learning shes being sued and investigated for claims of elder abuse.

In a statement, the officials said they encourage others who are likeminded and equally disappointed by these revelations to do the same.

Listed as endorsing it were Sheriff Jim OSullivan, Commonwealths Attorney Matthew Hamel, Clerk of the Circuit Court Alan Krasnoff and City Council members Stephen Best, Don Carey, and Robert Ike.

The letter went on to say the group was hoping for a meaningful response from Ms. Newins and our local party chairman, Nicholas Proffitt, but their silence has been deafening. As elected officials who have spent years working to ensure the safety and wellbeing of Chesapeakes senior citizens, we cannot remain silent in the face of these allegations of persistent elder abuse.

Chesapeake City Council candidate Amanda Newins. (Courtesy of Amanda Newins)

Newins emailed a response Friday, saying the news was not unexpected.

It doesnt surprise me that a group of individuals who have worked tirelessly against me for the past seven months and have instead supported a non-Republican candidate, now say they continue to not support me, she wrote. What does surprise me, is that they would suggest it is due to a complaint filed 59 days before the election, where the lead attorney has known political ties to that same non-Republican candidate they support.

I am confident that the people of Chesapeake see this for what it is. It is heartwarming that among others, the following individuals have supported me from the beginning and continue to support me as they believe that I will help lead Chesapeake in the right direction.

Among the people Newins listed as supporters were former U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes, state senators John Cosgrove and Jen Kiggans, delegates Jay Leftwich and Barry Knight, Mayor Rick West, Vice Mayor John de Triquet, Councilmember Debbie Ritter, school board member Christie New Craig, former Commonwealths Attorney Nancy Parr, former Commissioner of the Revenue Ray Conner, Chesapeake Treasurer Barbara Carraway, and Proffitt, chair of the Chesapeake Republican Party.

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Newins, 30, a lawyer and vice president of the Chesapeake Bar Association, was sued this week by a great aunt who claims Newins mistreated her and her late husband, and stole hundreds of thousands in property and cash from them. The claim seeks $540,000 in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.

A Chesapeake police spokesman confirmed on Wednesday the department received a complaint about the allegations and was investigating them.

Newins is among 13 candidates running for one of five open seats on the City Council.

Alison Zizzo, an attorney who represents Newins, issued a statement earlier this week in which she called the lawsuit baseless and questioned the timing of it being filed so close to the election.

Proffitt also said the statement was not a surprise to him in an email sent Friday to The Pilot.

Steve Best, Don Carey, Matt Hamel, Robert Ike, and Alan Krasnoff have never endorsed either Amanda Newins or the Endorsed Republican Ticket, Proffitt wrote. Furthermore, they have been actively supporting one of Ms. Newins and our endorsed tickets non-Republican opponents, whose campaign representative is the lead attorney in this lawsuit against Ms. Newins.

Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com

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Chesapeake Republican officials withdraw support for City Council candidate amid accusations of elder abuse - The Virginian-Pilot

WASHINGTON Rep. Elise Stefanik wants to be chair of the House Republican Conference again.

In an announcement Tuesday, Stefanik, R-Schuylerville, declared her intention to seek a second term in the position, which places her as the third most senior Republican representative in the House.

I am proud to have unified the entire Republican conference around our country in crisis message and shattered fundraising records as House GOP Conference Chair, raising over $10 million for candidates and committees this cycle, she said in a statement. With the broad support of NY-21 and my House GOP colleagues, I intend to run for Conference Chair in the next Congress.

CONFERENCE CHAIR

Stefanik took the mantle in 2021, after the conference removed Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., from the position over her vocal criticism of former President Donald Trump after the Capitol attack on Jan. 6.

The conference chair is typically tasked with developing messaging and public platforms House Republican members are expected to use as they argue for or against legislation and government actions. Rep. Stefanik has led many campaigns against President Joe Biden, congressional Democrats and their policies on issues including border security, election security, baby formula supplies, inflation, job growth, foreign affairs, the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and much more.

Conference chairs typically serve for two-year terms. They campaign for the office and are elected by their party membership before the new Congress starts. Stefanik will have at least one competitor for the role, Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fl., according to reports from The Hill.

CASTELLI RESPONSE

Matt Castelli, Stefaniks Democratic competitor for the 21st Congressional District seat criticized her for planning such a move before the election, arguing that it shows she is assuming the results will go in her favor and disrespecting the will of NY-21 voters.

Without a single vote being cast yet, NY-20 resident Elise Stefanik is already measuring the drapes for her office next year, and choosing which position she believes will boost her climb of the D.C. career ladder, he said. Stefanik doesnt believe NY-21 voters should have a say in who represents them thats why she fails to show up in our community, refuses to meet directly with voters, consistently votes against our interests, and even refuses to debate me.

Stefaniks announcement that she will seek the conference chair position puts to bed months of speculation that she may seek an even higher office, such as House majority whip, should Republicans win control of the chamber.

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Stefanik says she will seek second term as chair of House Republican Conference - Plattsburgh Press Republican

Shane Hernandez, the Republican lieutenant governor nominee and Port Huron resident, met with St. Clair County Sheriff Mat King and Sanilac County Sheriff Paul Rich Friday to discuss challenges facing law enforcement today.

King and Rich said one of their largest challenges is recruiting enough law enforcement officers to fill their ranks. It's also a challenge to retain officers that otherwise might be lured to other larger, more urban departments by the promise of better wages and benefits.

"My number one priority right now would be training staffing that wants to stay and live in our community," Rich said.

Rich said retention is especially difficult for his rural department, which doesn't have the budget to compete with the wages of larger departments. They spend tens of thousands of dollars to equip and outfit new officers, only for them to leave.

While the St. Clair County Sheriff Department offers a pension plan to road patrol deputies, most departments don't anymore. A pension can usually only be collected from a specific department, but other retirement plans such as 401Ks can move with the officer, taking away an incentive to stay with one department their whole career, King said.

Rich said the public sector can't compete in wages and benefits with private sector jobs. King said a possible solution is to create a federally-funded pension program for law enforcement officers so that departments can focus more of their budgets on wages.

King said another factor contributing to the staffing shortage within law enforcement is a loss of respect and interest in the profession from the general public in the last decade due to negative media attention of a few bad police actions.

Republican governor candidate Tudor Dixon's plan slates $1 billion in funding for public safety over four years. Hernandez said this would be drawn from the state's general fund. Although it was not clear where the funding would come from in the general fund, Hernandez said in years past the state has had a surplus and they'd be able to find the dollars for the effort.

The plan is designed to provide incentives to retain and recruit new law enforcement officers, firefighters and EMS professionals as a way to alleviate staffing shortages and increase public safety.

The plan includes:

Hernandez emphasized public safety as the root of a thriving community.

"If we're gonna talk about jobs in our community, or affordable housing in our community, or education in our community, none of those can happen without a safe community," Hernandez said.

Dixon's agenda points to a reported rise in violent crime in the few years prior to 2020.

According to the FBI's Unified Crime Reporting database, from 2019 to 2020, the violent crime rate in Michigan jumped from 438.6 per 100,000 to 478 per 100,000, compared to the national rate of 380 to 398.5 per 100,000, respectively. That is the highest violent crime rate the state and the nation has seen since 2010, when crime was 493 for Michigan and 404.5 for the nation per 100,000.

But from 2016 to 2018, the crime rate stayed relatively stable between 460.9 and 452.5 per 100,000 in Michigan, according to the data.

King said violent crime is on the rise the past couple of years, and pointed to a rise in repeat offenders and violent incidents such as two kidnappings and one attempted murder this year.

King also said the rise of methamphetamine as the predominant drug of choice breeds violence. St. Clair County faces special challenges in policing the illegal drug trade due to the two interstates that begin in the county, as well as an international border and two cities within drivable distance that draw drug dealers to sell their product.

"Violent crime is absolutely on the rise," King said.

King said in 2019, prior to the pandemic, the St. Clair County Sheriff Drug Task Force seized 104 weapons and 107 grams of methamphetamine, compared to 304 weapons and 3,774 grams of methamphetamine seized in 2021.

"Meth and guns equal violence, there is no doubt about it," King said.

In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, there were 113 violent-crime incidents and 140 offenses reported by the St. Clair County Sheriff Department to the FBI's UCR database. In 2019, there were 130 incidents and 148 offenses, compared to 2018, with 211 incidents and 247 offenses.

The Sanilac County Sheriff Department reported 30 violent-crime incidents and 38 offenses; 24 incidents and 34 offenses in 2019, and 44 incidents and 52 offenses in 2018, according to the FBI data

Violent crime statistics for 2021 and 2022 were not immediately available by either sheriff department.

Contact Laura Fitzgerald at (810) 941-7072 or lfitzgeral@gannett.com.

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GOP lieutenant governor nominee meets with county sheriffs to discuss public safety issues - The Times Herald