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Indiana’s top elections official traveled last week to Europe two days after final votes were cast in the first election under his supervision to speak at a right-wing political conference in Hungary.
Republican Secretary of State Diego Morales’ office said his trip to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Hungary on Thursday and Friday didn’t disrupt any election-related actions by the office. Democrats, however, accused Morales of skipping out on his official responsibilities following Indiana’s city and town primaries to join “fringe figures” at the event in Budapest.
Hungary’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban opened CPAC Hungary with a speech centered on battling what he frequently described as “woke culture,” and delved into hot-button cultural topics such as transgender and LGBTQ+ rights, migration and the content of education for children.
In a photo posted Thursday to Orban’s official Twitter account, Orban is surrounded by more than a dozen U.S. conservative political figures attending the conference. Only unsuccessful 2022 GOP Arizona governor candidate Kari Lake stood between Morales and Orban in the photo.
Lake was among the most vocal 2022 Republican candidates promoting former President Donald Trump’s election lies, which she made the centerpiece of her campaign. Morales, who took office in January, had called Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential election a “scam” before dialing back that description ahead of winning election last November.
Morales declined an interview request through office spokeswoman Lindsey Eaton, who called his travel to the conference “personal activities” not paid for by taxpayer funds.
“The role of a public official such as the Secretary of State includes interacting with and learning from diverse communities and constituencies, as well as sharing information about our state,” Eaton said in a statement. “The subject of Secretary Morales’s speech was to share his personal American Dream story, his passion for our state and country, and the importance of strengthening ties with countries around the world.”
Morales frequently highlights his life story of immigrating from Guatemala as a teenager with his parents and sisters to Indiana without knowing English, then going to college and enlisting in the military before becoming a U.S. citizen. He was speaking Friday during a CPAC session titled “Make Kids Not War,” according to the conference website.
Morales’ office didn’t announce the trip ahead of time and he did not include it among his frequent social media posts until after the state Democratic Party criticized him on Monday. His posts described the trip as “this past weekend” even though the conference was held Thursday and Friday.
“Indiana held municipal primary elections less than a week ago, military ballots are still arriving, and several races were incredibly close, yet Indiana’s top election official decided to jet off to a political conference in Eastern Europe for a photo op with Viktor Orban,” state Democratic Party Chairman Mike Schmuhl said. “Working Hoosiers deserve elected officials that represent the best in Indiana, stick around and do their job during critical times.”
Eaton said the secretary of state’s involvement in city and town primary elections across Indiana was less than during statewide general elections.
“Though the municipal primary election was essentially, successfully completed by Wednesday, the Secretary, his experienced office staff, and staff at the Indiana Election Division provided uninterrupted assistance to local election administrators throughout the week,” Eaton said.
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Diego gonna Diego. I just don’t understand why any donors want to be associated with someone of such low integrity and accomplishment.
Yeah, okay, sure. Like we actually expect a Secretary of State to be up all night in the basement of the capitol counting municipal election ballots. There’s no staff in his office to actually count ballots? He can’t make decisions on the phone or a Zoom call? Really?
You know, if Diego Morales were a Democrat, and had jetted off to attend a left-wing get-together or the WEF in Davos, the IBJ, faithful friend of the Indiana Democratic Party, would have never written this story. If by some weird happenstance, they had written it anyway, the same angry lefties who have or will comment about it would be defending him and crying racism. Funny.
Considering Diego was twice fired from the office, you’re right. The staff is probably smart enough not to let him anywhere near the ballots. At most, maybe they let he and his brother-in-law carry them. You know, the one he created a do-nothing job for … with a six figure salary, no less.
A reminder, the IBJ is owned by a prominent Republican in Nate Feldman. Maybe the problem is that Diego Morales is just undeserving of public office.
This article was written by The Associated Press.
also a reminder … Morales committed voter fraud in 2018, voting in a different district than he lived in.
You are completely correct, Keith. Nate Feldman, though a Republican, is a uniparty supporter and, like most unipartyists (Mitt, Liz Cheney, Cocaine Mitch, Lindsey-Windsey), sees populism as a greater threat than anything the Democrats would ever do. It’s a primary reason the IBJ uses syndicated articles from WaPo and Associated Press and not Breitbart or Gateway Pundit, even though all are of the same level of journalistic quality. Our own “rock-ribbed conservative” governor Holcomb attended an event with the sleazebags in Davos less than two years ago.
The legacy press gets quite knock-kneed about “the authoritarian tendencies of Viktor Orban”, as do its sycophants. While much can be said about Orban’s ham-fisted human rights and free-speech record during COVID, they don’t really care about that (they cheered the same sort of thing in Australia and New Zealand). They primarily dislike Orban because he’s populist-minded and tells the EU/NATO?WEF/UN globalists who partner with gloabalist billionaires (who bankroll their failing publications along with the alphabet soup quangos) to go shove it.
After all, the legacy media is perfectly happy with the national socialist contingent within autocrat Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s failing campaign against Russia. Which is ironic, since I fully support Ukrainian sovereignty–but when they’ve got a clown in charge of a bunch of Azov Battalion Nazis (who would likely assassinate Zelenskyy if he doesn’t tow the line), it’s hard to get too critical of Orban’s significantly milder offenses.
If he’s so popular, why does he have rig the system?
I ask that of all the populists… if they’re doing the work of the people, and they’re so beloved, why is their first move always to change the rules so the people can’t change their minds and elect a new leader?
What’s their concern? They’re beloved, right? That’s what state media always tells the people, and surely it’s the truth, right?
Orban’s version of “democracy” is everything that Republicans want to do here in America. I shut don’t get why the Lauren’s of the world are so in the bag for it. Double potato soup is still just potato soup.
Does “Nate Feldman” have crazy eyes like Marty?
The Republicans elected their party Gadfly to the Secretary of State Office . The Governor expecting he would be flittering around as Gadflies do created the chief assistant Secretary of State position . Then appointed a real lawyer to that position to be Diego’s minder and have a qualified person there to run the Secretary Of State Office.