McArdle’s Resignation, Access to Party Records, Are Demanded
Third Party Watch has received a copy of a demand letter send to Angela McArdle by Law Firm Veritas and pro bono publico, D.C. Bar member Theodore Godfrey of Maryland, on behalf of a Libertarian National Committee Director and many National Party members, demanding that McArdle resign and that an extensive series of LNC documents be made available, within five days, to the Director. We are advised that the letter was sent to MCArdle and to all LNC members.The copy is now available here .
A demand letter is a formal request that certain actions be taken by the officers and directors of a corporation, failing which there may be litigation. It is our understanding that the number of National Party members is greater than fifty.
The letter enumerates a series of causes, each with extensive legal citations, including failure to pursue fifty-state ballot access, diversion of LNC resources toward the defense of violent autocracies, violation of the duty of obedience to carrying out the LNC’s purpose, violation of the fiduciary duty of loyalty to the LNC’s purpose, failure of the fiduciary duty to disclose by, for example, failing to disclose details of the national billboard program, failing to account for funds raised during a rally with another organization, and allowing the executive committee to hold closed-door sessions from which regional representatives were habitually excluded.
Other causes included appointing herself as Executive Director and appointing her domestic partner as a director at an excessive salary, leaving the Duke Street office largely vacant, and diverting party resources by potentially-illegally renting out the headquarters during an election year.
“For these fiduciary reasons, our clients demand your resignation. Should you not agree to resign, our clients will be forced to turn to the local courts for relief.”
Clients also asserted a right to inspect and copy Party records within five (5) business days of this letter under D.C. Code § 29-413.02, the records including (1) Excerpts from any records required to be maintained under § 29-413.01(a), including minutes of all meetings of its members, board of directors, and any designated body, a record of all actions taken by the members, board of directors, or members of a designated body without a meeting, and a record of all actions taken by a committee of the board of directors or a designated body on behalf of the corporation; (2) Accounting records of the corporation including financial records for the past three years; and (3) the membership list.
A few more business days and the Diversion process likely goes to its next step.
What is this “details of the national billboard program?”
There was some kind of initiative to put billboards up in key districts with “vote out the warmonger” type messaging. And apparently people have been asking questions about the cost, placement, effectiveness, etc. of the thing.
Billboards are not effective unless they’re part of a much larger coordinated ad campaign with various media.
Darryl Brooks was never supported by most of the Mises Caucus delegation to the 2022 LP of PA Convention. I was there, so I know. The vast majority of delegates did not know who he was. Michael Heise asked Mr. Brooks to run because he met him at a protest in Philadelphia where Black Lives Matter was rioting, and Mr. Brooks, who is black, was attempting to talk BLM protestors out of committing acts of violence, theft and property destruction. Mr. Brooks did have a past history as a Libertarian Party member in New Jersey and he had also supported Ron Paul in the Republican primaries for President. Mr. Brooks had also made the news by claiming to have witnessed fraudulent activity as an election poll worker in Philadelphia. So it was based on these thimgs that Mr. Heise asked Mr. Brooks to run for Governor. This was all done at the last minute.
Mr. Brooks came to the convention and attempted to sell himself tp the delegates. He introduced himself and did a couple of question and answer sessions, one in the main convention hall and another in another room at the convention hotel. He sounded OK, but a lot of delegates, myself included, had questions about him as we felt uncomfortable nominating somebody to run for Governor whom we had not heard of prior to that weekend.
I am one of the people who did an online search for him and found the sex offenses. Mr. Brooks claimed that the charges were trumped up. We did not have time to figure out whether or not the charges were legitimate or serious enough to where he should not be a candidate, so the vast majority of delegates, including Mises Caucus delegates were going tp vote for NOTA (None of the Above). The other candidate, Joe Soloski, had also angered a lot of delegates by engaging in nasty personal attacks against the Mises Caucus.
Mr. Brooks never made it to the vote because before the vote took place it wss found out that he had not lived in Pennsylvania long enough to run for Governor (PA requires candidates for Governor to have lived in the state for something like 5 or 7 years), so him running became a moot point. If Mr. Brooks had been elugible to run I was going to vote for NOTA over him as was everyone else of whom I am aware of how they intended to vote.
NOTA ended up winning and the LP of PA board later nominated Matt Hackenburg to run for Governor.
Michael Heise later apologized to eceryone for not doing a,better job of vetting Mr. Brooks prior to the convention and he admitted that this was a mistake.
I hope your assessment is accurate. We’ll never know what the results would have been if it had gone to a vote (either without discussion, like with every other candidate, or after his …proclivities… we’re publicly pointed out). The observed facts from someone there and (at the time) neutral to the Caucus follow :
– The Mises Caucus preports to be a Caucus. That obligated the members to vote a certain way. Voting out-of-Caucus was evidently disregarded as an option – nobody knew for sure who might get nominated as candidates, but no debate or Q&As were permitted between the MC candidates and the previously unknown contenders via MC supermajority cancelation of the normal candidacy discussion sessions, because getting to know the candidates would be irrelevant – a supermajority already had their picks made. (‘Our candidate beats any unknown alternative’… and Brooks was the MC candidate. Vitally, no MC member offered an alternative during the nomination process.)
For all the previous elections, the spread between the vote where the MC candidates were clearly superior and the one where the non-MC candidate was the obviously better choice ran something like 20 votes (I don’t have my notes ATM, but that’s close), which is pretty small just counting the portion of the voting body who were not Caucus-obligated to vote a certain way. It’s hard to fathom everyone in the MC (plus or minus two or three percent) bending the knee on every vote, all day long, and then showing individual discretion for one vote.
– I spoke to several MC peeps during the recess between it being pointed out that Heisse’s passionately-vouched-for hand pick, whom he put his good name on the line for, was a sex offender and the point where Heisse retracted his nomination. The gambit ran from ‘this is troubling, but unsubstantiated ‘ to ‘if you’ve read his biography you know the pedo thing was an unfounded hit job to squeeze him out of politics by The Powers That Be’. At no point did the eight or so people I spoke to (or overheard discussing it) indicate, imply or suggest that he wasn’t getting their vote. Maybe I spoke to exactly the wrong subset of the group… but the odds seem remote.
– Roughly a third of the MC voting body appeared to have been in what I’ve titled ‘The Kazoo Section ‘. You know, the out of state plates filling the parking garage in a middle of nowhere town. The kazoos played over non MC speakers. The non-articulated jeering, but lack of reasoned input during what limited discussion was allowed. The clustering around Mark Bazako (sp?) to take direction during every break and total avoidance of any non-vote-related LPPA activity. The grouped seating arrangements with visual and auditory total-lockstep voting. Presuming these previously unseen mystery members would vote the official Caucus line, it wouldn’t take many non-defectors from the “actual LPPA / MC members” to make Brooks the pick. Assuming total Caucus compliance from the outsiders, you wouldn’t need half plus one of the PA resident MC to vote NOTA, you’d need something like three quarters plus one to defect. Snow in July odds.
– The applause was roughly consistent between Brooks (initially) and the other (successfully elected) MC nominees. If it had already been pointed out within MC channels that he was a sex offender, it wasn’t obvious to us in the cheap seats from the general reaction to his nomination.
– Heisse did pull the nomination, after discussion with his inner cadre. From the bits I overheard sitting nearby back in the dining hall, it sure sounded like he presumed Brooks was still The Guy if he let his nomination ride.
Again, it’s impossible to know how it would have played out if you had had a chance to vote. I hope you’re right and I massively misread the situation.
McArdle is in a tough spot, doubly so if she runs again.
She’s on record saying the MC, and by extension the LP, has a Founder Problem. She’s right too – Heisse nominated a guy for PA gubernatorial candidacy who’s a convicted sex offender who targetted children (12 and 14 yrs old) in addition to being a Hillary campaign worker/ Trump election fraud advocate / Green Party organizer (and whose pay as Governor would be docked for his multiple prolonged child support evasions)…and the dude had supermajority support from his MC base because he had Heisse’s approval. If Heisse hadn’t pulled the nomination after his ineligibility was pointed out, Daryl Brooks would have been the LPPA candidate for Governor. She’s publicly bitten the hand that feeds her by saying he needs to have less authority within the organization, and Heisse could almost certainly destroy her at his whim.
ALSO, she has to prep to chair the whole convention, but might get pulled down from the seat with the first motion. If she isn’t, then winning the chair again means she “won” in a meeting she both chaired and organized (see recent COC issues) – any miniscule failure to perform to the Platonic Ideal of a chair(wo)man and event planner is going to invite perpetual legitimacy issues and accusations. That’s a high bar even without simulatiously being the target of a legal suit.
ALSO ALSO, while she did a fantastic job through most of her interview with Joe Walsh on his podcast (White Flag), patiently correcting a guy who can’t get out of his own headspace and engaging in good faith despite his clear distain for people who think differently than him, around the one hour mark he let her give a self-directed narrative of the successes of the LP post takeover. She proceeded to say the opposite of what she was simultaneously writing in the now leaked messages about the “Takeover Failure”. So anyone who is paying attention knows that her relationship with the truth is….situational. Given her tendency to cite Dr. Jordan Peterson as an inspiration/aspiration/role model, this makes her appear to be both a liar and a hypocrite to anyone paying attention.
Untrustworthy, beholden to the approval of someone she doesn’t trust, and never going to be viewed as entirely legitimate. I’d walk away. I might not even show up to DC. The LP under her has failed consistently. It’s just going to get harder and she’s going to appear less legitimate as an authority figure if she sticks around.
There is no good way for McArdle to stay.
It’s almost as if “I am going to do anything I want, while ignoring the interests of the party and impugning the motives of anyone who questions me” might not be the wisest policy.
There are trade offs.
I think these people could get thousands more to sign on. I would sign.
We could vote Angela out in May, but they are screwing around trying to rig the convention, and so many have already left the party.
I asked Angela today why the LNC is financially supporting the Michigan leadership in their attempt to block the Michigan delegates.
Her response indicated that she had not read the lawsuit, as she thought it was filed against the LNC. It was also obvious that she had not watched the Michigan convention. Yet she supports using member money to fight Michigan member rights.
In summary, she is incompetent , clueless, and dangerous to the party. She must go.
Donna,
If you would like to sign on as part of this effort, I am coordinating supporters of the derivative suit. Just fill out this form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Ot1eorCwCRlUdmPNBBpe9FPBq9uL3eAEIi4IqnmuBSc/