“He kicked me in my balls as soon as I opened the door.”
A Michigan GOP state committee meeting broke out following a physical altercation on Saturday in Clare County, Michigan.
Michigan Republicans have been feuding over the direction of their party since Chairwoman Kristina Karamo took over as leader of the Michigan GOP.
Some who showed up at a special meeting at the Doherty Hotel in Clare County were disappointed the meeting was limited to only members of the state committee.
James Chapman, a Republican from Wayne County, said he traveled to Clare for the meeting but was forced to listen to it through a locked door.
Chapman said he and others recited the Pledge of Allegiance in the lobby of the hotel, and admitted he wiggled the knob of a closed door of the meeting.
Mark DeYoung, chairman of the Clare County Republican Party, heard the wiggling and walked over to the door, where he saw someone flip him off through a small window.
Mark DeYoung
“He kicked me in my balls as soon as I opened the door,” DeYoung said. Chapman then ran at DeYoung and slammed him into a chair.
Chapman said he took off his glasses.
“When you see me taking my glasses off, I’m ready to rock,” Chapman said.
Chapman alleges that DeYoung said, “I’ll kick your a–,” and swung at him. DeYoung denied those claims.
DeYoung provided his account of the altercation from a local hospital where he said he suffered a broken rib.
Multiple police officers were on the scene after the incident. DeYoung said he discussed with the sheriff his intentions to press charges against Chapman.
“We’re so divided,” DeYoung said from the hospital. “I just wish we could come together.”
Then there was a meeting, I guess.
Karamo had removed a budget committee chairman overseeing the MI-GOP’s finances “due to a dereliction of duty and several other grievances.”
The budget chairman, Matt Johnson, said the spending that had been disclosed by the Michigan Republican Party had been “so far out of proportion with income as to put us on the path to bankruptcy.” He alleged that the budget committee had been kept in the dark despite numerous requests for transparency.
Karamo’s own co-chairwoman, Malinda Pego, has called for a budget to be approved by the state committee as soon as possible.
There were suggestions that the meeting was an attempt to remove Karamo, but there were no attempts. A removal would require 75% support of the committee, a high threshold among a divided party.
Karamo ran for Michigan Secretary of State in 2022, losing bigly to Jocelyn Benson by 14 points.