Republican National Committeeman - The Saga

It all started with a petition from more than 15 members of the Idaho State Central Committee (SCC) representing at least 5 counties to call Special Meeting of the SCC to determine the status of the office of National Committeeman which was then occupied by Damon Watkins; a man with a long record of service to the party. Per IDGOP rules the chairman called the special meeting which would eventually be held contemporaneously with our Winter Meeting.

An appeal was filed with the Judicial Committee, where you go to appeal a decision of the chairman, claiming the chairman issued a decision that the SCC could remove the National Committeeman from office when in fact they can’t. But the Chairman never made that decision. The National Committeeman is elected for a 4 year term at our state convention. It is the ~700 delegates to the State Convention who have the power to elect the National Committeeman, not the 215 members of the SCC.

This appeal was one of several false narratives that supporters of the then National Committeeman espoused. Specifically that the SCC was attempting to remove the National Committeeman from office. However, removing the National Committeeman was never at question. The TRUE question was whether the former National Committeeman had VACATED the office due to his own actions.

Supporters of Mr. Watkins, including vice chair Daniel Silver and former chairmen Tom Luna and Trent Clark seized this false narrative in an apparent attempt to delegitimize the process. They failed.

To be a member of the Idaho Republican Party you must be an Idaho qualified elector (registered voter) who is affiliated with the Republican Party. If you die, change parties, resign or move out of state you are no longer a member of the Idaho GOP, not because you are thrown out, but because you leave. When such a vacancy occurs, it is up to the SCC to fill that vacancy.

At the Special Meeting, clear and convincing evidence was presented that supported the conclusion that the office of National Committeeman was vacant. However, Mr. Watkins gave tearful testimony assuring the committee members that he indeed still lived in Idaho. In an abundance of fairness, the SCC voted to direct the chairman to appoint a committee to investigate this matter and make a report at the following meeting.

Madam Chairman Moon appointed respect attorney Christ Troupis to chair the committee investigating this matter. Mr. Troupis set about collecting evidence to compile for his report. One of the pieces of evidence was a cell phone video taken one week after the SCC meeting of a computer monitor displaying a zoom meeting where Mr. Watkins was again giving testimony as to where he lived. This testimony directly contradicted his prior testimony.

In consideration for his years of service to the party, Mr. Watkins was given the option of officially resigning which would answer the question of whether the office was vacant and eliminate the need for the report to be released. Mr. Watkins wisely accepted the offer and resigned. The resignation was announced at the SCC meeting and the report postponed indefinitely.

Unfortunately Mr. Watkins and his supporters were not satisfied with this result and began a disinformation campaign claiming that Mr. Watkins was “coerced” with threats, that Madam Chairman Moon was a political “gadfly,” that she was attempting to “purge” the party and even that the SCC convention where she was elected in a landslide was “illegitimate” because too many of her supporters had volunteered and were elected to be delegates. Former chairmen Luna and Clark even sent a letter to the National Party asking them to ignore Mr. Watkins’ resignation. The RNC counselor’s office was not impressed.

The resignation triggered the need for a special meeting to elect a new National Committeeman and that meeting was held last Saturday. At that meeting I made a motion to release the Special Committee report on the status of the National Committeeman office. My reason was that the accusations against our chairman and the legitimacy of the process needed the full truth to be known. My motion was ruled out of order as the report had been postponed indefinitely effectively making it unavailable for release.

Mr. Clark made a motion to not release the results of the National Committeeman election until the Judicial Committee had conducted a full review. This was a ridiculous motion because the Judicial Committee is inferior to the SCC so it would be like saying the Supreme Court can’t release their decision until a lower court reviews and approves it. Also, Mr. Clark’s motion would have left the office vacant until the end of the term; perhaps his true objective. His motion failed with only a handful of supporters.

The committee went on to nominate and elect by unanimous acclamation Bryan Smith as National Committeeman.

One would think that is the end of the story. It is not. Apparently whoever made the recording of the Zoom meeting was not satisfied with Mr. Watkins being generously given an honorable way out only to later claim he was forced, so they released the damming video on Social Media. Artifacts in the video indicate that it was apparently made with a camera pointing at monitor displaying a zoom meeting. Recording with single party knowledge is legal in Idaho.

In full disclosure, I did not have a copy of the report but I did hear rumors as to what it contained. This is why I did attempt to have the full report with the video released so that the false allegations could be countered. I was unsuccessful. Even if I had a copy I would not have released it without SCC approval as it was not mine to release.

Now that the video has been released we can see why it is so damming. One week after tearfully testifying that he lived in Idaho Mr. Watkins was solemnly testifying before members of his church where he said “This is the first time I have had the opportunity to share my testimony from this pulpit since moving into the ward nearly a year ago” and later goes on to say “We pulled our roots out of Idaho and planted them in Oak Ridge (North Carolina).”

It is my experience that when liars get caught they often have rabbling, convoluted rationalizations, explanations or denials. Usually these only make things worse. Mr. Watkins and his supporters put their credibility on the line in a dangerous gambit against the truth and lost. Countless hours and thousands of dollars that could have been invested in Idaho's future have been wasted on a handful of egos. They irreparably damaged their own reputations and, more importantly, that of the party they claim to serve.