I would call it scandalous that local government officials in Utah were donating taxpayer funds to a third party that sought to challenge the sovereignty of the federal government, but we can all enjoy a brief moment of schadenfreude as it appears local officials were swindled by a con man.
A government accountability watchdog has filed complaints against Utah state Representative Ken Ivory (R) for conning local officials out of taxpayer funds for that purpose.
The complaints, filed by the Campaign for Accountability (CfA), request that the attorneys general of Utah, Arizona and Montana investigate state Rep. Ken Ivory (R) for “solicit[ing] funds from local officials, falsely claiming the federal government can be forced to transfer public lands to the states.” The complaints cite Ivory’s use of his role as president and founder of the American Lands Council (ALC), a Utah-based organization, to “enrich” his personal wealth and make “false or fraudulent representations to obtain money.”
Ivory reportedly tells local government officials that they can increase their revenue by giving him money. Ivory claims he can use the (taxpayer) money to force the federal government to give them land, but obviously that is not true.
According to CfA, Ivory claims that the federal government has “no legal right to the land,” and that the “return of the land would be a financial boon to the states.”
This would not be quite as controversial if Ivory were just the president of what is more or less a political lobbying organization, but he's also a sitting state lawmaker.
One can only feel so much sympathy for local taxpayers in this situation as they happily elect anti-government frauds to run the government.
We're shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!