Below is the transcript of Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Shortsleeve’s press conference delivered today at the Massachusetts State House regarding the recent Ballot Law Commission decision involving fraudulent nomination signatures and subsequent comments by Massachusetts Republican Party leaders and gubernatorial candidate Mike Minogue.
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“For years, Republicans have said election integrity matters.
We were right.
So when the Ballot Law Commission found that roughly 1,200 fraudulent signatures had been submitted by the other Republican Lieutenant Governor campaigns, this should have been easy. The evidence was overwhelming: identical handwriting, signatures from deceased people, and page after page copied in the exact same order. What’s even more troubling is that candidates had been warned in writing by the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s office that these signatures appeared to be fraudulent. Despite that warning, they were submitted anyway. This wasn’t a close call. It wasn’t politics. It was fraud.
In fact, it is the largest known ballot fraud case in Massachusetts history.
The MassGOP knew these signatures were fraudulent and chose to do nothing.
Republicans should have condemned it immediately.
Instead, Mike Minogue and leaders of the MassGOP attacked me and my running mate, Shawn Oliver. Mike Minogue went so far to say that calling out signature fraud was ‘shameful.’
Think about that.
Not the fraud.
Not the cheating.
Not the people responsible.
Instead, they attack the candidates who had the courage to say fraud is wrong no matter who is doing it.
That tells you everything.
This has never been about principle. It’s about protecting the political establishment.
When the establishment put its thumb on the scale for Mike Minogue at the convention, they thought we’d disappear.
We didn’t.
When they demanded I get out of the race, they thought I’d fold.
I didn’t.
Now they’re asking Republicans to ignore election fraud because it’s one of their own.
I won’t. And the hypocrisy being demonstrated by Minogue and his MassGOP minions will do lasting damage to the Republican Party’s attempts to improve election security and generate more confidence in election outcomes.
Mike Minogue calls himself an outsider.
That’s laughable.
Outsiders don’t have the party establishment trying to clear the field for them. Mike Minogue isn’t fighting the establishment. He is the establishment.
And this isn’t the first time he’s acted like the rules don’t apply to him.
During his time at Abiomed, the company received repeated FDA warning letters over the marketing of the Impella heart pump. It later paid $3.1 million to settle Department of Justice allegations that it provided lavish dinners, alcohol and other perks to physicians in an illegal kickback scheme. In short, he was cheating. Breaking the rules for his own profit at the expense of patients.
Now he’s defending verified election fraud because it stands to benefit him.
These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re part of a pattern.
I’ve said from the first day of this campaign: if I see waste, I’ll expose it. If I see fraud, I’ll call it out. If I see abuse, I’ll stop it.
I don’t care whether it comes from Democrats or Republicans.
My principles don’t change based on whose name is on the paperwork. My principles don’t change based on whose name is on the paperwork. Apparently the MassGOP’s do.
This incident raises serious questions about how Minogue would handle fraud and corruption as governor. He likes to talk about audits, but when these signatures were audited and found to be fraudulent, he defended the fraud.
Will he also cover up and defend corruption in state government if it is on his watch? It certainly seems so. And if that is the case, we will have traded a Democrat governor who ignores fraud and corruption for a Republican governor who does the same.
Republicans deserve a nominee who believes election integrity is a serious enough issue that it is worth defending. Republicans deserve a nominee who means it when he says audit everything and put fraudsters in jail.
And that’s exactly the kind of governor I’ll be. Mike Minogue has proven he will look the other way.
I hope Mike Minogue will rethink the consequences of his defense of election fraud, and join me and our de facto lieutenant governor nominee and my running mate, Shawn Oliver, in condemning this election fraud.
Thank you.”
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