Kelly Sackett and Melissa Pehlis: 2 female Michigan GOP panel members scuffle amid internal party feud over state leader
LANSING, MICHIGAN: A scuffle that broke between the two female Michigan GOP committee members has gone viral on social media. Last Friday, April 14, the internal tension within the state party came out after Kalamazoo Republican Party Chair Kelly Sackett and Macomb County GOP Secretary Melissa Pehlis got physical on a patio of the Doherty Hotel in Clare. The altercation escalated and Sackett knocked a cigarette and phone from Pehlis’s grip. The latter retaliated by swinging an open hand aimed at Sackett’s head. A man present at the scene tried to intervene and separate the two politicians.
As per local media, the police were called to the bar after the incident and Sackett filed an official complaint. The physical scuffle started because of an ongoing rivalry within the state party involving the followers of new state GOP Chair Kristina Karamo and Matthew DePerno, an attorney who contested against Karamo for the position. DePerno told Bridge Michigan, “There's big internal disputes within the party right now, and Karamo has done nothing to bring the party together. And how could she after she won on a platform for the chair divide the party? Her platform was to burn it down to eliminate the people who don't agree with her.”
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'Working to ‘purge’ Karamo loyalists'
The Friday incident also highlights the apparent accusation that Kalamazoo County GOP officials are actively working to ‘purge’ Karamo loyalists from positions of power. One of the members from the Macomb County GOP leadership team that supports Karamo, Pehlis said, Sackett removed the Karamo-supporting group delegated from their positions last week.
Karamo supporters also alleged that Sackett and DePerno are doing their best to get rid of anyone who opposes them.
Karamo is the first black woman to chair the Michigan Republican party
In a court filing, DePerno alleges that the members are part of a group of 'anarchist-minded delegates' in the Kalamazoo Republican Party.’ He added that they ‘are focused not on raising money and winning elections, but on pushing a 'radical agenda through a 'Christian only' cult mentality that will 'purify' the party,' as per the Daily Mail.
Karamo, who is the first black woman to chair the Michigan Republican party, won the state GOP chairmanship while she refuses to concede the 2022 Michigan Secretary of State election. She lost that by a huge margin of over 600,000 votes.
