The Truth Is Out There Except It’s Not What Ruth Johnson Wants To Hear

Steve Dibert, MFI-Miami

“People who claim that they’re evil are usually no worse than the rest of us… It’s people who claim that they’re good, or any way better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.”  -Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

In 2010, when she ran for Michigan Secretary of State, Ruth Johnson vigorously campaigned for opening up government and for more government integrity.  Subjects that makes voters feel warm and fuzzy on the inside because it makes them safe that someone is trying to keep government accountable and it proved to be an ideal campaign strategy.

During her campaign, Johnson constantly accused her Democratic opponent Jocelyn Benson of “shadowy deceit” by trying to link her to the ringleaders of the fake Tea Party fiasco created by the leadership of the Oakland County Democratic Party.  The Michigan Republican Party even went so far as to run ads against Jocelyn Benson accusing her of being behind the “fake signatures” from the OCDP’s Tea Party.

As I wrote in April of 2011, When Johnson wasn’t painting Benson as a leftist militant who wanted to undermine state government,  she constantly pounded her chest preaching about government integrity.   However, what Johnson wasn’t telling people is that the law firm owned by one of her major political contributors, Linda and Alison Orlans of Orlans Associates, a multi-state foreclosure mill, was filing thousands of  foreclosure affidavits and mortgage assignments with forged signatures in Oakland County during her tenure as Clerk.

Not only has MFI-Miami discovered documents containing fraudulent attorney signatures and robo-signing but fraudulent notary signatures as well.  Nearly 70% of of the affidavits filed by Orlans or E-title contain signatures of the notary that do not match their signatures on file with the state of Michigan.  Orlans also didn’t just contain their fraud to Michigan, they spread this poison like the Ebola virus to Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island.

When MFI-Miami discovered this pandemic of notary fraud, we immediately informed Ruth Johnson’s office of this as we did in 2009 and 2010 when she was Oakland County Register of Deeds when we discovered forged and robo-signed affidavits bearing Marshall Isaacs’ signature.

What was Ruth Johnson’s response? Well in October of last year, she held a major fundraiser at the posh estate of Linda Orlans that brought in nearly $50,000 for her 2014 re-election campaign.

Ruth Johnson has now jumped on the new GOP craze of voter suppression by requiring counties to require voters to sign an affidavit swearing they are U.S. citizens.

How does she use as justification for wanting to play the X-Files Agent Scully of voter fraud? She believes there are nearly 4000 registered voters in Michigan who are not U.S citizens.

Let’s put aside her Joe McCarthy-style fear mongering and her hypocrisy of accusing Democrats of crimes that she seems perfectly comfortable with when they are committed on a much larger scale by one of her major donors.  Instead, let’s look at it from the angle of who responsible for allowing these alleged 4000 scofflaws to vote.

Let us assume Johnson is correct and there are 4000 non-citizen voters out there hell bent on destroying America.  First, why wasn’t Johnson concerned about this as Oakland Clerk for nearly a decade or when she ran for Secretary of State in 2010? Simple, minority turnout is expected to be high this year for two reasons.  One, because African-Americans and Latinos vote in larger numbers in Presidential election years and two, because you have the first President of African descent up for re-election.

If Johnson is correct and there are 4000 non-citizens on the voter rolls then as the former Oakland County Clerk, Johnson is responsible for 490 of these evil-doers illegally being allowed to vote since Oakland County accounts for 12.25% of the voters in Michigan and by Johnson’s own comment that “many people signed up to vote (most probably accidentally) before 2008 when secretary of state branches were required to ask customers if they wanted to register to vote.”

You would think if she had these concerns as the Oakland County Clerk, she would have done her job and disqualified these voters prior to 2008.  She didn’t.

The truth is there is has not been a case of voter fraud recorded in Michigan in nearly hundred years and Ruth Johnson is using this Joe McCarthy style campaign as a scare tactic to suppress minority voting and she using this as a smoke screen to reflect attention away from the illegal activity going on by one of her major donors. Michigan voters need to heed convicted white collar fraudster, Sam Antar’s advice when it comes to Ruth Johnson:

“White collar crime is more brutal than violent crime. The actions of one or a few corrupt public officials and corrupt businessmen affect the livelihoods of thousands of people. Treat them with the same disdain as we do treat serial killers because white collar criminals are economic predators.”    -Sam Antar