>> welcome back.

We have mark Brewer and that's our lead story, alleged fraud and nominating petitions for Perry Johnson and James crank.

We have stellar Hugh and Jim Kiertzner, "off of record."

And now, this edition of off the record.

>> Thank you very much and welcome back and great to be back with you and our thanks to Chuck for holding down the fort so my lovely bride and I could get R & R and if this alleged story turns out to be true, the impact of the governor's race on a scale of one to ten, miss Clark is a?

>> 9.9999.

>> At least you're consistent.

[ Laughter ] >> Stella.

>> That and 00000.

>> It's off the chart.

>> This is a game changer and here is what's going on.

>> Former state democratic mark brewer alleges that when republican candidate for governor James Craig turns in over 21,000 petition signatures and he needed 15,000 to get on the ballot, although seven thousand names were fraudulent and Mr. Craig's name should not go on the state-wide ballot and three days late, the attorney for the Detroit police chief filed a rebuttal suggesting there may have been some forgeries and not enough to end Mr. Craig's campaign and quote, despite the potential effort of groups of circulate es to defraud the campaign, it's our belief the petition remains valid.

The circulators did not write in a sufficient number of false signatures to erase the comfortable cushion of extra names and 490 of the signatures that Mr. brewer questioned were valid after all and the chair disagrees.

He's confident he's got the proof to kick Craig off the ballot.

>> I filed 200 pages of evidence, Tim, of forgery two weeks ago.

It's obvious, it's open, and it's more than enough to disqualify Craig and Johnson.

>> Referring to another republican candidate, Perry Johnson, and another returnee challenging his signatures and alleging that not enough were filed.

Mr. Johnson's attorney asserts the allegation, quotes, points to a signature filed by the circulators and speculation is not enough to validate signatures and campaign strategist dismisses all of this as, quote, Partisan and attempts to stop Johnson's bid for governor.

The state board will have to sort this out when it huddles on May 26th if they find enough signatures were filed, the two are on the ballot.

If they didn't, they're out of luck.

>> So where is this story headed.

>> Well, that will depend on, I think, these campaign's response and the state board of canvasser's decision and we will know for sure whether the people will remain on the ballot, which, I think, would be a tremendous -- would have a tremendous impact on the governor's race.

>> I don't know we've seen anything like this in recent memory if even one gets knocked off of the ballot.

The last thing I can remember is McConnor for Congress and for three candidates, state-wide, you know, a couple of whom seem to be top-tier candidates or that's what we've been lead to believe, right?

This is fascinating and I think it goes to show, I mean, is it political novices running these campaigns?

What is going onto let this happen?

It's astounding.

>> That's the starting gate for this horse race.

They're coming up to the gate.

Do they get through and enter the race?

That's number one.

I had a prominent republican, you had a former police chief and the quality guru, Perry Johnson and where is quality control and how can this happen?

It's laughable.

>> Let's make it clear, the board will not have the final word.

Do we assume that somebody is in the courts?

The supremes will decide this election out.

>> Except for the fact we're looking at a tight timeline and there's a meeting on May 26th and ballots need to get printed.

60 days is June 3rd, looking at the August 2nd primary.

>> It's going to be a tight window.

>> It's going to be a tight window.

>> As long we're talking about unprecedented, can you remember a campaign basically conceding some of the signatures were fraudulent?

>> Well, and you'll have the guests on, but the facts are the facts and they have to address them and issue the apology, issue that and it was shoddy within their campaign.

>> Mr.

Brewer made the point earlier Stella, if you're a candidate running for governor, you need 15,000 signatures and he's a Democrat and looking for fodder to use against the republicans, but what against his argument and what does this say if you can't do this?

>> Well, I think, yeah, I mean, for the campaign, I think, you know, from my perspective we see this trend that more and more campaigns are using paid signature gathers instead of volunteers.

There's basically this industry and this year everybody is struggling.

>> Excellent point.

Money is to be made at 20 bucks a name.

And that's 40 bucks.

>> Up to $20 apiece according to my interview with one of the professional companies and so, I think, you know, for them, there's an incentive, obviously, to gather as many signatures so that you can make money and it shows how, you know, unregulated this industry might be under the state law the fact they can't do this.

>> The other issue that can be raised that if fraud is discovered and validated, is anybody punished?

>> So on these -- when the candidates turn in the signatures, right, they're signing their names, that they are attesting these are accurate signatures and chief Craig, although in his response, the lawyers called him chief Clark in the legal documents -- >> This is an attorney from Missouri, so we'll cut him some slack.

And it says something, doesn't it?

>> And that, I think, again, goes into this idea of, like, how much care is being taken into what really is the foundation of running, you know, especially, a state-wide gubernatorial campaign.

>> It's not a deal killer for a candidate, but the kind of story you don't want out there.

>> You don't want it out there, but, again, if they don't environment cushion of signatures to get passed the ones that are tossed out, they're not on the ballot, number one.

Number two, you asked the question about ramifications and this goes to criminal intent.

Is there a criminal intent and any attorney will tell you, you have to establish -- I'm not an attorney, but any attorney will tell you -- >> You played one on TV.

>> -- is there criminal intent?

No, you're not an attorney.

>> The Tudor Dixon issue is different.

>> Hers is a date.

>> On each of the petition pages, there's a different date of the end of the gubernatorial term and that's not about the signatures, but the actual what is written on the petition.

>> Is that enough to toss her out?

>> In one case it was.

Look, I don't know.

>> Is that a clerical error?

[ Laughter ] >> The old clerical error.

>> We had a debate in Howell and what was the take away and maybe the lead was of who was not there.

>> So the lead was that in the last minutes, you know, that day, chief James Craig dropped out.

Now he's saying -- >> He agreed to do it.

he's saying there's a scheduling issue and for weeks you're going and all of a sudden there's a scheduling conflict -- >> Does anybody in this town believe that?

>> I haven't talked to every person in this town, but I think most people are going, well, that's convenient and looking at, you know, all of these candidates, there are ten, again, candidates and eight there -- I was there and it ended.

And there are eight of these candidates and everyone needs to break through.

The next part of your question, what was the main theme?

I took away the fact that the loudest, the shouting, which there was about whether or not Donald Trump won the election in 2020 in Michigan.

And that continues to be the litmus test.

The loudest hollers at the candidates who wouldn't say yes or no.

People shouting, say yes or no.

>> Mr. Rinky said I don't know.

>> Uh-huh, and most interesting and you and I talked about Perry Johnson looking for the trump endorsement and Perry Johnson did not say yet.

He said folks, we don't know enough and do our due diligence and didn't say yes or no and that got the crowd, that got the crowd riled up.

>> You said the last time I was on this broadcast with you that Johnson is getting the trump endorsement.

>> I did say that, didn't I?

Didn't we erase that tape?

[ Laughter ] >> We'll hold you accountable.

>> All I can tell you what I was told and timing is everything.

>> Does this change now?

I wasn't there, but I read the accounts and the line of the night was from Mike brown on this issue, where after they did that survey, looks to me like a bunch of fish floppin' on the dock, right?

>> To that point, Mike brown said no, he said no.

He didn't say yes.

>> He took a position.

>> He took a position of no.

And that was interesting.

Any of the candidates said no, because Garrett said he is still my president, right?

>> You know those lines are rehearsed, right, for these big events.

>> The Democrats allegedly repaying somebody not to get signatures and what was that story all about?

>> I must give Craig Maulger of the Detroit news, he did break that story.

A paid petitioner was filing this complaint against protect my vote, which is one of the liberal groups that are working against secure my vote and so in my complaints, he claimed he did not know, he was, in fact, for protect my vote and never had communications with the firm that hired him until he found out this firm was paid by protect my vote and if February of '22, he received a letter saying hey, I think you're gathering signatures for secure my vote and you violated my contract and we have to throw you out.

>> This is the allegation, what were the D's up to?

>> So basically, the allegation was protect my vote was buying out circulators secretly so they would not work for secure my vote.

>> They were trying to gain the system, the concept.

>> Yeah.

>> Here we go again and this petition thing is a huge story all the way around.

>> It goes back to the money and, again, the lack, as you've reported on, of folks to actually be out there.

Although very quickly one of the other things that dropped, of course, in terms of gathering signatures is the abortion petition, right, to repeal the 1931 law, and, of course, all of this is happening because of this possibility of this leaked opinion of Roe v. Wade from the Supreme Court.

And planned parenthood suddenly got tens of thousands of volunteers unpaid signing up.

So it's interesting to see where you can get that sort of interest from folks to come out and actually get signatures signed without being paid per signature.

>> We're interested to see what our guests have to say and let's welcome to off the record a state Democrat and thank you for doing off the record for the 3,000th time, sir.

>> Good to see you.

>> You heard the response from the Craig campaign yesterday saying, eh, there may have been fraud and we have enough names and you thought?

>> Well, we challenged nearly seven thousand signatures with 200 pages of evidence of forgery.

We challenged almost three thousand signatures beyond that, Tim.

So this mask of evidence of an incredibly defective petition process.

You know, we had round Robinning of signatures and compared these to previous petitions and they don't match and we have circulators of under-circulators and this process is so rifeed with forgery and fraud, there's no way that Craig gets on the ballot.

And then there's a Domino effect because many of the circulators were used by Perry Johnson.

I believe there are thousands and thousands of signatures there which were gathered by the same crew and nobody was minding the kitchen and all of this was done and there was no oversight or worse, if these two candidates knew this was going on and did it, there may be criminal liability for them once they blew it off the ballot.

>> The attorneys for Mr. Craig were stretching the truth?

>> That's no surprise.

We did research on his attorney and it turns out, he was one of the lawyers that brought one of the big lawsuits back here in 2020, so he has gone from defending the big lie about the election to the big forgery of James Craig.

So it didn't surprise me when we discovered that and so desperate we could not find a Michigan attorney to defend the forgery on this scale.

I'm in law and politics in the state since the late '70s and have never seen anything this massive and compelling.

James Greg won't make the plot and nor should Perry Johnson.

>> What about the Tudor Dixon issue and the length or the day of what that gubernatorial term would be is wrong?

I mean, what her campaign is saying is look, even on the state's own website, right, it has the end date as the same that she had?

Is that in your mind that should knock her off the ballot?

>> The law in Michigan is very strict in terms of the contents of a petition.

The heading on all of her petitions are misleading because that date is wrong.

And as Tim pointed out a little bit ago, that's a basis to knock candidates off the ballot in the past.

The same standard should be applied to our petitions.

>> Follow-up?

>> What does that look like to you if you suddenly knocked three of what, you know, are sort of these top tier candidates and what happens next from your point of view?

You've run the democratic side of races.

>> I'm a lawyer trying to hold these candidates accountable to the law and that's what's going to happen here and we'll have to see how this all plays out.

This was never a group of top tier candidates to begin with.

At best, we're third tier candidates and it looks like three of them may fall as a result and, I mean, this is terrible, full of conspiracy theories and this would have been a joke for the republicans and it is joke this time because nobody of stature in the republican party willing to stand up for that party.

So much corruption and the fighting and chaos in the republican party in Michigan.

Who would wants to defend what's going on with Lee Chatfield and Ron wiser, to get them off the plot and the conspiracy theories we hear daily?

I mean, nobody wants to be associated with that and nobody with any stature in the republican party.

So we are left with this set of dwarfs and three should get kicked off.

>> Hey, mark, so, yeah, the Johnson campaign has said that, you know, the state board of canvassers scrutiny on the signatures or review would be, quote, a complete waste of state resources because the numbers challenged were not enough to off-set the cushion they have built and what do you make of it?

>> They're wrong.

Look, what will happen here or what should happen is that every signature on the Johnson and Craig petitions should be scrutinized and the state has the ability to do that and that's what they're doing and compare every signature.

I think the forgery that we uncovered is just the tip of the iceberg.

I've seen these circulators in action before and I suspected forgery and some way to go after them.

Here we now have it.

There were eight or more and if they were so eager to get on the ballot and no oversight of this petition-gathering effort and here we are with massive forgery on both sets of petitions.

>> Are the candidates criminally culpable or the people who worked for them?

They're the ones who committed the alleged fraud.

>> Well, the circulators, the forgers are.

A step at a time.

These candidates should not be qualified and kicked off and then there needs to be an investigation.

There needs to be a referral to the attorney general and what do these candidates know and when do they know it and the same thing is true of their stats.

What do the staff know and when do they know it?

Do they turn a blind eye to this forgery even though they know what was going on?

Were they careless and did they not effect these forgers before they hired him.

People have to be held accountable and this means they cannot only be on the ballot but criminal punishment here if this massive forgery exists.

>> You are predicting we will see perp walks?

>> I'm not predicting anything.

I will tell you that there's massive forgery in these campaigns and these candidates should not be on the ballot and then we'll see what the investigation brings.

What do these candidates know and when do they know it and what should they have done to put in safeguards in place so this did not happen.

There needs to be personal responsibility here.

>> Mark, you said more forgery and the tip of the iceberg and should we expect more, more from you before even the August primary in terms of other issues you may bring up and in terms of fraud?

>> You know, if we uncover the evidence of fraud or forgery in this campaign or others -- I mean, look -- >> Are you looking into others?

>> They're full of flawed candidates and running people with the insurrection on January 6th and people who showed up at the capitol on December of 2020 to capacity electoral votes.

This is a party full of crooks and criminals and insurrectionists.

>> Let me ask you this and answer Zoey's question and turning into in 200 pages of evidence.

Did you have investigators out and how did you gather the evidence?

>> We examined the petitions.

This fraud and this forgery is so obvious and you can look through the petitions as we did and you can see the similar handwriting on page after page after page.

>> How many people worked on this for your case?

>> Yeah, we had a crew of folks including myself who went over these petitions in a limited time to do it and assembled all of the evidence we could in the seven days that we had and it's clearly enough, more than enough so that every signature in both of these campaigns needs to be examined for forgery.

>> You said earlier that the republicans haven't said anything and the fact of the matter is the big funders are raising money to take on the trump people in the legislative races and don't they get points for that.

>> Long overdue and Betsy was trump's education secretary and enabled trump and better late than never and I hope they are successful in taking their party back and right now, it's nothing but a bunch of authoritarian insurrectionists.

Our democracy can't function without two political parties responsible and we do not have that in a responsible party now and we'll see how long Ron wiser can last and his establishment friends are with Betsy and a party run by Maddock and how long does wiser put up with this and associate with all of this.

I think this is coming to the republican party.

>> Is Joe Biden a liability for republican or democratic candidates running in Michigan?

>> No, absolutely not.

He's done as amazing job.

>> 39% in the polls and he's a plus?

>> After all of the chaos of the trump years -- look at all of the great things and the aid from the states and all of the things done and no, he's not a negative at all for the Democrats.

I'll tell you what is a negative, is a negative for the republicans is the abortion issue.

Roe v. Wade overturned and the United States Supreme Court for republican appointees taking away millions and millions of women in Michigan and throughout this country and they are not going to sit still for that, and nor will many people like me and that, I think, is a big factor in the fall elections.

>> Should President Biden campaign with governor whitmer?

Should he come and campaign?

>> If that's what they choose to do.

>> We need to talk about the