JACKSON, Miss. – What were three Chris McDaniel supporters doing in the Hinds County Courthouse at two in the morning after everyone left on election night? That is what a lot of people are asking today, not just in Mississippi, but across the country. The Hinds County Sheriff’s Department was investigating and looking over video footage at the courthouse but have since closed the case.
This statement released by the Chris McDaniel campaign Thursday explains why Janis Lane, Scott Brewster, and Rob Chambers were at the courthouse:
“Last night with an extremely close election and Hinds being one of the last counties to report, our campaign sent people to the Hinds courthouse to obtain the outstanding numbers and observe the count.
In doing so, they entered the courthouse through an open door after being directed by uniformed personnel. They were then locked inside the building. At this point they sat down and called the county Republican chairman, a close Cochran ally, to help them get out. Eventually a Sheriff’s officer showed up and opened the door to let them out.
The Clarion-Ledger reported the following: “Sheriff’s Department spokesman Othor Cain said today there was never a threat to any ballots or anything, all of those were already secured.”
Predictably, a close Cochran ally wants to make hay out of this. Sadly, the Cochran campaign wants to make this election about anything but issues. Mississippians deserve better than this sort of distraction politics.”
Othor Cain, spokesperson for the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office, says “beyond a shadow of a doubt” no one from the Hinds County Sheriff’s Department
“I would like for the McDaniel Campaign to identify the uniformed personnel officer that let them in. That seems to be far stretched, it seems to be a fabrication of facts and a total misrepresentation of the truth. Here is what I will tell you, the Hinds County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for securing that building. That building is secured during normal business hours. That’s when we provide security for that building. During an election cycle, the Hinds County Election Commissioners will typically hire off duty officers to assist them with after-hours work. That building was locked down at 11:30 pm on Tuesday, and at that time that concluded all the counting of ballots until everybody vacated that building.”
Cain says there are several that do have access to that building like employees and attorneys, but he highly doubts that any of them were in a uniform.
