Mike Braun Refuses to Condemn Diego Morales as Indiana GOP Power Struggle Explodes Ahead of Convention

I have a column coming out this week in the Indy Star, in which I'm going to do a deep dive on the years of brazen corruption from Indiana's secretary of state and the ridiculous flip flopping from the power structure of the Indiana Republican Party, trying to get rid of him, and how they are not trying to hold Diego Morales accountable, rather just trying to sweep him under the rug. But let's start with, let's ignore the past almost four years of brazen corruption. And let's start with what's happened here in the last couple of weeks. Okay. So, in the lead up to the last couple of weeks, numerous elected and appointed officials across the state of Indiana had endorsed Diego Morales’ run for reelection. And that includes most prominently Jim Banks and Todd Rokita.

Mike Braun Declines to Take Sides as Diego Morales Controversy Intensifies

Now, a couple of weeks ago, a story began to emerge that Diego Morales had employed a woman in his office by the name of Elina Kupce, and that that woman was not a citizen of the United States. And not only was she not a citizen of the United States, but she had illegally registered to vote. That story appears to have been played out, certainly affirmed by Jim Banks, United States senator, in pulling his endorsement. He claimed Morales lied to him about her citizenship status. On top of that, the state treasurer, Daniel Elliott, came out late last week and said not only was she a non-citizen, but she was illegally in the country. Now no one has, to my knowledge, been able to locate Elina Kupce. We do not know if she is actually still in the country or what she's doing now. Upon the news breaking by Abdul Hakim-Shabazz of IndyPolitics.org. The story broke from Abdul that this woman, a non-citizen, had risen to the level of deputy chief of staff in the Secretary of State's office. We began to see a flood of endorsers, previous endorsers leave Diego Morales and line up behind a guy by the name of Max Engling. Max Engling is an official in the office of Senator Jim Banks. And what is laughable is these people, and when you put their endorsements side by side, they're almost verbatim. It's almost like they just hit copy and paste. See Diego. See Engling endorsement. And these people who for years, who have known exactly what Diego Morales is, have done this with no shame whatsoever. No, no, in many cases, no acknowledgement that there was a flip flop. And if there was an acknowledgement, there was a flip flop. It was just like, well, you know, these things happen, right? You know, I endorsed him. Now I endorse this guy. Ah, whatever. Bygones be bygones. We're on to Engling now. And the party in a unified voice. The power structure in a unified voice has tried to anoint Engling as some sort of Reagan type of figure who will single handedly cure all the ills that ail the Republic. On Friday, I think it was Friday. All these days run together. I think it was Friday. Diego came out amid rumors that he was going to drop out of the race, that he was going to drop out of running for re-election for secretary of state and told the entire group of people who have turned against him to smooch both of his butt cheeks. And he was staying in the race, and he would take his campaign to the convention and would leave it up to the delegates to decide. Because don't forget, Diego is sitting on $1 million to run at this convention, and you can burn a lot of houses down with $1 million.

Republican Leaders Move Away From Diego Morales After Years of Public Support

Okay, so that brings us to the governor. So the governor got asked late last week about what he was going to do now, about what he thought about Diego Morales, what he thought about the new entry into the race, what he thought about Rokita and Banks and the rest of these people leaving the Morales campaign. And here's what he had to say. According to the Indiana Capital Chronicle, he said, I'm staying out of it. You got to give Braun a whole lot of credit, right? Like four years of brazen corruption from Indiana Secretary of State and Braun said that doesn't bother me in the least. I'm staying out of it. Quote. He said he's going to respect the process. Would I like the process that invites criticism if it's necessary? Different viewpoints. In this case, that's a stance I've taken from the beginning. That's why I don't need to adjust where I'm at now. Now it's one thing not to endorse somebody in a race. That's certainly fine. And since most of these guys end up being colossal failures, probably usually the best move. But we're not talking about a normal case here. We're talking about a secretary of state who controls everything from elections to businesses to auto dealers. I mean, the secretary of state in the state of Indiana is probably the second most important office. And for the last four years, it has been one scandal after another for Diego Morales. Whether it's the ten day mysterious trip to India where he won't say who paid for it, and we know Raju Chinthala, who has this $80,000 taxpayer funded contract with Diego's office, is bragging about being in India with Diego on this trip, which was labeled as official business, by the way. There's no wiggle room on this. The India trip by Diego's office was said to be official business on some sort of mysterious economic development mission, which is weird because the Secretary of State has no economic development authority. But you have a guy in India. We don't know what he was doing. We know he claimed some sort of economic development mission. He brings the guy with him who has an $80,000 taxpayer contract, but we don't know what he does. And that guy is bragging about selling visa access while he's on the trip with Diego in the city we know Diego met with the mayor. That wasn't enough to get Braun to speak out. We know Diego spent $90,000 of taxpayer money on an automobile. That wasn't enough to get Braun to speak out and reject Diego. We know Diego gave a six figure salary to his brother-in-law. That wasn't enough to get Braun to speak out. We know Diego gave massive no bid contracts to mega donors of his campaign. That wasn't enough to get Braun to speak out. We know Diego used taxpayer funds, taxpayer resources to produce a campaign commercial, which he refused to take down, which has now been forwarded by the Marion County Election Board to the inspector general for an investigation. That wasn't enough to get Braun to speak out. And now we know that Diego Morales had a mysterious non-citizen of the United States as his deputy chief of staff, which we don't know what this person did. Oh, and by the way, according to the state treasurer, that person was also in the country illegally. And even that isn't enough to get Braun to speak out. Braun is acting like this is like some sort of normal convention fight where you have above board people running. We don't. You have a brazenly corrupt individual who for four years has thumbed his nose at the people of the state of Indiana. And Braun still won't say, hey, this guy's totally out of bounds. Vote for whoever you want. Don't vote for Diego. You want to know why? Because of money. When you do a basic search of campaign finances for Mike Braun and Diego Morales, you're going to find a whole bunch of donors that cross over, a whole bunch of donors that give to the both of them. And Braun knows and has known from the beginning what Diego is. He doesn't want to deal with it because he doesn't want to risk implicating himself by association. They don't want Diego to go down. That is so key, guys. Over the past week, have you heard any of these people? Banks, Rokita, any of these party chairs, even Daniel Elliott, who I guess took it to the extent of asking for Morales to resign. But have any of these people asked for a criminal investigation from Ryan Mears, the Marion County prosecutor? Have any of them asked for an investigation from Indiana's inspector general? The answer is no. And the answer is no because these people, these power brokers, these prominent figures don't want the truth to come out. They just want Diego to go away. They don't want you to know what actually happened in India. Why? Because a lot of people who prop up Diego also prop them up. They don't want you to know half of the crap, a fraction of the crap that's going on with Diego, because they want the headache to go away. And the more that gets exposed, the better it makes it for Beau Bayh, the likely Democrat nominee, and for Greg Ballard, providing he gets the signatures to get on the ballot to run as an independent.

India Trip, No-Bid Contracts, and Ethics Questions Continue to Shadow Secretary of State Office

Look, they've admitted the scandals are bad, right? They've admitted the scandals are real bad. They won't tell you what the scandals actually are. Have you noticed that, too? When Rokita and Banks, now Banks tries to say it was because Diego lied to him about Elina Kupce, the noncitizen slash, I guess according to the state treasurer, person illegally in the country who was his deputy chief of staff, Banks wants you to believe that that was the last straw. Does any reasonable person actually think that's the case? The last straw was we can't hide the guy anymore. The last straw was, man, we really need to protect this guy because of all the money that flows through him. And we don't want to choke off the money, but we can't hide it anymore. They know the truth about Copsey, and they knew it was going to get out. And they knew that as much as they hate Abdul, he was spot on with his reporting. And so they said, we can't hide this guy anymore. We can't protect him anymore. We've got to cut bait. Now, it does tell you, it does tell you how just shameless these people are. I mean, they knew what Diego was for years. Everybody did. And what they do, they gaslit you. They looked you in the eye. Oh. Diego's great. Oh, Diego's a conservative. Oh, Diego's trying, fighting for the Trump agenda. America First, blah blah blah. They knew what he was. Nothing's changed. Nothing's changed in the past week. And by the way, as bad as it sounds that a noncitizen slash, I guess we'll say illegal immigrant, according to the state treasurer, was given access potentially or close proximity, at the very least, to personal information on millions of Hoosiers and thousands of businesses. That's probably not even scratching the surface on the worst thing Diego's done the past four years. This is what me being critical of India, me digging into India, me begging for help with India was all about. This guy, Diego Morales, has incredibly sketchy people in his orbit. Doubt me. Look at who he went to the NBA finals with. Diego Morales and Micah Beckwith accepted tickets to the NBA finals and went to the NBA finals with a guy who went down on federal charges for bribery. Bribery, guys, related to the public sector. The guy's life is my case file. The felon that they went to the NBA finals with reads like a CVS receipt. The number two and three elected officials in our state, the lieutenant governor and secretary of State, accepted lavish gifts from a guy who went down on federal bribery charges and not Braun, not Banks, not Rokita, not any of these people said a word. In fact, the only people who said a word was us, us and Abdul. These guys have known exactly what Diego is, and it is now laughable for them on a dime, 3 or 4 weeks before the convention, to flip flop and say, well, the scandals have become too much. Well, then what are you going to do about it? The answer is nothing. They're not trying to look. So many of these people are like, well, there's just no pleasing you. You said you wanted to get rid of Diego. Now we're trying to get rid of Diego, and it's not good enough, right? Because you're not trying to hold Diego accountable. We as taxpayers deserve to know what Diego's done because he has access to all of our personal information. If you're registered to vote, Diego Morales has access to your information. If you own a business, Diego Morales has access to your information. Yeah. Big deal. When a guy with that sort of access disappears to a foreign country for ten days and won't tell you what he did there or who he met with. Only things we know about India are what the Indians have posted. We know some of the events he went to, some of them certainly not ten days worth. We have no idea who he met with in totality. We have no idea where he stayed. We have no idea who he stayed with. We know I have no idea what he did. And again, guys, there was a person with an $80,000 taxpayer funded contract with Diego's office who they can't tell you what he did for the money, who was in India with Diego selling visa access, bragging about it in the same city Diego met with the mayor. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to start putting the red flags together, guys. So yeah, not good enough to simply say, well, we're supporting someone else now, but you're not holding this guy accountable. You're just trying to make him go away. And Braun, who told me a year and a half ago in our final meeting together, oh, that's being dealt with. Don't worry about it. Won't say anything. He's acting like it's some sort of normal convention fight. Like it's just a normal group of people getting together, picking their favorite candidate. This is not normal at all. The Republicans are frozen in fear because they're stuck. And I'm going to come back to that in a second. Do you guys ever notice when Braun speaks he can't ever human. Like he speaks. He says words. And then you try to put them together and you're like, what the hell did he just say? Listen to this quote. I've never made an endorsement, Braun said, according to the Capital Chronicle. I think the two individuals that changed their minds did. That's why I like transparency, competition, and the more choices you have, the better. I've gone through the two toughest campaigns, probably in the history of the state, running for Senate, running for governor. Each one of them, they were full of competition and choices from the primary through the general election. Okay, first of all, neither of Braun’s elections were conventions. They were like actual elections where people went in a primary and voted. But second of all, Mr. Governor, what about the brazen corruption? Screw the election. Screw the convention. What about the four years of brazen corruption and this guy, Diego Morales, in one shady position, one hanging out with one cast of shady characters after another. What about that? When do we get answers on that? The answers. The answers we don't. Because the answers would be very bad for the Republican Party, which is what this is all about. Look, two weeks ago I wrote that article in the Indy Star laying out exactly what is going to happen if Diego Morales is the nominee. And what is going to happen is if Greg Ballard is on the ballot as an independent, if he gets the signatures, there will be a flood of voters in central Indiana who one, still have a very high opinion of Ballard to begin with from his time as mayor of Indianapolis, and two, are fully aware of the numerous scandals surrounding Morales. See, that's the kicker, right? I did an interview yesterday. My friend Chuck Pullen has a show, morning show over on WJOB, which is up in the region in northwest Indiana. And he said, hey, would you come on and talk with our audience about the Diego saga? Because he said, we just, we don't get it up here. We don't get this news, we don't get this information. And so we spent about 30 minutes and I got done and I said, dude, there's no way to do Diego in 30 minutes. Like to take somebody from scratch, you guys, it's like building, right? Every day we talk about this. You guys have been engrossed in this. Many of you, the old WIBC listeners, for years. I don't have to set everything up every time. There's no way to even scratch the surface on Diego in 30 minutes. But the reality is, most of the damage to Diego Morales, if he is a general election candidate, will be done in central Indiana because the Indianapolis media has covered Diego. And there is, I mean, look, Greg Ballard will place ahead of Diego Morales in some counties if he's the nominee, certainly in Marion County. I think Greg Ballard will beat Diego Morales in Marion County. And so when you couple the likability of Ballard, the fond memories of Ballard by many people, with the just one bad headline after another with Diego, he will blow past the 10% necessary to get Ballard's new Lincoln Party primary ballot access, which then makes Ballard a colossal pain in the butt to Diego, not just to Diego in the election, but to the Republicans the next four years, because the Lincoln Party then will start recruiting good candidates, candidates that can fundraise, candidates that can run ads, establishment Republican figures that are just disaffected by the direction of the Republican Party. This won't be the libertarians. And I, you know, you guys know I have a great affinity for libertarians. But this will not be the Libertarian Party, guys. And as it relates to Secretary of State, if Ballard gets past that 10%, which he will, the majority of those votes are going to come from Morales, which means the Republicans will lose the office. It means Beau Bayh, if indeed he becomes the Democrat nominee, will become the next Secretary of State. And when I wrote that article two weeks ago, now the Republicans lost their mind. They do what they always do. They attack the messenger. They attack the platform. Oh, the liberal Indy Star. How far you've fallen, Rob Kendall. But what they do within a week's time, in a unified voice, they were calling for Diego to drop out of the race. Oh. Guess it. I guess there was a lot of accuracy in that message, wasn't it? Because they admitted what I said? He will lose the election. That's what this is about. Now, why did they pick Max Engling? This guy didn't fall off a turnip truck. There's already a viable candidate in the race. This is what's so frustrating about all of this. The guy who would actually do the job well, the guy who's actually done the job as a county election clerk for years, David Shelton. Notice they didn't pivot to him. I wouldn't have this response if they had pivoted to Shelton. If they had held Morales accountable, if they demanded criminal and ethical investigations into Morales by Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears and the inspector general for the state of Indiana, and they had said, we're going with the obvious safe choice who will actually be good at the job, David Shelton. I would be pretty happy. They didn't do that. They're not trying, Banks, Rokita, their minions, their underlings. They're not trying to hold Diego accountable. And they're not demanding that the qualified guy be the party's nominee. What did they do? They picked a Banks guy with no experience in this field whatsoever, who ran for Congress and got completely smoked, who just ran for delegate and got rejected by his neighbors. What did they do? They went with that guy. Why? Because this is about, and this is going to bring me to why Braun will not reject Diego. This is about Banks and Rokita taking over the Republican Party. That's what this is. This is about those guys asserting their dominance that we are in charge of the party ahead of Mike Braun running for reelection. That's what Braun actually has a vested interest in, Diego being the nominee or Shelton. I don't think he really cares, because Braun knows his grip on the Republican Party is starting to slip. Braun knows that his dominant hold as the governor is slipping away. And if he loses the Secretary of State's office to a Banks guy, it puts Banks in an even more, and Rokita in an even more dominant position. As everybody knows, Todd Rokita is eyeing a primary challenge to Mike Braun. That's why Braun won't reject Diego. He can't endorse him. Of course, he can't come out and say, vote for Diego, but he sure doesn't want to. Banks guy being in that position. He sure doesn't want a Rokita guy being in that position. And that's what this is about.

Fight Over Diego Morales Reveals Larger Power Battle Between Braun, Banks, and Rokita

Braun said, quote, I think the delegates will now have another choice and I respect the process. Whenever you try to intervene and say this or that, I don't like that in general. Well, Braun also knows he has an approval rating of the Night Stalker. He knows he's hated inside the Republican Party. He knows it's not like his endorsements going to sway people one way or another. Look, it's going to be fascinating to see whether the delegates are going to eat this crap that Banks and Rokita are shoveling down their throat. This just gaslighting about what's taking place with Diego. The same people who for years stood behind Diego Morales in the face of brazen corruption and totally ignored it. These same people are now telling you, oh, you got to trust our judgment on this Max Engling guy. He, sure, okay, sure, Diego, that went sideways. But Engling, he's the real deal. Are these delegates going to be told who to vote for? Are these delegates going to just eat this crap sandwich that Banks and Rokita are handing them? This is going to be fascinating to me.