Florida Republican party chairman investigated for rape and sexual battery

Christian Ziegler, chairman of the Florida GOP, is under criminal investigation after accusations of rape and sexual battery. A heavily-redacted report, released Friday by Sarasota Police Department, conceals the name of the suspect, but NBC News writes that its request was specifically for reports concerning Ziegler.

Ziegler and his wife are among the state's most prominent Republicans. He leads the statewide Republican Party and Bridget Ziegler is a well-known school choice advocate who helped start Moms for Liberty, a group focused on getting conservative women elected to school boards across the country.

In a now-deleted post on X, the group said the allegations were "another attempt today to ruin the reputation of a strong woman fighting for America."

Tiffany Justice, the co-founder and president of Moms for Liberty, said she was the one who tweeted the post — and then deleted it because of the response it was receiving.

The released document is amazing—whoever sharpied it is the world champion of malicious compliance, both to NBC News's demand for the document and to whichever commissar required that he censor it. NBC News's carefully-phrased request + one perfectly unredacted word.