A Tennessee sheriff so deep in the Charlie Kirk kool-aid he's lost the plot, tossed a retired cop in jail for the crime of quoting MAGA cult leader Donald Trump. Sixty-one-year-old Larry Bushart Jr. spent five weeks behind bars and faced a $2 million bond after sharing a meme with Trump's own words, proof that an arrest warrant demonstrates reverence in MAGA land.
Sheriff Weems has continued to insist he's done nothing wrong, despite body cam footage from the arresting officers making it clear the sheriff lied to journalists during this interview and while making other comments to the press.
Lexington police told The Intercept that Weems had lied when he told local news outlets that the forces had "coordinated" to offer Bushart a chance to delete the post prior to his arrest. Confronted with the bodycam footage, Weems denied lying, claiming that his investigator's report must have been inaccurate, NewsChannel 5 reported.
Weems later admitted to NewsChannel 5 that "investigators knew that the meme was not about Perry County High School" and sought Bushart's arrest anyway, supposedly hoping to quell "the fears of people in the community who misinterpreted it." That's as close as Weems comes to seemingly admitting that his intention was to censor the post.
You know you've f***** up when even those on the same side of the "thin blue line" are willing to call you a liar in public. Sheriff Weems, however, appears to have learned nothing from this experience. Every subsequent comment is just more doubling down on an already-disproved narrative.
TechDirt
Sheriff Nick Weems, a self-professed Kirk adherent who treats Fox News clips as scripture, claimed Bushart's sharing a meme was a "threat." It wasn't. It referenced an Iowa school shooting, not anything local. But in the gospel according to Turning Point USA, context is irrelevant and punishment is holy. Weems ignored the First Amendment, jailed the man, and only backed off once lawyers and cameras showed up.
Previously:
• 'We are Charlie': Scenes from the ongoing vigil and memorial for Charlie Kirk at TPUSA headquarters in Phoenix
• FactCheck.org finds that Charlie Kirk said most of those things blowing up online
• Washington Post fires black woman who quoted what Charlie Kirk said about black women
• Man in custody after allegedly damaging Charlie Kirk memorial at Turning Point USA headquarters in Phoenix
• Teaser of Indiana Jones mocking fascists in 1937 removed after complaint it somehow about Charlie Kirk
