August 21, 2022

PA State Senator Doug Mastriano's "Security Detail"

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Lancaster Online has a great piece about State Sen (and now GOP Cand. for PA Gov) Doug Mastriano's security detail.

Here's how Carter Walker opens the piece:

Doug Mastriano is running an unconventional campaign for governor. He’s not raising a lot of money. He prefers to attend closed-door events with his base or campaign at public events where reporters are often kept at arm's length.

But the Republican nominee’s campaign is also notable for another reason: Mastriano has surrounded himself with a non-professional, armed security team whose members include at least one person with direct ties to a militia group.

Mastriano’s detail includes several members of a relatively new evangelical church near Elizabethtown, LifeGate, whose leaders have spoken openly about electing Christians to office to advance biblical principles in government.

So how many fascist, Christian National red flags do you see in those three paragraphs?

Walker goes on:

Perhaps the most visible member of the security team is James Emery, an Elizabethtown Area School Board member who has been photographed providing security to Mastriano at numerous events over the past year, sometimes armed. Earlier this month, Emery blocked members of the news media from entering a room in Erie where Mastriano was scheduled to speak to local business leaders.

Emery is an active and visible member of the congregation at LifeGate Church. A November 2021 post to the church’s Facebook page refers to him as a licensed minister and congratulates him for completing the LifeGate Leadership Development School.

At a LifeGate meeting in May, Emery described himself as one of Mastraino’s “lead” security members. During an Easter Sunday testimonial, he revealed the names of four other congregants who work on Mastriano’s security team.

“I just want to ask for prayers while there’s a few in this congregation that have joined the (Mastriano) team: Scott and Skip and Dan, myself, and Carl,” Emery said. “We’re doing security for Mastriano and it comes with a lot of weight these days.”

If you're so inclined, you can hear Emery pastorize some of the good folks in Elizabethtown here.

If you wanted to see what he looks like as he's guarding the "Walk as Free People" guy, here's a screen capture from the Lancaster Online video:


 And here's Scott Nagle from that same video:


This is what Lancaster Online reported about Scott in May of this year:

The leader of the local chapter of the Oath Keepers, a far-right militia group, won a seat on the Republican Committee of Lancaster County in Tuesday's election.

Scott Nagle, of Marietta, narrowly won the Republican committeeman race in Marietta Borough's first district.

Nagle was the Lancaster County chapter leader for the Pennsylvania Oath Keepers as recently as January of this year. LNP|LancasterOnline reached out to him at that time for a story on a pre-January 6, 2021, Oath Keeper meeting in Quarryville, after which Nagle's name was removed from the website.

They even included another picture:


SLPC On the Oath Keepers:

The Oath Keepers, which claims tens of thousands of present and former law enforcement officials and military veterans as members, is one of the largest far-right antigovernment groups in the U.S. today.

And:

The Oath Keepers organization claims to be defending the U.S. Constitution and fighting tyranny, but as former Oath Keepers spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove describes, the group is actually “selling the revolution.” The threats to American liberties that Oath Keepers say the federal government is responsible for are in reality a set of baseless conspiracy theories.
Sounds about right. He's also a Lifegate member.

The "Dan" mentioned by would be one Dan Slade, identified here in that Lancaster video:

 
You can also find him listed among the "Leadership Team" of the Lifegate Church.

And this was among the things we find when we look into what the believers at the LifeGate Church believe:

We understand the family to be the keystone in God's plan for spiritual growth and emotional stability. We affirm the biblical ideal of monogamous, heterosexual marriage – one man for one woman – until death does the parting. We reject any notion of “same-sex marriage.” We understand the Bible as teaching that premarital, extramarital and homosexual activity, as well as lusting of any kind, is sin and is not the will of God for the believer. We also believe that God deals graciously with the truly repentant heart.

Of course they do.

Lucky for anyone that Lancaster Online who may be upset at this reporting, member of the church also believe:

We affirm the importance of Biblical love in all human relationships. We believe that this calls for the rejection of all forms of selfishness and violence – including abortion and child and spousal abuse. We oppose any kind of personal retaliation between individuals. [Emphasis added.]

Good to know.

There's another part of this story. Remember this? 

It was a blog post of mine from May when I was amplifying a piece from NBC that had this:

A staffer with Doug Mastriano's Pennsylvania gubernatorial campaign who helped block media access to an event over the weekend was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when he appeared to smile and laugh as rioters smashed media equipment on Capitol grounds.

Grant Clarkson is one of the Mastriano campaign associates who prevented reporters from covering an event over the weekend hosted by Mastriano and Kathy Barnette, a Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, according to an NBC News analysis of photos and video from the event matched with his online social media presence. Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Mastriano, a far-right state senator who supported Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and was himself on the grounds of the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Let's jettison the January 6 part and just focus on the "block media access" part. 

Earlier this month, I wrote about  Doug's "security" folks doing just that.

Here's an image form Von Osdol's "interview" with one of the guys:

Is that one of Doug's LifeGate security guys?

Scott Nagle, perhaps?

To be honest, I am not sure. But it's close, isn't it?

One last thing. Let's look back at that NBC piece about Grant Clarkson.

Above the text there's this rather imposing picture of Doug and the Doug-ettes:

According to NBC, that's Grant over Doug's right shoulder. But do you see who's also in the picture? Way over on the left (our left, Doug's right)?

That's James Emery wearing, I think, the same maroon shirt (and jacket?) as in the Lancaster video:

Small world, huh.

Meanwhile, they're still stopping the people they don't like from asking Doug a question:

Did anyone else notice how closely this guy:

Resembles the guy giving Paul von Osdol a hard time? It's gotta be the same guy, right?

But here I'll say something that I've never heard Doug Mastriano say: I could be wrong about that.

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