The Abolitionist Queen Sabotages a $6,000 GOP Donation

Leslie Nessmith

So you got this woman named Leslie Nessmith that has kind of taken over the GOP and considers herself an abolitionist. Loves “immigrants”, talks about how we need to do voter outreach to them. So initially she was on the team I put together to recruit Bennett to run for Chair, sh made one meeting in Henryetta then bowed out and refused to attend the next meeting. Showed up as Bennett's campaign manager a few months later. Then her neighbor is Bob Dani who I have known for over ten years, they are next door neighbors, and of course Bob Dani is now the Executive Director for the GOP. Queen Leslie's title is Public Relations director I think.

So back in late May Leslie started trying to sabotage projects I was working on for Bennett then she and Bob Dani started squeezed out other members of the recruitment team, such as David Van. I complained to Bennett's wife, after protecting their family for ten years in elections she kind of trusts me.

So David Van and I have this two and a half hour meeting with Bennett on May 24th and thought we had things fixed. Nope, sabotage  started again, far right wing religious fanatics would call Leslie and complain anytime I did anything to fix problems or raise money.  Leslie would complain to Bennett in a continual effort to diminish and isolate. Keep in mind that I was Bennett's first real supporter back in 2010 , the first with any clout and the Sooner Tea Party spent thousands of dollars and risked being sued and even risked being arrested for distributing newspapers through out the county.  An ADA with Jack Thorpe's Sequoya County District Attorneys Office asked Thorpe to file the charges.

After I had gotten a nearly $4000 security system donated and installed, Bob Dani said that Leslie demanded that I remove myself from the admin group on the system, one of three, and the system was on my account down at the alarm company so that wasn't happening, that was done to be sure the monitoring bill was paid. Bob Dani said there would be trouble if I didn't remove myself and put Leslie on the admin system. My reply? “ Leslie can pound sand.” Then Leslie tries to prevent the security system from being activated, then she warns the volunteer coordinator that I had put on as an admin as well that he might not be an admin. I mean this is the guy who is supposed to know who is opening up and closing the building each day. Crazy stuff. And she is their public relations person. No other title.

So this goes on for a while, I will start a project, Leslie will try to sabotage it. The executive director is Bob Dani, supposedly total control over the office and things related. He approves a sprinkler and flag donation project in mid May that one of my supporters wanted to do. And yes I have proof of that.   I keep Bob Dani aware of the various projects going on including the sprinkler system, lunch meetings, phone conversations, he was intimately familiar with the progress of the raising of $6,000 for the sprinkler project and to clean out the rest of the flower beds and re-landscape them to match the two that Ronda Peterson did. On June 23^rd I text Bob to ask permission to clean out the back utility room so we can find the outlets so we can install the sprinkler electrical control box, this was the same day I met with the sprinkler contractor. Bob Dani said go for it, said to coordinate with Derek  the volunteer coordinator so he knows what is going on.

The T icon stands for Tea Party, the B icon stands for Bob Dani in the messages below:

 

Derek is the volunteer coordinator and is a good guy, offers to help with the cleaning, but he is down there all week so I say, no problem I will just post on Facebook and recruit some new volunteers for the work. Fifteen minutes after I post on Facebook at Bob Dani's Oklahoma GOP No RINO page and on Sooner Politics asking for help, here comes Leslie Nessmith, making a comment on the post concerning lawn mowing. Two minutes later Bob Dani is texting me asking for me to call him.

At the time I wasn't aware that Leslie had seen the post asking for volunteers to clean out the back room, I didn't find that out until later that night. So when Bob Dani and I finally talk he asks me to cancel the sprinkler project. Keep in mind the supporter that was raising the money for the flower beds and sprinkler system had already sent us $1000 for some new conference room chairs, and the guy was an executive for a huge car company in Oklahoma City. Big money, influential guy, a true patriot that wanted to help. He and his friends would be huge assets to the Republican Party going forward.

Later that night I figure out that Leslie must have blown up Bob Dani's phone after seeing the Facebook post on cleaning out the back room and that was why Bob Dani wanted the project scuttled. Indeed in the audio tape link below the first thing that Bob Dani mentions is the lawn mowing issue so there is no doubt that Leslie Nessmith called Bob Dani after reading the post.  Bob Dani had a very implausible excuse for killing off the sprinkler donation though, he claims he was playing hardball with the trust that owns the building, claiming that he was threatening to move out of the Dewey Bartlett Center unless they invested some major money and remodeled the place.

The GOP pays a thousand bucks a month for a 5000 square foot building, in decent shape, a mile from the Capitol, you can't rent a single office room big enough to swing a cat in for $1000 that close to the Capitol. The trust pays the insurance and taxes and major upkeep like roofs and AC replacement. It could use some bathroom remodeling but for a thousand bucks a month... the GOP is not moving. The State Committee would have Bob Dani drawn and quartered if they found out he was disrespecting the trust.  And those trust members are not going to be intimidated. But that was Bob Dani's excuse for killing the project.

And by the way, what an enormous gift the Dewey Bartlett family gave the GOP. A huge headquarters that costs us a pittance. I would guess that 5000 square foot of good office space with a parking lot would go for around $8000 per month at the very least. And you know what? If the place needs a bit of remodeling, ask the foundation if we can do a fundraiser for the building. But trying to basically strong arm the trust board members?

So after my phone call with Bob Dani where he asked that the sprinkler system donation project be shut down, after the money had been raised and the contract awarded for the work no less, I was not in a good mood. You can listen to the tape of the phone call at this link. 

 Phone call audio

 There is some good info in the back half of the audio file about the massive fines and penalties from the FEC, IRS, and state tax agencies.  A bunch of inside Party info that the State Committee and the Republican delegates need to know.  Especially our demand that the Central Committee meeting be called immediately, which seems to have actually happened after this call on July 24th.

And one more point, once Bob Dani decided to allow Leslie Nessmith to run the GOP and kill off projects like this sprinkler system donation he decided to betray my trust and help the sabotage effort.  At that point, when a guy that said he was in your foxhole watching your back turns on you it is more than fair to out the bastard and teach him a lesson about betraying allies. 

 I was being very diplomatic but trying to make it clear that we look like complete idiots approving a project and then cancelling it after the money has been raised. Bob Dani's solution was to ask the donors to give it to the GOP operating costs. Anyone that has been doing any fundraising knows you never, never, never, misrepresent what you are doing if you want to retain credibility. It was almost as if Bob Dani and Leslie Nessmith wanted this car company executive and his friends to get pissed off.

After trying to figure out how I was going to explain this to my supporter that was raising the money I decided that as always honesty is the best policy and to just let him listen to the tape of Bob Dani telling me to cancel the project. Of course the second phase of fund raising, for the flower bed renovation, was put on hold until we get the GOP staff cleaned out. Treating volunteers and donors this way is insane. It is if Leslie Nessmith and Bob Dani want to limit who donates and who gets to volunteer. Or maybe they want John Bennett and the GOP to fail? But it cost the GOP $6,000 in building improvements and the cost to the Bennett administration's reputation was far more.

You might ask, why would Leslie Nessmith and Bob Dani want to sabotage donations, specifically sabotage the donations and projects that I was leading? Bob Dani seemed to be caught between a rock and a hard place, I got the sense that he was afraid of Leslie Nessmith, afraid of her temper or lack of same. But it became clear with that mess that Leslie wore the pants in that relationship and she was more interested in stopping anything that she didn't get credit for. This happens in politics, you find those gems that have a heart of a servant, the just want to see the Party or the agenda move forward. Then there are the Leslie Nessmiths' of the world that are more interested in building their political power so they view others as competition to be stopped instead of allies in a fight where everyone is needed.