Sheriff recorded that making inflammatory remarks will not be prosecuted

Oklahoma’s attorney general said Friday that a sheriff caught recording while other county officials discussed killing journalists and black people would not face criminal charges, but suggested the governor support another candidate in the next election.

The Attorney General, Gentner Drummond, said in a letter to Governor Kevin Stitt that he had found no evidence that McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy had committed a criminal offense or found any legal grounds to remove him from office.

“There are numerous instances of incidents from across the country in which government officials make inflammatory remarks that lead to serious convictions,” Mr Drummond wrote. “However, there is no legal provision in Oklahoma to remove elected officials from office just because they said something offensive.”

Mr. Stitt, a Republican, had called in April for the resignation of Sheriff Clardy and three other county officials who were part of the taped conversation: a sheriff’s office detective, Alicia Manning; the county jail clerk, Larry Hendrix; and a district commissioner, Mark Jennings.

Mr. Jennings resigned.

Mr Hendrix was placed on paid administrative leave in May, That reports the Gazette-News. His current status was not immediately clear and he could not be reached for comment Friday night. Mrs Manning was also unavailable. Sheriff Clardy could not be reached Friday, and his office said he would release a statement next week.

Bruce Willingham, the publisher and editor of The McCurtain Gazette-News, who posted audio from the recording in April, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

The small Oklahoma newspaper published a secret recording of what it said was an illegal public gathering that took place in March involving Sheriff Clardy and the other county officials.

According to the statement posted by the paper, Mr. Jennings talked about hanging black people from a creek.

“But you can’t do that anymore,” he said, according to the transcript. “They have more rights than we do.”

Mr. Jennings, Sheriff Clardy and Ms. Manning also complained about Mr. Willingham and his son, Christopher Willingham, a reporter for The Gazette-News, the paper said.

Christopher Willingham sued Sheriff Clardy, Mrs. Manning and the Board of District Commissioners, claiming he was defamed in retaliation for an eight-part investigative series he wrote about the sheriff’s office in 2021 and 2022.

“I know where there are two big deep holes here if you ever need them,” Mr. Jennings said on the recording, according to the transcript.

The sheriff replied, “I have an excavator.”

Mr. Jennings replied, “Well, these are already pre-dug.”

When the newspaper published the recording, it caused shock and anger in the county of approximately 31,000 residents in the southeastern corner of Oklahoma, and across the country.

Protesters demanded that the officials resign.

“Our community is not that racist and that divided,” Mayor Craig Young of Idabel, Oklahoma, the county seat, said at a protest at the time. “We are not like that. They do not speak for our community.”

The sheriff’s office argued that the recording violated state law because it was made without the consent of at least one of the parties involved.

But Mr Willingham said he had consulted lawyers who assured him the recording was legal as long as officials discussed public matters.

Mr Drummond, a Republican, said neither he nor the governor had the authority to remove Sheriff Clardy from office.

He suggested that the governor’s endorsement of another candidate would help in the next election, noting that Mr Stitt had “displayed a formidable ability” to support winning candidates.

“Only one authority remains to remove a duly elected county official who has not broken any law: the people of Oklahoma,” he wrote. “Mccurtain County voters will have the final say on who will serve them as sheriff.”

A representative for the governor was not immediately available for comment Friday evening.