Chaffetz Said He Believes Town Hall Protestors Were Paid, Not From Utah

UNITED STATES - FEBRUARY 3: Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on "Inspectors General: Independence, Access and Authority" on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015. (Photo... UNITED STATES - FEBRUARY 3: Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on "Inspectors General: Independence, Access and Authority" on Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call) (CQ Roll Call via AP Images) MORE LESS
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Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said that the thousands of protestors who swarmed his town hall on Thursday night were not actually from his state and were “paid” to protest, the Deseret News reported Friday.

Chaffetz told the paper that he was sure that the protestors, who chanted “shame!” and grilled him on investigating President Donald Trump, were Democrats and that they were trying to cause “chaos” because they don’t like Trump and are upset about the results of the 2016 election.

“You could see it online a couple days before, a concerted effort in part to just cause chaos,” he said, according to the Deseret News. “Democrats are in disbelief that they have nothing but flailing and screaming to deal with this.”

Chaffetz said that he believes that protestors were paid to demonstrate at and disrupt his town hall, telling the paper that one speaker made it a point to make clear that he was not being paid by the Democrats. Chaffetz did not give any info to support his claim.

“Absolutely. I know there were,” he said, telling the paper that it was “more of a paid attempt to bully and intimidate” than the feelings of his constituents.

The Utah Republican, who is the chair of the House Oversight Committee, said that he feels the protests were “ironic” because earlier Thursday he had called for “disciplinary action” against Trump aide Kellyanne Conway for her remarks promoting Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories line.

“I’ll never satisfy their desire to bring down Donald Trump. I’ll never satisfy that. It will never be good enough,” he told the paper.

But, he said that he wanted to allow peoples’ voices to be heard at the town hall, but he feels like he couldn’t do that, telling the paper that he feels actual Utah residents were better than the people who he perceives as paid protestors from other states.

“That’s who these people are,” he told the paper. “We’re better than that. That’s not what the average Utahn is like.”

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Notable Replies

  1. They were almost certainly bussed in from Massachusetts. Just ask trumpee

    @pshah Chaffetz has given himself an excuse to never do anything meaningful about trumpee oversight, and has now actually given his 15-year old daughter the go ahead to listen up to T.

  2. Avatar for theod theod says:

    Well, he also believes that Adam and Eve went to church while riding dinosaurs.

  3. “I’ll never satisfy their desire to bring down Donald Trump. I’ll never satisfy that. It will never be good enough,”

    Yeah. Hillary, I want to investigate forever. Doing job for a Republican means, investigating Democrats and nothing else. No oversight of any kind.

  4. Avatar for pshah pshah says:

    Notice how Republicans, like Sophists, never address the actual issues. Rather, they divert your attention to shiny baubles like claiming protesters with legitimate concerns are somehow getting paid, or gasp, even worse, Democrats.

    There may not be a worse insult in a place like Utah than to be called a Democrat. This will surely endear him to his constituents.

  5. And were murdered when Hillary Clinton ordered the airstrike on Eden from her Benghazi lair.

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