Joining us now is reporter lindsey hold and she s been covering the story of elections official tommy gong in california, miss holding it is a real pleasure to have you here tonight, thank you for taking the time. thank you for having me, rachel. so i ve been following this story largely through your reporting and through the work of your paper and some of their news outlets, as far as i can tell this in that tommy gong is accused of, a from the racist stuff which is a separate matter is that we, the trump folks were demanding that he approve an audit, essentially a recount of results in the county but they demanded that he do it well after the window, the legal window, after which he could ve even ordered that himself, legally, if he d wanted to. am i right that they were demanding something of him that he wasn t even legally capable of granting them? yes. absolutely.
This went on for hours in this one county in california at their board of supervisors meeting last month. for the record, the top election effectual in san luis obispo county, taught county kirk connie gong, is a third generation american citizen. he has worked at the county clerk s office for more than 15 years. he s not from china, he s never been to china in his life. he s from majesu california. but here are trump supporters from san luis obispo county, and people clearly not from there, saying that they need the board of supervisors to remove him because they suspect he must be controlled by the chinese communist party. because you know, just look at him. the local paper in san luis obispo county, the tribune, has described the avalanche of calls at that meeting as quote, the culmination of a campaign to discredit mr. gong and his
But regardless of who won the election in that county, under tommy gong s leadership, administering the election as an experienced totally nonpartisan expert in the field, you want to know what happened in san luis obispo county? yes, joe biden won. but the county also broke its all-time voter turnout record. literally, their turner turnout was over 80%. that is astonishing. it s great. and tommy gong is the as the local elections chief, he s part of. that he said when your an election administration. what are you going to be? touting the high number of to voter turnout. vote by mail voters. you re not gonna say oh, these are the people i disenfranchise from voting. these are the people i preventing you from voting. that does it go on record. that isn t shine on your record. it s all about getting more and more people engaged. and to participate in elections. clearly with an attitude like that, unofficial like tommy gong in san luis obispo county california has to go.
Of behavior to spark an inspector general investigation today? the scandal wasn t known to any of us, the public, but it was known to multiple officials inside the justice department? none of whom thought to people about it until their new superiors, now that merrick garland and lisa monaco are in charge of the justice department? no apparently garland and monaco had to learn about in the new york times. because even the officials involved inside the justice department, people involved in this scandal inside the justice department, didn t see anything. is that because nobody asked them? apple and microsoft have both received release statements explaining how those companies were roped into this. and why these legally binding gag orders they were served with prohibited them from telling anybody from what was going on there from now. since last night show, when we reported unless, we ve learned that in addition to congressman and adam schiff, california congressman eric swalwell had his
Floyd were it not for the bravery and presence of mind of a young woman named darnella frazier? with our thanks for being with us. on behalf of my colleagues at happy friday. happy to have you here. in california s central coast, about halfway between los angeles and san francisco, this st. louis a bespoke which has nice beaches, lovely climate. it s got a historic 18th century mission. it is a lovely place if you visit you should know locals call st. louis a bespoke county slow growing to. they pronounce it slow some of