#Lecterngate sparks speculation about Huckabee Sanders’ next political move with Glenn Youngkin
Have you been following #lecterngate, also known as #podiumgate? We’ve been paying attention and the damning details keep coming. It seems to us, hidden amongst the chaos, facts indicate Sarah Sanders might be angling to leave Arkansas for the DC Swamp before her first term is even half over.
Arkansas journalists, news outlets, and politicos have been digging into the relationship between Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and political consultants Virginia Beckett and Hannah Salem Stone since early September. The latter two have longstanding consulting ties to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who is emerging as the preferred presidential pick of non-MAGA Republicans ahead of 2024. Youngkin dons fleece vests with pressed khakis and he avoids making insane public comments, which seem to be the only required traits to appeal to more sensible GOP insiders hoping to shake off the legacy of Donald Trump.
But it’s known far and wide that among their base, Trump remains the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nominee despite his mounting legal woes. Youngkin’s potential mega-donors have to be asking themselves how they get the crazy MAGAs on board with Glenn’s J. Crew Republican sensibility and desert their leader.
The answer? Toss them a beloved MAGA leader as Youngkin’s vice presidential nominee. Enter Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
That’s what many in Arkansas are speculating, at least, as Sanders’ office implodes over allegations (pretty darn convincing ones, we might add) that her office misused taxpayer funds, illegally tampered with public documents, and withheld disclosing other information in response to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by attorney Matt Campbell.
Investigative journalist Suzi Parker was one of the first to float the theory that Sanders withheld and amended travel records to avoid public disclosure she was working with longtime Youngkin pals Beckett and Salem Stone. Beckett, Salem Stone, Sanders, and Youngkin were all in Paris this summer at the same time; Sanders and Youngkin indeed met and took photos together at the Paris Air Show. Flight records also show a trip to Virginia in May of this year that could easily have been facilitating another meeting between Sanders and Youngkin.
You may be wondering why this plot getting out would matter in the least to Sanders. Well, she has yet to endorse Trump, despite her job as the Liar-in-Chief’s mouthpiece for three years. If Sanders is back-channeling conversations with another presidential contender, she can count on Trump doing his best to destroy her publicly.
She knows better than anyone the power of Trump’s weaponized word.