Chronicle ridicules death threat against conservative candidate

By John Labriola - How would you feel if you were running for county commission and someone threatened to kill you? What if, after you reported this incident to the police and announced it to the public at a county commission meeting, the local newspaper decided to ridicule you and even claim you lied about reporting it — all because you're a conservative? That's not a hypothetical situation. Our local newspaper, the Citrus County Chronicle, just did it to Jennifer Grogan, a candidate for the District 4 commission seat.

It began on July 27, when Grogan, who owns a small business and helps run a Christian ministry, received a call from scammers claiming to be the police. They knew her Social Security number, her maiden name, and her home address and told her she had to come to the Citrus County Sheriff's Office to pay a $5,000 fine or go to jail. When she arrived, they explained they just wanted to lure her out of the house to kill her. Clearly shaken, Grogan reported the incident to a deputy, who gave her an incident number and told her to block the number if they called again.

Grogan discussed the terrifying call at the July 28 county commission meeting. She said it made her reflect on the political assassination of Christian conservative icon Charlie Kirk, whom both the Library Advisory Board and the County Commission have been too intimidated by liberals to honor, despite repeated pleas from the public to do so. Grogan used her own harrowing experience to urge the commission to change its mind and name a road after him, as several other Florida communities, including neighboring Sumter, Marion, Hernando and Lake counties, have already done.

The Chronicle, which has nothing but disdain for both Kirk and Grogan, decided to print a front-page, top-of-the-fold story in its Aug. 8 edition depicting Grogan as a clown who lied to the commission about reporting a death threat to the police so that she could push for a Charlie Kirk road. Although the deputy's written report doesn't mention the death threat, the Chronicle falsely states that the police video of her interaction with the deputy "also contains no such reference."

In fact, the video shows the exact opposite. In it, Grogan tells the deputy that when she walked into the station, she told the person on the phone that she was there. "And that's when she said we just got you out of the house to kill you," Grogan tells the deputy, to which he responds, "There's no one here ever going to tell you that we got you out of the house to kill you...they got mad because you didn't want to pay them, and that's why they're making threats."

See the video HERE. 

The Chronicle should know it's not telling the truth because the police video is posted on its own website. Did the liberal paper not bother watching it before publishing its dishonest hit piece? Or did they just feel Grogan doesn't deserve to be treated fairly because she's a conservative?

As someone who's run for city council twice and been the repeated target of the Chronicle's dishonest reporting (which I'm sure will continue since I've decided to run again this fall), I have an idea how Grogan must feel. 

Liberals always say we should believe women, but of course they mean only liberal women. When a conservative woman receives a death threat during a campaign, their response is to ridicule her, just as they ridiculed Charlie Kirk after he was shot and killed. Ultimately, their hatred of both Grogan and Kirk is rooted in their hatred of Biblical truth. 

There are many good reasons to vote for Jennifer Grogan, but infuriating the Chronicle is absolutely one of them. 

Early Voting is under way at these locations. Vote for Grogan today. (And donate to her here.)

See my full list of voting recommendations HERE.