By KENNY COLSTON
Kentucky Democratic Party
Frankfort, Ky. -- Last week, four individuals filed an impeachment petition against Gov. Andy Beshear with the Kentucky House of Representatives.
So who are these 4 men? The group includes a man who organized the rally at the Capitol where Governor Beshear was hung in effigy in Spring 2020, and three others who have advocated harm for elected officials on social media.
Here’s what you need to know about these four men and their extremist views:
Tony L. Wheatley is one of the organizers of the May 24, 2020 rally that ended with the governor being hung in effigy. Since that time, Wheatley has continued to attend and organize rallies with the same groups.
In the month leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, Wheatley posted inflammatory messages on his personal Facebook page including a post that appears to condone the coming violence “two ways to have peace, submit or fight through it” and “no one is off limits.”
Additionally, during the attacks on the Capitol, Wheatley continued to post about being involved in sending people to DC on his own Facebook page, and was taking to social media to criticize Vice President Mike Pence on the same day violent protesters in DC were recorded chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”
Andrew Cooperrider is the owner of Brewed in Lexington. Cooperrider often uses his business Facebook page to post political messages. According to that page, Cooperrider was present at the early January 2021 rally where a sign that said “make hanging tyrants great again” was placed on the Capitol grounds.
Additionally, Cooperrider posted a meme making fun of the domestic terror attack on the U.S. Capitol and said “you reap what you sow.” He then advocated for people to follow the business on Parler, a social media application that was used to coordinate and plan the U.S. Capitol and has been deactivated by several tech companies because of continued calls for violence on the platform.
Randall Daniel is the 2nd Congressional District chair of the Libertarian Party of Kentucky. In December, the group’s page put the Governor’s face on a “Wanted” poster, insinuating the governor is a criminal that must be punished.
Jacob Clark, a former Libertarian candidate for State House, posted on his campaign Facebook page that “any politician that supports the Patriot Act… should be hanged.” One day later, groups went to the Kentucky Capitol and hung the governor in effigy.
In April, Clark posted a video to the same page titled “a warning to Governor Andy Beshear” in which a gun is visible behind Clark and that he writes that “God may strike him (Beshear) down.”
In November, Clark raised the spectre of “civil war” on both his personal and campaign accounts based on false pretenses of voter fraud and advocated for filming of all polling places.