Republicans Still Mendacious, Delusional, and Weird

One of the most appalling aspects of the current Republican Party is its utter lack of respect for reality, using illegitimate and improper means to achieve it ends. 

Absurd and malicious cases like this one that call into question the sanity of the local elected sheriff pressing it, alas, are increasingly not uncommon in a party that has still pledges its soul to serial fraudster Donald Trump.

Utah Republicans, as a whole, were among the least support of Trump in his two Presidential races, but ultimately, they too seem to have fallen for his spell. The county in question is home to Utah's second biggest city, Provo.

Earlier this week, the Utah County Sheriff's office announced their reinvestigation into a supposed child sex trafficking ring they claim was involved in "ritualistic child sex abuse" between the years of 1990-2010, asking victims and those with knowledge of the crimes to come forward "so that they can be offered all the assistance possible."

If this sounds a tad suspect to you, it is probably because you have lived through some part of the last several decades or are perhaps familiar with the Satanic Panic, the 87,000 documentaries on people falsely accused and wrongfully imprisoned over this nonsense (highly recommend Southwest of Salem, Witch Hunt and Fall River), or even the FBI Behavioral Science Unit's 1992 report on "ritual abuse." Or perhaps what really tipped you off is the fact that no actual instances of it have ever actually been proven to have happened outside the imaginations of people like Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith and the man who reportedly sparked the current investigation, a convicted sex offender/incel rights activist who faked his own death and moved to Scotland, where he was identified after turning up in a hospital sick with COVID.

Following the Utah County Sheriff's press release, Utah County Attorney David Leavitt called for Sheriff Smith to resign and for the Sheriff's Department itself to be investigated, due to the outlandish nature of the so-called investigation. Leavitt also noted that he and his wife were cited in the official "report" on the investigation, which accused them of not only ritualistically abusing children, but of eating them.

“I am calling upon Sheriff Mike Smith to open his office to an outside investigation,” Leavitt said in a statement, “where outside, independent investigators are able to investigate and confirm or deny that documents from a debunked investigation from more than a decade ago were or were not used for political purposes in a Utah County Attorney’s race.”

From here (corroboration here).