Alaska Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor has signed onto a right-wing chain letter that has nothing to do with Alaska and everything to do with bowing to the wishes of Donald Trump.
Taylor used state resources to add Alaska’s name to a Supreme Court amicus brief supporting Trump’s bid to delay a federal court case against him.
Here is the chain letter that Taylor has signed, purporting to represent all Alaskans. Taylor should be signing chain letters about his personal views on his own, not as attorney general. No one voted for him and he does not represent all Alaskans.
According to Taylor and the other Republican attorneys general Outside, the timing of federal action against Trump “has invited public speculation that this case has an improper purpose — to influence the 2024 election.”
Notice how the GOP generals don’t say they believe the case has an improper purpose and hide behind the equivalent of Trump’s patented “A lot of people are saying” exercise in avoiding accountability.
I’ve lost count of Taylor’s chain letter totals promoting his narrow views. His first this year was in January, attacking the Biden Administration over the handling of the southern border.
Taylor is free and easy with his signature and will sign anything with the right political slant. I suspect he sees this as good preparation for the next stage in his political career.
Running for the Anchorage assembly in 2016, he posed for a photo with a campaign sign that said he was “the only South Anchorage candidate that owns a gun!”
The Legislature and the governor have given him his own publicity office to inflict his self-serving opinions on the public.
A high point of his chain-letter career came last summer when he opined about the alleged threats if future cars don’t have AM radios. But he topped that weeks later with a missive saying the EPA doesn’t appreciate the the immense benefits of plastic bags.
Taylor and his fellow generals said that “reusable shopping bags are rife with harmful bacteria” and their use leads to more “emergency room visits and deaths.” Deaths are worse than litter, they said, quoting scientists.
I will repeat what I first said here last March:
“He is quick to add his name to every Republican dog-whistle chain letter or lawsuit that strikes his fancy — ranging from advising drug stores not to sell an abortion pill to complaining that the Securities and Exchange Commission is moving toward a “command and control economy” and denouncing credit card companies for having a “category code” for gun stores. He has also opposed vaccination rules for public health, a new visa system for migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela and a variety of other Biden administration moves. Federal overreach is a constant theme.”
It’s only gotten worse since then.
In the meantime, Taylor has had nothing of substance to say about the proposed grocery merger of the two giants that own Fred Meyer and Safeway, a case that has real implications for Alaska.
https://www.dermotcole.com/reportingfromalaska/2024/2/21/alaska-ag-signs-onto-another
Dermot Cole has worked as a newspaper reporter, columnist and author in Alaska for more than 40 years. Support his work here.