Tea Party Group Banned from Town Hall Because of Maryland Democrats' Smear

Democrats in Maryland accused local Tea Partiers of having “violent tendencies,” resulting in them being banned by local law enforcement from attending an upcoming town hall event with their Congressman, Breitbart News has learned.

Local Maryland bloggers at Front Line State broke the story on Saturday morning, noting that “Carroll County Maryland Democrats have reportedly attempted to use the Sheriff’s department to keep members of a local Tea Party activist group from attending a ‘meet and greet’ with their congressional representative, Chris Van Hollen, on Monday June 24 at Caroll County Community College (CCCC).”

Van Hollen is the ranking member of the House Budget Committee

Michelle Jefferson of We The People (WTP), a local Tea Party group in the area, told Front Line State that she had spoken with Major Tom Long of the Carroll County Sheriff’s Department when she returned home on Wednesday after the “Audit The IRS” rally in Washington, D.C. 

Long told her that Don West, the recording secretary for the Carroll County Democratic Central Committee, had contacted the Community College’s campus security, the State Police, and the county sheriff’s office asking that We The People be banned from attending Van Hollen’s upcoming town hall event. He claimed the Tea Party group engages in what he described as “violent tendencies.”

It was later discovered that West, the Democratic Party official, filed an “interim peace order” against WTP’s Jefferson.

Former U.S. Senate candidate Dan Bongino, who ran as the Republican nominee in Maryland in 2012 against Democrat Sen. Ben Cardin, denounced the tactics being used by the Maryland Democrats in a statement obtained by Breitbart News. “After a 2012 campaign marred by vehicle & property vandalism and a more recent, brazen display of government thuggery by the IRS, the Democrats are at it again,” Bongino said. “Now they are attempting to use law enforcement to intimidate and silence one of my former volunteers and a female Conservative activist in Carroll County, MD.”

A spokeswoman for Van Hollen did not immediately respond to Breitbart News’ request for comment on whether or not he approves of the state party’s use of such tactics against his constituents.

Jefferson told Breitbart News she is ashamed at how the left in this country has stooped to such new lows to silence critics and how the divisiveness Democrats push affects people’s everyday lives. “This breaks my heart-to see just how divided my country truly is,” Jefferson said in an email. “I thought Don West and I were friends-he gave me an estimate to build a deck and we’ve worked together on defeating the proposed incinerator. This kind of hate is tearing a part these Great United States of America and it has to stop-it has to stop NOW.”