In a post on his social media website Truth Social, President Donald Trump issued an enthusiastic endorsement for the re-election of Republican Congressman Mike Lawler to his seat representing New York’s 17th Congressional District. The district includes parts of Westchester and Dutchess and all of Rockland and Putnam.
At the same time, Trump slammed Democrat Effie Phillips-Staley, a Tarrytown trustee, who is running in June’s Democratic Primary for the nomination to oppose Lawler in the November election. Trump accused her of cheating even though a judge had ruled there was no evidence of that.
“Congressman Mike Lawler is doing a terrific job for New York’s 17th Congressional District! Mike will most likely be running against a Radical Left Democrat named Effie Phillips-Staley, who loves High Taxes, Open Borders, Anti-Semitism, Men in Women’s Sports, and Transgender for Everybody, among other CRAZY ideas,” Trump wrote.
Trump repeated what had been determined in a court case in which Lawler was a plaintiff, that Phillips-Staley’s petitions to get on the primary ballot contained fraudulent signatures. However, Trump failed to mention that Judge David Fried of New York State Supreme Court in Rockland County who decided the case determined, “the Petitioners have not introduced a single piece of evidence to indicate that Candidate Phillips-Staley, her campaign, or the Democratic Party in whose primary she aspires to participate, personally engaged, knew, or should be chargeable with knowing in any fraudulent activity.”
The judge found that a person who the campaign had hired to gather signatures to get Phillips-Staley on the ballot submitted petitions with some fraudulent names but there were more than enough legitimate names and signatures on Phillips-Staley’s petitions to qualify her to appear on the primary ballot.
Other candidates running in the Democratic Primary include Beth Davidson, Cait Conley, Jessica Reinmann, Mike Sacks and John Cappello. Davidson, Conley and Phillips-Staley are projected to be the front-runners according to recent polling.
In his post, Trump did not make note of the judge’s findings and instead said, “Effie Phillips-Staley’s campaign has just been caught CHEATING, RED-HANDED, trying to file hundreds of fraudulent signatures to get on the ballot. Justice should be sought, and the fraud should be investigated, IMMEDIATELY! Effie Phillips-Staley is a FRAUDSTER, but the good news is that Congressman Mike Lawler is a WINNER, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement — MIKE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN.”
A scan of Lawler’s Facebook and “X” internet postings for the few days prior to May 9 did not show a post from him accepting Trump’s endorsement or supporting Trump’s allegations against Phillips-Staley. There was a post on his Facebook site criticizing Cait Conley for “trying to run on her national security experience, but she won’t answer for her role with the Biden Administration during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.”
