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While I have held back graphic details, this piece reports on sexual assault and the sexual exploitation of minors, so read with caution or skip completely if those things incite trauma for you. At the end of this paragraph is a link to contact information for reporting these kinds of crimes. Some may think it unfair of me to write “Republican” so many times in proximity to this issue. There is an explanation of that a few paragraphs before the end. Thank you for reading. Contacts for reporting sexual abuse of minors are here [ [link removed] ].
It started with QAnon, was adopted by MAGA, and is now just mainstream Republican messaging (as if there is some Republican mainstream outside of MAGA). Republicans are more comfortable with this messaging than I am. For them, it is just so easy to baselessly accuse their political opponents of a thing that plagues the Republican party and their allies: sex crimes, and particularly the sexual exploitation of minors. Right-wing preachers and youth pastors, Republican office holders and campaign personnel, Republicans in positions of authority, Republicans pardoned by Donald Trump, and self-righteous Republican loudmouths on social media have all been arrested for sex crimes against kids. Some of these Republicans possessed or produced child pornography. Some of them sexually assaulted children they knew. Others went abroad to have sex with kids, which is a crime in the United States even if it’s not a crime in the country a Republican sex tourist travels to.
Here in North Dakota, I have Republican friends who, in their social media posts, often attach “Pedo” to the names of prominent politicians with whom they disagree. Also here in North Dakota, a retired Republican state legislator was just sentenced [ [link removed] ] to ten years in prison for traveling to Prague to have sex with underage boys. Republican Ray Holmberg stayed in a boy brothel in Prague and also picked up boys at Wenceslas Square Park in front of the city’s main train depot. Holmberg, who is eighty-one years old, served as a Republican senator in the North Dakota State Legislature for 45 years, and he piggybacked at least some of his child-sex travel onto state-funded trips.
Like the Trump administration’s national security team, Holmberg sometimes communicated on a commercial end-to-end encrypted app when planning his international missions. He used the Viber app to chat with a contact in Slovakia, according to the prosecutor’s sentencing memorandum [ [link removed] ]. On the app, he described having sex with a boy as feeling “awesome” and “much better than in a napkin.” The long-time Republican legislator also referred to a thing he liked to do, but “only on young blonde boys.” The sentencing memorandum in his case also refers to crimes committed in the United States, including soliciting sexually explicit images from a 16-year-old boy, and it lists 14 trips Holmberg took to Prague. He once texted, “what happens in Prague -Stays in Prague,” which turned out to be false. He told a witness, “You wouldn’t believe what you can do with a 12-year-old boy in [country witness could not recall].” I bet Holmberg won’t find prison “much better than in a napkin.”
Right next door in Minnesota, Republican state Senator Justin Eichorn was arrested [ [link removed] ] on March 17th for soliciting prostitution from a person he thought was a 17-year-old girl, but who was actually a detective in a sting operation. Earlier that same day, Eichorn and four of his Republican colleagues had introduced a bill classifying “Trump Derangement Syndrome” as a mental illness suffered by those who dare to criticize Donald Trump. Karma works fast in Minnesota, apparently. Maybe Eichorn forgot to wear green for St. Patrick’s Day. His lawyer might blame the incident on Gaetz Arrangement Syndrome, which often manifests as trouble with 17-year-old girls.
Also in Minnesota, Jason Yates, former CEO of My Faith Votes, a pro-Trump evangelical get-out-the-vote nonprofit, was charged [ [link removed] ] with eight counts of possessing child pornography. His hard drive contained explicit images of prepubescent girls as young as five years old and a compilation video of equally young children engaged in sex acts. Yates was charged the day before the November election. No word yet on whether he had a chance to cast his vote for Donald Trump.
A little farther east, in Mike Pence’s home state of Indiana, Sylvester Driscoll, A former Southport police chaplain and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department civilian employee, was arrested in September for allegedly sexually abusing a child for three years [ [link removed] ]. Driscoll, a MAGA Republican, started showing the girl videos of adults having sex when she was 5 years old. He told the girl, who is now 8 years old, that he would throw away her toys if she told anyone about the abuse. Fortunately, the child’s teacher noticed the physical signs of sexual abuse and sent the her to the school counselor, where the little girl reported Driscoll’s long-running sexual assault.
There is another Dakota south of the one where I live. It is the one where Republicans reveal their toughness with stories of murdering their rambunctious dog [ [link removed] ] or reveal their impaired driving with the story of that time they hit a pedestrian walking on the shoulder of the highway but thought it was a deer [ [link removed] ]. How the heck did that deer’s eyeglasses end up inside the car? was the question police had the next day. That was the funny part—until the day after that when a consultant texted [ [link removed] ], “At least the guy was a Democrat.” Now that was hilarious, right? At least no one was molesting a young girl like that other Republican politician in their state.
Joel Koskan was a Republican candidate for the South Dakota state senate in 2022. He went to jail for incest [ [link removed] ], because his victim was his adopted daughter. Koskan found that being a father simplified the grooming process. He had cameras in the girl’s room, tracked her with GPS, and began having sex with her when she was 17 years old. The girl had reported inappropriate touching to a camp counselor when she was 14, but then didn’t cooperate when a social worker interviewed her. Koskan took that as a green light to begin molesting his daughter in earnest. Later, the family tried to keep the victim from testifying against him.
Some of my Republican friends will not like that I have written “Republican” so many times alongside stories of pedophiles and groomers. Of course, they have never commented on any of those “pedo” posts that other Republican friends make on social media.
So, let’s talk about a Republican J6 insurrectionist pardoned by Donald Trump. Theodore Middendorf pleaded [ [link removed] ] guilty last May in Illinois to Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault of a Child. His victim was 7 years old. A charging document [ [link removed] ] specifies that Middendorf “committed an act of sexual penetration” with the victim. Another J6 Republican pardoned by Trump was David Daniel. He was indicted [ [link removed] ] in October in North Carolina for production of child pornography.
Then there’s the deputy sheriff who was also his teenage victim’s pastor and youth group coordinator. He was arrested for sexual assault and child abuse down in Nebraska. He is also a Republican.
The list goes on and on.
Sexual exploitation of minors should not be a partisan issue, but my “pedo”-posting Republican friends cannot deny trying to make it one. They would prefer that I stay quiet or play defense, but I would rather counterattack. They shouldn’t complain, though. It’s not like I threatened to throw away their toys.

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