Pols & Politics: Long-simmering feuds at the MassGOP flare up days before election

Long-simmering feuds between the warring factions of the Massachusetts Republican Party flared back to life Friday evening after Chair Amy Carnevale sent out a letter updating committee members on the litany of legal issues the political organization has faced.

After touting a recent settlement with a Needham-based marketing agency that will see the party pay out $400,000 over three years, Carnevale suggested former party chair Jim Lyons could have “faced criminal charges for illegal coordination” around separate payments to a security services company for work done during the 2022 election cycle.

The renewed allegation immediately sparked a backlash from Lyons — who told the Herald much of what Carnevale wrote was a “complete fallacy” — only days before a consequential election in which local Republicans are trying to flip a series of seats up and down the ballot.

In Carnevale’s telling, the MassGOP paid the STIRM Group, a Newburyport security services firm, $55,000 over six months starting in May 2023 for opposition research on then-Attorney General Maura Healey, who would later win her election to become governor.

Under Lyons, Carnevale claimed, the MassGOP only paid for a “small portion” of the work and then tried to dump the rest of the payments onto an independent political action committee dubbed the Mass Freedom Independent Expenditure PAC, run by Antoine Nade.

If the MassGOP did not pay STIRM directly, Lyons could have faced legal repercussions, Carnevale wrote to committee members in the letter.

“Had the MassGOP tried to shirk this responsibility onto the independent committee, the former chairman and the independent committee could have faced criminal charges for illegal coordination, and litigation certainly would have followed by this vendor against the MassGOP resulting in further legal expense for the party,” Carnevale said in the Friday letter.

Emails previously reported by the Herald also appeared to show Lyons and Nader coordinating on the investigation into Healey, which would be a violation of state law that prohibits political parties from directly working with political action committees in any fashion.

In an interview with the Herald Saturday, Lyons said the STIRM Group never contracted with the MassGOP and he “never did anything wrong.”

“If (Carnevale) wants people to believe that she cares about whether or not I was involved in a criminal investigation, I have a bridge for you to buy down in Brooklyn,” Lyons said. “That’s a complete fallacy what she said in that letter.”

In a Jan. 13, 2023 letter to the STIRM Group, Lyons’ attorney said no agreement between the two entities “was ever signed.”

“In short, no contract of any nature was ever entered into by and between your client and the (Massachusetts Republican State Committee),” Lyons’ attorney, David Carr, wrote.

In an interview with the Herald, Carnevale said “it was clear” that Lyons and the STIRM group were in communication as it related to the investigation into Healey because Lyons was participating in “regular briefings” with the company.

In another part of Carnevale’s Friday letter, she described a September 2023 agreement between the MassGOP and the Office of Campaign and Political Finance to settle claims of “impermissible contributions accepted by Chairman Lyons in the 2020 campaign cycle that were structured to avoid contribution limits.”

It is a reference to allegations that Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Sutton Republican, and his wife illegally funneled money through the state party that were then used to back his wife’s 2020 campaign for Worcester County Register of Probate.

The Fattmans separately settled the claims in October 2023 for nearly $200,000.

But Lyons said Carnevale’s claim that he did something “wrong” is incorrect.

“Those things are, in my opinion, borderline slander,” he said. “I never did anything wrong. I never committed any criminal act. Yet, the chairwoman of the MassGOP on the 25th of October decides to put that in an email. That’s outrageous. That is outrageous.”

Carnevale told the Herald that the Attorney General’s Office was prepared to take the party to court if a settlement was not reached.

“It was clearly a violation, not a violation that happened while I was chair,” she said. “The facts speak for themselves there.” — Chris Van Buskirk

Working some celeb magic over mushrooms

Actress and activist Eliza Dushku has joined the Question 4 crew.

The ballot initiative would allow people 21 and over to possess, use, and grow certain psychedelic substances for mental health and medical purposes — psilocybin and psilocyn in mushrooms (so-called “magic mushrooms”), and dimethyltryptamine, mescaline (peyote), and ibogaine from plants.

Dushku, who famously co-starred as Faith in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” and her husband Peter Palandjian, CEO of Boston-based Intercontinental Real Estate, are putting their money where there mouths are.

A portion of the couple’s $7.5 million gift to Brigham & Women’s Hospital last year is helping fund research into medical use of psychedelics at the newly-renamed Eliza Dushku Palandjian and Peter Palandjian Bridge Clinic.

Dushku, who is completing a master’s degree in counseling, works with veterans struggling with addiction and PTSD. — Joe Dwinell

Congressional candidate feeling frozen out

Robert “Close the Border” Burke isn’t feeling the love this election season. He’s a Republican up against Rep. Stephen Lynch. And he’s being ignored.

“I’m not sure the MassGOP really wants a full-throated defender of sovereignty wandering around Massachusetts media, saying the only message that matters right now: ‘Close The Border.’ If there’s any Boston media willing to sponsor a debate. I’ll sit down with my opponent any time, any place,” Burke said in a statement to the Herald.

Lynch and fellow Rep. Jake Auchincloss are seen as more moderate members of Massachusetts’ all-Democratic Party congressional delegation.

He does bring up a legitimate point that Democrats hold down the delegation in a stranglehold Hulk Hogan would be awed by. But Lynch sure looks invincible this election season. — Joe Dwinell