SPOKANE, Wash. — The Washington State House released on Tuesday the documents that were used by investigators to determine, among other findings, that Rep. Matt Shea (R-Spokane Valley) has participated in an act of domestic terrorism.
The documents provide the public with their first look at the underlying evidence that led to those conclusions, conclusions that ultimately caused Shea's own party to boot him from their caucus and revoke his committee postings.
The investigation was commissioned by the House and run by the Rampart Group, an independent firm out of Seattle led by former law enforcement.
Soon after the publication of those exhibits, Shea responded on Facebook.
"Today the House finally released the exhibits of the Shampart Dossier after withholding them from me and my attorney inexplicably for almost two months," he said in part.
Investigators say they repeatedly contacted Shea and asked to meet with him; he refused.
"This list of exhibits raises more questions than it answers," Shea's post continued. "In fact, many of the exhibits are merely biased left-wing opinion pieces."
In reality, only seven of the more than 60 exhibits are articles of any kind. Of those, five are from right-wing websites. One is a brief news article from The Inlander. Another is a news article from The Spokesman-Review, published under the paper's political blog but containing little if any editorial comment.
The bulk of the exhibits are actually made up of emails written by or to Shea, screenshots of chats that included Shea, and documents authored by Shea and his associates.
One of the more notable documents is a "warning order" drafted by Shea, which in an email he described as "a military style planning brief."
It's a detailed plan as to how the Patriot Movement and its factions could work together to negotiate a resolution to the Malhuer standoff, and force a resolution that would expose federal land policy as tyrannical.
Shea has claimed his presence in Oregon during the standoff was purely for fact-finding purposes. The documents clearly show he was directly involved with the occupiers.
Another similar document provides an outline for handling a different standoff in Priest River. As with the Malhuer document, it's mostly focused on media strategy for winning the political argument in question.
However, bullet points at the end of the outline demonstrate a belief that preparation for a drawn-out, possibly armed conflict was a priority.
Shea's current status as a legislator remains unique. He retains his seat and lawmaking privileges, but without committee seats or party support, will have extremely limited power.
Any pressure to expel him from the House entirely has so far not amounted to action from leadership.
Shea will face perhaps the toughest race of his career during the primary election this August, as he will face not only a Democratic challenger in Lori Feagan, but a fellow Republican in Leonard Christian, who also has previous legislative experience.
Nonetheless, Shea has endured past controversies, winning each of his six elections and never receiving less than 56% of the vote.