I wrote yesterday that former Arizona Legislator and Turning Point employee Austin Smith was indicted by an Arizona Grand Jury on 14 Felony and Misdemeanor counts related to fraudulent nominating petition signatures. Allegations that Turning Point gathered the fraudulent signatures on Smith’s behalf have now been confirmed by multiple sources including pointing back to an April 25th article which states paid Turning Point Action employee “Richard (Ricky) Guthridge of Tucson, is responsible for gathering the signatures.” Despite the article claiming Smith resigned from his job at Turning Point Action, Smith’s X profile and other sources indicate that he was then re-employed and is currently an employee. The article also notes “Richard (Ricky) Guthridge, of Tucson, is accused of gathering these obviously forged signatures on a petition to get Republican Rep. Michele Peña on the 2024 primary ballot.” and further “All of the petition sheets that Marra highlighted were circulated by a man named Ricky Guthridge, and the 60 signatures that he collected seem to be obvious forgeries. The signature lines on the petition sheets that he collected differ significantly from the ones collected by other circulators for Peña in that they almost exclusively consist of single-name signatures. The signatures, printed names, addresses and dates on Guthridge’s petition sheets all feature the same, often illegible, handwriting.”
The article also notes “Guthridge who attends UofA is a national committeeman for Arizona College Republicans and is on the boards for Pima County Young Republicans and for Turning Point USA’s operations at the university.” Guthridge’s X profile confirms he is a Turning Point Action “CTV Catalina Region Manager” and the Pima County Young Republicans confirm his is the Chair of their organization.
An anonymous whistleblower with knowledge of the incident and Guthridge’s history had this to say: “Ricky was fired by Young Americans for Liberty. Impeached and banned by the UofA College Republicans, however he is still employed by TPUSA action as a reward for interfering with their competitors. Turning Point acts like a Mafia of Machiavellian grifters. They are a huge liability to the Republican Party and a ticking bomb. The party needs to divest immediately.”
Smith withdrew from the race releasing a statement at the bottom of this post.
Hours After Article Smith Hides His X Account and Scrubs Turning Point Information
Just hours after my article about Smith was released, he set his @azaustinsmith X profile to private and removed most of the references to Turning Point including his title as “Strategic Director Turning Point Action and Turning Point Action Scorecard”. However, he forgot to remove the little TPAction icon. After I called out Smith for leaving the icons in an X post, he then removed those too. These screenshots were taken approximately 1-2 hours apart. This lends credibility to the allegations that Turning Point was involved in the fraudulent signatures. Why would Austin scrub and hide his profile? As always members of Turning Point including TPAction COO Tyler Bowyer and Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk did not respond to public request for comment.
