By Tom Sofield –
An elected Middletown Township official resigned days after she took office when she was outed for sharing anti-Semitic content, posts supporting a violent conspiracy theory, and denying the results of the 2020 election.
Kristi Ann Morris, a Republican who has said she has a doctoral degree and was a chemist, resigned after a township Republican brought to light posts made from a social media account bearing her name.
Morris was sworn in to her role as a member of the Middletown Township Board of Auditors Monday evening. Auditors serve a six-year term to the three-member board which oversees financial audits of the municipality and meets once or twice per year.
The elected-official resigned by midweek after being confronted about her posts.
During the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors meeting that followed the Monday swearing in, resident Christopher Nowakowski, a Republican who said he has an independent streak, raised concern over Morris’ views.
“A strain of extremism has begun to seep into our local affairs,” he said.
The township resident told the supervisors he was researching candidates for office and heard back from Republicans running for office. He said Morris responded with “pretty off-the-wall” views that worried him.
Nowakowski posted information on Morris’ views on the Nextdoor local information message board. From there, he heard from people who also raised concerns over Morris’ views.
Based on screenshots shared with LevittownNow.com and this news organization’s own research, a social media account on the far-right Gab website appeared to show Morris’ views through posts she reshared.
An profile that featured Morris’ name before she changed the account shared quotes from a white nationalist political commentator, comments falsely claiming the 2020 election was rigged, anti-Semetic comments, a statement spreading the centuries old blood libel fabrication that people of the Jewish faith were aiming to murder Christians, COVID-19 misinformation, a post that lists a “blood civil war” as an option because the user was upset over current affairs, QAnon content, and a post that the September 11, 2001 attacks were committed by the Israeli government, federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, President George W. Bush, his cabinet, and images linking them to the Jewish religion.
The QAnon conspiracy was mainstreamed in recent years as numerous prominent conservatives have supported it. Many attackers during the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol displayed iconography that is often associated with the conspiracy.
The outlandish QAnon conspiracy theory alleges Democrats and some Republicans who did not support former President Donald Trump eat babies and harvest a chemical compound from their bodies. It also claims the “Deep State” has murdered opponents, is behind sex trafficking, worked to hide evidence of a shadowy global “cabal” that spans from royalty to Hollywood actors, and that gaffes made by the former president and other politicians are secret signals. Part of the conspiracy is that a high-level government official or officials were posting their moves online before stopping toward the end of 2020.
QAnon predictions are almost always wrong, but part of the conspiracy is anything that is wrong is just to throw off opponents.
Last year, former national security adviser and military leader Michael Flynn said at a QAnon-linked conference that there should be a military take over the government, but he later denied making the comments that were captured on video.
At a glance, Morris’ Facebook page shared some conspiracies, but nothing as overt as her Gab account.
Morris’ Facebook account prominently featured the quote: “Exposing friends to extremist content.”
Morris did not respond to a request for comment from LevittownNow.com. Not long after, she appeared to remove her Facebook account.
Three Middletown Township Republicans told this news organization Morris had stated in the past she believed a reckoning was coming related to corruption and elections, leaning into conspiracy theories.
Two of those Republicans said she made statements the conspiracy would be unveiled within weeks time. Both said her comments never panned out.
Morris ran as an endorsed member of the Middletown Township Republican Committee for the auditor role in 2021.
Pat Mallon, who leads the Middletown Township Republican Committee and is a former township supervisor, said Morris admitted to operating the account on social media.
“I therefore asked Ms. Morris for her immediate resignation from the party, from her committee position, and from her elected position as Auditor. Ms. Morris has tendered all of those resignations. There is simply no place in our party or in our community for these anti-Semitic words or posts,” he said.
The Middletown Township Board of Supervisors – made up of Democrats and Republicans – issued a statement condemning “all forms of hate speech.”
“Now more than ever, we must understand that our words have the power to be destructive and lethal. We, the Middletown Township Board of Supervisors, stand united against hate speech in our community. All people deserve the right to live in our community and nation without prejudice. Hate speech is not welcome in Middletown Township,” the municipality’s governing body wrote.
Prior to being elected to the Middletown Township Board of Auditors, Morris served as chairperson of the appointed Citizen’s Traffic Commission.
Nowakowski said he did not believe in “cancel culture,” but he felt it was important to let the community know about an elected official’s views.
Karen Hall spoke in support of Nowakowski’s statements at the supervisors meeting.
“This cannot be a representation of myself, for one, and for the people who are clearly looking to find ways to meet in a middle ground and eliminate the polarization of elected officials,” she said.
The supervisors will have to appoint a resident to fill Morris’ now-vacant auditor seat.