Michigan GOP County Officials Caught on Video In Wild Scuffle, Police Called Night Before Party Leadership Meeting

A wild video clip from the patio bar at Doherty Hotel in Clare, Michigan on Friday night showed two GOP county officials engaging in a scuffle the night before the Michigan Republican Party leadership meeting.

The clip of the confrontation shows Kalamazoo Republican Party Chair Kelly Sackett and Macomb County GOP Secretary Melissa Pehlis in a heated exchange, which resulted in Sackett knocking a cigarette and phone out of Pehlis’s hand. Pehlis hit back by “thrusting an open hand at Sackett’s head,” reported Bridge Michigan.

Local media also reported that the police were called to the bar following the incident and that Sackett had filed a police complaint.

The tense exchange was reportedly the result of an ongoing rivalry within the party between followers of controversial hard-right new state GOP Chair Kristina Karamo and Matthew DePerno – an attorney who ran against Karamo to lead the party.

“There’s big internal disputes within the party right now, and Karamo has done nothing to bring the party together,” DePerno told Bridge Michigan.

“And how could she after she ran on a platform for the chair to divide the party? Her platform was to burn it down to eliminate the people who don’t agree with her.”

The scuffle apparently focused on accusations that Kalamazoo County GOP officials were working to “purge” Karamo loyalists from positions of power.

Watch the full clip above.