MIAMI, Okla. — March 24, 2026 (The Oklahoma Post)
There is a particular kind of civic theater available only in Oklahoma, where a man can spend two months telling his neighbors the republic is being stolen, help build the infrastructure that moved bodies toward two different capitol buildings, personally hold the furniture against the door when those bodies arrived at the wrong one, vote to throw out the election results anyway once the smoke cleared, and then, four years later, accept a cabinet appointment as Secretary of Homeland Security, the chief of the federal department responsible for making sure none of it happens again. It is the kind of sequence that, in a legal context, a good attorney would describe as a fact pattern. In Oklahoma, they call it a career trajectory. Mullin never even met with Stop The Steal to ask what’s up?
Markwayne Mullin is now Secretary of Homeland Security , the head of the department that houses the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the federal body specifically charged with protecting election infrastructure in the United States. He was confirmed 59-to-34. CISA is his agency. Its director reports to him. Its budget flows through him. Its threat assessments go across his desk. It is the same agency whose Trump-appointed director declared the 2020 election “the most secure in American history” before Trump fired him for saying so. Mullin, at that exact moment in November 2020, was on Tulsa radio saying “something isn’t right.” He now runs the department. Take a moment. Breathe. Continue reading.
What follows is a detailed accounting of how Oklahoma’s Stop the Steal movement was organized, who was on the stage, what was said, what was voted, and how the man who helped barricade the House chamber against a crowd his own political network had spent months cultivating ended up in charge of domestic security for the United States of America. It also follows a paper trail that, in the peculiar way of Oklahoma paper trails, leads through family court, a federal docket, a Payne County obituary and a name that appears in at least one professional profile as Teah McDugle Corley. In the law, we call connecting those dots due diligence. In Oklahoma, we call it a Tuesday.
Oklahoma is a state with range that’s for sure.
Take a moment. Breathe. Continue reading.
BUILDING THE MACHINE
How Oklahoma’s Stop the Steal infrastructure was assembled, rally by rally, between November 2020 and January 6, 2021
The Stop the Steal movement did not arrive in Oklahoma fully formed. It was assembled piece by piece over two months, through a cascading series of rallies, letters, social media posts and legislative actions that created an interlocking network of claims, participants and momentum. Five documented events in two months tells the story of how that machinery was built.
Nov. 6, 2020. LaFortune Park, Tulsa.
The Associated Press had not yet called the race. Ballots were still being counted in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada when the Tulsa County Republican Party, chaired by Bob Jack, announced on Facebook that it would host a “Stop the Steal Rally” at 6 p.m. the following evening at LaFortune Park at 61st and Yale.
The post was deleted the same day it went up. The event was rebranded a “Protect the Vote Rally.” The Tulsa County Democratic Party noticed and issued a statement, noting with some alarm that a member of the Tulsa County Election Board was planning to attend.
A few hundred people showed up at the baseball fields anyway. Jack told the crowd that Oklahoma had “done it right,” with all 77 counties going for Trump. Some speakers urged state legislators in contested states to certify the election for Trump before the counting finished. Others simply shouted “not won, but stolen” before the formal program began. Nobody produced evidence of fraud because, as subsequent audits, court rulings and Republican-led investigations in six contested states would later confirm, there was no fraud of the kind being claimed.
The rally happened. The infrastructure had its first activation.
Nov. 7, 2020. Oklahoma State Capitol, Oklahoma City.
The AP called the race for Joe Biden. The Oklahoma Republican Party announced a “stand with the president” event at the State Capitol for the same day. The event was organized primarily by Brian Hobbs, then serving as mayor of Newkirk and a former Republican primary candidate for Oklahoma House District 38, who had lost his 2018 primary. Hobbs organized through Facebook, writing that he was “calling on all Oklahomans who are disenfranchised with the presidential election” and demanding “election transparency.”
Simultaneous to the Capitol event, a separate rally materialized near 71st and Memorial in south Tulsa. Oklahoma was holding multiple concurrent events denying the same election results on the day the race was officially called.
Nov. 14, 2020. LaFortune Park, Tulsa, second rally.
This was the highest-profile Tulsa event of the post-election period, featuring sitting U.S. Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Tulsa, as marquee speaker. Hern told the crowd that the legal challenges were “not solely motivated in retaining another four-year term, but to protect honest and fair elections.” Ronda Vuillemont-Smith, a Tulsa Republican Party committeewoman, also addressed the crowd. Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler was photographed standing with attendees during the Pledge of Allegiance.
Hundreds attended. The Tulsa County Republican Party organized the event under Jack’s continued leadership.
November through December 2020. MAGA DRAG the Interstate, statewide.
Jerry Adams of the Yukon-Mustang area founded a Facebook group called Drivefor45Oklahoma, which began as a series of Thursday evening vehicle caravans departing from Cash Saver in Mustang and Saturday drives from the old movie theater in Yukon. Within approximately one month, the group had grown to more than 9,500 Facebook members, according to the Mustang Times.
Adams organized a “MAGA DRAG the Interstate” event routing participants along 40 miles of OKC’s interstates, ending at the State Capitol. Expected turnout was 400 to 500 vehicles. Drivefor45Oklahoma would later organize buses to the January 6 Oklahoma Capitol rally and would serve as the primary organizational entity for that event. Every good machine needs a logistics arm. This was Oklahoma’s.
Nov. 20, 2020. The Arizona Letter.
While the street-level rallies were building momentum, Oklahoma House Republicans were simultaneously working the institutional levers. Public Radio Tulsa reported Nov. 20, 2020, that nearly all Oklahoma House Republicans, including state Rep. Kevin McDugle, signed and sent a letter to the Speaker of the Arizona House urging Arizona’s legislature to appoint its own electors rather than certify the popular vote result.
This was not a symbolic gesture. Appointing substitute electors in states where Trump had lost was a core operational element of the Stop the Steal strategy that would later be investigated by the January 6 Select Committee and result in criminal charges against individuals in multiple states. In legal terms, it was an attempt to cause others to take an action that courts would subsequently and unanimously reject as unlawful.
McDugle subsequently posted on his campaign Facebook page, facebook.com/KevinMcDugleForOklahoma, that he was “proud to have signed the letter, sent to every state where election fraud was rampant.” Public Radio Tulsa noted at the time that McDugle “also made an unfounded claim those facts are lies,” referring to evidence that his fraud claims were themselves unsupported by any court or audit.
In December 2020, McDugle was among Oklahoma House Republicans who signed onto support for Texas v. Pennsylvania, the lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton seeking to overturn certified election results in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. The Supreme Court rejected the case without a single recorded dissent. McDugle was also among the 37 Oklahoma state lawmakers, including 15 senators and 22 House members, who signed letters asking Oklahoma’s congressional delegation to challenge the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6. The Tulsa World reported on that letter in December 2020, naming colleagues including state Reps. T.J. Marti, Stan May, Wendi Stearman and Sean Roberts, and state Sens. Nathan Dahm, Cody Rogers and James Leewright.
By the time January 6 arrived, Oklahoma’s election-denial infrastructure was not a spontaneous gathering. It was a two-month construction project with named builders, documented materials and a specific delivery date.
THE RALLY AND THE ADMISSION
January 6, 2021, at the Oklahoma State Capitol, and what Kevin McDugle put in writing
The largest Oklahoma Stop the Steal rally took place Jan. 6, 2021, at the south steps of the Oklahoma State Capitol in Oklahoma City, timed to coincide with Congress’s joint session to certify the Electoral College vote.
News On 6 reporter Emory Bryan covered the event and filed a contemporaneous report stating that state Rep. Kevin McDugle and state Sen. Nathan Dahm were among the speakers. Bryan’s report described several thousand supporters on the Capitol grounds. The Enid News and Eagle, via CNHI News Service reporter Janelle Stecklein, put the figure at close to 1,000. Signs reading “Stop the Steal,” “Fight for Freedom” and “Patriots! Duty Calls” filled the plaza. Speakers disputed the election outcome, called Biden illegitimate, invoked the Second Amendment and criticized mask mandates.
The Tulsa GOP organized three buses carrying approximately 150 people from Mardel bookstore in Tulsa to the Oklahoma City event. Chris Drew, 58, of Harrah, a Drivefor45Oklahoma member quoted at the rally, told reporters the event was “designed to be peaceful” and that “the silent majority isn’t going to be silent anymore.”
One person was arrested at the rally for attempted arson and assault and battery after allegedly attempting to burn other attendees’ flags. Light afternoon rain eventually dispersed the crowd. Oklahoma stopped the steal right on schedule.
When The Oklahoma Post contacted McDugle for this article, he responded in writing. His full response: “I have not been to Washington DC in over 4 years. When I spoke about stop the steal it was at the state Capitol not in DC. Thanks for reaching out.” He signed the email as Kevin W. McDugle, Representative HD12, Chairman Business and Commerce Committee, Member of Appropriations and Budget Committee, Rules Committee.
A careful reading of that email, in the way a careful reader reads things, reveals that McDugle did not deny speaking at Stop the Steal events. He confirmed it. His clarification was geographic, not substantive. He drew a careful line around his physical location on January 6 while simultaneously confirming the conduct. In legal practice, we recognize this as an admission with a limiting statement. The admission stands. The limitation narrows one question while leaving the rest of the record intact.
He spoke. He organized. He used the language of a stolen election at a public rally while serving as an elected state legislator and while 37 of his colleagues were pressuring Oklahoma’s congressional delegation to act accordingly in Washington. He did not attend in person. He sent the message. Others carried it.
The distinction between speaking at an Oklahoma Stop the Steal rally and physically attending the Washington events is real. It is also somewhat less meaningful than McDugle’s email implies, given that the stated purpose of the Oklahoma City rally was to pressure Oklahoma’s congressional delegation to do exactly what the Washington crowd wanted them to do by force.
WHAT MULLIN DID WHILE THE RALLY WAS HAPPENING
The congressman who held the door, voted anyway, and called the attackers professional agitators
Markwayne Mullin was, at the time of the Oklahoma City rally, inside the United States Capitol building in Washington.
He had spent the preceding two months building his own part of the record. On Nov. 6, 2020, he tweeted support for Stop the Steal-adjacent claims and appeared on Talk 1170 Radio in Tulsa, where he said “something isn’t right. This is America. We shouldn’t allow our election to be stolen.” He told KTUL he had “real evidence” of “widespread” elections fraud. No such evidence has been produced, in any court, in any jurisdiction, at any point in the four years since. He joined 126 Republican House members in signing an amicus brief in support of Texas v. Pennsylvania in December 2020. On Jan. 6, before the joint session began, he stated publicly: “Due to all of the fraud and uncertainty surrounding the 2020 election there is no way I can vote to certify the Electoral College.”
Then the crowd arrived.
Mullin and Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, physically barricaded the House chamber doors using furniture as rioters attempted to breach them. DOJ-released footage shows Mullin face-to-face with rioters through broken glass panels, warning them that Capitol Police were prepared to open fire. He witnessed the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.
After order was restored and Congress reconvened, Mullin voted yes on the objection to Arizona’s certified electors. He voted yes on the objection to Pennsylvania’s certified electors. All five Oklahoma House members, including Hern, Tom Cole, Frank Lucas and Stephanie Bice, voted to sustain both objections, according to Public Radio Tulsa. Oklahoma’s Senate delegation split: Jim Inhofe voted to certify. James Lankford withdrew his planned objection after the attack. Oklahoma GOP Chairman John Bennett subsequently attacked Lankford publicly over that decision.
Mullin subsequently described the attackers as “professional agitators.” He declined to attribute blame to Donald Trump. He did not express regret about his certification votes in any documented statement. He suggested the real concern was election integrity going forward. He would know.
Brian Hobbs, the Newkirk mayor who had organized the November 7 Oklahoma Capitol rally, traveled to Washington and was present on the west steps of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. He subsequently posted Facebook videos attacking Lankford, alternately blamed “Antifa goons” for the violence and denied that significant violence had occurred. He estimated 50 to 100 Oklahomans had traveled to Washington for the events.
THE IRONY
A careful meditation on what it means that the man who voted to overturn a certified election now runs the agency that certifies election security
Let us sit with this for a moment, because it rewards careful attention.
The Department of Homeland Security, which Markwayne Mullin now leads as confirmed secretary, houses the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA. CISA is responsible for protecting election infrastructure. It is the agency that, in November 2020, under Trump-appointed director Chris Krebs, issued a statement declaring the 2020 election “the most secure in American history.”
Trump fired Krebs for issuing that statement.
Mullin, at that same moment in November 2020, was on Tulsa radio saying “something isn’t right.” He was telling KTUL he had “real evidence” of “widespread” fraud. He was signing amicus briefs supporting lawsuits to overturn results that CISA had just called the most secure in history. The agency said the election was clean. The future head of the agency said it was not. The future head of the agency won the argument, in the sense that he is now the head of the agency.
He is now in charge of CISA.
The irony does not stop there. It keeps going, in the way that Oklahoma ironies tend to keep going, past the point where a reasonable person would expect them to stop.
At his Senate confirmation hearing in early 2026, Mullin was asked by multiple senators whether Trump lost the 2020 election. His answer, in full: “We know that President Joe Biden was sworn into office.” He did not say Trump lost. He acknowledged a swearing-in. The distinction is the kind of thing a very careful attorney would draft, and Mullin is not an attorney, which makes it more impressive in its way. He has absorbed, through some process of civic osmosis, the most lawyered non-answer in modern confirmation hearing history. He was confirmed 59-to-34. He is now Secretary of Homeland Security.
Meanwhile, Kevin McDugle, who spent Jan. 6, 2021, speaking at a Stop the Steal rally at the Oklahoma State Capitol and urging pressure on the delegation that Mullin was part of, later pivoted to spending several years working to save a potentially innocent man from execution. He collaborated with Democrats, advocacy organizations and television personality Dr. Phil to highlight what he believed was a miscarriage of justice in the Richard Glossip case. He authored a bill that would have granted legal immunity to drivers who ran over people blocking roads at protests. He left the legislature in 2024 without seeking re-election. He was, by any standard measure, a complicated man.
Neither Mullin nor McDugle has been charged with any crime related to their Stop the Steal activities. This is noted not as exoneration but as context.
The irony, in its fullest expression, is this: The movement that both men participated in, which claimed that elections could be stolen and that certified results could not be trusted, has now placed one of its most visible congressional boosters at the head of the agency whose explicit institutional purpose is to ensure that elections are not stolen and that certified results can be trusted. The man who said the process was broken now owns the process. This is not a metaphor. This is the organizational chart of the federal government.
For those keeping score at home: CISA was right in 2020. Mullin said CISA was wrong. Mullin now runs CISA. Any questions about the integrity of the 2026 midterms may be directed to his office.
WHAT THE MOVEMENT LEFT BEHIND
The documented record of Oklahoma’s role in the national Stop the Steal infrastructure, and what it means for elections going forward
The Stop the Steal movement was not, at its core, a series of rallies. The rallies were the visible output of a deeper infrastructure: social media networks, elected official participation, legal filings, legislative letters, bus organizations and the cultivation of a specific emotional state in a politically engaged population. Oklahoma contributed to that infrastructure at every level.
The Tulsa County Republican Party provided institutional organization for multiple events. State legislators signed letters urging other states’ legislators to subvert their own certified results. A sitting U.S. congressman promoted fraud claims publicly and on radio while signing legal briefs to overturn results in four states. A grassroots Facebook group founded in a Mustang parking lot grew to nearly 10,000 members in a month and was eventually organizing bus transportation to state Capitol events.
Every court that reviewed the underlying fraud claims rejected them. The Supreme Court declined the Texas case without a single recorded dissent. State-level audits in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania found no fraud sufficient to change any result. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency called the 2020 election the most secure in American history. Not the second most secure. The most secure. In history.
None of that stopped the rallies. None of that changed the votes. All five Oklahoma House members voted, after watching a mob breach the Capitol, to object to certified results from two states. They had come to Washington to certify an election. They watched violence. They voted against certification. The sequence is in the public record.
The 37 Oklahoma state legislators who signed letters asking Congress to overturn the election results have not, as a group, issued public statements acknowledging that the claims were false. Several, when contacted by Oklahoma Watch in January 2022 for an anniversary piece, doubled down. State Rep. Justin Humphrey, R-Lane, told Oklahoma Watch: “If anything I’m just more convinced that there was election fraud. Sorry, I’m 100% believing that our government is a false government and a corrupt government.”
Humphrey remains in office.
Kevin McDugle, for his part, moved on. His post-legislative public presence has centered primarily on criminal justice reform and the Glossip case rather than election-related claims. He confirmed to The Oklahoma Post only that he spoke at Oklahoma Capitol Stop the Steal events. He did not travel to Washington.
Markwayne Mullin moved to the Senate, then to the cabinet. He is now Secretary of Homeland Security. He oversees CISA. He oversees federal election security infrastructure. He oversees the agency that, in 2020, told the country the election he was simultaneously calling fraudulent was the most secure in history.
He answered a question about whether Trump lost the election by noting that Biden was sworn in.
He was confirmed 59-to-34.
The next federal election is in November 2026. The person responsible for the security of that election is Markwayne Mullin. This is not an opinion. This is an org chart.
THE STANDARD AND THE RECORD
Accountability journalism requires precision about what the record shows, as distinct from what the narrative logic suggests. The two are not always identical, and when they diverge, the record governs.
What the record shows about McDugle: He confirmed in writing to The Oklahoma Post that he spoke at Oklahoma Stop the Steal events at the state Capitol. News On 6 independently confirmed his presence as a speaker at the January 6 Oklahoma Capitol rally through contemporaneous reporting by Emory Bryan. He signed the Arizona interference letter. He signed on to Texas v. Pennsylvania. He made unsubstantiated fraud claims on the House floor and on social media while serving as an elected state legislator. He left office in 2024.
What the record shows about Mullin: He publicly promoted Stop the Steal claims through multiple platforms from November 2020 through January 6, 2021. He signed an amicus brief seeking to overturn certified results in four states. He voted, after the Capitol attack, to object to certified results in Arizona and Pennsylvania. He was physically present in the Capitol during the breach, helped barricade the chamber, witnessed violence and still cast both objection votes. He declined at his 2026 confirmation hearing to state clearly that Trump lost the 2020 election. He was confirmed as Secretary of Homeland Security.
What the record does not show: No jointly signed document between Mullin and McDugle has been located. Their political relationship is documented as parallel rather than coordinated.
The distinction between parallel actions and coordination matters both for legal precision and for journalistic accuracy. This article reports what the documents show. Where documents are absent or incomplete, it says so explicitly. The questions the documents leave open are themselves part of the story, because the questions are what accountability journalism is built to ask.
WHY THIS MATTERS: THE 2026 ELECTIONS AND BEYOND
The man who said the process was broken now owns the process. Here is what that means.
Elections do not secure themselves. They are secured by institutions, by the people who run those institutions and by the credibility those people carry into the room when they make decisions about what counts, what does not and who gets to say so. That credibility is not decorative. It is the load-bearing wall of democratic governance. When it cracks, the building does not always fall immediately. Sometimes it just leans, incrementally, until the day it does not.
Markwayne Mullin is now Secretary of Homeland Security. The November 2026 midterm elections are eight months away. Those two facts exist in the same sentence, in the same country, at the same time, and the people responsible for noticing that are journalists, voters and the occasional senator who asked a direct question at a confirmation hearing and received a careful non-answer about a swearing-in ceremony.
Here is what the institutional landscape looks like from ground level.
CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is the federal entity responsible for protecting election infrastructure from foreign interference, cyberattack and domestic disruption. It coordinates with state election officials, provides threat assessments, and is the primary federal body that state and local election administrators call when something goes wrong. In 2020, CISA’s director, Chris Krebs, a Trump appointee, declared the election the most secure in American history and was fired for it. CISA’s institutional credibility survived that episode because the agency’s professional staff continued their work and because subsequent administrations treated the agency’s election security mission as legitimate.
CISA now reports to Markwayne Mullin.
This is not a speculative concern about what Mullin might do. It is a structural observation about what Mullin has already done, on the record, in public, with his name attached. He promoted fraud claims that every court and every audit rejected. He voted to reject certified results after watching a mob attempt to prevent their certification. He declined, at his own confirmation hearing, to say plainly that the candidate who received more electoral votes in a certified election won that election. These are not ancient history. They are his public record, and his public record is now the public record of the person who runs federal election security infrastructure.
The question that responsible election administrators across the country are now required to ask, as a matter of institutional prudence, is whether the Secretary of Homeland Security will support CISA’s mission of election security with the same institutional commitment as his predecessors, or whether the agency’s posture will shift in ways that benefit the political interests of the party whose fraud claims he has never publicly disavowed. That is not a partisan question. It is a governance question. It has a correct answer regardless of which party is asking it.
Oklahoma’s experience with the Stop the Steal movement offers a specific and documented case study in how election-denial infrastructure gets built. It starts with a Facebook post that gets deleted and rebranded. It builds through rallies, letters, legal filings and the participation of elected officials who lend institutional credibility to claims that courts are simultaneously rejecting. It culminates in votes that, even after violence, refuse to acknowledge the documented outcome of a certified election. And then, in the Oklahoma version of this story, it produces a cabinet secretary.
The 37 Oklahoma state legislators who signed letters asking Congress to overturn the 2020 election results are still, for the most part, in office. The Tulsa County Republican Party that organized rallies before any fraud claims had been tested in any court is still the Tulsa County Republican Party. The grassroots networks that built the bus routes and the Facebook groups and the caravan routes are still intact, still connected and still capable of rapid mobilization. They have not been dismantled. They have been normalized.
Kevin McDugle confirmed in writing to The Oklahoma Post that he spoke at Stop the Steal events at the Oklahoma State Capitol. He then left the legislature. He did not face legal consequences for his participation in a movement that the January 6 Select Committee described as having contributed to the conditions that produced the Capitol attack. He coached a baseball team or something. Oklahoma moved on.
Markwayne Mullin confirmed at his Senate confirmation hearing that Joe Biden was sworn into office. He is now responsible for the security of the next election. He has never said the last one was legitimate.
In the legal world, we have a concept called notice. It means that when you have been told something, you cannot later claim you did not know. The public record in Oklahoma, assembled across five years of reporting by News On 6, Oklahoma Watch, Public Radio Tulsa, the Tulsa World, KTUL, KJRH, the Enid News and Eagle, the Mustang Times and The Oklahoma Post, constitutes notice. The rallies happened. The letters were signed. The votes were cast. The cabinet appointment was confirmed. The names are in the record.
The 2026 midterms will be administered in an environment where the Secretary of Homeland Security is a man who voted to reject the certified results of the last presidential election, who oversaw his own confirmation by declining to say who won it, and who now controls the federal agency whose explicit mandate is to tell the public whether elections can be trusted.
If that arrangement produces a credibility problem in November 2026, nobody who read the Oklahoma record will be able to say they were not warned.
The questions are on the table. The confirmation vote is 59-to-34.
Oklahoma is a state with range.
The elections are in November.
Writing By: Robbie Robertson | Editing by Robbie Robertson
Editor’s Note: Gregory Moyer, editor and publisher of The Oklahoma Post, is a pro se federal appellant in Moyer v. Murray, Tenth Circuit Case No. 25-6135, a civil rights and RICO case in which members of the Corley family of Payne County are named defendants. That litigation is referenced in this article. Moyer conducted the source interview with Kevin McDugle cited herein. The Oklahoma Post has sought comment from Kevin McDugle, the Corley Family, Markwayne Mullin’s Senate office and members of the Corley family. Responses will be incorporated as received. We have spoken to their office in the past regarding other matters.
A federal docket, a family obituary, a sitting attorney general and a name that appears where you would not expect it
Here is where the story acquires the texture that would ordinarily prompt a careful journalist to call the subjects and say, before proceeding, let me read this back to you slowly so we understand each other completely.
A federal civil case, Moyer v. Murray et al., was filed April 14, 2025, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, Case No. 5:25-cv-00429-SLP. The plaintiff is Gregory Moyer, editor and publisher of The Oklahoma Post, proceeding pro se. The defendants include judges, attorneys and agencies. The docket, publicly available through Justia, shows an amended complaint filed May 22, 2025, with multiple attached exhibits described in the filing record as including a journal entry, a Payne County email, a letter from a former district attorney, an affidavit, an audio recording and a document described as Schedule A. Monetary Contributions.
The district court dismissed the amended complaint sua sponte on July 11, 2025, on Rule 8 pleading grounds, meaning the court found the complaint did not meet the standard of a short and plain statement required under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The court declined to rule on the merits. A subsequent Rule 60(b)(6) motion for relief from judgment was denied Sept. 17, 2025. The case is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as Case No. 25-6135, where Moyer is prosecuting a pro se appeal.
Now the family structure.
An obituary for Sharon Kay (Dowdy) Corley, published by the Stillwater NewsPress, provides the clearest documentary map of the relationships at issue. Sharon Corley was the wife of Robert “Bob” Corley. She had two sons: Phillip Craig Corley and Michael Keith Corley. The obituary identifies Ky Dowdy Corley explicitly as her first grandson. That places Ky Corley as the son of Phillip Craig Corley. The obituary further identifies Michael Corley’s wife as Teah. The Dowdy in Ky’s middle name honors Sharon’s maiden name, a detail the obituary confirms and that is the kind of thing families do when they want the record to show where someone comes from.
Phillip Craig Corley served as a Payne County District Court judge. He has since retired as judge but, according to available reporting, still faces ongoing proceedings before the Council on Judicial Complaints and the Oklahoma Bar Association. Ky Dowdy Corley, his son, is an Oklahoma City attorney who has faced two DUI charges since 2018, according to Black News Portal. The first resulted in an Alford plea and a deferred sentence in Oklahoma County. An Oklahoma Bar Association disciplinary investigation triggered by that first incident was closed without discipline, according to available records. The second DUI, reported in 2024, was forwarded to Creek County due to the judge’s relationship to the case. A county where both Ky and others frequently took cases like Dencio Cook and other cases to vacate.
The professional record for Teah Corley, publicly available through ZoomInfo, identifies her as principal and CEO of EmployerAdvocates, a benefits consulting firm in the Oklahoma City area, with SPHR and SHRM-SCP credentials and a B.A. from Cameron University.
Facebook search results, documented in a screenshot in the reporter’s possession, show the name Teah McDugle Corley. McDugle’s own social media has referenced Teah McDugle Corley in a family context. The McDugle in that name is not a coincidence of spelling. Teah McDugle Corley is Kevin McDugle’s daughter. She married Michael Keith Corley, the younger brother of Judge Phillip Craig Corley. That makes Kevin McDugle the father-in-law of Michael Corley and a member of the extended family network that sits at the center of the federal litigation. The children of Michael and Teah Corley, named as Blythe and Cline in the obituary, are the grandchildren of both Sharon Corley and Kevin McDugle.
This is the same Kevin McDugle who confirmed in writing to The Oklahoma Post that he spoke at Stop the Steal events at the Oklahoma State Capitol. Who signed a letter urging Arizona legislators to appoint their own electors. Who supported Texas v. Pennsylvania. Who served eight years in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. He did not respond to a separate inquiry from The Oklahoma Post about his family’s connection to the Corley family and to the litigation. His written response was limited to the Stop the Steal inquiry.
Now for the part that a careful attorney would describe as the most structurally significant element in this section.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has led his office’s defense in Moyer v. Murray. The state’s top legal officer, exercising discretionary power over investigations and legal strategy, has directed the defense of the judicial and attorney defendants named in the federal complaint. What Drummond has not done, in any filing accessible in the public record, is disclose a conflict of interest or recuse himself from that representation.
Drummond’s wife is Wendy Corley Drummond. She is related to Judge Phillip Corley, a central figure in the litigation. That family connection makes the attorney general of Oklahoma, in practical terms, the lawyer defending his own wife’s family members in a federal civil rights case filed against them.
In any functioning ethical framework, that sequence of facts, namely a top law enforcement official directing a defense on behalf of family members without disclosure or recusal, would trigger mandatory review. The Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct address conflicts of interest arising from personal relationships. The Oklahoma Code of Judicial Conduct requires disqualification where impartiality may reasonably be questioned, including where a judge has a financial or personal interest in a proceeding. Those rules exist for reasons that are self-evident when you read this paragraph.
The public record does not reflect any disclosure by Drummond of his family relationship to the Corleys in connection with this litigation. It does not reflect any appointment of independent counsel to handle the defense at arm’s length from the attorney general’s personal interests. It does not reflect any recusal. It reflects the state of Oklahoma, represented by its attorney general, defending a sitting judge and an attorney who are the attorney general’s wife’s relatives in a federal civil rights case.
The docket also lists, among the exhibits attached to the amended complaint, a document described as Schedule A. Monetary Contributions. The Oklahoma Code of Judicial Conduct addresses the implications of campaign contributions to sitting judges specifically in the context of recusal obligations, requiring disqualification where contributions within the prior four years from parties or their counsel would cause a reasonable person to question the judge’s impartiality. The contents of Schedule A have not been made publicly available in the accessible docket record, but its description is notable in the context of a case alleging judicial favoritism and conflicts of interest.
What the record contains, assembled from the obituary, the docket, the professional profiles, the social media documentation and the public campaign finance context, is a documented family network connecting a sitting attorney general, a retired district court judge still facing disciplinary proceedings, an attorney facing bar scrutiny, and a former state legislator who confirmed his participation in the Stop the Steal movement to this newspaper. They are connected by marriage, by blood and by the public record.
Whether those connections constitute the misconduct alleged in the federal complaint is a question the Tenth Circuit will ultimately have the opportunity to consider on the merits. What is not a question is whether the connections exist. The obituary establishes them. The professional profiles corroborate them. The attorney general’s own family name provides the link between the state’s defense posture and the defendants being defended.
A careful attorney, reviewing those facts, would say: that is a set of disclosures that should have been made before the first brief was filed. The Oklahoma Post agrees.
Readers with information bearing on the relationships documented in this section are encouraged to contact The Oklahoma Post at theokpost.com. Documents may be submitted securely through the site.
Sources
Primary Source / Direct Correspondence
Kevin W. McDugle, email to Gregory Moyer, The Oklahoma Post, subject line “RE: Role In Stop The Steal,” received June 8 (year confirmed by correspondence metadata). McDugle confirmed in writing: “When I spoke about stop the steal it was at the state Capitol not in DC. I have not been to Washington DC in over 4 years.” Signed as Representative HD12, Chairman Business and Commerce Committee.
Broadcast and Digital News: Oklahoma Stop the Steal Rallies
Emory Bryan, “Trump Supporters Gather At State Capitol To Protest Vote Certification,” News On 6 (KOTV), Jan. 6, 2021. https://www.newson6.com/story/5ff60614fedd597865ad6df3/trump-supporters-gather-at-state-capitol-to-protest-vote-certification
Janelle Stecklein, “Election Protest at Oklahoma Capitol Largely Peaceful,” Enid News and Eagle (CNHI News Service), Jan. 6, 2021. https://www.enidnews.com/news/politics/election-protest-at-oklahoma-capitol-largely-peaceful/article_25560e7c-5071-11eb-956d-8bbf81a66a42.html
“No Incidents Reported During Protests at Oklahoma Capitol,” McAlester News-Capital (CNHI News Service), Jan. 6, 2021. https://www.mcalesternews.com/news/no-incidents-reported-during-protests-at-oklahoma-capitol/article_64be15f8-506e-11eb-b0ba-a749f3fa3488.html
“Tulsans Head To State Capitol For Rally In Support Of President Trump,” News On 6, Jan. 6, 2021. https://www.newson6.com/story/5ff59d946a21760bdd09e8ba/tulsans-head-to-state-capitol-for-rally-in-support-of-president-trump
Trevor Brown, “As Biden Wins Presidency, Oklahoma Republicans Push Falsehoods, Unfounded Claims,” Oklahoma Watch, Nov. 6, 2020. https://oklahomawatch.org/2020/11/06/as-biden-nears-victory-oklahoma-republicans-push-falsehoods-unfounded-claims/
Trevor Brown, “A Year After Jan. 6 Insurrection, Election Lies, Misinformation Persist For Some in Oklahoma GOP,” Oklahoma Watch, Jan. 6, 2022. https://oklahomawatch.org/2022/01/06/a-year-after-jan-6-insurrection-election-lies-misinformation-persist-for-some-in-oklahoma-gop/
“A Year After Jan. 6 Insurrection, Election Lies and Misinformation Persist For Some in the Oklahoma GOP,” Public Radio Tulsa, Jan. 7, 2022. https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/local-regional/2022-01-07/a-year-after-jan-6-insurrection-election-lies-and-misinformation-persist-for-some-in-the-oklahoma-gop
“Tulsa Trump Supporters Host ‘Protect the Vote’ Rally in Protest Over Presidential Election Results,” Tulsa World, Nov. 2020. https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/tulsa-trump-supporters-host-protect-the-vote-rally-in-protest-over-presidential-election-results/article_a7e2c056-203d-11eb-945d-97a702c55047.html
“Local Trump Supporters Converge for ‘Protect the Vote’ Rally in Defense of President’s Election Challenge,” Tulsa World, Nov. 2020. https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/local-trump-supporters-converge-for-protect-the-vote-rally-in-defense-of-presidents-election-challenge/article_af0824cc-2630-11eb-bba1-737b5fa1aeba.html
“Tulsa Rep. Party Holds ‘Protect The Vote’ Rally; Dem. Party Calls It ‘Slap In The Face,'” News On 6. https://www.newson6.com/story/5fa612510b28451006e513f3/tulsa-rep-party-holds-protect-the-vote-rally-dem-party-calls-it-slap-in-the-face-
“Trump Supporters Gather for ‘Protect the Vote’ Rally in Tulsa,” KJRH. https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/trump-supporters-gather-for-protect-the-vote-rally-in-tulsa
“Trump Supporters Gather for a ‘Stop the Steal’ Rally in South Tulsa,” KTUL. https://ktul.com/news/local/trump-supporters-gather-for-a-stop-the-steal-rally-in-south-tulsa
Kevin McDugle: Election Denial Activity and Legislative Record
“Oklahoma House Republicans Encourage Arizona Lawmakers to Interfere in 2020 Election,” Public Radio Tulsa, Nov. 20, 2020. https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/local-regional/2020-11-20/oklahoma-house-republicans-encourage-arizona-lawmakers-to-interfere-in-2020-election
“Republican State Lawmakers Urge Congressional Delegation to Fight Electoral College Result,” Tulsa World, Dec. 2020. https://tulsaworld.com/news/republican-state-lawmakers-urge-congressional-delegation-to-fight-electoral-college-result/article_f374dfa2-4493-11eb-a6a9-3b83bc6cf5e4.html
“State Rep. Kevin McDugle Will Not Seek Another Term in the Oklahoma House of Representatives,” Fox 23, 2024. https://www.fox23.com/news/state-rep-kevin-mcdugle-will-not-seek-another-term-in-the-oklahoma-house-of-representatives/article_3ca18b1c-f607-11ee-9ac7-e78942f12918.html
Kevin McDugle, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_McDugle
Kevin McDugle, Ballotpedia. https://ballotpedia.org/Kevin_McDugle
Kevin McDugle, Oklahoma House of Representatives official biography. https://www.okhouse.gov/representatives/kevin-mcdugle
“Conversations with Cubit” Facebook promotional image, May 4 (year per file metadata), describing McDugle’s legislation granting protection to drivers who run over protesters. (Screenshot in reporter’s possession.)
Markwayne Mullin: Election Denial, Jan. 6 and DHS Confirmation
“After Attack, All 5 Oklahoma US Representatives Still Vote To Oppose Certified Election Results,” Public Radio Tulsa, Jan. 7, 2021. https://www.publicradiotulsa.org/local-regional/2021-01-07/after-attack-all-5-oklahoma-us-representatives-still-vote-to-oppose-certified-election-results
“Oklahoma Rep. Mullin Says There’s ‘Real Evidence’ of ‘Widespread’ Elections Fraud,” KTUL. https://ktul.com/news/local/oklahoma-rep-mullin-says-theres-real-evidence-of-widespread-elections-fraud
“New Jan. 6th Capitol Riot Video Shows Mullin Face-to-Face with Rioters,” Fox 23. https://www.fox23.com/news/new-jan-6th-capitol-riot-video-shows-mullin-face-to-face-with-rioters/article_f10c79e6-ad04-11ee-9052-5b37e31297b0.html
“Senate Confirms Election Denier Mullin as Homeland Security Chief,” Democracy Docket, 2026. https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/senate-confirms-election-denier-mullin-homeland-security/
Markwayne Mullin, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markwayne_Mullin
Federal Litigation: Moyer v. Murray
Moyer v. Murray et al., Case No. 5:25-cv-00429-SLP, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. Docket via Justia: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/oklahoma/okwdce/5%3A2025cv00429/130820
Order (Doc. 35), Moyer v. Murray (denying default judgment; contains internal date discrepancy “July 9, 2024”). https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/oklahoma/okwdce/5%3A2025cv00429/130820/35/0.pdf
Order (Doc. 44), Moyer v. Murray (Rule 8 sua sponte dismissal, July 11, 2025). https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/oklahoma/okwdce/5%3A2025cv00429/130820/44
Moyer v. Murray, Tenth Circuit Case No. 25-6135. Docket via Justia: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/circuit-courts/ca10/25-6135
Corley Family Records
Obituary, Sharon Kay (Dowdy) Corley, Stillwater NewsPress. https://obituaries.stwnewspress.com/obituary/sharon-corley-1067960846
Teah Corley professional profile, ZoomInfo. https://www.zoominfo.com/p/Teah-Corley/930515764
“Attorney and Son of Payne County District Court Judge Arrested for Second DUI,” Black News Portal. https://blacknewsportal.com/attorney-and-son-of-payne-county-district-court-judge-arrested-for-second-dui
Ky Dowdy Corley attorney profile, Lawyers.com. https://www.lawyers.com/oklahoma-city/oklahoma/ky-corley-300870012-a/
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