Atty. General Alan Wilson’s RINO GOP henchmen in Beaufort County did his dirty work for him.
Skip Hoagland, a Low Country businessman who also runs the blog SC Watchdog in his spare time, was released from the custody of Beaufort County Sheriff’s Detention Center after spending nearly four days in jail in the aftermath of his most recent arrest at the hands of Low Country Bluffton Police working at the behest of establishment Republican politicos.
Hoagland’s arrest is being called a clear case of political persecution by those near the situation, stemming primarily from Skip’s relentless effort to uproot corruption graft, and fraud he tells National File he has discovered in his fifty years in the Low Country.
Hoagland’s imprisonment threatened to erupt into an all-out scandal for Low Country Republican leadership who had him imprisoned for seeking to exercise his First Amendment right at a lunch-time event at an area deli that serves lunch to the public.
His release came quietly on a Friday afternoon well into the fourth day of his imprisonment on August 19th largely because Hoagland’s story threatened to become a flashpoint for conservatives unhappy with the way establishment Republicans run both the party and state and local government.
Hoagland’s arrest was also quickly coming to be seen as an intentional violation of basic human rights after a few posts on social media began to burn up the internet.
Hoagland was ultimately released late in the day on Friday, Aug. 22, after Low Country attorney Lauren Martell threw down the gauntlet with Hoagland’s wardens.
Martell informed Beaufort County authorities that the 77-year-old Hoagland, who was in pain and potential medical risk as a result of missing his medications and health care treatment for days, would be leaving with an ambulance as a result of the medical neglect he suffered during the nearly four full days he was in Beaufort County custody.
Skip’s sentence of two weeks was “overly punitive, certainly politically motivated,” Martell, who is an attorney, told National File.
“The owners weren’t even there. They didn’t even testify against him for trespass. it was the Beaufort County GOP top leadership that testified against a taxpaying citizen who’s been a Republican forever,” she said.
“They tried to bar him from GOP meetings where elected public officials speak,” Martell said. “The law says that the party is a state actor, so for the party to arrest people who ask hard questions will absolutely achieve their desired effect: casting a chilling effect on our first amendment right to free speech.”
LOW COUNTRY CABAL & CORRUPTION
Hoagland, who has been on a crusade to uproot corruption and graft in municipal and state government, takes particular aim at the Hilton Head Island – Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, which, among many other allegations of fraud and abuse, was reported to have failed to divulge how it spent $3.3 million in public money.
The Island Packet originally reported on the shocking allegations of Hilton Head-Bluffton Chamber corruption here.
READ: Hilton Head chamber hides how it spends $3M in taxes. That’s illegal, local leaders say
At the time of his late-August arrest, Hoagland was to be a guest of Lynn Greeley at a Republican Party event. Greeley is also waging the battle against fraud and corruption at the state and local level in the Low Country. One of Greeley’s primary issues of concern is a $75 million legal fee Attorney General Alan Wilson awarded to his own law firm and to other private attorneys in the wake of a failed, state-run Savannah River clean-up operation.
Hoagland’s detractors in Beaufort County are a “Who’s Who” in the Low Country cabal of establishment Republican politicians. The list includes Beaufort County GOP Chair Kevin Hennelly, RNC Executive Committeewoman and First Congressional District Elector Xiaodan Li, and their preferred candidate for governor, Attorney General Alan Wilson.
Xiaodan Li was promoted to her role as elector after previously opposing many MAGA initiatives for election transparency in the wake of the 2020 election.
The Hennelly-Xiaodan Li Cabal prefers to ignore blatant corruption by their political bedfellows, and instead points to what they say is Hoagland long record of so-called disruptive behavior.
In an exclusive interview with National File, Hoagland told this reporter that anything the members of the Low Country Cabal say is a “fabricated lie intended to discredit him and his family who have been in good standing in the Low Country for fifty years.”
Hoagland also points to the fact that Councilman Tom Ritz and Sen. Tom Davis will both attest to the clear fact that they have never seen Mr. Hoagland disrupted a meeting in his life, or make any bigoted or xenophobic remarks.
Despite the claims by the Low Country Cabal, Hoagland’s latest arrest may be more accurately described as just one more incident in a long, sustained campaign of political persecution and lawfare aimed squarely at those who seek transparency.
Hoagland’s most recent arrest occurred on Tuesday, Aug. 19th, the same day he was erroneously convicted.
Hoagland’s membership in the Republican Party — a quasi-governmental organization, was revoked two years ago by county party chairman Kevin Hennelly. Hoagland was also informed prior to the event that he would “not be admitted.” But it wasn’t the Deli owners who sought to refuse Hoagland access. It was the Party.
Despite the egregious nature of Hoagland’s arrest, there were few willing to stand up to Xiaodan’s and Hennelly’s Low Country Cabal.
Among those willing to stand up were Rep. Nancy Mace, who is running against Wilson in the primary for Governor, and successful conservative businessman Mark Lynch, who is challenging Lindsey Graham in the primary for U.S. Senate.
Beaufort County Republican Chairman Kevin Hennelly is the tip of the spear for making sure that Hoagland is unable to voice his concerns about corruption at GOP and town meetings in the Low Country.
Skip, who is 77 years old, was in jail for four days, from the 19th to the 22nd of August.
Skip has been targeted many times previously, and he has repeatedly appealed the heavy handed treatment by the Blufton Town Council going at least as far back as 2023, when he caught misdemeanor charges from the powers that be for speaking for his allotted time, and then for three extra minutes on behalf of another citizen.
Hoagland’s 2023 speech focused on calling for more fiscal transparency from the Hilton Head-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce. The Hilton Head Town Council denied Hoagland his additional three minutes, and instead decided to throw their own grenade into the middle of the proceedings, and declare Hoagland the perpetrator.
At the time, rather than allow Hoagland his three extra minutes, Mayor Alan Perry decided to move the meeting into recess, take five extra minutes to discuss the maneuver, and then throw his hands up in exasperation and call the meeting a “circus.”
While some local jurisdictions, such as the Beaufort County School Board, do bar handing the floor to another speaker, the Hilton Head Council does not specifically prohibit it.
In January of this year, Sheriff PJ Tanner ordered Skip’s arrest. The Island Packet reported on Skip’s arrest as well, and made sure to attempt to stigmatize the carrying of a sidearm, as if that were somehow unlawful.
Just months prior, in November of 2024, Magistrate Judge Erin G. Vaux sentenced Hoagland to five days in county jail for a decorum violation. Judge Vaux was clear on her reasoning at the time. “
Jail time is meant to be punitive. It is meant to change the behavior. It is meant to deter.” Vaux told Hoagland during Wednesday morning’s proceedings. “Clearly, a fine does not deter you.”
Hoagland has offered a one million dollar cashiers check to anyone who can prove him wrong. He says he has evidence to back up his claims, and maintains that the judiciary, including sitting Attorney General Alan Wilson, refuses to hear the claims.
KICKED OUT OF THE GOP FOR EXPOSING CORRUPTION
Hoagland and his compatriot Lynn Greeley have, evidently, been ejected from the Beaufort County Republican Party for their efforts to uncover waste, fraud, and abuse. Hennelly’s ejection of Hoagland from the GOP is the basis he used to have Bluffton Police arrest Hoagland.
Lynn Greeley tells National File that Kevin Hennelly kicked Hoagland out of the party in order to produce a scenario where Hoagland could be summarily arrested on his next attempt to enter a meeting.
“It was a whole setup, they knew he was coming, because Skip told them he was coming as my guest. They don’t want us coming there because we raise our hands and ask questions,” Greeley said.
Hennelly’s move to eject citizens of South Carolina from the dominant party in a two-party system, thus depriving them of the ability to ask questions of party officials at the top of the Republican Party raises questions as to the legality of disenfranchisement of South Carolinian citizens.
That disenfranchisement appears increasingly blatant when considering the identities of the cast of characters and the questions being asked of those characters.
For example, Republican Party apparatchik Xiao Dan Li’s husband Matt Sweeney, serves as Chairman of the Board for the Hilton Head-Beaufort Chamber of Commerce.
Immediately after Hoagland was escorted from the Deli on August 19th, Alan Wilson walks right in the door.
Gubernatorial candidate Alan Wilson is the same man Greeley is asking about the $75 million in taxpayer dollars Wilson directed to his law firm in the form of legal fees.
The primary thrust of Hoagland’s effort has centered on his discovery of millions of dollars of fraud and outright theft of tax dollars from taxpayers in tourist destinations in the form of Convention and Visitors’ Bureaus (CVBs) and Destination Marketing Organization (DMOs).
Hoagland says every municipality’s Chamber of Commerce, CVB and DMO is in on this scheme — totaling tens of millions of dollars being spent and issued to Chambers of Commerce in violation of federal tax laws, and Alan Wilson and the Chambers of Commerce refuse to provide transparency with respect to how the money is being used.
Here’s how the scam works, according to Hoagland:
Municipalities in tourist destination areas put in place Accommodation Tax Funds and Hospitality Taxes, and go to town on the remittances from those taxes. Hoagland says the entire Accommodation Tax Fund and Hospitality Tax Fund process is corrupted and illegal. It allows cities to use these accommodations taxes being issued and used illegally and with little transparency. Hoagland says there are hundreds of millions of dollars in accommodations and hospitality taxes.
Hoagland also says he has caught Wilson lying three times as Wilson has intervened to stop these investigations into the Chambers of Commerce for the fraud. Hoagland also says he has tape that includes the FBI lying to cover for Wilson and South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED).
Hoagland says Alan Wilson will do nothing, and that he’s facilitating the theft.
Hoagland says he is instituting an IRS whistleblower tax case that will show that it could be billions of taxpayer money is being illegally used and laundered in over 2000 cities and all 50 states — which he says will constitute one of the largest non profit tax evasion scams in U.S. History.
Hoagland says that those who don’t like him or say they don’t like how he does things really dislike the fact that he brings truth and facts.
“They don’t want to talk about anything other than the issues, and instead focus on decorum,” he says. And he’s put his money where his mouth is.
He’s offered a $1 million cashiers’ check to anybody that can prove him wrong. That offer has been on the table for five years, he tells National File.
Hoagland has also offered a $50,000 reward for anyone that brings him information on any top-level leader in South Carolina that leads to their arrest for minimum one year served.
In a separate matter of lawfare against him, Hoagland is currently awaiting decision on a $50 million dollar defamation judgment that the plaintiffs now want to dismiss.
In 2022, a Beaufort County jury ruled that Skip Hoagland should to pay Bluffton Mayor Lisa Sulka $40 million in actual damages and $10 million in punitive damages, The Island Packet reported.
Sulka’s LinkedIn now says she works as a “Real Estate Consultant” in Bluffton.
“They’ve ignored for two months. now, the day before the trial, they’re saying they will not grant a retrial,” Hoagland told National File.
This is a developing story.
The post SC Watchdog Skip Hoagland Released from Jail After Politically Motivated Arrest appeared first on National File.