Oklahoma state Superintendent Ryan Walters wants the board members who say they caught him watching porn to “resign in disgrace.”
Last week, two school board members told the press they’d seen Walters displaying a pornographic video on a TV in his office during the closed-door portion of a Board of Education meeting at the time.
In a video statement shared to X Tuesday night, the Trump fanboy attempting to reshape the Oklahoma school system went on the offensive, claiming the allegations were a “political attack.”
“These are lies by board members, by a corrupt news media, and perpetuated by the teachers union to try and stop the will of Oklahoma voters, and the Oklahoma parents,” Walters said. “What we are going to continue to do is move this education reform for the families of Oklahoma.”
“These board members should resign immediately in disgrace over the lies that they have pushed about me to try to destroy my character.”
The Oklahoma Office of Management and Enterprise Services (OMES) had opened an investigation into Walters’s actions Friday, and on Monday asked the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) to begin a criminal investigation, according to News4.
When he’s not going after board members or the media or teachers, Walters’s other tactic seems to be straight up lying about what happened. Earlier on Tuesday, Walters claimed that he’d had his name cleared by both OMES and the sheriff’s office—but that wasn’t true at all.
“That simply isn’t the case,” OSCO spokesperson Aaron Brilbeck told News4. “Our investigation is still ongoing. In fact, I would categorize it as being in its infancy. This is going to be a very thorough investigation. And once the investigation is complete, we’re going to be very transparent with our findings.”
In his video statement Tuesday night, Walters again claimed that he’d already had “two independent groups come in and prove there was no wrongdoing going on,” but he offered no further details.
Ryan Deatherage and Becky Carson, the two school board members who’d spoken to the press about the incident, released a joint statement Tuesday. “No board member has accused Superintendent Walters of anything, we only brought attention to inappropriate content on a TV—content that would cause a teacher in our state to lose their license. As the investigation continues, we urge Superintendent Walters to cooperate with law enforcement and refrain from smearing the names, characters and reputations of board members,” they said.