Selecting Clifford for Ada County sheriff should be an easy decision for commissioners

Ada County commissioners should have an easy choice when selecting a new sheriff.

Ada County Sheriff’s Lt. Matt Clifford is clearly the most qualified candidate among the three nominated by the Ada County Republican Central Committee.

Clifford, who is the police chief for the city of Eagle in that city’s contract with the Ada County Sheriff’s Office, is the lone candidate who has active Peace Officer Standards and Training certifications and is the only one with supervisory experience.

Clifford also has wide support, including the endorsement from former Ada County sheriffs Gary Raney and Vaughn Killeen, both well-respected for the jobs they did in that role.

“So who is best qualified to run the largest law enforcement agency? It’s really a no-brainer,” Killeen told the Idaho Statesman, referring to Clifford.

Clifford is also supported by a wide range of people within or associated with the Sheriff’s Office, such as technicians, probation officers, prosecutors, former and current deputies, and detectives.

Even Code3to1, a conservative group that describes itself as a “fraternal club for retired law enforcement personnel living in Idaho,” threw its support behind Clifford.

The other candidates being considered by the commissioners are Doug Traubel, a former sheriff’s deputy and investigator in the prosecutor’s office, and Mike Chilton, a former patrol officer and jail deputy.

Our misgivings about Traubel are many.

Traubel wouldn’t talk to the Idaho Statesman, not a good sign for transparent government. Would Traubel refuse to talk to the media as sheriff?

Traubel is also endorsed prominently on his website by former Arizona sheriff and “constitutional sheriff” proponent Richard Mack, who said he is good friends with Ammon Bundy, and once suggested putting women and children at the front lines as human shields in Bundy’s Nevada ranch dispute with federal agents.

Traubel also has a history of saying and writing troubling things, such as writing in a letter to the editor of the Idaho Statesman that liberals were ready to replace the U.S. “with a Marxist tyranny run by Godless bureaucratic elites.”

During an interview with commissioners Wednesday, Traubel parroted Nazi propaganda that Jews “were the villain class in the Soviet Union” because they “led the Bolshevik revolution.” He couldn’t back up a previous claim he made that “at least 50%” of rape allegations are false.

Chilton raises his own set of red flags. Chilton on Wednesday told commissioners that his supporters would be afraid to come forward out of fear of retribution.

“The cabal that has controlled Ada County for three-and-a-half decades still is kind of in control and still is there,” Chilton said.

Chilton also declined to share his personnel file with commissioners because “we live in a world where Antifa, BLM, all kinds of people show up.”

All politics aside, Clifford’s qualifications, including the fact that he’s been with the Sheriff’s Office for so long and has risen through the ranks because of his performance, tell us all we need to know. Clifford would be the least controversial candidate and would seamlessly step into the role of sheriff.

The fact that the Central Committee even put forth Traubel and Chilton as finalists tells us a lot about where the Idaho Republican Party is right now.

Few decisions made by the county commissioners are as important as this one, and it’s concerning that such an important decision will be made essentially by two people: Republican commissioners Rod Beck and Ryan Davidson, who could withstand a dissenting vote by Democrat Kendra Kenyon. But that’s how the system is set up.

We’re not encouraged by Beck and Davidson’s track record on political appointees. Remember, in one of their first moves as commissioners, Beck and Davidson outvoted Kenyon to appoint Raul Labrador to the Central District Health board. They also just recently ousted Dr. Ted Epperly from that health board because he rightly supported mask mandates and health precautions during the pandemic.

Whoever is selected as sheriff won’t get much time to rest. He would serve until the next general election, which is next year. That means he would have to win in a Republican primary if he is challenged and then the general election, if there are other candidates, in November 2022 to stay on.

We can only hope at this point that Beck and Davidson choose the most obviously qualified candidate in the interim.