Exclusive: Michigan GOP Leader Evicted From His Home Over Non-Payment

Jon Smith, the chair of a congressional Republican Party in Michigan who has admitted to committing several felonies, was this week served an eviction notice over an unpaid balance on a property.

A former Republican colleague has told Newsweek the episode shows Smith, who is influential in the party's move to the right in the state, is not the reformed character he claims to be. However, Smith's lawyer said he is a man of great integrity, while Smith appeared to contest the fairness of the eviction ruling and described the former friend's comments as a "personal attack."

Court documents show that Smith, the GOP leader for the state's 5th congressional district and an America First activist, was taken to court in November 2021 over a termination of his tenancy by a realtor.

Hearings continued through 2022 until, on January 17 of this year, the District Court in Hillsdale gave "60 days to secure financing or pay off the remaining due balance or a writ for eviction may be filed immediatly [sic]."

On March 17, 2023, a writ was received for eviction, which was then appealed by the defendant on March 20. A clerk for the 2B District Court in Hillsdale told Newsweek that at a further hearing on Tuesday, the defendant's motion to stay proceedings was denied by judge Megan Stiverson.

Court records seen by Newsweek show that as of March 17, "no payment has been made on the judgement or no rent has been received since the date of judgement," except the sum of $8,400 in payments to the court.

At the April 17 hearing, Stiverson signed the eviction notice, putting the plaintiff "in full possession of the premises." This means that an official from the sheriff's office could now meet the plaintiff at the property to enforce an eviction.

The address listed on court documents corresponds to the same address listed for Smith on separate legal documents relating to another case published by the Hillsdale County Republican Party—of which Smith was the secretary—on Facebook, which also lists the same phone number as is listed on his campaign Facebook page.

Images of Smith's address, provided to Newsweek on Thursday, also show a pile of belongings stacked in the front yard of the adjacent property. In those pictures, the garage door is open and the interior empty.

"I paid $120,000 in total: $112,000 in payments, and $8,000 in escrow—on a $150,000 land contract," Smith told Newsweek when asked to comment on the eviction on Thursday. "I got $20,000 in repairs in eight years; I kept $18,000 in receipts alone. I was in dispute for over a year with the purchasing of the land contract, with the owner still claiming that I owed $152,000 on a $150,000 land contract.

"Ultimately, it's my responsibility and my lawyer dropped the ball. Oh well, life goes on. It appears the landowner needs it more than I do," he added.

Smith said he had been given 32 hours to remove his personal possession from the property, including a warehouse he used for his business, and said he had removed "99 percent" of his belongings in that time.

His attorney, Daren Wiseley, who is also a former chair of the local Republican Party, told Newsweek: "Jon Smith is one of the most honest, principled, and hardworking persons I have ever had the pleasure to meet."

On March 7, 2022, Smith wrote, referring to himself: "There is nothing like a triple felon with tattoos on his hands going to a[n] upscale Hillsdale College event with hundreds of millionaires, staff, professors, administration and alumni, then shaming them all and asking for them to help fund the grassroots movement for saving conservativsm [sic] in the state of Michigan in 2022."

A smiling Smith is shown posing at a group meeting in a selfie posted on the Facebook page of the Hillsdale County Republican Party on October 19, 2022.

Court records show Jon Allen Smith was listed for offenses of refusing child support in 2006, of breaking and entering a vehicle with damage to that vehicle in 2002, and a probation violation a month later.

Voter records show that the address listed in legal documents in both the eviction case and the other case is the residence of Jon Allen Smith. Both the voter records and the felony charges list Smith as being born in 1978.

A Jon Allen Smith, born in 1978, was also in the Hillsdale County District Court last year, over a charge relating to a seat belt. He pleaded guilty on June 10 and paid a $65 fine for the traffic infraction.

Smith confirmed the felonies but stressed these occurred when he was a young man, some over 20 years ago.

"I got caught on my eighteenth birthday stealing some trading cards. I was 24 when I did that B and E (breaking and entering) of a motor vehicle. I'm 45 years old," he said, adding that he considered the matter "not newsworthy."

Wiseley said Smith "had a rough youth, made some mistakes two decades ago, and has owned up to them. I would ask anyone criticizing the speck in his eye to take notice of the plank in their own."

The legal moves come following reports that right-wing Republican activists are side-lining moderate voices in a growing movement to push the party further from the center ground, with Michigan serving as a representative battleground of the shifting direction of the party nationally.

Smith was identified as being one of the key figures in the project to shift the Michigan Republican party to the right. According to a Reuters report in February, he was among those at a county meeting who used armed guards to bar moderate delegates from participating.

Penny Swan, the former deputy treasurer of the Hillsdale County Republican Party, told Newsweek that she used to be a friend of Smith's and part of his faction, but resigned in May 2022 as she "was seeing things I didn't like as an officer," tendering her resignation to Wiseley.

She described the barred delegates as "good people" and said using armed guards was a "line in the sand for me." Swan added: "In my opinion, he's a threat to democracy."

Referring to his prior felonies, she commented: "I am all for redemption if somebody's really changed, but I'm not seeing that in Jon."

"She did thanksgivings with us, she did Christmases with us. Penny hasn't been part of the Republican Party in over a year. She has nothing to do with us," Smith said. "So why does she have an interest in me? It's a personal attack on me and on my family."

"When you're actually making a difference, as Smith is, you will have individuals whose entire raison d'etre is to smear and destroy you out of envy and their own insecurities," Wiseley said. "I am proud to call Smith a friend and I can assure you that anyone taking the time out of their day to drag his name through the mud doesn't have the integrity in their entire body that this man possesses in his pinky finger."

Reuters reported that Smith also helped organize buses to take local activists to the January 6, 2021, protests on the U.S. Capitol, but that he said he did not enter the Capitol building. He questioned the integrity of the 2020 election—which Donald Trump and his allies continue to claim was rigged—and expressed a preference for an audit of Michigan's results.

Smith told Reuters that his party needed "to redefine what it means to be a Republican," and said that while some people thought a shift to the right would be "the end of the Republican Party," he thought "there is light at the end of the tunnel."

Update 04/21/23, 9:22 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include comment from Smith.