Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s culture-warrior superintendent of public instruction, is a self-avowed opponent of pornography in education—so much so that he’s accused schools of “pushing pornography” for containing decidedly nonpornographic books like The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls.
Now he’s under investigation after allegedly displaying a pornographic video on a TV in his office during the closed-door portion of a Board of Education meeting last week.
According to Oklahoma politics site NonDoc, board member Ryan Deatherage noticed the video on a screen in Walter’s office while a parent discussed appealing a district transfer denial. Deatherage says the video featured “multiple nude women” and “some sort of ‘chiropractic table.’”
As Deatherage considered how to broach the subject, fellow board member Becky Carson—the only other person with a view of the screen—spotted it too. “I was like, ‘What am I seeing?’” Carson told NonDoc. At first, she wondered, “Is that woman naked?” before thinking that “she’s got a body suit on.” After noticing nipples and pubic hair, she realized, “That is not a body suit.”
Both board members described the footage as “retro,” and said it did not feature intercourse.
Carson confronted Walters, telling NonDoc she asked what was on the TV, with Walters acknowledging that “he saw it.” “Turn it off. Now,” Carson recalls saying. Walters asked, “What is this? What is this?” and fumbled to turn it off while saying, “I can’t get it to turn off. I can’t figure out how to turn it off.”
Lawmakers in the state’s legislature have called for an investigation, reports The Oklahoman, with Republican House Speaker Kyle Hilbert saying Walters should “unlock and turn over all relevant devices,” and Republican Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton saying Carson and Deatherage’s accounts “paint a strange, unsettling scene that demands clarity and transparency.”
Walters’s response to the new incident has been all but graceful. A spokesperson told NonDoc their story was “a junk tabloid lie,” telling a reporter to “get a job at” a different independent publication “and let us know when you are going to write a real story.” Walters told Fox 25 the accusation was “blatantly dishonest” and politically motivated.
On Sunday, Walters shared a statement on X, calling the accusations “categorically false” and adding, “I have no knowledge of what was on the TV screen during the alleged incident, and there is absolutely no truth to any implication of wrongdoing.”
Walters went so far as to say the story amounts to the “tactics of a broken establishment afraid of real change.” In confronting him for displaying pornographic content during an official meeting, he claimed, “They aren’t just attacking me, they’re attacking the values of the Oklahomans who elected me to challenge the status quo.”
Remarkably, this is not the first time Walters is accused of subjecting unsuspecting Oklahoma lawmakers to porn.
In March 2023, he emailed several pornographic images to state legislators, claiming he was supplying them with evidence they’d requested of inappropriate material in Oklahoma schools. But lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were left confused and upset, as the email was entirely devoid of context, containing no mention of schools that allegedly had the material.
The Washington Post reports that President Trump is infuriated that the Epstein files are still dominating headlines, even as he throws distraction after distraction to the public.
Two sources close to the president also told the Post that the rift between the Justice Department and the FBI is just as bad as it looks.
“This is a pretty substantial distraction,” said one person close to the situation. “While many are trying to keep the unity, in many ways, the DOJ and the FBI are breaking at the seams. Many are wondering how sustainable this is going to be for all the parties involved—be it the FBI director or attorney general.”
This is all of course completely self-inflicted, as the Trump administration has failed to deliver on massive promises on the Epstein files and then angering its base even more as it attempts to cover its tracks.
“They completely miscalculated the fever pitch to which they built this up,” former Reagan Justice Department official Stephen A. Saltzburg told the Post. “Now, they seem to be in full-bore panic mode, trying to change the subject and flailing in an effort to make sense of what makes no sense.”
In the midst of the chaos, Trump is hesitant to fire people like Attorney General Pam Bondi or Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, even as both have badly contradicted themselves on Epstein, because he “does not want to create a bigger spectacle by firing anyone,” a source close to the situation said.
The diversions have been clear and obvious. A rushed Martin Luther King Jr. files release against the will of his family, a trade deal with the European Union, unsubstantiated accusations of treason lobbed at his ultimate nemesis, former President Obama—none of which have succeeded in actually getting his base off the trail of one of their most important issues.
“We had the Greatest Six Months of any President in the History of our Country, and all the Fake News wants to talk about is the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax!” Trump wrote on Truth Social last week, one of many questionable posts he made about the deceased sex offender and financier with whom he was close with.
The wagons are beginning to circle now, as the House is expected to subpoena the Epstein files when they return next month, and have already subpoenaed imprisoned Epstein accomplice Ghilaine Maxwell to testify before Congress in August.
More on the Trump-Epstein saga:
Republican Texas state Representative Giovanni Capriglione co-authored the law that bans nearly all abortion in the state. And on Friday, the District 98 representative was publicly accused of having “funded several abortions for his own personal gain.”
The accusations against the legislator, who earlier this week ended his bid for an eighth term in office, come from Alex Grace, a former exotic dancer. On Friday, the right-wing publication Current Revolt published a video interview with Grace, in which she reportedly claims she had a yearslong affair with Capriglione, with their relationship beginning in 2004 when she was 18 years old.
Grace said Capriglione’s hypocrisy on issues like abortion contributed to the end of their fling. “He is someone that portrays himself to be so anti-abortion, yet he has funded several abortions for his own personal gain,” Grace alleged—though she refrained from providing further details, saying, “you’re just going to have to go with my word.”
Capriglione was the author of Texas’s “trigger” abortion ban, which outlawed abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The law makes performing an abortion, at any time from the moment of fertilization, punishable with life imprisonment or a civil penalty of $100,000. He has also, per The Texas Tribune, backed laws making it a civil offense to pay for someone to receive an abortion.
Capriglione on Friday issued a statement admitting to infidelity, without mentioning whom it was with, but denying having ever funded an abortion: “Years ago, I selfishly had an affair. I’m not proud of this. Thank God my wife and family forgave me, and we moved past it and have the strong marriage we do today.… The rest is categorically false and easily disproven.… I have never, nor would I ever, pay for an abortion.”
The lawmaker chalked the revelation up to “blowback” for “holding the wealthy, the powerful, the corporate elites, and the Austin insiders to account.”
Capriglione also vowed to pursue “legal remedies,” and Current Revolt publisher Tony Ortiz says he received a legal threat from the lawmaker on Wednesday evening. The day prior, Capriglione had announced the end of his reelection campaign.
Since the story broke, The Texas Tribune reports, Republican Representative Briscoe Cain, another prominent anti-abortion lawmaker in Texas’s House, called for Capriglione’s resignation, and urged the body’s Committee on General Investigating to probe the matter.