Can we all agree that this situation with John Wahl is strange?
We can do that, right? Republicans, Democrats, Independents – we all should be able to come together on this one.
Not that he’s strange, mind you. I make no judgment on that topic. Nor do I make any judgments on his religion, his beliefs or his occupation – the same way I wish he’d behave towards others.
But the situation, on the other hand ….
It’s strange that we don’t really – I mean, really – know exactly who this guy is. We’re talking about the chairman of the Alabama Republican Party here, not some fringe guy. He’s literally in charge of the party that holds a supermajority in the legislature, that’s running the entirety of state government in Alabama.
On Tuesday, al.com columnist Kyle Whitmire dished out the latest dose of utter weirdness involving “John” Wahl – that his real name is Nehemiah Wahl. Whitmire learned this information from a speeding ticket that Wahl received back in 2023, when he was caught by a state trooper in Morgan County and was forced to hand over his Tennessee driver’s license.
All of that is strange. That Wahl’s real name isn’t John, that his driver’s license is from Tennessee and that he has a driver’s license at all.
Adding to the strangeness is a previous strange story about Wahl creating his own state ID that he used to vote, possibly illegally.
That happened in 2020 and 2022. Wahl went to his polling location in Limestone County and was stopped by a competent poll worker who noticed something odd about the state ID he was trying to use to vote. Wahl would later admit that he created the ID himself, with help from a former state auditor.
Wahl and his family have encountered consistent issues with voting for much of the last decade, because they lack proper identification. They have blamed this on their religious beliefs.
Which makes Monday’s story all the more strange.
Because here’s this family, and this ALGOP chairman, that has seemingly gone to great lengths and endured a lot of inconvenience to honor their religious beliefs and not obtain Alabama-issued government IDs. Not even simple voter IDs that can be obtained through the Secretary of State’s Office.
And yet, here’s John Wahl with a Tennessee driver’s license that he apparently obtained, according to him, prior to a planned move to Tennessee in 2020.
Just as a point of order here, while it’s illegal to hold driver’s licenses in two states, it’s not illegal to hold a driver’s license in one state and a state ID card in another. So, Wahl could have obtained a state voter ID instead of creating the fake one, which he said he created also in 2020.
Come on, now, you have to admit all of this is very, very strange.
To answer at least some of the questions, Wahl appeared on the Jeff Poor Show in Mobile on Tuesday morning, but his answers only made things more weird.
Mixed in with the ridiculous threats to file lawsuits and rants about liberal media, Wahl did specifically address the fact that his name isn’t John and touch on why he obtained the Tennessee license.
“In 2020, I had an opportunity and I was originally planning to move to Tennessee,” Wahl said during the interview. “I found a place to live there. I had switched over my driver’s license and I was prepared to move. And then … COVID changed a lot for a lot of people.”
Two things: first, in late 2020, Wahl attempted to vote for the first time with his phony state ID card. Second, the guy was senior vice-chairman of the Alabama Republican Party at that point and had been elected to serve as a presidential elector.
When asked by Poor if he goes by his middle name, Wahl said, “Yeah, as do millions of other Americans, and especially in the entertainment industry and the political field.”
Except, small problem there, on the speeding ticket he received, Wahl’s full name was listed: Nehemiah Ezekiel Wahl. Not a “John” to be found.
But you know, that happens sometimes. People pick up a childhood nickname, their friends or family stick them with a name that just becomes the name that everyone knows them by. No big deal. Except, those people don’t resort to printing up a phony ID and lying about their actual name.
Because that’s strange.
And that’s not all of it. Over the course of the last several weeks, numerous people have raised pertinent questions about Wahl and his identity, and several have shared other stories of odd circumstances involving the ALGOP chairman. As much as Wahl would love to pin all of this on meddling libs, all of those questions and stories came from his fellow Republicans, including some who know him best.
For example, we haven’t even touched on the fact that numerous other Republicans have raised questions – to the point of filing ethics complaints – about Wahl and his brother allegedly steering candidates to their consulting company and possibly improperly using party funds. A recording of Limestone Republican members making those allegations was sent to several law enforcement agencies.
To date, no one has done anything about any of it – not the apparent voter fraud (despite two secretaries of state reporting the violations), the allegations of self-dealing or the ethics complaints.
As Whitmire pointed out in his column, this all matters a great deal to everyone in the state, not just Republicans, because in this state we have bestowed significant power upon the political parties to certify candidates for elections. A particularly touchy one could be coming soon in this state – when Florida resident Tommy Tuberville seeks to qualify to run for governor as a Republican. It will ultimately fall to Wahl and the ALGOP executive committee to certify him and look past his obvious residency issues.
Which leaves Alabama in the unique position of having a Tennessee man certifying a Florida man to run for governor of Alabama.
Tell me that isn’t strange.
