By Lucy Morgan, Times Senior Correspondent 
 
 In Print: Thursday, July 26, 2012 
 
 TALLAHASSEE — In a wide-ranging deposition that spanned two days in late May, former Florida Republican Party chairman Jim Greer denounced some party officials as liars and "whack-a-do, right-wing crazies'' as he described turmoil in the months before his resignation. "I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,'' he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. In the deposition, released to the press yesterday, Greer mentioned a December 2009 meeting with party officials.
– Liberals have been accusing recent GOP-led voter ID laws of aiming to disenfranchise minorities, who tend to vote Democrat. Now former Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer is saying on record that, yes, those laws are actually about stopping black people from voting, reports Salon, picking up on a story in the Tampa Bay Times. “I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,” Greer said, recalling a 2009 meeting with party officials. Greer also said the party's budget committee had been taken over by "whack-a-do, right-wing crazies." Greer is hardly without an axe to grind, though. His statements came from a 630-page deposition made in May as part of his trial on corruption charges. Greer paid a company he owned nearly $200,000 from GOP coffers while he was the chairman, although he contends it was authorized and made for services rendered. Florida state Sen. John Thrasher, who succeeded Greer as party chairman, called Greer's comments about voter suppression "baseless accusations on other people in an effort to divert attention from himself.''