RED FLAGS

Far-Right GOPer Is on a Super-Shady Mission to Rescue 60 Ukrainian Kids

Officials in the Polish town of Kazimierz Dolny say they’re extremely suspicious of Matt Shea’s mission.

Former Washington State Rep. Matt Shea, famous for plotting with extremists and prepping for a Christian apocalypse, is on another eyebrow-raising mission. According to the Seattle Times, the Republican is currently in a guesthouse in the Polish town of Kazimierz Dolny with 62 Ukrainian kids who he claims he’s bringing back to the U.S. for adoption. He claimed on Polish TV that he’s working with a Texas organization that he called both Loving Families and Homes for Orphans, and Loving Homes and Families for Orphans—but there is next to no evidence that such an adoption agency exists. Town officials are also deeply suspicious. “I asked him many times, ‘What are you going to do with these children?’ and he told me that it’s not my business,’” Weronika Ziarnicka, an aide to the town’s mayor, said. “I got the feeling in my gut that something’s wrong with this guy; he didn’t want to tell me his last name.” Mayor Artur Pomianowski said Shea gave “some contradictory information and, for that reason, it is difficult for us to trust [him].”