In his first response to being indicted by a federal grand jury, Frederick County Sheriff Charles “Chuck” Jenkins denied having “any financial incentive or fraudulent intent” when he helped a gun dealer obtain machine guns to rent out to the public.

“Sheriff Jenkins’ entire role in this alleged conspiracy, was to sign the letters put before him,” his attorneys wrote in a new court filing. “At worst, Sheriff Jenkins was duped by Krop into providing these demonstration letters, without ever knowing or having reason to know that Krop’s motive was to gain financially from special permission to possess and to import, even to obtain, these weapons.”

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Chuck Jenkins, the current Sheriff of Frederick County, Maryland, here’s a brief summary. He’s a MAGA Republican who has spent his taxpayer-funded salary to pose for photos with Lauren Boebert at Mar-A-Lago and stated on WFMDAM’s Morning News Express Podcast on June 30, 2022 that “every Democrat in America is trying to destroy this country.” There are other egregious statements of his out there, but that should tell you everything you need to know.

He won re-election in 2022 but was recently indicted on federal charges by the Maryland U.S. Attorney’s Office, for allegedly falsifying multiple documents on the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office letterhead, requesting machine guns for evaluation and demonstration to the Sheriff’s Office. The indictment further alleges that the owner of a local shooting range, Robert Justin Krop, drafted these documents for Sheriff Jenkins, and that both men knew the machine guns were intended for rental to Krop’s customers, not for demonstration to law enforcement.

The press release detailing the indictment came out on April 5, and Sheriff Jenkins has been on leave since then. He and Krop have both been arraigned and entered pleas of not guilty, but Jenkins and his legal team were otherwise silent until yesterday. They appear to be pleading ignorance, which doesn’t seem like it’s the best thing for his public image, and it’ll be interesting to see if Krop will quietly allow Sheriff Jenkins to throw him under the bus like this. As of right now, no new court dates have been set for either defendant, and it’s unclear whether the two will be tried separately or via a single trial.