Jon Echols, a candidate for Oklahoma Attorney General, wants Oklahoma Republicans to believe he is “all in” for President Donald Trump. But his record tells a very different story. On April 17, Echols’s campaign shamelessly posted on X:
“Jon has fought for Oklahoma and our conservative values time and again, including defending President @realDonaldTrump in federal court against radical leftist attempts to remove him from the ballot. @JonEchols is the only conservative choice for Attorney General!”
An analysis of Echols’s record as an Oklahoma legislator, his campaign’s donations from former Democrat elected officials, his 2023 endorsement of Ron DeSantis against President Trump during the GOP Presidential primary, and his soft-on-crime legislative history raises serious questions about his attempt to rebrand himself as a loyal America First conservative.
Echols’s campaign finance records reveal former Democrat members of Congress who supported Barack Obama have recently donated to his campaign for Attorney General.
Oklahoma state campaign contribution records show Echols accepted campaign contributions from former Democrat U.S. Congressman Dan Boren of Oklahoma, who served in Congress from 2005 to 2013. In June 2008, Boren publicly announced he would vote for Barack Hussein Obama for President.
Oklahoma Ethics Commission filings show Boren donated $2,000 to Echols’s campaign on March 27, 2025, in the 2025 first-quarter report, and another $1,500 on July 7, 2025, in the 2025 third-quarter report. Boren’s employer on the donations is listed as the Chickasaw Nation, where he serves as Secretary of Commerce, according to the official Chickasaw Nation Industries leadership page.
That is not the donor profile of a fighter against the Democrat machine. Echols also has a documented history of choosing someone other than President Trump when it mattered most. In 2023, Echols endorsed Ron DeSantis for President during the Republican primary. On June 7, 2023, Never Back Down announced Echols’s endorsement, with Echols saying:
“We need a two-term President to unwind the unconstitutional and disastrous policies out of Washington, D.C., that have bolstered the federal government’s power to pick winners and losers across America. Ron DeSantis has the courageous vision and the fighting power to give Oklahomans representation of our conservative cause for eight years, and I am confident he can deliver the election victory we need.”
That was Echols’s public endorsement against President Trump during one of the most consequential GOP primaries in modern political history. Echols’s record of questionable judgment did not begin there.
On January 6, 2021, Echols retweeted then-Vice President Mike Pence’s statement from his now-deleted legislative X account, @jonecholsok. Echols’s apparent effort to scrub his anti-Trump activity from public view is exactly why voters deserve to see the full record before they are asked to trust him with the office of Oklahoma Attorney General.
Echols has also exaggerated his role in defending President Trump from being removed from the ballot. Despite running television and direct-mail advertisements claiming he defended President Trump from ballot removal, court records show Echols’s actual involvement was limited. Echols added his signature to a Motion to Intervene filed on September 19, 2023, as private counsel for the Oklahoma Republican Party. That motion was part of one short-lived Oklahoma ballot challenge case, Case No. 5:23-cv-00781-JD, which was voluntarily dismissed after just a few days.
Echols did not appear in court, and he had no involvement in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Trump v. Anderson. That matters because Echols is now trying to sell himself to Oklahoma voters as a front-line defender of President Trump, when the record suggests his involvement was minimal and politically convenient.
It is apparent that Echols’s Trump branding is designed to distract from his failed policy record in the Oklahoma State House.
As House Majority Floor Leader, Echols helped push through one of the largest tax increases in Oklahoma history, the 2018 HB 1010X revenue package. The plan raised taxes on oil and gas production, cigarettes, gasoline, and diesel fuel.
That is not fiscal conservatism. That is the type of tax-and-spend record Republican primary voters usually accuse Democrats of.
Echols also has a soft-on-crime record. In 2019, Echols co-authored HB 1269 with Democrat Rep. Jason Dunnington to extend the lighter penalties from State Question 780 to people who had already been convicted. Oklahoma State Question 780 reclassified certain low-level drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, and HB 1269 applied those reduced penalties retroactively to earlier convictions.
It is also telling that Echols partnered with Dunnington on this soft-on-crime measure. Dunnington was openly anti-Trump before teaming up with Echols on HB 1269. On August 13, 2017, Dunnington posted:
“It’s ironic that on Flashpoint this morning@RepRussell’s definition of a dictator sounded an awful lot like our own President. #Coincidence.”
One week later, on August 20, 2017, Dunnington posted:
“Nice to see Oklahoma’s own #JCWatts on @MeetThePress clearly repudiating @realDonaldTrump. Real leaders stand up against injustice.”
This is Jon Echols’ real record: Democrat donor money, a DeSantis endorsement against President Trump, a deleted X account, exaggerated Trump-defense claims, tax hikes, and a soft-on-crime partnership with an anti-Trump Democrat.
Jon Echols is trying to run for Oklahoma Attorney General as a Trump-aligned conservative, but his own record exposes him as another establishment Republican attempting to rewrite his political history now that it is politically convenient to do so.
Oklahoma voters deserve the truth before they hand law enforcement power to another politician who talks like MAGA during campaign season but governs like a RINO when it counts.
