Lawler, a Republican, held a trio of combative town halls around the 17th District this spring, where constituents questioned and/or confronted him on his stances on Trump Administration policy, and his votes for the “One Big, Beautiful” bill. Despite a list of event rules against shouting, standing, and bringing signs, attendees didn’t refrain from voicing their disapproval.
Lawler also didn’t hold back in defending himself and returning the audience’s jeers at times, at one point calling an attendee a "child" for shouting.
But was his team deliberately trying to rile up the crowd? That’s what Ann Starer, co-founder of the protest group Fight Lawler, seems to think – at least on the night of May 4, during a particularly rowdy town hall in Westchester County. That night, at least one person, 64-year-old Emily Feiner of Nyack, was carried out of the auditorium.
"That person who was carried out had asked, 'What was the red line you won't cross? Where will things stop in this autocratic regime of Trump?'" says Starer. "And then he didn't answer the question. And then the woman gets removed for saying, '[Answer] the question.'"
Starer says a lot of Fight Lawler’s communication happens on Facebook, where they have more than 700 members, and the encrypted messaging app Signal. On Signal, users typically use their phone numbers to create accounts and send messages.
Before Feiner was removed from the audience, Starer remembers seeing a message from someone named “Jake Thomas” pop up in the group chat. Starer had added Thomas to the Signal chat in April, after he joined the Facebook group. A screenshot obtained by WAMC reads, “I can’t stand how he lies! We should boo him off the stage!” Later on, after Feiner was removed, Starer says she saw another message from Thomas.
“He suggested that people walk out en masse," says Starer.
Starer says she initially didn’t think anything of it, except that she didn’t think walking out was a good idea. But while the messages she saw appeared to be from Thomas, another member of the group already had the phone number associated with Thomas’ account in her contacts, so his Signal messages showed up on her screen with another name: Putnam County Legislator Erin Crowley. Crowley, a Republican, has been Lawler’s deputy district director in Carmel since 2023. Starer says she remembers seeing Crowley at that town hall.
“So Erin Crowley / Jake Thomas is Signalling ‘we should boo him off the stage’ — in other words suggesting to those there that they engage in what Lawler would certainly regard as disruptive behavior," says Starer. "And Crowley’s pointing to people to remove someone [from the crowd] who basically calls out, ‘Answer the question!’”
Neither Lawler nor Crowley returned a request for comment to WAMC. Neither did the broader Putnam County legislature. And neither Lawler nor Crowley responded to LoHud.com, which first reported this story. Crowley is running for a second term as Putnam County legislator in November, while Lawler is mulling a run for governor in 2026.
Starer says Fight Lawler members confronted Thomas and kicked him out of the group chat. She says she attempted to call Thomas multiple times, and at one point got a man on the other end of the line. She describes the conversation as curt, and that he hung up on her. From there, the two communicated over text on Signal, where Thomas expressed frustration over being “shunned” from the group chat, but also refused to join a video call or meet in person.
“Then I sent another message: ‘Hi there, if you are not Erin Crowley posing as Jake Thomas, please demonstrate who you are. As I said, all the evidence that we have collected suggests otherwise. If you do not want to demonstrate that you’re Jake Thomas and not Erin Crowley, then I guess the documentation we have will speak for itself,'" reads Starer. "'I’d love to be wrong about this, especially because I’d like to think an elected official and Congressman Lawler’s deputy director is not posing as someone else to infiltrate groups that oppose the congressman.'”
Starer says the Signal account associated with that phone number later deactivated.
If it was indeed Crowley, Starer says she doesn’t know why she would want to infiltrate the group, but she guesses it could have been a mission of optics, or a way of getting protesters out of the town hall — either voluntarily or by force, by having them carried out by security.
"I don't know that this changes anything," Starer says of Fight Lawler's operations now. "But it is one more thing that we have to highlight. [Lawler] is not someone who can be counted on."
