A Maine trial lawyer was charged with assault after an altercation with a conservative provocateur outside a school board meeting in North Berwick on Thursday.
Trevor Savage of North Berwick allegedly bumped into Augusta school board candidate Nicholas Blanchard, known by his online moniker “Corn Pop,” in a video that Blanchard posted to social media late last week. North Berwick police confirmed Savage was charged shortly after the incident and got a summons.
MSAD 60, which covers Berwick, North Berwick and Lebanon, is the latest Maine school board to face disruption by activists like Blanchard, who frequently travels to meetings to make provocative public comments about policies governing transgender students.
He typically streams or records these meetings and shares them with thousands of followers, gaining particular traction when he faces resistance from board members and police. Blanchard recently filed a civil rights lawsuit against Augusta’s police department for arresting him while he counter-protested a “No Kings” rally in October.
In North Berwick, Blanchard and multiple associates were escorted out of the meeting by police and were recording officers outside the meeting. A video shows police officers keeping Blanchard out of the room when his phone abruptly falls to the ground.
“He body checked me,” Blanchard said of Savage in an interview.
Blanchard then picked up the phone and began recording Savage, who can be seen on the video walking away and saying that the bump was not intentional, a claim Blanchard disputes. Savage could not be reached for further comment. Blanchard shared the video on his social media accounts, where he called Savage’s behavior “#LeftWingViolence.”
Some of Blanchard’s followers have since called for Savage to be fired by his firm, Lewiston-based Gideon Asen. A partner for the firm confirmed that Savage works there but did not immediately provide a comment on his arrest.
It wasn’t the only point of conflict at Thursday’s meeting. Blanchard says he’s considering suing MSAD 60 after the board kicked him and his associates out from the meeting.
Blanchard attended after the right-wing social media account “Libs of TikTok” shared a video of the board’s December meeting, where members discussed transgender student policies. During the public comment period, he held up a wine glass, and toasted to MSAD 60 becoming “the wokest school board in the state of Maine.”
The glass was a reference to Blanchard’s claim that Board Chair Kathleen Stanton Whalen was seen drinking wine during a board meeting last year. She maintains that she was actually drinking a glass of Diet Coke.
While Blanchard spoke, another member of the audience approached the board and began handing out wine glasses to members. Stanton Whalen then interrupted Blanchard and asked officers to escort him out.
In an interview after the meeting, Stanton Whalen defended her removal of Blanchard, saying he was moving around the audience and making “disruptive noises.”
“It was turning our business meeting into a circus,” she said. “We have work to do in the district that doesn’t have anything to do with [Blanchard’s] social campaign or his political aspirations.”
MSAD 60 is a politically divided district along the New Hampshire border in York County. The three towns together have nearly 1,100 more Republicans than Democrats, according to the latest voter registration figures. Its board includes Joshua Tabor, a North Berwick resident and head of Maine Girl Dads, a group pushing for a referendum that would bar transgender students from sports teams and private spaces that align with their gender identities.
“Every single person on our board right now, no matter what their opinion is politically, is really dedicated to the students of this district, and we would very much like to get out of theatrical mode and get back to the business of running our district,” Stanton Whalen said.
Daniel O’Connor is a Report for America corps member who covers rural government as part of the partnership between the Bangor Daily News and The Maine Monitor, with additional support from BDN and Monitor readers.