Oklahoma's top elections official was arrested after police found him slurring his words outside a McDonald's drive-thru window on a Friday night, and now the state's attorney general wants him fired.
Edmond police responded around 10:45 p.m. on August 14 to a report of a man who appeared drunk in public outside a McDonald's restaurant. They found Oklahoma Secretary of State Benjamin Lepak standing near the drive-thru window, his vehicle parked in the lot nearby. What followed, captured on bodycam video, was the kind of encounter that ends careers, or should.
Officers noted Lepak had "extremely slurred speech" and an "odor of an alcoholic beverage coming from his breath," according to the arrest affidavit obtained by Fox News Digital. He struggled to pull his identification from his wallet. Police said he could not maintain a "coherent train of thought" during the encounter and gave contradictory statements about whether he had driven to the restaurant and how both he and his car ended up at the same location.
Lepak told officers he had attended a gathering with other fathers at a church earlier in the evening. When asked about drinking, he offered a careful answer: "I had a beer... that's it." He later revised that claim downward, telling officers he had consumed less than one beer because he did not finish it.
The bodycam footage paints a picture that Lepak's spokesperson has tried to soften. A spokesperson told Fox News Digital that "Mr. Lepak was waiting outside McDonald's for dinner" and that "he was not given a Breathalyzer test." The spokesperson added that Lepak "will address the ticket appropriately through the legal process."
But the footage tells a different story from a man simply waiting for dinner. The New York Post reported that Lepak repeatedly asked officers to let him eat, telling them, "I want to eat my McDonald's," before being handcuffed. The arresting officer was blunt with Lepak as he placed him under arrest: "You're under arrest for public intoxication. You're lucky it's not for a DUI. You understand?"
Lepak disputed that he was unsteady on his feet. Police disagreed and arrested him on suspicion of public intoxication.
The absence of a breathalyzer test, highlighted by Lepak's spokesperson as if it were exculpatory, does not erase what the officers observed. Slurred speech, the smell of alcohol, an inability to hold a coherent conversation, and contradictory statements about how he got there were apparently enough for Edmond police to make the arrest without one. Whether the lack of a test helps or hurts Lepak in court remains to be seen.
When public officials face arrest, the speed and seriousness of the institutional response often reveals more than the charge itself. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis suspended Palm Beach County Clerk Michael Caruso within hours of his arrest on child sex abuse charges. Oklahoma's response so far has been less decisive.
Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond did not wait long after reviewing the bodycam footage. He issued a news release that went beyond calling for accountability, it questioned the judgment of the governor who appointed Lepak in the first place.
Drummond said in the release:
"After reviewing footage from law enforcement body cameras, it is clear that Secretary of State Ben Lepak was thoroughly inebriated and very likely lied to law enforcement about how much he had to drink and how he and his car both arrived at the same place without him driving it."
That last point is significant. If Lepak's car was in the parking lot but he claims he did not drive it there, someone else drove it, or he is not telling the truth. The arrest affidavit notes that officers pressed Lepak on this contradiction and received inconsistent answers. Drummond clearly believes the latter explanation.
The attorney general went further, calling the conduct "thoroughly unbecoming of such a high-ranking state official" and demanding that Governor Kevin Stitt "fire him immediately."
Then Drummond turned his aim on Stitt directly. He pointed out that Lepak had a prior arrest, found unconscious in a running vehicle "just a few years ago," according to Drummond's release. The New York Post reported that Lepak had a prior DUI-related offense from May 2021, to which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to community service and probation.
Drummond argued that Stitt "should have known better than to elevate him to such a senior leadership position." Republican Governor Stitt appointed Lepak as secretary of state in October 2025. Before that, Lepak had served as the governor's general counsel and as executive director of the State Chamber Research Foundation.
The attorney general did not stop at Lepak. He accused Stitt of a pattern of poor judgment, alleging that the governor "has made countless errors in judgment like this during his tenure in office, including most recently when he intervened to help a campaign donor avoid further jail time." Drummond's release provided no further details on that claim, and Stitt has not publicly responded to Drummond's demands. The question of whether officials can be trusted with the public's business when their own conduct raises serious questions is hardly unique to Oklahoma, misconduct allegations involving prominent officials have surfaced in Washington as well.
Despite the arrest, the bodycam footage, the attorney general's public demand, and a prior DUI-related guilty plea, Lepak is not planning to resign from his position, according to the New York Post. His spokesperson's statement, that he was simply "waiting outside McDonald's for dinner", amounts to the entirety of his public defense so far.
That defense leaves several questions unanswered. If Lepak was just waiting for food, why did officers observe slurred speech and the smell of alcohol? Why could he not remove his ID from his wallet? Why did his account of how he arrived at the restaurant keep changing? And if he truly had less than one beer, why did the arresting officer tell him he was "lucky it's not for a DUI"?
The legal process will sort out the public intoxication charge. A ticket for public intoxication is not a career-ending offense in most professions. But Lepak is not in most professions. He is the secretary of state of Oklahoma, the official responsible for overseeing elections, business filings, and the administrative machinery of state government. The office demands a baseline of public trust.
Accountability in public office should not depend on party affiliation. When Republican candidates face criminal charges elsewhere, conservatives rightly expect the legal system to work. The same standard applies here. A man who holds one of the highest appointed offices in his state was found outside a fast-food restaurant on a Friday night, unable to speak clearly or explain how he got there, with a prior guilty plea for a DUI-related offense already on his record.
Governor Stitt has not responded publicly to Drummond's demand. That silence is its own kind of answer, at least for now. Stitt chose Lepak for the job. He vouched for his judgment. The bodycam footage from that McDonald's parking lot in Edmond suggests the governor's confidence was misplaced.
Conservatives who believe in clean government and personal responsibility do not get to look away when the offender wears their jersey. The standard is the standard, regardless of party, and right now, Oklahoma's secretary of state is falling well short of it.
