REPUBLICAN PARTY OPERATIVES CHARGED with ARRANGING ILLEGAL TRUMP CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION
By Jan Wolfe
WASHINGTON, Sept 20 (Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors on Monday unsealed criminal charges against two longtime Republican Party operatives, accusing them of illegally funneling a foreign campaign contribution to former President Donald Trump in 2016.According to an indictment unsealed in federal court in the District of Columbia, Jesse Benton and Doug Wead "conspired to illegally funnel thousands of dollars of foreign money from a Russian foreign national into an election for the Office of President of the United States of America."U.S. law bans foreign nationals from donating money to presidential campaigns.According to the indictment, Benton and Wead helped a Russian national get a ticket to a fundraiser with Trump in Pennsylvania in September 2016.The Russian, who was not identified in the indictment, donated $25,000 to political action committees associated with Trump in order to attend the event, according to prosecutors.But the true source of the donation was concealed from the Trump campaign, the indictment said, because the payment was secretly funneled through Benton, who acted as a "straw donor."Benton, 43, previously managed campaigns for Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul of Kentucky before he was convicted for his role in a political endorsement scheme. Benton avoided jail time and received a presidential pardon in December 2020 from Trump.Wead, 75, worked as a senior adviser on multiple presidential campaigns and ran for Congress as a Republican in 1992.It was not yet clear if the two had engaged legal counsel.Bachmann had narrowly defeated Paul to win the Ames Straw Poll in August 2011, an early measure of support in the state.A top aide in the 2008 Ron Paul presidential bid, Dennis Fusaro, provided several emails to OpenSecrets.org. According to the address fields in the emails, Fusaro was copied on the messages, which all date from late 2011.Five days before the caucus, in late 2011, Sorenson abruptly switched his support from Bachmann to Paul, and the Bachmann campaign at the time charged that he had done so for money.
- Benton is married to Ron Paul's granddaughter, Rand Paul is Benton's uncle -in-law. Benton lived in Rand Paul's house for a number of years.
- Benton ran Rand's run for Senate in 2010 and Grandpa Paul's 2012 Presidential Bid.
- In an Oct. 29, 2011 email, a representative of Iowa state Sen. Kent Sorenson, a Republican, asks the Paul campaign to provide Sorenson with $8,000 per month in salary for him, $5,000 per month in salary for a Sorenson ally, as well as $100,000 in contributions for a newly created PAC that Sorenson planned to use to support conservative candidates for Iowa state office.
- In exchange, the email, which was allegedly written by Aaron Dorr, executive director of Iowa Gun Owners, says Sorenson would abandon his support for Rep. Michele Bachmann‘s campaign, endorse Paul, campaign for him and provide access to an email list of Iowans who support homeschooling.
- That is, the director of Iowa Gun Owners is so deep inside the pockets of the Pauls that he can offer six-figure bribes on the Pauls' behalf.
- Benton was convicted of bribing Sorenson to throw his support to Ron Paul and given two years probation. Just two days after his conviction, Benton was setting up the illegal meeting for payment scheme on Roman Vasilenko's behalf.
- This sort of open corruption and graft was so appealing to Mitch McConnell that he hired Benton to run his 2014 Senatorial bid. Benton was forced to step down after many reporters questioned such open corruption but to this day, Benton still serves as the primary channel between McConnell and the Pauls.
- Trump pardoned Benton in January of this year, explicitly as a favor to Rand Paul.
- Benton is accused setting up a meeting between Trump and Vasilenko in Sept 2016 at a Philadelphia Fundraiser. Since the price of admission was a $25,000 donation to the Trump campaign and no foreign national should therefore be able to attend, Vasilensko mingled with his translator and had his picture taken with many top GOP officials without batting an eye. It just wasn't that strange to have Russians openly loitering in the belly of the GOP in 2016, apparently.
- Wead is a longtime GOP operative and consultant, whose ties to the Russian business magnate go back decades.
- Wead is credited with authoring the Bush campaign phrase "Compassionate Conservative."
- Wead has given lectures in Russia bolstering Vasilenko's self-help seminars and in 2009, Wead appointed Vasilenko to the board of directors for a Christian boarding school where Wead was president.
- Although the price of dinner with Trump was minimum $25,000, Wead and Benton's consulting firm took a check for $100,000 from Vasilenko.
- Benton tried to tell the Trump campaign that he had already made his donation (that is tried to hold on to all of the money himself) until Trump's fundraisers insisted. Benton paid the $25,000 minimum and we can assume Benton and Wead split the $75,000 remainder. Whether Trump, the Pauls, and McConnell also all get a taste of that money is unclear but that's the way it works in Russia and other mob organizations. Certainly, nobody in the GOP has bothered to condemn such fairly straightforward bribery by one of America's principle enemies. I wonder what Vasilenko asked Trump for and whether that request came straight from Putin? From what little we can tell of Trump's presidency we should probably assume he got whatever he asked for.
