Musician Kanye West’s 2020 presidential bid appears to have taken efforts designed to conceal the support his campaign was receiving from the Republican establishment.
“New documents show Kanye West’s doomed White House campaign—styled as an ‘independent’ third-party effort—appears to have disguised potentially millions of dollars in services it received from a secretive network of Republican Party operatives, including advisers to the GOP elite and a managing partner at one of the top conservative political firms in the country,” The Daily Beast reportedFriday.
West launched his campaign with a disastrous kickoff in July 2020.
“Potentially even more alarming? The Kanye 2020 campaign committee did not even report paying some of these advisers, and used an odd abbreviation for another—moves which campaign finance experts say appear designed to mask the association between known GOP operatives and the campaign, and could constitute a violation of federal laws,” The Beast reported. “At the heart of Kanye’s political operation was Holtzman Vogel, one of the most powerful and well-connected law firms serving major Republican political and nonprofit organizations today. And weaved throughout his campaign, whether the multi-platinum rapper realized it or not, were Republican operatives who may have been less interested in seeing a President West than in re-electing President Donald Trump.”
The news on West’s campaign finances comes one week after it was reported a publicist representing him traveled to Georgia to pressure an elections official to confess to fake allegations of voter fraud.
The vice president of Common Cause, Paul S. Ryan, said West’s campaign finance filings are a major scandal.
“The importance of disclosure in this matter can’t be overstated,” Ryan said. “It’s no secret that Kanye West’s candidacy would have a spoiler effect, siphoning votes from Democrat Joe Biden. Voters had a right to know that a high-powered Republican lawyer was providing legal services to Kanye—and federal law requires disclosure of such legal work.”
Read the full report.
Image: Wall Street Journal reporter Vivian Salama/Twitter