When a presidential candidate is backed by someone who has gotten into trouble with the law in the past, you question their integrity. After all, if someone does unethical things when advocating for a political figure, who’s to say he or she won’t do the same the next time they campaign for somebody? I always pay attention to people who are in the background because they can reveal a lot about what is going on in the foreground.
Today, Jesse Benton, the leading strategist of a pro-Donald Trump super PAC, Great America PAC, was found guilty of buying the support of an Iowa politician for Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign.
Former Paul aides, Dimitri Kesari and John Tate, were also found guilty. Benton and Tate were dedicated advisers to Ron Paul, while Kesari was a deputy campaign manager.
According to the Washington Post, the former aides were found guilty of conspiracy, causing false records, creating false campaign expenditure reports and making false statements.
“There is a growing movement behind Donald Trump, bringing new voters to the GOP in an unprecedented way,” wrote Benton. “Great America PAC will help grow and harness that movement, unify Republicans and work to win not just the White House but to also lengthen Mr. Trump’s coattails in races across [sic] the America.”
Benton was given away to the jury in a recording that showed the Trump supporter trashing Mitch McConnell and confessing that the sole reason he was working for him was that he pledged to assist in Rand Paul’s White House run in 2016. After the bribery scandal, Benton stepped down from McConnell’s campaign.
This conviction comes right after Trump admitted that he will not be self-funding for the rest of the election.
“I’ll be putting up money, but won’t be completely self-funding, as I did during the primaries,” the outspoken presidential hopeful told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
Interestingly enough, during the primaries, the Republican candidate lent his campaign $36 million of the $47 million his campaign used. Because Trump could repay himself, he technically did not self-fund his campaign at all, and because he can charge interest, he may actually stand to make money from his own campaign.
Will Benton’s legal ramifications affect the Trump campaign? I’m not sure, but I can predict that these unethical behaviors will be more closely monitored by the press and the public now that Trump is the presumptive nominee of the GOP. If Benton has previously engaged in bribery, there’s a chance he could be committing the same crimes while he campaigns for Trump.
See video from Benton’s indictment below:
Featured image via Getty/Scott Olson
