Kanye West‘s 2020 presidential run faces continued scrutiny following reports that top GOP advisers were involved in his campaign.
West – now legally known as ‘Ye’ – unsuccessfully ran in the 2020 election as an independent, conceding on November 4. The day prior, he shared that the vote he cast for himself was the first time he has ever voted in a presidential election.
As reported by the Daily Beast, Ye’s campaign received “potentially millions of dollars” in services from a network of GOP “operatives” and members of the Republican “elite”, which it made great efforts to hide.
The article states that Ye’s 2020 campaign didn’t report paying some of those “operatives”, which means that federal laws were broken. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) communications director Jordan Libowitz said: “It’s pretty clear Kanye was a GOP plant, whether he knew it or not.”
John Boyd, described as a “spiritual adviser” for Ye, is quoted in the report, commenting that West wasn’t fully aware or in control of all of the actions during his campaign.
“He had companies, individuals working for him, I don’t even know if he knew what they were doing that deeply,” Boyd said. “That’s my personal view. There were definitely agendas out there that perhaps he didn’t have full control over.”
Holtzman Vogel, a law firm with links to both Trump and the Honest Elections Project, are mentioned throughout, highlighting the various potential hidden connections and red flags in West’s campaign.
“The importance of disclosure in this matter can’t be overstated,” Paul S. Ryan, vice president of government watchdog Common Cause told The Daily Beast. “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.”
Libowitz also added: “It’s very clear that the whole point behind Kanye’s campaign was to try to re-elect Donald Trump. Whether that was a goal of Kanye is another issue. But he was clearly seen as a way to steal potential votes from Biden.”
In other Ye news, it was recently reported that an associate of West allegedly pressured an election worker in the state of Georgia last year to confess to false accusations of voter fraud.
Reuters reported that a woman named Trevian Kutti allegedly attempted to pressure Ruby Freeman into confessing to false accusations that she and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss had committed voter fraud.
Though it was originally stated that Kutti was a publicist of West’s, a representative for West later said that the two weren’t associated at the time she met Freeman.
“Trevian Kutti was not associated with Kanye West or any of his enterprises at the times of the facts that are reported in these articles or since these facts occurred,” said Pierre Rougier, West’s spokesperson, in a statement to Reuters.
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