On this Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2016, file photo, Jesse Benton arrives for his sentencing hearing on the federal courthouse in Des Moines, Iowa.
David Pitt | AP
WASHINGTON — A Republican political operative and former campaign aide was convicted in federal court this week of funneling $25,000 from a Russian businessman to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Jesse Benton was found guilty Thursday of six counts that included soliciting an illegal foreign contribution, attempting to cover it up and submitting false information concerning the source of the cash.
The cash for the donation originally got here from Roman Vasilenko, a former Russian naval officer turned multilevel marketer and CEO of the “Life is Good International Business Academy.”
Based on prosecutors, Vasilenko paid Benton’s consulting firm $100,000 to get him right into a political event to take a photograph with then-candidate Trump in the autumn of 2016.
Benton worked quite a few campaigns, including as a strategist on the Great America PAC, an excellent Pac supporting Donald Trump’s 2016 win, in addition to the campaigns of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Sen. Rand Paul, each Republicans from Kentucky, and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas.
Benton then bought a $25,000 ticket to a Trump event in Philadelphia on Sept. 22 and “gave” the ticket to Vasilenko, who went on to post his photo with Trump on his Instagram page under the caption, “Two Presidents.”
When Benton paid the Trump Victory committee for the ticket, he used his own bank card, pocketing the remaining $75,000 from Vasilenko.
Benton was originally prosecuted together with the late Republican pundit Roy Douglas “Doug” Wead, who died in late 2021.
Thursday’s conviction marks the second time that Benton has been found guilty of a campaign finance crime.
In 2016, a jury convicted Benton and two other defendants of conspiring to bribe an Iowa state senator to endorse then-presidential hopeful Rep. Ron Paul within the 2012 Iowa Republican Caucus.
The senator, Kent Sorenson, later admitted to accepting greater than $70,000 in bribes to change his support from then-Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., to Ron Paul, whose campaign Benton also worked on. Sorenson was sentenced to greater than a yr behind bars for the crime.
Benton received six months of home confinement and two years of probation. Notably, Benton’s sentence within the Ron Paul case was handed down on Sept. 20, 2016, just two days before the Sept. 22 event that Benton had arranged for Vasilenko to attend with then-candidate Trump.
In late 2020, Trump issued Benton a full pardon for the 2016 conviction, a move that was championed by Sen. Rand Paul.
Benton just isn’t the one one that has been convicted of helping foreign nationals contribute to Trump’s political profession.
In 2018, one other Republican strategist, Sam Patten, admitted to helping a pro-Russian member of Ukraine’s parliament make a donation to Trump’s Inaugural Committee. Like campaigns, inaugural committees are prohibited from accepting donations from foreigners.
One in every of the chief questions at issue in Benton’s most up-to-date trial was whether Vasilenko’s motive for searching for a photograph with Trump was political in nature, or whether he was just on the lookout for a photograph with a megastar.
Evidence was presented at trial that Wead and Vasilenko had discussed attempting to get a photograph with Oprah Winfrey or Michelle Obama, but settled on Trump.
“If Oprah was available, we would not even be here,” defense attorney Brian Stolarz reportedly said in his closing argument.
