Manny Sethi’s Top Campaign Staff Dodges New Report Revealing They Were Never Trumpers

 

Members of U.S. Senate candidate Manny Sethi’s top staff this week did not refute a new Breitbart article that reported some of them were, at one time, Never Trumpers.

The Tennessee Star gave the Sethi campaign a platform to respond.

But members of Sethi’s campaign instead emailed us a statement full of talking points attacking their opponent in the Republican primary, Bill Hagerty. Evidence suggests that Sethi’s campaign offered us certain inaccurate information.

Breitbart this week published an article calling out Sethi’s Campaign Manager Forrest Barnwell-Hagemeyer, senior adviser Chris Devaney, and general consultant Jordan Gehrke for many times using their social media accounts to either criticize or bash Donald Trump.

Barnwell-Hagemeyer, for instance, called Trump a “divisive, short-fingered vulgarian.”

The Star asked Sethi’s campaign to respond.

They emailed us this statement:

“Manny Sethi supported President Trump in the primary, Bill Hagerty did not— he was for Jeb, then Marco. Manny also donated $10,000 to get President Trump elected in the Fall campaign. Once again, Bill Haggerty’s trying to distract people so voters won’t focus on his $100,000 donation to Mitt Romney, his donation to Al Gore, the millions of dollars he made off Common Core, and the fact that up until two weeks ago, he was sitting on the board of a company funding Black Lives Matter.”

What Happened in 2016

As reported Friday, Hagerty donated money to Republican presidential candidates Jeb Bush in June 2015 and March Rubio in February 2016.

Bush dropped out of the race in February 2016, according to Politico. Rubio dropped out of the race in mid-March of that year, according to CNN. 

Two other GOP presidential candidates, U.S. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, dropped out in May of that year, according to Politico and CNN, respectively.

As of late May 2016, according to National Public Radio, Trump had enough delegates to claim the GOP presidential nomination — but he was still, at that time, only the party’s presumptive nominee. Republicans did make him their official presidential nominee until July of that year.

Hagerty eventually donated to Trump in September 2016.

Sethi, meanwhile, donated to the Tennessee Republican Party Federal Election Account in May 2016, before Trump was the official nominee — and he also did not officially or directly donate to Trump. As Patch.com reported in October of that year, leadership at the Tennessee Republican Party, which took Sethi’s money, did not exactly push for Trump. Instead, they told party members to merely “vote their conscience.”

As The Star reported this week, members of Sethi’s campaign, despite countless claims, could not prove that Hagerty made millions of dollars off of Common Core.

Hagerty, as reported this month, resigned from the board of an investment firm that issued statements in support of the Black Lives Matter movement.

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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Manny Sethi” by Manny Sethi.