I’m not calling Ben Carson a token, but I was yotally unaware that black people were in the Tea Party.
Call me shocked.
Buzzfeed reoorts that the National Draft Ben Carson for President Committee is spending as much as it’s taking in: $10,757,609, to be exact, according to Federal Election Commission data. The money is mostly being spent on fundraising efforts and for a digital campaign that the group’s campaign director told BuzzFeed News is modeled on the vaunted Obama operation. It’s also providing a salary for Vernon Robinson, the campaign director, who has made nearly $236,000 from his work so far for the PAC, according to FEC filings.
It’s not unusual for people running a campaign of some kind to make money. But the committee only categorizes a small percentage of its disbursements as salary payments. The payments in this case haven’t been listed as going directly to Robinson, and have been classified as fundraising expenses. The recipient is listed as “Tzu Mahan” — in some cases, “Mahan, Tzu.”
Tzu Mahan is Vernon Robinson’s consulting and strategy firm. It has one full-time employee: Vernon Robinson. The firm also has “various subcontractors,” he said in an interview on Wednesday.
Asked why he didn’t just list his own name on the FEC documents as a payroll expense, Robinson said, “When Dr. Carson wins the presidency, we want everybody to know that Tzu Mahan is running the strategy.”
“People get paid to do politics,” Robinson said.
