ON DECEMBER 26, 2011, a week before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses, an influential Republican state senator named Kent Sorenson and his wife, Shawnee, arrived at a steak house in Altoona, a suburb of Des Moines. A goateed Mr. Clean look-alike, Sorenson was a hot commodity. His deep ties to the state’s evangelical leaders and home-schooling activists made his endorsement highly sought after by GOP presidential hopefuls, particularly the second-tier contenders who had staked their campaigns on a strong Iowa showing.
Sorenson had picked his horse early, signing on as Michele Bachmann’s Iowa chairman in June 2011—a coup for the Minnesota congresswoman’s upstart campaign.
Joining the Sorensons was a bespectacled political operative named Dimitri Kesari, the deputy campaign manager of Rep. Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential bid. As caucus day neared, Ron Paul’s campaign was surging in the polls but needed a late boost if he wanted to meet his goal of finishing in the top three.
That’s where Sorenson came in.
When the state senator left to use the restroom, Kesari produced a $25,000 check—drawn from the account of Designer Goldsmiths, a jewelry store run by his wife—and gave it to Shawnee Sorenson. Two days later, Kent Sorenson left a Bachmann campaign event, drove straight to a Ron Paul rally, and declared that he had defected.
It’s a strange universe. You’ve got the real Star Wars cantina identified…and let’s be honest, a lot of these guys would not have work in the mainstream, even in the tea party.
As it turned out, Paul’s inner circle had been secretly negotiating for months to lure Sorenson away from the Bachmann campaign. In an October memo to Paul campaign manager John Tate, a Sorenson ally outlined the state senator’s demands, which included an $8,000-a-month payment for nearly a year, another $5,000-a-month check for a colleague of Sorenson’s, and a $100,000 donation to Sorenson’s political action committee. The memo explained that these payments would not only secure Sorenson’s support in the near term but also help to “build a major state-based movement that will involve far more people into a future Rand Paul presidential run.” Kesari’s $25,000 check, in other words, amounted to more than a down payment on an endorsement for Ron Paul; it was an investment in Rand Paul 2016.
The Kentucky senator officially declared his candidacy on Tuesday. With the 2016 Iowa caucuses nine months away, this scheme could become a liability for the latest Paul presidential enterprise. The Sorenson deal exploded into public view in 2013, thanks to a pair of whistleblowers from the Ron Paul and Bachmann campaigns, and the episode now hangs over Rand Paul and his inner circle like a dark cloud.
The Sorenson scandal has sparked state and federal investigations. After resigning his seat in 2013, Sorenson pleaded guilty last year to two criminal charges for which he faces up to 25 years in prison. The episode involves central figures in the Paul family’s political apparatus, including Kesari and Jesse Benton, who served in senior roles on Rand and Ron Paul’s recent campaigns. (Benton is also married to Ron Paul’s granddaughter and Rand’s niece.) And it has pulled back the curtain on the roguish band of advisers, political organizers, and fundraisers whose sometimes questionable tactics have fueled Rand Paul’s political ascent. This crew—dubbed Paul World—reflects the libertarian worldview of the candidate himself. However, as Paul may find out, the brash operatives largely responsible for his political success could end up posing a major risk to his presidential ambitions.
A conservative strategist familiar with the inner circle of the Pauls has remarked on the unique composition of their world. Many of the key figures in Paul World have come from the National Right to Work Committee, a prominent anti-union organization. Doug Stafford, Rand Paul’s most trusted advisor, is a former vice president of the NRTWC, while John Tate, Ron Paul’s former campaign manager, is now the president of Campaign for Liberty, the political group founded by the elder Paul. Mike Rothfeld, who ran the NRTWC’s direct-mail operation in the late 80s and early 90s, now runs the fundraising firm of choice for Rand Paul’s PAC, in addition to the NRTWC and Campaign for Liberty. Additionally, Kesari, described by someone who knows him as “like Radar from M*A*S*H,” previously led the NRTWC’s government affairs department. It is clear that the Pauls have surrounded themselves with a unique group of political operatives.
Rand Paul has broken into the political mainstream, a feat never achieved by his father. As one of the GOP’s current presidential hopefuls, Paul’s policy stances pose a direct threat to labor, particularly his cosponsorship of the National Right-to-Work Act. This bill, championed by both Rand and Ron Paul, would make every state in the union a so-called right-to-work state and eviscerate organized labor as we know it. Since 2013, Paul has twice more introduced the legislation.
Paul has lent his name to the National Right to Work Committee’s fundraising emails and petitions, and days after he took office, an email blast went out under his name spelling out his intentions to “free US workers from forced unionization and break Big Labor’s multi-billion dollar political machine forever.” Kent Sorenson, a former NRTWC staffer, has stated that Paul is “cooperating and answering their questions about all the information that he knows.” However, some of the operatives who have formed the backbone of his machine have at times thought little of stretching the rules to win elections and acquire power, a factor that may come back to haunt Paul during what could be the most important campaign of his political career.
John Tate, a former vice president of the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC), has been credited by Senator Rand Paul as playing a “crucial role” in the assembly of his 2010 Senate campaign. NRTWC donated $7,500 to the campaign and deployed field staff and other personnel to Kentucky to support Paul in his primary fight against the establishment-backed Trey Grayson. The day after Paul’s primary victory, an NRTWC staffer congratulated the committee’s field organizers for their part in making history.
NRTWC has had a tumultuous relationship with both the conservative movement and the Republican Party. Founded in the far right, the group has a long-standing fixation on defeating labor unions and has been known for its isolationist and self-reliant culture. Despite this, the committee has gained respect for its effective political operations. It was one of the first outside groups to create an in-house phone bank to influence elections and its direct-mail shop was so successful it was spun off into a separate firm. Mike Rothfeld, a mentor to many Virginia political consultants, gained his experience running NRTWC’s direct-mail shop before forming his own fundraising firm, Saber Communications.
For decades, the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) has been a training ground for operatives drawn to its uncompromising focus and aggressive tactics. Former employees recall a cutthroat atmosphere, with the group hiring more people than necessary for available positions, forcing competition between new hires. Pay was notoriously low until the early 2000s, with mid-level staff earning less than $20,000 a year, and having to work overtime to make ends meet.
To supplement their income, NRTWC staff were encouraged to assist political candidates who supported the right-to-work cause, often during lunch breaks and evenings. This dedication to the cause, combined with the lack of pay and outside work, created a win-at-all-costs mentality that saw the tax-exempt nonprofit disregard campaign laws banning outside groups from coordinating with candidates and officeholders.
The Kent Sorenson debacle, which revealed possible law-breaking by Christian LeFer and his energy-company-funded Montana nonprofit, Western Tradition Partnership, can be traced back to a dilapidated meth house on the outskirts of Denver. Internal NRTWC emails show LeFer as the group’s man on the ground in Montana, where he ran Montana Citizens for Right to Work, which was funded by NRTWC to the tune of $217,600 in 2010 and $56,500 in 2011. After the discovery of the documents, LeFer and his wife, Allison, unsuccessfully sued to reclaim them, and the documents were handed over to a federal grand jury.
From his home in rural Virginia, Dennis Fusaro, a former staffer and aide to Ron Paul, watched the unfolding drama in Montana with apprehension. Fusaro had worked for the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) in Iowa in 2009 and 2010 and was included in many email chains with LeFer. He claims he attempted to bring his concerns to the NRTWC leadership, but was rebuffed. Fusaro then released a collection of emails, memos and other records to conservative bloggers, revealing potentially illegal coordination between the NRTWC and a range of GOP candidates. Most notably, the documents contained a three-page memo outlining the demands of Kent Sorenson for joining Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, which sparked the criminal investigation that eventually led to Sorenson’s downfall.
The documents also demonstrated how the NRTWC may have disregarded the rules prohibiting outside groups from coordinating with political candidates. Fusaro’s documents showed NRTWC was involved in creating and sending mailers on behalf of dozens of Republican candidates for the Iowa Legislature in 2010. The mailers were written on NRTWC computers and later approved by the candidates. In some cases, candidates even instructed NRTWC on the mix of Republican and independent voters that should receive their mailers. Doug Stafford and Dimitri Kesari, both Paul World fixtures, were involved in overseeing the NRTWC mail program. Stafford was also working
Fusaro’s documents have raised serious questions about the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC) and its potential involvement in political activities. According to Marcus Owens, a former IRS division head, filing false tax reports could be both a civil and criminal offense. While it is unclear whether Fusaro’s documents have led to IRS scrutiny of NRTWC, they have had a significant impact on Kent Sorenson. He has pleaded guilty to covering up payments from both the Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann campaigns, as well as obstructing an investigation into the payments. Sorenson admitted to receiving payments totaling $73,000, which an Iowa Senate ethics investigation concluded came from the Paul campaign.
The Justice Department has requested a delay in Sorenson’s sentencing due to their progress in a “larger investigation” into the scandal. Emails and internal documents indicate that Benton and Kesari both played roles in the deal. Sorenson is cooperating with the investigation, providing all the information he knows. It remains to be seen what the consequences of this investigation will be.
As Rand Paul prepares to launch his presidential campaign, questions remain about how his team of advisers and operatives will fare in the intense spotlight of the national stage. Paul World has hired legal representation, with $364,000 spent on legal fees since August. Ron Kesari declined to comment when reached on his cellphone, and Jesse Benton and his lawyer have not responded to interview requests. While Rand Paul has publicly defended Benton as an “honest” political operative, a conservative strategist familiar with the Pauls and their allies believes they are not ready for the rigors of the primaries. “They are in such a bubble in this Rand Paul universe, and I think the bubble’s going to pop real quick in the heat of the primaries,” the strategist said.
