GOP Operative, Previously Pardoned By Trump, Convicted of ‘Funneling Russian Money’ to Trump Campaign

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GOP political strategist Jesse Benton was convicted Thursday of illegally working to funnel campaign contributions from a Russian businessman to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The Department of Justice released a statement on Thursday boasting of the jury conviction, saying Benton “acted as a straw donor and contributed $25,000 of the Russian foreign national’s money to the campaign, falsely identified himself as the contributor and pocketed the remaining $75,000.”

Benton, who has close ties to Trumpworld, was already pardoned by then-President Trump in 2020 for a “different campaign finance crime, months before he was indicted again on six counts related to facilitating an illegal foreign campaign donation,” reported the Washington Post.

The Post reported on the closing arguments in Benton’s trial, noting that the government made the case that prosecutions like this help to strengthen U.S. democracy against foreign actors seeking to undermine it:

Elections “reflect the values and the priorities and the beliefs of American citizens,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Parikh said in her closing argument this week. “Jesse Benton by his actions did damage to those principles.”

“The evidence at trial showed that Benton bought a $25,000 ticket to a September 2016 Republican National Committee (RNC) event on behalf of Roman Vasilenko, a Russian naval officer turned multilevel marketer. (Vasilenko is under investigation in Russia for allegedly running a pyramid scheme, according to the Kommersant newspaper; he could not be reached for comment),” reported the Post’s Rachel Weiner.

“The donation got Vasilenko a picture with Trump and entrance to a ‘business roundtable’ with the future president,” Weiner added.

Benton’s lawyer Brian Stolarz said after the conviction that they intend to appeal the verdict. Stoarz told CNN in a statement, “We thank the jury for their service but they got it wrong. This was not some grand conspiracy to get $25,000 of Russian money into the Trump campaign, rather it was for a multi-level marketer and Instagram influencer to get a picture with a celebrity to enhance his image.”

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