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nications director Josh Raffel.
Trump has placed high value on loyalty
in his next campaign after feeling burned by some of his previous campaign staffers, according to multiple people familiar with his thinking. Trump has denounced and publicly marginalized Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, whom he blames for smearing the president’s reputa- tion with his own entanglements in Russia. Manafort is now facing charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller on mon-
ey laundering and bank fraud relating to his past work on behalf of the Ukrainian government.
And Trump later soured on a subse- quent campaign force, Steve Bannon, who drew the president’s wrath inside the White House for taking too much of the spotlight and portraying his family in a negative light in interviews with “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff.
Parscale himself is not without critics
in Trump’s factious political circle. A self-taught coder who wasn’t involved in politics until the 2016 effort, some Trump allies raised doubts about his preparedness to run the campaign, suggesting he could be the political equivalent of a one-hit wonder. Parscale did not respond to re-
quests for comment.
The rollout of Parscale’s announcement
was not without a hitch. A statement released Tuesday by the Trump campaign attributed to White House senior adviser Jared Kushner was in apparent violation of federal law prohibiting the use of official titles in political work.
The campaign used Kushner’s title and his position as an “assistant to the presi- dent” in its press release announcing Par- scale’s role. The title was removed from the copy of the release posted to the campaign website after questions from The Associat- ed Press.
The Hatch Act bars government employ- ees from using their official titles in polit- ical work. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Tuesday all senior official and Cabinet secretaries have been briefed on the prohibition.
The White House says Kushner offered the statement in his personal capacity: “The campaign committee inadvertently added his White House title when it draft- ed the announcement and subsequently removed the reference when instructed to do so by the White House.”
Trump’s campaign remains based in New York, its headquarters just floors
below the president’s penthouse in Trump Tower. Lara Trump has become, in many ways, the face of the re-election campaign in its early days. She has appeared in a series of online news videos meant to be an alternative to mainstream media outlets and, alongside Glassner, has helped steer Trump’s initial fundraising efforts and schedule his signature campaign rallies.
She and her husband, key members of Trump’s first campaign, are expected to play an even larger role for 2020. Kushner also has been discussed as someone to return to leading the re-election effort, according to the person familiar with cam- paign strategy.
In a statement, Eric Trump said Parscale “has our family’s complete trust and is
the perfect person to be at the helm of the campaign.”
Kushner also praised Parscale in a statement. “Brad was essential in bringing a disciplined technology and data-driven approach to how the 2016 campaign was run,” he said, adding that Parscale will “help build a best-in-class campaign.”
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Lemire reported from New York. AP writer Ken Thomas in Washington con- tributed to this report.
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