May 10, 2016

Trump Campaign Corresponded With Its White Nationalist Delegate Long After “Database Error”

Here are the emails from Monday, and William Johnson’s signed pledge form.


On Tuesday, Mother Jones broke the story that the Trump campaign had selected William Johnson, a prominent white nationalist leader, as a California delegate. The Trump campaign responded with the following statement:

Yesterday the Trump campaign submitted its list of California delegates to be certified by the Secretary of State of California. A database error led to the inclusion of a potential delegate that had been rejected and removed from the campaign’s list in February 2016.

Reached again by Mother Jones late Tuesday, Johnson said he would resign as a delegate if asked to do so by the campaign. “I accept Trump’s explanation,” he said, regarding the statement. “I don’t want to gainsay the Trump campaign. If I am not removed from the database, I will resign.”

Although the Trump campaign blamed a “database error” for including Johnson as a delegate, the campaign corresponded with him personally just over 24 hours ago. Trump’s California delegate coordinator, Katie Lagomarsino, sent Johnson a congratulatory email on Monday, and when he asked for clarification about how to send his completed pledge form back to the campaign, she replied. Here is the email exchange (with the personal contact information redacted by Mother Jones):

Mother Jones also has a copy of the pledge form discussed in the email exchange, which Johnson signed and sent to the Trump campaign on Monday. You can see his pledge here.

Update, 6pm PDT: ABC News‘ Candace Smith reports that Johnson may remain a Trump delegate per California regulations:

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

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