ND Republican Party Should Consider Donating Steve Wynn Contribution

Last week the Wall Street Journal published an article outlining accusations of sexual misconduct by Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn. Wynn, a finance chair of the Republican National Committee, is the latest powerful man to be accused of such disgusting behavior. Following the publication, Wynn resigned his RNC position. As ripples of the report continue there have been growing calls for Republicans to return money donated by Wynn over the years. One of the recipients of Wynn’s money was the North Dakota Republican Party.

According to data compiled by Kenneth Vogel of the New York Times, on November 3rd, 2016 the North Dakota Republican Party received $10,000 from Steve Wynn. You can find the data on page two embedded in his Sunday Tweet below.

All donations by STEVE WYNN & his company to federal candidates, committees & 527 nonprofit groups, according to @FEC & @IRSnews records. pic.twitter.com/HQw01Vgi4z

— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) January 28, 2018

The call to return Wynn’s donations was amplified by Republican U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins this weekend. Both appeared on Sunday morning talk shows. Graham said since Republicans called on Democrats to return donations from Harvey Weinstein, then Republicans should do the same with donations from Steve Wynn.

The calls by national Republicans for Democrats to return Weinstein’s money were loud and they were frequent. Their response to the Wynn allegations has been a whimper and relatively non-existent.

Just as I think it was fair for people to call for the return of Weinstein’s “dirty money” I think it is fair for people to call the same for Wynn’s. The ND Republican Party should consider donating the $10,000 to a charity in our state. The same goes for the ND Democratic-NPL Party if they accepted any Weinstein money (I haven’t seen that they have, but it is possible I missed it). One of the things we’ve learned about sexual misconduct over the last year, it is nonpartisan.

I don’t fault the ND Republican Party for taking the contribution. How were they supposed to know about the alleged behavior at the time? However, now that it has been revealed it is time to decide whether or not they want the organization to be associated with condoning it.