The congressional campaigns of ultra MAGA Republican Joe Kent, who is presently seeking a rematch with United States Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Washington’s Third District, take the shape of a political iceberg. The bulk of that metaphorical iceberg is submerged with dangers that may go unheeded.
On the surface, Kent has taken in more than $1 million for his second House bid. He boasts of friends in high places. Joe has collected campaign dollars in Florida at Mar-a-Lago and carries endorsements from Donald Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. He has staged a fundraiser at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington, D.C., with Representative Matt Gaetz, R‑Florida – who ousted Kevin McCarthy – as lead host.
Kent is backed by a super PAC called the Pacific Northwest Political Action Committee. He has been endorsed by the Washington State Republican Party, which has joined the Joe Kent Victory Fund in sponsoring a January 19th fundraiser in Longview. He is already holding campaign meetings across the district, and has recently released a radio spot.
But questions remain from his 2022 campaign.
What exactly does Kent do for a living? An estranged former campaign manager has claimed he has a no-show job. How did it come to pass that Kent was able to loan $205,000 to his own campaign? We can go on asking, but as Gluesenkamp Perez’s political consultant Sandeep Kaushik notes, “The problem is the FEC (Federal Election Commission) is toothless and won’t do anything.”
The Daily Beast has just taken a deep dive look at what lies beneath the surface of the Kent campaign. It found a candidate trying to distance himself from a problematic advisor with white nationalist ties. An apparent shell company disguises who’s being paid. And there’s what could be overlap between the Kent campaign and the pro-Kent super PAC, which by law cannot collaborate.
The adviser is one Matt Braynard.
Braynard was a honcho from the 2016 Trump presidential campaign, and an election denier following Trump’s loss in 2020. He was also a voice of the 2022 Kent campaign, now saying he has “volunteered my services” in the 2024 effort. He officially stopped working for Kent in November of 2022, but his byline has shown up as recently as last month on a campaign’s metadata and source code.
“The money trail suggests not only that the two men (Kent and Braynard) remain tight, but that they’re so close that the relationship may have crossed into a forbidden form of political incest,” according to the Daily Beast.
Braynard is known for such pronouncements as posting on Twitter: “The World would be a better place when Germany is again proud of its history.”
The Federal Election Commission has registered a firm called QEB Consulting, registered by Braynard’s wife. It has received $64,000 for work on Kent’s behalf, starting with $22,000 paid by the pro-Kent PAC for an email blast.
The blast went out in November of 2022, the day before Braynard stopped fielding calls for the Kent campaign.
A key question is whether Braynard took the mandated time required between his role in the official campaign and the work he has since done with the Pacific Northwest Political Action Committee. Federal law requires staff and vendors to observe a 120-day “cooling off period” between roles.
Campaigns and PACs are supposed to remain separate, although a super PAC called Never Back Down has been handling matters such as presidential campaign scheduling for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Braynard had angry words for Daily Beast, saying in an email: “It is reprehensible and sexist to suggest that my wife, who has spent ten years as an advisor to my own political consulting firm and as a newsroom manager for one of the largest media agencies in the world, is not capable of establishing and running her own political consulting firm completely independent of me.”
(The media firm in question is AFP… Agence France-Press.)
Braynard is executive director of an outfit called Look Ahead America, which has taken a leading role as defender and advocate for those facing criminal charges for their role in the January 6rg, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
It has staged rallies in seventeen states and Washington, D.C., and filed a formal complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Joe Kent spoke at the D.C. rally. Daily Beast reports that Braynard has been paid $190,000 as a consultant, testifying in election challenges in four states.
The political operations of Kent and his friends have footprints all across America. Joe is running for Congress in Southwest Washington.
The “Joe Kent Victory Fund” address is a post office box in Battle Ground. QEB Consulting is headquartered in Virginia. The pro-Kent PAC pays two firms out of a post office box in Wisconsin. A firm called “HWY99 Corporation”, registered in Delaware, has accounted for two-thirds of Kent campaign spending.
It handles such tasks as media placement, digital consulting, legal & campaign consulting, plus printing and billboards. The campaign pays its bills to an address at 499 S. Capitol Street, #405, Washington, D.C.
The treasurer for Joe Kent for Congress, as well as the super PAC, is one Tom Datwyler. He is a campaign compliance specialist whose firm 9Seven Consulting works on campaigns all over the country. Datwyler was announced last year as treasurer for then-United States Representative George Santos, R‑New York, but apparently turned down the job. (Santos was expelled from Congress last month.) The Kent campaign was ordered to pay $3,304 in fines for failing to file notices for $29,600 in income during the 2022 campaign.
The cutouts are dizzying, but their purpose seems simple: The Kent campaign has ties that it is concealing, in particular its payroll. In words of the Daily Beast, FEC records show that since August of 2022 “the campaign has routed the majority of its expenses through what legal experts said appears to be a shell company. The scheme has the effect of hiding the identities of who the campaign is ultimately paying, which the experts said could run afoul of disclosure rules.”
It appears, too, that payments to Braynard by the Kent campaign and the pro-Kent PAC may have overlapped. In the words of Sandeep Kaushik: “They’re clearly skirting campaign finance and disclosure laws, and illegally coordinating between the campaign and the superPAC. Very typical of how Joe and Matt Braynard operate. They learned nothing from the last campaign.”
Its membership evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats; the Federal Election Commission is virtually paralyzed. Dan Gottlieb of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has sought to shine a light on what lies beneath the surface, saying in a statement: “Joe Kent doesn’t just pal around with insurrectionist sympathizers, it seems he’s also hiding payments to them using ’ what legal experts say what appears to be a shell company.’ Southwest Washington will judge Kent by his far-right beliefs and the extremist company he keeps – and will hold him to account in November.”
Perhaps. The margin in 2022 was paper-thin, and the rematch in 2024 is rated a tossup. Gluesenkamp Perez is a Blue Dog Democrat, putting distance between herself and party leaders. She has immersed herself in district issues, joined Republicans in cosponsoring a stream of bipartisan legislation, and broken with the Biden administration on such issues as relief from student debt repayment.
But the 3rd Congressional District is Washington’s blue collar bastion. Donald Trump carried it in both 2016 and 2020 and is almost certain to be atop the ballot once more this year. House candidate Joe Kent may have the benefit of a tailwind.
Please keep providing us voters in Southwest Washington with credible information.