Diamond and Silk pressed on FEC filing showing payment from Trump campaign
Pro-Trump social media personalities Diamond and Silk claimed Thursday they have never been paid by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, but documents filed with the Federal Election Commission show otherwise.
During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on the filtering practices of social media platforms, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, asked Lynnette Hardaway, “Diamond” in the duo, whether the pair had ever been paid by the Trump campaign.
“No,” Hardaway responded. “We’ve never been paid by the Trump campaign.”
Jackson Lee pressed Hardaway on her response, asking “not $5, not $100?”
“We have never been paid by the Trump campaign,” Hardaway reiterated.
Jackson then asked whether the duo had received $1,274.94, to which Hardaway forcefully asserted “we have never been paid.”
But a
campaign finance report—referenced by Lee—the Trump campaign filed with the FEC in May 2017 indicate the campaign paid “Diamond and Silk” $1,274.94 on Nov. 22, 2016 for “field consulting.”
When pressed about the report by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the duo first denied they had received the money and seemed to suggest it was “fake news.”