Kris Kobach, the head of President Donald Trump’s controversial voter-fraud commission, admitted that he is a paid columnist for the far-right website Breitbart.
“I get paid for my columns … just like you’re paid,” Kobach told the Kansas City Star.
Kobach has written several columns labeled as “exclusives” on Breitbart. His admission that he writes for the site adds another tie between the far-right publication and the Trump administration.
Breitbart, which has been described as “embracing ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right,” is run by former Trump administration official Steve Bannon, who left the White House earlier this month.
The website is also known for taking a hardline on immigration, which ties directly into Kobach’s perceived job of scouring voter rolls for people who allegedly cast illegal ballots.
Kobach’s most recent column was arguing that the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration policy should be ended.
Kobach told the Star that he didn’t think Breitbart represented far-right views, claiming that it caters to a “broad spectrum” of conservatives.
“I find that criticism to be completely baseless and if Breitbart had any connection to white nationalism I would not write for the site,” he said.
Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas, is heading Trump’s controversial Commission on Election Integrity, formed in the wake of Trump’s baseless claims that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election.
The commission drew scrutiny when it was revealed that it requested voters’ first and last names, birthdays, last four digits of their Social Security numbers, and voting histories going back to 2008.
Several states pushed back against the commission’s request, and the public comment from late June to early July showed that most American citizens were not in favor of the commission having its hands on such personal data.
At least one person sent the commission a link to the infamously grotesque goatse photo.
You can read all of the Kansas City Stars‘ report here.