Remember earlier this week when Trump was accusing an Ohio fire marshal of playing politics by limiting the crowd size of his event to 1,000 people?
Entire trump gaggle just now pic.twitter.com/E76oadIoiq
— Nick Corasaniti (@NYTnickc) August 1, 2016
Well it turns out the Trump campaign actually did sign a contract to limit the crowd size to no more than 1,000 people!
It wasn’t politics at all. It was Trump’s own campaign treasurer who signed it!
POLITICO – “I just want to tell you we’ve had thousands of people outside, thousands. They were turned away—for political reasons—purely for political reasons,” Trump told reporters Monday just prior to the event. They said in this massive building you are not allowed to have any more than 1,000 people. And that is nonsense—we could have had 4, 5, 6,000 people. They have all been turned away. It is a disgrace.”
The problem with Trump’s charges? His own senior campaign staff officials were fully aware and had agreed in writing that the Trump event in Columbus was to be restricted to a maximum of 1,000 people, according to documents signed on Friday, July 29, between the Trump campaign and Columbus Convention Center for the Monday event, and obtained by Politico.
The documents, provided by Columbus Convention Center officials and the city fire department, show that senior Trump officials agreed to the terms four days prior to Monday’s event.
The “event acknowledgement” document was agreed to by senior Trump campaign official John Hiller on July 29 and specified a maximum attendance of “800+ media (not to exceed 1,000 per Fire marshal and contract).” The document states the terms of the “by invitation” Trump “Town Hall” event was “Fire marshal approved.”
The July 29 contract to secure the event space was signed by both Greater Columbus Convention Center General Manager John Page and Donald Trump for President Treasurer Timothy Jost, with each page of the document initialed by Jost.
Here’s the contract!
This is why Trump is an unmitigated disaster. He either doesn’t know what his own campaign is doing (in which case he should ask them) or he’s just willing to lie willy nilly about whomever he chooses to make himself look better.
Sadly, both are probably true.