Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that the Republican National Committee should return contributions from Steve Wynn after it was reported the casino magnate sexually harassed women for decades.
“Yes,” Spicer said when asked by MSNBC’s Craig Melvin if the RNC should return the contributions that total $100,000, adding that “all allegations should be taken seriously.”
“They should return — look, I don’t know how much they’ve taken over what period of time. I think it’s silly to go back to like decades ago when [election] cycles have occurred,” said Spicer, who was a longtime hand at the RNC, serving as their chief strategist and communications director. “But any money that happened this cycle, absolutely.”
Wynn also donated to a horde of other Republicans, many of whom have already announced plans to donate the monies to charity, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Reps. Karen Handel, R-Ga., and Greg Gianforte, R-Mt.
Handel and Gianforte were both recipients of donations from Wynn during their special election victories last year.
“I think that we need to have a standard that says that if a credible allegation comes, we need to take it absolutely serious,” Spicer said. “I think the right thing to do for the Republican Party is to have the higher moral ground and say, ‘we’re going to return the money.'”
According to the Wall Street Journal, Wynn engaged in at least a dozen acts of sexual harassment. Wynn denied all the allegations but resigned Saturday as RNC finance chairman, a role he assumed after President Trump’s victory in 2016.
