President Trump’s former bodyguard now runs a security consulting firm that is collecting $15,000 each month to help plan the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Keith Schiller, who was Trump’s bodyguard for almost 20 years, left the White House last fall. His company, KS Global Group, is helping Republicans with the site selection process for the convention, and Schiller’s fee is coming out of the RNC’s convention fund, CNBC reported.
A left-leaning critics says that the fund is one Republicans use to favor certain companies. Former special counsel at the Federal Election Commission Stephen Spaulding and current chief of strategy at Common Cause said these types of accounts are known for being “slush funds — lightly regulated and ripe for abuse.”
“Convention fund donations buy plenty of influence and access,” Spaulding told CNBC. “Now it looks like they’re helping to keep Schiller’s firm afloat.”
But a spokesman for the Republican National Committee dismissed that complaint by saying Common Cause favors left-leaning causes, and said both the RNC and the DNC have convention funds that are used to pay for security. In 2014, it was reported a Democratic lawyer helped create the provision that allows both the RNC and DNC to have these types of funds to bring in a new pool of money that they were not able to previously.
KS Global has already been paid a total of $75,000, according to recent disclosure reports. If Schiller continues to be paid at this rate until the 2020 convention, his company will take in around $500,000.
At his White House job, Schiller was making $165,000 a year, and his company was paid $10,000 a month when he worked for the Trump campaign.
