Three New Yorkers say they were misled into appearing in a video at the Republican National Convention (watch above). The New York Times said in the video “the tenants raised concerns about conditions in the housing authority’s buildings, praised Mr. Trump’s record on public housing and attacked (New York City Mayor Bill) de Blasio’s.”
HUD official Lynne Patton organized the videos. She is described as “a longtime Trump associate who oversees federal housing programs in New York.”
“Four tenants soon assembled in front of a video camera and were interviewed for more than four hours by Ms. Patton herself. Three of the tenants were never told that their interviews would be edited into a two-minute video clip that would air prominently on Thursday night at the Republican National Convention and be used to bash Mayor Bill de Blasio, the three tenants said in interviews on Friday.
“I am not a Trump supporter,” said one of the tenants, Claudia Perez. “I am not a supporter of his racist policies on immigration. I am a first-generation Honduran. It was my people he was sending back.”
But there are questions about whether Patton violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from engaging in political activity. New York State senator Julia Salazar tweeted, “Lynne Patton should be removed from her position at @HUDNY_NJ for this. Fed employees can’t use their position in this way as a resource for a political campaign. Patton literally tricked public housing residents into speaking to her on camera, then used it for a Trump ad.”
Shouldn’t Lynne Patton be brought up on charges because of this? She used her government position to coerce these women into being in a political video.
— Tim Fullerton (@TimFullerton) August 28, 2020
Meanwhile, this isn’t the first time this week that people videotaped for the convention were caught off guard. The Wall Street Journal reports on the naturalization ceremony that was broadcast on Tuesday night:
Sudha Narayanan and Neimat Awadelseid looked forward to Tuesday—the day, after a yearslong process, they would become U.S. citizens. They found out only minutes before the ceremony that President Trump would attend, and they didn’t know it would be aired during the Republican convention that night.
First we learned that two of the people who were in Trump’s naturalization ceremony didn’t know they were going to be featured in the RNC, now this.
Not only are they exploiting people as political props, they are doing it without their explicit consent. https://t.co/6stOUr4hDk
— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) August 28, 2020
Patton denies the allegations in the Times.
For the record, @matthewhaag refused multiple requests to have a joint conference call w/me & the residents to set the record straight. Each resident is on unused tape thanking @POTUS for the “RNC platform” to highlight inhumane conditions & improvements made under this Admin. https://t.co/LVIssGnDfT
— ?? Lynne Patton (@LynnePatton) August 28, 2020
