On September 27, the Washington Post published an article by Peter Jamison titled “JD Vance, in 2020 messages, said Trump ‘thoroughly failed to deliver’.” The short version of this long WaPo article is that DMs from Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance to an unnamed acquaintance showed Vance shitting on Trump back in 2020. A few highlights as reported by WaPo:
“Trump has just so thoroughly failed to deliver on his economic populism (excepting a disjointed China policy),” Vance wrote in February 2020.
“I think Trump will probably lose,” he wrote in a message in June 2020, a few months before ballots were cast in an election that Vance would later claim, falsely and repeatedly, was stolen by the Democrats.
It’s no secret JD Vance used to be a Trump critic. In 2022, Vance’s former roommate Josh McLaurin (now a Georgia state senator) shared Facebook DMs from Vance he received in 2016 that said, among other things, “I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn’t be that bad (and might even prove useful) or that he’s America’s Hitler.”
Although WaPo chose not to name the recipient of the 2020 DMs leaked to them due to the potential for retaliation, Breitbart was more than happy to do so in the spirit of such. In “Exclusive — Deloitte Consultant Behind Ethically Questionable Leak of JD Vance Communications to Washington Post,” Breitbart reveals the leaker to be Deloitte principal Kevin Gallagher:
But what the Post did not do is tell its audience who Vance was communicating with in these messages, or provide the full context of the conversation, since it only reported part of one side of it. The Post argued it granted the source who provided these messages anonymity “because of concerns about retaliation,” but Breitbart News can reveal the person’s identity here for the first time as a well-connected Deloitte consultant.
Oh no, here it comes.
The Deloitte consultant, whose identity the Washington Post’s Peter Jamison hid from the newspaper’s readers, is named Kevin Gallagher. Deloitte’s website lists Gallagher as a “principal” with the firm, based in Connecticut. Breitbart News has seen a screenshot of messages that Vance sent to Gallagher—the other side of the conversation is not available, because Gallagher had deleted his account, thereby deleting the messages—confirming that Gallagher is in fact the recipient of these.
That same day, Donald Trump Jr. accused Gallagher — who has since gone into internet hiding — of interfering in the election and asked if it’s time for the GOP to “end Deloitte’s taxpayer funded gravy train.”
An executive at @Deloitte named Kevin Gallagher decided to interfere in the election & leak private convos with JD Vance to help Kamala Harris. Deloitte also gets $2B in govt contracts. Maybe it's time for the GOP to end Deloitte's taxpayer funded gravy train?
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 27, 2024
CC @speakerjohnson pic.twitter.com/gAOs1TBt86
Conservative newsletter Amuse echoed this sentiment in a long-ass tweet:
The sheer audacity of Gallagher’s interference would be appalling on its own, but it is especially outrageous when considering his position at Deloitte—a firm that has raked in billions in government contracts. Over $2 billion, in fact, has flowed into Deloitte’s coffers from taxpayer-funded projects. Why, then, are we allowing such an entity, whose executives play politics for personal gain, to enjoy the spoils of government largesse? Deloitte has been cashing checks courtesy of American taxpayers while its leadership engages in partisan warfare. The GOP must recognize this glaring conflict and take swift action to curtail Deloitte’s access to federal contracts.
Not to ackshually here but ackshually, Deloitte plays both sides because what they value above all else is revenue. Here’s some data from government transparency group OpenSecrets. Remember they’re tracking individual donations among these.
LOL at the 77.45% to Republicans in 2002, the year Sarbanes-Oxley rose like a phoenix from the ashes of Arthur Andersen’s literal tons of shredded documents. Surely unrelated.
Here’s a breakdown by affiliate for the 2024 election cycle (a.k.a. the nightmare in which we are currently residing):
Lastly, recipient data from the 2024 election cycle. What this says is that individuals associated with Deloitte are throwing more money at Kamala Harris than Donald Trump. What it doesn’t say is that Deloitte endorses Kamala Harris. They’re gonna quietly endorse whoever is going to allow them to make the most money, which is probably why Kevin Gallagher is not getting invited to happy hour any time soon because this kind of heat is bad for business.
Wrote WaPo’s Peter Jamison in a follow-up article:
On Sept. 27, Donald Trump Jr. exposed the employee’s name and photograph to millions of people on social media, writing, “Maybe it’s time for the GOP to end Deloitte’s taxpayer funded gravy train?” Others — including Vance’s chief spokesman and a Republican senator — circulated Trump Jr.’s comments, and the conservative website Breitbart published a story naming the man and highlighting his job.
Deloitte receives about $3 billion annually from federal agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Defense.
Ethics experts said the episode is a potentially ominous preview of how a second Trump administration might use the enormous power the federal government wields over private industry to punish political acts by individual workers. Although federal contracting laws prohibit cutting off a business because of its workers’ private political views, such threats could have a chilling effect, they said.
Added Jamison:
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Kedric Payne, senior director of ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center and former deputy chief counsel in the Office of Congressional Ethics, adding that the goal was probably to pressure Deloitte into firing the worker. “You can’t imagine that if one employee out of thousands made a statement that offended an official, that then the government contracts would be in jeopardy.”
Yeah, they’re probably not. The #boycottdeloitte hashtag is pretty quiet all things considered.
“This individual shared private personal messages on his own volition without the knowledge of Deloitte, which is a non-partisan firm,” Deloitte told WaPo in a statement. “Deloitte is deeply committed to supporting our government and commercial clients and we have a long track record of doing so across parties and administrations.”
Comments are open, don’t make us regret it. Behave like the educated adult professionals you are please and thank you.
Fortunately for Deloitte, Trump doesn’t hold grudges and he’s not a vindictive person.
Leaking those messages isn’t election interference… it’s certainly an attempt at influencing voters, which isn’t illegal. Now, I do raise an eyebrow at why Vance was DM-ing government contractors about political candidates, but nothing said was privileged information. The only parties I would say were unequivocally in the wrong are Breitbart and Trump Jr. That judge ordered the identities of the jurors in Trump’s fraud case to be kept secret for a reason.
Funny, I know of at least one case when someone at Deloitte criticized a governmental action, regarding a newsworthy event, on social media and they got a nasty email and call from a PPMD and their coach telling them to delete it or else it would compromise future government business.
Guess the PPMDs have special rules.
I guarantee you that no one in leadership at Deloitte is happy about this right now, least of all the people in communications and risk who have to clean this up. Government contracts are Deloitte’s golden goose. This is not going to do any favors for his units for sure.
Oh for sure. Think he’s going to get quietly nudged out of the firm or just put on an ice floe for a bit until it all blows over?
Especially if Trump wins. Deloitte is going to have blow Trump even more enthusiastically than normal if he wins this election.