RNC says ex-Trump ambassador nominee’s efforts ‘to link future contributions to an official action’ were ‘inappropriate’

The Republican National Committee (RNC) said it cut ties with billionaire Doug Manchester, President Trump’s former nominee for ambassador to the Bahamas, after his “decision to link future contributions to an official action” as his nomination was at a standstill in the Senate.

“While presidential nominees and their families can legally make political contributions, Mr. Manchester’s decision to link future contributions to an official action was totally inappropriate,” a spokesman for the RNC said in a statement to The Hill.

“We have cut ties with him and returned the money his family donated this year,” the representative added.

{mosads}The statement by the organization reportedly came after an email exchange between Manchester and RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel back in September, a CBS News investigation published on Monday found.

According to CBS, McDaniel had reached out to Manchester to ask him about possibly making a $500,000 donation. 

“Would you consider putting together $500,000 worth of contributions from your family to ensure we hit our ambitious fundraising goal?” McDaniel asked in him in an email, according to CBS News.

In a copy of his response obtained by the publication, Manchester reportedly wrote: “As you know I am not supposed to do any, but my wife is sending a contribution for $100,000. Assuming I get voted out of the [Foreign Relations Committee] on Wednesday to the floor we need you to have the majority leader bring it to a majority vote … Once confirmed, I our [sic] family will respond!”

According to CBS News, Manchester also copied staffers of Sens. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) in his email. He withdrew himself from consideration for the ambassador role a month later after Risch reported his email to the White House.

Former Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who previously chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Manchester’s nomination, which Trump announced in his first year of office, was stalled for so long because senators “had concerns about judgment, about demeanor, about just the whole reason for taking the job.”

He also added that if he had “received an email like that, there would have been a five-bell alarm that went off.”

When pressed by CBS chief investigate correspondent Jim Axelrod about the optics of his email exchange with the RNC, Manchester said: “Well — it looks like it to you. But it’s not the facts.”

“My wife gave out of separate funds and she in fact loves Donald Trump,” he added.

Before withdrawing his nomination in October, Manchester’s nomination had sat in the Senate since May 2017.

Shortly before Manchester’s email exchange with the RNC, Trump had thanked the billionaire, nicknamed “Papa Doug,” in September for supporting relief efforts in the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian.

At the time, he called Manchester “hopefully the next Ambassador to the Bahamas.”

–This report was updated at 10:33 a.m.