CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Comm. Director: It just depends on contentious votes, really. And recently obviously a lot more stuff has been going on, but prior to that I can't give a number, but maybe a handful of times. 4 Helen Eisner: Does he view the content, the postings to the accounts? 5 Comm. Director: Yeah. 6 Helen Eisner: And does he provide feedback about the postings? 7 Comm. Director: No. 8 9 10 Helen Eisner: We talked a little bit about scheduling media appearances. When do you decide if a particular media appearance is something that you want to share to one of the accounts? 11 12 Comm. Director: Every media appearance we try to share. It's important to share. Unless the appearance went like terribly bad. But I think we usually post about it. 13 14 Helen Eisner: What about meetings that the Congressman participates in, when do you post information about meetings? 15 16 17 18 19 Comm. Director: If he's meeting with an Ohio company I usually ask ... his schedule is gold, so it's like the most important thing, so I'll look through his schedule and be like, "Oh, he's meeting with the Ohio Farm Bureau. That's important. Let's make sure to get a picture and talk about what they met in their meeting." 20 21 Helen Eisner: Okay. How many times a day would you say you post to the social media account? 22 Comm. Director: A lot. Four to five posts a day. 23 24 25 Helen Eisner: And is the decision making as far as what to post, is that something you talk about in advance looking at the schedule, or does it occur after an event or an appearance? 26 27 28 29 30 Comm. Director: I try to put together a calendar, but it never works out that way. So in a perfect world, on Monday we usually have a legislative meeting, and a comms meeting, and I try and outline what I'm planning to do for the week. But so much crazy stuff pops up in the middle but honestly, I try every week but it never kind of follows through. Page 10 of 50 18-5206_0151 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: When there's a media appearance, what knowledge does the campaign staff have that that media appearance is going to occur? 3 Comm. Director: I don't know, 100% knowledge. 4 Helen Eisner: Okay, and how is that? 5 6 Comm. Director: Usually by the schedule. It's difficult to fit in media, or to fit in anything, because the calendar's always changing, you never know. 7 8 9 10 Helen Eisner: If you could sort of give me some background information about the schedule. You mentioned 100% of the time, just sort of technically speaking, what is it that allows them to understand what the schedule is 100% of the time. 11 12 13 14 15 Comm. Director: Well, so Rosie's the conduit I guess, she usually, she'll send ... we have a schedule, it's an Outlook schedule where things can get popped up. When I want something to happen, I write an email, like please put this on the schedule. And then Rosie sends out a schedule via email to the campaign to let them know what his activity is that day. 16 17 Helen Eisner: Okay. So, let me just break that down. So you post to the Outlook calendar- 18 19 Comm. Director: I don't. I send an email, being like, can we do this Varney hit at 2 p.m., whatever. 20 Helen Eisner: Okay. 21 22 Comm. Director: And then she'll be like, we'll see, if it goes up, it goes up. And the campaign I think is alerted that night or whenever. 23 Helen Eisner: So Rosie's sort of the conduit. Everything goes through her from you- 24 Comm. Director: Yeah. 25 26 Helen Eisner: She manages the schedule, and then she provides the campaign with information. 27 28 Comm. Director: Yeah. Sometimes it's Michelle. I don't know exactly when Rosie started, but Michelle at one point was scheduling too. Page 11 of 50 18-5206_0152 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Helen Eisner: Okay. Besides that schedule and the information that Rosie provides, is there any other way that the campaign finds out about a media appearance? 4 5 Comm. Director: We may talk about it in the morning ... like when I used to have morning calls. Like, "Hey, he's going to be on Varney today, make sure to tune in." 6 Helen Eisner: Okay. And what is that, what are the morning calls? 7 8 9 10 11 12 Comm. Director: At 7:15 I just like, this is our schedule of the day. This is what we're doing, what are you guys doing? That's about it. Sometimes they'll have their own messaging that maybe kind of contradicting our messaging, so it was making sure ... we've had a couple of those hiccups in the governor's race where they would say something different than we would say, so kind of making sure everyone was on the same page. 13 Helen Eisner: And that's 7:15 Monday through Friday? 14 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 15 Helen Eisner: Okay, and who participates in those calls? 16 Comm. Director: It was me, Kevin, James, and Renae, and then Brittany when she started. 17 Helen Eisner: James is James Slepian? 18 Comm. Director: James Slepian, yeah. 19 Helen Eisner: Okay, and what is his role, or what was his role? 20 21 22 Comm. Director: He's always been, I don't know what his official title, but he's just always been a consultant to Jim. He used to be his Chief and Comms Director, so he knows a lot about Jim's messaging. 23 Helen Eisner: And that's to the campaign? Consultant to the campaign? 24 Comm. Director: Yeah. Yeah. 25 Helen Eisner: And Renae, you mentioned Renae? 26 27 Comm. Director: Renae was the Comms Director, Press Secretary during ... because we went from a governor's race to a Senate race, so kind of switched. I think Page 12 of 50 18-5206_0153 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 she finished off the governor's race and then we hired Brittany in the Senate race. 3 4 Helen Eisner: Okay, so at the point in time when it switched to a Senate race, Renae was no longer involved? 5 6 Comm. Director: I don't know the exact date, but I know that we made a conscious switch to have a new team for the Senate race. 7 Helen Eisner: So something approximately on those lines. 8 Comm. Director: Yeah. 9 Helen Eisner: Okay. And Renae's last name is? 10 Comm. Director: Eze 11 Helen Eisner: Eze. 12 Comm. Director: Eze at the end. 13 Helen Eisner: Eze? 14 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 15 Helen Eisner: During the calls, is social media discussed? 16 Comm. Director: Depends, yeah, probably. What are you guys pushing out today? 17 Helen Eisner: And who from the campaign is responsible for social media? 18 Comm. Director: Renae. 19 20 Helen Eisner: Is that during the period of time that you worked for the campaign, were you involved in the social media accounts? 21 Comm. Director: I didn't post, I didn't have access to post to them. But I did talk about them. 22 Helen Eisner: During those 7:15 calls? 23 Comm. Director: Yeah. 24 Helen Eisner: Okay. Page 13 of 50 18-5206_0154 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Comm. Director: Yeah. 2 3 Helen Eisner: Again, you said Renae was responsible, but then at some point Renae left and I think you said- 4 Comm. Director: And Brittany became responsible. 5 Helen Eisner: Brittany Martinez. 6 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 7 Helen Eisner: She was then responsible for the social media accounts? 8 Comm. Director: Yeah. 9 Bill Farah: Where did you do the 7:15 calls? 10 Comm. Director: At home. 11 12 Paul Solis: You were at home when you participated in the calls? They were a conference call? 13 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 14 15 Paul Solis: Do you know where the other official congressional staffers, where they were on the call? 16 17 18 Comm. Director: Well it would have just been Kevin, and Kevin and I actually live down the street from each other, so sometimes we were driving in. But we did them from home. 19 Helen Eisner: Why did they take place at 7:15? 20 Comm. Director: Because it was the only time we had. 21 Helen Eisner: Okay. So it was fairly early for- 22 23 Comm. Director: Yeah, yeah. I mean it's the only time that I could have a call. Because work kind of starts at like 8:30. 24 25 Helen Eisner: What about besides the phone calls? Was there any other regular form of communication between the campaign staff and the official staff? Page 14 of 50 18-5206_0155 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Comm. Director: No. If something blew up I'd get a text or something, but it just depended. 2 Helen Eisner: Okay. What about through email? 3 Comm. Director: Maybe an email or two, yeah. 4 Helen Eisner: Did you have a campaign email address? 5 Comm. Director: No. 6 Helen Eisner: What email did you use when communicating? 7 Comm. Director: Gmail. 8 9 Helen Eisner: A Gmail account. We've talked about Michelle Runk a little bit. What role does Michelle Runk play for the campaign? 10 11 Comm. Director: She's the Chief of Staff. She just knows everything about Jim, so she's really the Jim whisperer. 12 Helen Eisner: Did she have any type of official role for the campaign? 13 Comm. Director: I don't know. I would assume so, but I don't know. 14 Helen Eisner: Okay. You mentioned- 15 Comm. Director: She wasn't on the calls, if that matters. 16 17 Helen Eisner: Okay. During your time period working for the campaign, did Harlan Hill play any type of role for the campaign? 18 Comm. Director: Yeah. 19 Helen Eisner: And what was his position? 20 21 22 23 Comm. Director: He was doing all the social ... in a different kind of … he was doing a lot of social media. I think that's where some of the hiccups were coming, because he was pushing out one message and we kind of wanted a different one. 24 Helen Eisner: What was the message that he was pushing out? 25 Comm. Director: MAGA stuff. Page 15 of 50 18-5206_0156 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: Okay. So, M-A-G-A. 2 Comm. Director: Yeah. 3 4 5 6 Helen Eisner: So you've told me that there was a period of time where Renae Eze had access or was sort of in control of the social media. Then it transferred over to Brittany Martinez. Harlan Hill, where does he fit in that timeline of social media? 7 8 9 10 11 Comm. Director: Gosh, I don't know. I think it was the switch probably, to the Senate ... honestly I don't know. But oh, he had access as well. He has a firm, he had a calendar, this is what I'm pushing out every week. James approved all of his content, he had access, he posted stuff on more of like a timely basis, where Renae was doing the irregular stuff. 12 13 Helen Eisner: So the Congressman was involved in the content that Mr. Hill was posting, I think you said that he- 14 Bill Farah: I think she said James- 15 Comm. Director: James, not- 16 Bill Farah: She's referring to James Slepian. 17 Comm. Director: Oh sorry, James, not Jim. 18 Helen Eisner: Oh James, I'm sorry. Okay. Jim versus James. 19 Comm. Director: No, Jim would not have known what Harlan was doing. 20 Helen Eisner: Understood, okay. Why was Harlan Hill hired? 21 Comm. Director: To grow followers. 22 Helen Eisner: And you mentioned that MAGA was a hiccup, what was the issue? 23 Comm. Director: Well not a hiccup, he was tapping into that big Trump base. 24 25 Helen Eisner: Okay. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you sort of characterized it as, all the problems came from- Page 16 of 50 18-5206_0157 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Comm. Director: No, no. It was just important that ... because we weren't communicating with Harlan, so it was just important that we knew some of the, got heads up on what he was pushing out. 4 Helen Eisner: Okay. So it was a messaging issue. 5 Comm. Director: Yeah. 6 Helen Eisner: Consistency of messaging. 7 Comm. Director: Probably, yeah. 8 9 Helen Eisner: When there were issues, would you communicate directly with Mr. Hill about those issues? 10 11 12 Comm. Director: No, I didn't talk to Harlan much. I usually would just mention to James, like, "Hey, he said this about guns and Second Amendment but we voted this way, so just wanted to flag that for you guys." 13 Helen Eisner: Besides Harlan Hill, Renae Eze, is that correct? 14 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 15 16 Helen Eisner: And Brittany Martinez, who else had the log in credentials or capacity to post to the- 17 Comm. Director: Kevin. 18 Helen Eisner: Kevin, okay. 19 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 20 Helen Eisner: But you did not have the log in- 21 Comm. Director: Hm-mm- (negative). 22 Helen Eisner: For the campaign social media. 23 24 Comm. Director: No. Well I probably did. I mean I’m sure I can log into the Twitter account. 25 Helen Eisner: Did you ever post information to those accounts? Page 17 of 50 18-5206_0158 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Comm. Director: I probably have. 2 Helen Eisner: How often? 3 4 Comm. Director: Not often. I mean again I'd have to be at home or have time, with the kids, and everything. 5 6 7 Paul Solis: I just want to be clear, Helen initially asked you that question I think you said, I don't have log in credentials or I don't post to social media for the campaign. Just want to be clear whether you in fact- 8 9 10 Comm. Director: I have posted, I can't remember what exact posts. I know that the posts you guys were all looking at, I did not post any of those, so that's kind of why I was saying, but I probably have posted in the past. 11 12 13 Helen Eisner: Okay. And now, just talking about the campaign social media accounts, as opposed to the official. What role did the Congressman play in those social media accounts? 14 Comm. Director: Not a role. No role. 15 16 17 Helen Eisner: And I think, just to sort of backtrack a little bit, what social media accounts does the campaign maintain. We talked about the official, what does the campaign maintain? 18 19 Comm. Director: The same, a Facebook account, a Twitter account, and I think an Instagram account. 20 21 Helen Eisner: And when we've discussed who has log in credentials to those accounts, who would post information, are we talking about all three, or just- 22 23 Comm. Director: I know that we couldn't get into the Instagram account when Renae left, so I don't know if they've been able to get into it since. 24 Helen Eisner: Okay. And, the Congressman? 25 Comm. Director: No, he has no access. 26 Helen Eisner: What about his role in approving content for the campaign accounts? 27 Comm. Director: None. Page 18 of 50 18-5206_0159 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: You had mentioned earlier that the Congressman has a personal account. What are you referring to? 3 Comm. Director: He has a personal Facebook account. 4 Helen Eisner: And what is that Facebook account? 5 Comm. Director: His own Facebook account that he posts stuff to all the time. 6 7 8 9 10 Helen Eisner: Let me actually, let's start looking through the binder and what I want to show you is I believe under tab 3, and there are actually two documents they are separated by a green page. If you look at the first document in there, there is a copy of a Facebook account, this was printed recently, from June 11, 2018. It's @JimRenacci. What account is this? 11 Comm. Director: I think it would be his Senate account, right? His campaign account? 12 Helen Eisner: His campaign account. 13 Comm. Director: Yeah. 14 15 Helen Eisner: So this account is separate from the personal account that you're referring to. 16 Comm. Director: Yeah. 17 18 19 Helen Eisner: Okay, just wanted to ... and then if you can flip to the next document in that section, so if you go behind the green page. There's a Twitter account, which is @JimRenacci, and it was printed- 20 Comm. Director: This is the campaign. 21 Helen Eisner: This is the campaign Twitter account? 22 Comm. Director: Yeah, Jim doesn't have his own Twitter account. 23 Helen Eisner: Okay. So as far as a personal Facebook account- 24 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 25 26 27 Helen Eisner: It's not the account that I've shown you here for Jim Renacci, and ... actually I'll just backtrack to, if you go to tab number 2 and look at the first document in therePage 19 of 50 18-5206_0160 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Comm. Director: This is our official account. 2 Helen Eisner: This is the official account. 3 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 4 5 Helen Eisner: So when you're talking about a personal account you're talking about something separate- 6 Comm. Director: Yes. 7 Helen Eisner: From these two Facebook accounts. 8 Comm. Director: Yep. 9 10 Bill Farah: I think, and correct me if I'm wrong [Communications Director], but I think you'd see Rep in front of the official accounts. 11 12 Helen Eisner: So I believe that's consistent, if you look at the second document in there, there is a Twitter account, which is also @RepJimRenacci. 13 Comm. Director: Yep. 14 Helen Eisner: So the Facebook and Twitter account are- 15 Comm. Director: These are both the pages I manage. 16 17 18 Helen Eisner: The official ones. And then under tab 3, the two that we have looked at, the Twitter account and Facebook account, I think you've confirmed to me that those are the campaign accounts. 19 Comm. Director: Yep. 20 21 22 23 Helen Eisner: I want to go to tab 13, and this is, I'm just going to read the bates numbers here for the record, this is THJR_0017, this is what I believe to be an Outlook scheduling document. Actually, I should confirm, is this an Outlook scheduling document? 24 Comm. Director: Yes. 25 Helen Eisner: And it says organizer Renacci J. Is that the Congressman? 26 Comm. Director: That's just the calendar. Page 20 of 50 18-5206_0161 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: Just the calendar, okay. 2 Comm. Director: That's the name of the calendar. 3 4 Helen Eisner: All right. And this is an event, subject AIMExpo. Do you know what that event was? 5 6 Comm. Director: Yeah, it was a motorcycle expo. Or like motor enthusiast expo, in Columbus. 7 8 Helen Eisner: And looking at the required attendees, the first one is @Renacciforcongress.com. Is that Michelle Runk? 9 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 10 11 Bill Farah: You may want to explain what required attendees refers to, [Communications Director]. 12 13 Comm. Director: Yeah, this isn't ... I mean I obviously wasn't there, because it's in Ohio, but this is just like FYI, letting people know what's on the calendar. 14 Helen Eisner: Okay. 15 16 Comm. Director: Because it can show up if you add another, who was it, like James, Gmail, he has his own calendar, so then it flags for him that this is happening. 17 18 Bill Farah: And my understanding too, I'm sorry to interrupt, is that they had to use a campaign email account so it would show up so the campaign could see it. 19 Comm. Director: On there yeah. I didn't have access to that one so I don't know. 20 21 Bill Farah: The way the calendar works, otherwise the campaign could not see the calendar. 22 Helen Eisner: So who would have sent this calendar invite? 23 Comm. Director: Michelle probably, or Rosie. I don't know, whoever created it. 24 25 Helen Eisner: Okay. So just want to get the technicalities of this, so Rosie or Michelle would have created this. 26 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Page 21 of 50 18-5206_0162 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: And the required attendees is sort of flagging for the individuals listed here that there's an event- 3 Comm. Director: Yeah. 4 Helen Eisner: That was taking place. 5 Comm. Director: Exactly. 6 7 Helen Eisner: And you were on here at your @mail.house.gov. How would this event have shown up- 8 Comm. Director: On my official calendar. 9 10 11 Helen Eisner: On your official calendar. Okay. And for Renae Eze, for @renacciforohiofirst.com, to the extent you know, how would that have shown up for her? 12 Comm. Director: On her Google calendar, or whatever the campaign calendar was. 13 14 15 Helen Eisner: Okay. And the information that's provided below, that says Andre Lacey and show schedule, would you have had access to that information as a part of this calendar invite? 16 Comm. Director: Yeah, I can click on it. 17 18 19 20 Helen Eisner: So, again, I know Bill has just explained, but in your own words, looks like what we're seeing here is a number of @mail.house.gov email addresses and there are some campaign email addresses. Why are both of those appearing here? 21 22 23 24 25 Comm. Director: Because this was an official event and there was also an opportunity for the campaign to be there as well. We were there reading a letter that the Vice President, he couldn't be there so he asked us to be there. And then I think the campaign did something on ... I don't know what it was, it was a big expo, but they were there as well. 26 27 Helen Eisner: So, okay, so at that point in time, let's see this was September 21, 2017, so you were not involved with the campaign at that time? 28 Comm. Director: No. Page 22 of 50 18-5206_0163 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: Okay. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that opportunity would have been for the campaign at that event? 3 Comm. Director: Probably to meet people? I don't know. 4 5 Bill Farah: Again, you'll want to ask this later, but I think there were actually two events there. 6 Comm. Director: Oh okay. 7 8 Bill Farah: There was an official event and then later in the day there was a campaign thing- 9 10 11 12 Comm. Director: Oh, there was like a campaign thing. That's probably what it was, because that's why Joe is, another press person on the official side, we worked together on probably the morning event, and then I know Renae and a bunch of, I guess Wes- 13 14 15 Paul Solis: [Communications Director], without your counsel's intervention, do you have independent knowledge of whether or not there was two distinct events at this motorcycle Expo? 16 Comm. Director: Yes, I do remember that this event was- 17 18 Paul Solis: You do have independent knowledge of, you're recalling that there were two distinct events at this expo? 19 Comm. Director: Yes. Yes. 20 Helen Eisner: And did you attend the campaign event? 21 Comm. Director: No, this was in Ohio. 22 Helen Eisner: What was the official event? 23 24 Comm. Director: I believe the official event was the Vice President, him reading the letter or whatever that he couldn't attend. 25 26 27 Helen Eisner: Okay, so a calendar invite like this where there is an official event, and there's separately a campaign event, how common is it for you to receive this type of calendar invitation? Page 23 of 50 18-5206_0164 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Comm. Director: This specific event was very rare. I don't think it's happened ever since, but my official calendar does not get campaign events. 3 4 5 Helen Eisner: Besides this event being rare, how common is it to get a calendar invite where there are official staffers and campaign staffers invited as required attendees- 6 7 Comm. Director: Well, I think, it's not required attendees, it's just flagging people to know what's on. 8 Helen Eisner: Sure- 9 10 11 Comm. Director: So I would say like most media events, probably James is on, to know when I'm booking official events, and if they're booking official events, media events, it's good for me to know that he's going to be on the media. 12 13 Bill Farah: May I ask one other question, is this an actual email, or is this simply hooking their calendar up to this event? 14 Comm. Director: This is just a calendar- 15 Helen Eisner: It's calendar invite. And by required attendees, I understand that- 16 Comm. Director: Oh okay. 17 18 19 20 21 Helen Eisner: You're talking about flagging people, just using the terminology that's here. I understand the distinction there. You said that James might be somebody who would also get this type of flagged notice for a media appearance. Is there anyone else who would routinely get that type of information? From the campaign. 22 Comm. Director: Oh, Renae. When she was there. Brittany. 23 24 25 Helen Eisner: Okay. And today, or in the past week, if you've sent information about a media appearance, you or Rosie or Michelle, does it include Brittany's information? 26 Comm. Director: Not on official ... not anymore, no. 27 Helen Eisner: Not anymore, why not anymore? Page 24 of 50 18-5206_0165 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Comm. Director: Well obviously now because of this, we had no idea that this was such an issue, so we've obviously drawn a very distinct line and we just don't flag them anymore. 4 Helen Eisner: And when you say an issue, what do you mean? 5 Comm. Director: This situation here. 6 Helen Eisner: Okay. So how did you learn that it was an issue? 7 Paul Solis: Do you mean, sorry- 8 Helen Eisner: Go ahead. 9 Paul Solis: Do you mean the result of an OCE review or- 10 Comm. Director: Yeah. 11 Paul Solis: Or do you mean press coverage on this topic? 12 13 14 Comm. Director: No, not press coverage. I just didn't, I personally have been working here for a long time, I didn't realize that we couldn't put them on the emails. So now we don't. 15 16 Bill Farah: Well, and it's not clear that you can't. We're just saying you did this as abundance of caution- 17 Comm. Director: Oh yeah, now we're just- 18 Helen Eisner: Well, who advised you that it could have been an issue? 19 20 21 Comm. Director: No one. No one advised. Just when we got this paperwork, whatever, two months ago. After that, I was like, let's make sure we don't ever add them on- 22 23 Helen Eisner: Okay. And what conversations have you had with the Congressman about that practice? 24 25 26 Comm. Director: Just starting in May or whatever, right? When we just had this information, we started saying we have to really draw a distinct line and make sure that we don't do something that would get us in trouble. Page 25 of 50 18-5206_0166 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Paul Solis: Is it your opinion? Again this is your opinion that there was not a distinct line prior to the conversations with the congressman? 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Comm. Director: No. I think that I've been doing this for a long time, and I was pretty anal about certain policies, and I didn't know that ... I honestly thought the policies were not what they must be. I thought the policies were, accounts had to have totally separate content and totally separate stuff, and you couldn't copy and paste a press release. And this is just from the ethics guidelines that I have printed out. But I hadn't realized to the extent that we could possibly get in trouble or violate some rule by including the campaign on some of the media appearances. 11 Paul Solis: Can I just ask about this specific event? 12 Helen Eisner: Go ahead. 13 Paul Solis: Did you go to this event? 14 Comm. Director: I did not. 15 Paul Solis: Okay. Did, to your knowledge, other official staffers attend that event? 16 Comm. Director: Michelle and Joe were there. 17 Paul Solis: And how do you know that they were there? 18 Comm. Director: Because I always know when Michelle's in Ohio. 19 Paul Solis: And they flew there- 20 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 21 Paul Solis: Or drove? They flew from D.C. 22 Comm. Director: Yeah. Well no, Joe lives in Ohio. Joe drove. 23 24 25 26 Paul Solis: And again, I had previously asked you about your knowledge of this sort of separate nature of the campaign and official being at this event, sort of distinct. Was there like a booth or some sort of table set up for the campaign. 27 28 Comm. Director: I think there was a table set at the later event. I think the morning was, and again I don't remember, because I wasn't at that event, all the specifics, but Page 26 of 50 18-5206_0167 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 I do remember there was a morning session I think when the Vice President's letter, and then there was an afternoon where it was like a motorcycle rally or something, and he was there as ... he owns a bunch of Harley Davidson motorcycles. 5 Paul Solis: And by he do you mean the Congressman? 6 Comm. Director: Yes. And he's like a rider, which is so bizarre. 7 8 Helen Eisner: We've talked about this issue with regards to sort of a change in approach after learning about our review. 9 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 10 11 12 Helen Eisner: What about social media? Have there been any changes to either the official office or campaign office's approach to social media following the knowledge of the Office of Congressional Ethics review? 13 14 15 Comm. Director: Yeah, definitely. Poor Kevin, got to run across to Starbucks or doesn't come in or whatever, so we've just been much more cautious of when Kevin's asked to work on a graphic or something. 16 17 Helen Eisner: Okay. And what was happening before with Kevin and his work on a graphic, as an example? 18 19 20 21 22 23 Comm. Director: Usually, he has some personal software to help make some videos, and usually takes a while to upload and stuff so he does that at night. But if there was something that had to be done quickly ... I mean a lot of the time, some of them, like Renae would make the graphics, but if Kevin had to, he may have done it always on his personal computer. But he could have done it as his desk. 24 25 Helen Eisner: Okay. Besides making a graphic, what other social media related work was performed in the official office? 26 27 Bill Farah: When you say social media do you mean campaign related social media work or official- 28 Helen Eisner: I mean campaign related social media work. 29 Bill Farah: Campaign related. 30 Comm. Director: I mean that's it. Page 27 of 50 18-5206_0168 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: Okay, just making a graphic. 2 Comm. Director: Yeah. 3 Helen Eisner: What about posting the material itself? 4 Comm. Director: Renae posted. 5 Helen Eisner: Renae did all the posting. Or Harlan. 6 7 Comm. Director: Yeah, or Harlan, yeah. Or like if it was on the weekend, on one of those, whatever, farm events or fair events, I'd be like, come get this up quickly. 8 9 Helen Eisner: If Kevin made a graphic and he completed it, how would he provide that to Renae to post the information? 10 11 Comm. Director: You can share, you can create posts on Facebook and just have them be, it's called scheduled posts. 12 13 Helen Eisner: Okay. And where would he post to Facebook a scheduled post, where would he perform that work? 14 Comm. Director: I don't know, but I would hope he was doing it at home? 15 16 Helen Eisner: Okay. On what occasions were you aware of him completing a graphic, posting it for a scheduled post in the official office? 17 Comm. Director: I don't know the specifics but I'm sure it happened. 18 19 20 21 22 Helen Eisner: Okay. Besides graphics, what about, I think you had mentioned sometimes there might be a picture of an event. When the Congressman participated in an event, or an interview for example, we talked about Statuary Hall. On what occasions would you take a photograph of him participating in that media appearance? 23 24 25 26 27 Comm. Director: Pretty much every time. Again, I had no idea we couldn't take pictures inside the office building. I know that now. It will never happen again. I had no idea I was doing anything, again I thought everything had to be separate. I thought I just had to have different posts. So yeah, every time he did a media hit, I'd take a picture. 28 Helen Eisner: Okay, and what would you do with that picture? Page 28 of 50 18-5206_0169 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 5 6 Comm. Director: It just depended. If the interview, if I'm booking the interview it's going to be on a legislative topic. If it happened they asked about the governor's race or the Senate race, I'd let the campaign know, or they were watching it usually. We talked about this, they'd clip it from their own service, like a TBI service they pay for. And I'd then be like, "Hey, I have this picture of him. We're not using it, you can use it." 7 8 Helen Eisner: Okay. And if they wanted to use it, would you send that to them through email or through text message, how would you get that to them? 9 Comm. Director: Usually like texted it to them. 10 Helen Eisner: Okay, and how quickly would you text that to them after an interview? 11 Comm. Director: I'm usually with the Congressman, so I probably when I had a minute. 12 Helen Eisner: Okay. 13 Comm. Director: So it wouldn't be instantly. 14 15 Helen Eisner: How often would you have sent a text message such as that, sending a picture from the congressional complex? 16 17 Comm. Director: I don't know, most of the hits weren't based on the congressional race, so it didn't matter. But there were probably a handful that did. 18 19 20 21 22 23 Helen Eisner: Okay. What I'm going to do is just start going through a few of the specific documents and I know, we don't want to take up too much of your time, so hopefully we'll be able to get through these fairly quickly. But I want to go to tab 15, and this is a post to the Twitter account for @JimRenacci, which I think we discussed earlier as the campaign Twitter account- 24 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 25 26 27 Helen Eisner: And the post says, "This morning we met with bipartisan working group, talked about repealing Common Core and the need for technical education." What was this event? 28 29 30 Comm. Director: Jim meets with this group each week, and it's his bipartisan working group. And it happens every week we're in session at 8 o'clock in the morning. Page 29 of 50 18-5206_0170 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: Okay. And where does the meeting typically occur? 2 3 Comm. Director: Upstairs in Cannon somewhere, I don't know the room number, but in Cannon. 4 Helen Eisner: In the congressional complex? 5 Comm. Director: In the congressional office, yep. 6 Helen Eisner: Okay, and did attend this particular meeting? 7 Comm. Director: I didn't. 8 Helen Eisner: Who did from the official office? 9 Comm. Director: Stephen did. 10 11 Helen Eisner: Okay. Let's go to tab 16, I think that's just the next one. And this is a text message which is THJR_0004-0005, the recipient is listed as Stephen- 12 Comm. Director: I sent him a text. 13 Helen Eisner: Okay. And what was Stephen's role? 14 Comm. Director: Stephen is the Legislative Director. 15 Helen Eisner: Okay. So this text, although your name doesn't appear here, this- 16 Comm. Director: This is from me. 17 18 Helen Eisner: From you. Okay. And at the top it says, "Can you snap a pic from BPWG" bipartisan working group. 19 Comm. Director: Yep. 20 Helen Eisner: So that was you? 21 Comm. Director: Yep. 22 23 Helen Eisner: Okay. And then the following, the pictures and the texts below, is that Stephen responding? 24 Comm. Director: Yep. Page 30 of 50 18-5206_0171 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: Okay. It's a little bit cut off, it says "Discussion on tax reform and career." Do you know what- 3 4 Comm. Director: It's on, probably he says career-building. Just like as an example, like just today, I have a text from one of these meetings again. 5 Helen Eisner: Okay. 6 Comm. Director: So I usually have them each Tuesday or whatever that we're in session. 7 Helen Eisner: So today you have a text, who sent you that text? 8 Comm. Director: Another staffer who's there. 9 Helen Eisner: Okay. And there's a picture of the meeting? 10 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 11 Helen Eisner: And what do you plan to do with that picture? 12 Comm. Director: I'm going to put it on official social media. 13 Helen Eisner: Understood. 14 Comm. Director: Yep. 15 Helen Eisner: In this situation, when you said can you snap a pic from the BPWG- 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Comm. Director: I usually tell them, because it's good optics. I usually ask on Tuesdays, how's BPWG looking. When it's a big full meeting it's pretty legit, we have Democrats and Republicans at the table together talking about different issues. Always about, I don't know, legislative issues. This one specifically was about career development and Jim on the campaign side was talking about Common Core. Again, I had no idea this was something I couldn't do- 23 Helen Eisner: Okay. 24 25 26 27 Comm. Director: And I will never do it again, but I thought that this was a great opportunity to highlight him being bipartisan and talking about Common Core, since that was what they were talking about. I sent it to Renae, I asked her to post it, she posted it at some point. Page 31 of 50 18-5206_0172 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: And how did you send it to Renae? 2 Comm. Director: I texted it to her. 3 4 5 Helen Eisner: Okay. And then that picture, which you sent to Renae, just to confirm, we were looking at tab 15 which is this tweet from October 24, 2017 at 11:41 a.m., that's the same picture that you sent to Renae, just to confirm? 6 Comm. Director: Yeah yeah. 7 Helen Eisner: Yes. 8 9 10 Paul Solis: Do you keep ... a couple times you said something we couldn't do or can't do, have you received some sort of information from some sort of authority that told you you can't do this or couldn't do this? 11 12 13 Comm. Director: No, I took, like right after I got this service stuff I took a bunch of ethics classes online to know exactly what the rules were, and just to be aware. And it says you can't take photos in the congressional office. 14 15 Paul Solis: Has anybody from the Ethics Committee contacted you and informed you of- 16 Comm. Director: No. 17 Paul Solis: Of this- 18 19 20 21 22 Comm. Director: This is all my, just ... I mean, I don't want to get in trouble like this. This is something that is important to understand. I had been doing this for a while, I had no idea. I've worked on other Senate races, I had no idea that I couldn't use this photo. I thought it was always at your desk, or during work hours. I didn't know that. 23 24 25 Helen Eisner: What about any conversations with Congressman Renacci about posting to social media and using photos taken in the congressional complex, have you had conversations with him about that? 26 Comm. Director: Like, won't ever do it again, yeah. 27 Helen Eisner: Okay. 28 Paul Solis: He's said that to you? Page 32 of 50 18-5206_0173 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Comm. Director: No I've said that to him. Yeah. 2 Helen Eisner: Did he have an understanding of what the rules were? 3 Comm. Director: I don't think so. He wouldn't have, this is very not part of his day to day. 4 5 Helen Eisner: You mentioned that you've taken some ethics training. What about the Congressman, has he taken any ethics training on this- 6 7 8 Comm. Director: I don't believe that he's done anything. I mean other than the required workplace thing we've just all had to do. I don't believe that he's done anything. 9 Helen Eisner: Okay. 10 Comm. Director: But it's my responsibility to know this stuff, so. 11 Helen Eisner: How often would you send a picture like that to Renae, or to Brittany? 12 13 14 15 16 Comm. Director: This really was the only time that they talked about something that was of interest. Again, during this whole period, things were ... were we running a governor's race, a Senate race, who's in charge? No one knew. It was just, no clue. But this meeting is the only time that they talked about something on the campaign. Again, I thought, "Oh, that sounds like a good idea." 17 18 Helen Eisner: And looking again at tab 15, the post, at the end of the post it says "#OHGOV." What is that hashtag? 19 Comm. Director: Ohio Governor's race. It was during his governor's race. 20 Helen Eisner: Okay. And is that a hashtag the campaign used in their posts? 21 22 Comm. Director: I think so. I don't really know. I mean it's either OHGOV or OHSEN, like Senate. 23 24 25 26 27 Helen Eisner: Okay. Let's go to tab 17, and I think, talk about this. This is a little blurry, I'm sorry, but this is November 16, 2017, post to the Facebook account for @JimRenacci, so again, this is the campaign Facebook account. The post reads, "Glad I was able to do my part to MAGA," #MAGA, and there's a video below. 28 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Page 33 of 50 18-5206_0174 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: What can you tell me about this post and this video? 2 3 4 5 6 Comm. Director: So, I mean this was the big tax cut and jobs act bill we'd been talking about the whole time. Kevin and I told Jim we'd meet him outside the House floor if it passed. I brought him that hat, and thought it would be a great use for the campaign. We took some photos, video, and sent it over to the campaign. 7 8 Helen Eisner: Okay, you said it would be a great use for the campaign. Was there any official use to the video? 9 10 Comm. Director: Oh, of course, that we voted for the tax ... I mean we've been talking about it, he's a CPA. But- 11 Helen Eisner: But the intent of the video itself, was that a campaign purpose? 12 Comm. Director: Yes. 13 Helen Eisner: Okay. 14 Bill Farah: Well you also intended it for official use, primarily- 15 Comm. Director: Of course, yeah. 16 Bill Farah: It was something you were going to- 17 Comm. Director: Just putting the hat on, I felt like- 18 Helen Eisner: Was the video used for any official purpose? 19 Comm. Director: No. 20 Helen Eisner: Okay. So did you intend it for any official use? 21 22 23 24 Comm. Director: Yeah, we took, obviously him coming out. I'm just saying with the hat on, we took different photos, the pictures of him without the MAGA hat on, voting for the bill, yes was obviously on the official side. Pictures of him with the silly hat on coming off the floor was for the campaign. 25 26 Helen Eisner: Okay. And those pictures without the hat on, were those used in any capacity by the official office? Page 34 of 50 18-5206_0175 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Comm. Director: I can't remember, but I would assume they were. He voted for the tax bill, I'm sure we posted about it. 3 Helen Eisner: Whose idea was this video? 4 Comm. Director: It was mine. 5 Helen Eisner: And you mentioned you worked with Kevin on it- 6 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 7 Helen Eisner: Did Kevin splice together the clips? How did that work? 8 9 10 Comm. Director: I think, I believe Renae made the GIF. I'm not familiar with all the cool terms, but I think Renae made the GIF, but Kevin recorded it and I took the photo. 11 12 Helen Eisner: And by the GIF, if you could just turn to tab 18, I think this is what you're referring to. 13 Comm. Director: Yeah. She knew how to make this. 14 15 Helen Eisner: This is another Twitter post, @JimRenacci, November 16, 2017 at 3:30 p.m. 16 Comm. Director: Correct. 17 18 Helen Eisner: And did the Congressman know that this was going to be used by the campaign? 19 Comm. Director: Yes, I would assume. Yes. I mean I told him, put on this hat. 20 Helen Eisner: Okay. 21 22 23 Comm. Director: Again, a terrible, like did not know that this was ... I thought it was, we're out of session, everyone's heading home for Thanksgiving, this is just the last kind of funny thing. But it wasn't that funny now. 24 Helen Eisner: Let's go to tab 6. So we're going to be jumping around a little bit here. 25 Comm. Director: No worries. Page 35 of 50 18-5206_0176 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: I apologize for that. This is a post to the Twitter account for @RepJimRenacci, it's from September 12, 2017 at 4:51 p.m. 3 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 4 Helen Eisner: I'm just reading that for the transcript purposes. 5 Comm. Director: Yeah. 6 7 8 Helen Eisner: It says, "Join me tomorrow at 7:10 p.m. for my Unrig the Economy TeleTown Hall, sponsored by AFP Ohio." What was that, Unrig the Economy Tele-Town Hall? 9 10 11 12 Comm. Director: AFP was hosting this Tele-Town Hall, and Jim was participating in his official capacity. I actually called the ethics committee to see if the campaign was allowed to post something separately, and they said since AFP was promoting it on their own then absolutely- 13 Helen Eisner: Okay. 14 Comm. Director: So we did our own thing, and the campaign did their own thing. 15 Helen Eisner: So, who did you talk to at the ethics committee? 16 17 18 Comm. Director: I don't know. I've called them twice since I've been in this role, and this was one of the specific times, and the other one is the Facebook live sharing that I called to make sure it was okay. 19 20 21 22 23 Helen Eisner: Okay, so let me actually then show you tab 8. This is linked to tab 6, so just keep that in mind, this is a post to the Twitter account for @JimRenacci, September 13, 2017 at 7:10 p.m. Is this what you're referring to when you say that you had a conversation with the Ethics Committee? 24 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 25 Helen Eisner: And was that a phone conversation? 26 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 27 Helen Eisner: Was there any type of email record of the conversation? Page 36 of 50 18-5206_0177 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Comm. Director: They emailed me, like if you want more questions, here's the packet of information, that one pager, or top ten things to remember. 3 4 Helen Eisner: Okay. And they said that because it was sponsored by AFP Ohio, they said- 5 6 Comm. Director: It was already online. They were pushing it themselves, you could get it independently. 7 8 Helen Eisner: Okay. So because the public could get the information independently, they said it was okay for the campaign to post this information. 9 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 10 11 12 Helen Eisner: What was the campaign element of this event? We talked about another event where we said there was an official element and a campaign element. What was the campaign's role in the Tele-Town Hall? 13 14 15 Comm. Director: I don't think they had any role, I think they were just saying we're doing this. Because AFP had posted a phone number where you can dial in and listen, so. 16 Helen Eisner: What is the office's relationship with AFP? 17 18 Comm. Director: We've done a couple Tele-Town Halls with them, just talking about tax reform. 19 20 21 Helen Eisner: Going to tab 7, just in between those two, this is THJR_0012. This is, again, a meeting invite, I realize it says required attendees. What was the purpose of this meeting invite? 22 Comm. Director: Saying that we're having a Tele-Town Hall. 23 24 25 Helen Eisner: Okay, and there are again individuals there. Well I guess I should ask you, it says your name under required attendees, would that have been your official account, or your Gmail account that you mentioned earlier? 26 Comm. Director: No. My official account. 27 Helen Eisner: Your official account. 28 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Page 37 of 50 18-5206_0178 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: Okay. And location, it says 328 CHOB, I assume that's Cannon- 2 Comm. Director: In our office, yep. 3 Helen Eisner: So would the event have taken place in your office? 4 Comm. Director: Yeah. 5 Helen Eisner: Below in the, sort of, details section- 6 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 7 8 9 10 11 Helen Eisner: There's some discussion of the event, "The 13th is a go, we need to be on the line by 6:55 and we'll go live at 7:05, wrapping up at 8. We will be dialing about 100k," 100,000, "numbers and are all high propensity voters in the congressional districts across the state." How were those voters identified? 12 Comm. Director: I don't know. This is probably copy and pasted from AFP. 13 Helen Eisner: AFP. 14 Comm. Director: Yeah. 15 Helen Eisner: And who would have copied and pasted that? 16 Comm. Director: Michelle would have copied it and put it into the email invites. 17 Helen Eisner: Okay. 18 Comm. Director: So we had some understanding of what the event was. 19 Helen Eisner: Why was it posted to the campaign account? 20 Comm. Director: It was an opportunity for people to hear Jim talk about tax reform. 21 Helen Eisner: Okay. And who posted that particular, we were talking about- 22 Comm. Director: Renae, she made the graphic- 23 Helen Eisner: Renae did? 24 Comm. Director: And posted it herself, yeah. Page 38 of 50 18-5206_0179 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: So this graphic, Renae made that? 2 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 3 4 5 Helen Eisner: If you could turn to tab 21. This is a Facebook post to the official account, that's Congressman Jim Renacci for a Facebook Live event with Representative Mark Meadows. 6 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 7 Helen Eisner: What was this Facebook Live event? 8 9 Comm. Director: We were doing a bill with Mark Meadows, and we were talking about the bill, and that's about it. 10 11 Helen Eisner: Okay, can you just sort of explain to me how you were using the Facebook Live platform, how were you- 12 13 14 15 16 Comm. Director: So you can do like Q&A, so we were just recording the two of them ... I think the two of them were sitting together and we were recording them talk about what their bill was and, on Facebook Live questions can come up so you answer the questions. So it's kind of like, I don't know, like a live Q&A. 17 Helen Eisner: Okay. And where was it recorded? 18 19 Comm. Director: In Mark Meadows' office, in the Cannon, or House. In the House office building. 20 Helen Eisner: Okay. Was there any campaign purpose to this event? 21 Comm. Director: No. 22 23 24 25 26 27 Helen Eisner: If you go to tab 22, now this is the Facebook account for the campaign, "Join me today at 4 p.m. for a special Facebook Live with my colleague Representative Mark Meadows of North Carolina." It goes on, it says that, "If you would like to participate, ask a question, or just watch the event, head over to my Facebook page," and it links to the official Facebook account. Why was this posted? 28 29 Comm. Director: Because, this was the other reason I called, to see if the campaign was allowed to link it, and they said the same thing. Since you can find it Page 39 of 50 18-5206_0180 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 independently online, and I think this ... I don't know, Renae posted to it because Jim was answering questions about opioids. 3 Helen Eisner: Okay. And where could you find it independently online? 4 Comm. Director: On Facebook. On both accounts. 5 Helen Eisner: So because it was posted to Facebook- 6 Comm. Director: Yeah. 7 Helen Eisner: That was the advice that the Committee on Ethics provided? 8 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 9 Paul Solis: So they gave you explicit approval? 10 11 Comm. Director: Well, they said it was okay. I wouldn't have ... I've only called them twice, these were the two things I asked them about. 12 Paul Solis: And both times was the approval over the phone or was it in an email? 13 14 15 Comm. Director: Over the phone. And the first time was when I got that email, so I do have that email from whoever it was sending me, on probably the same day that the Tele-Town Hall was with the guidelines. 16 17 Helen Eisner: So there was an email attaching, you said one page with sort of the ten things- 18 Comm. Director: Yep. 19 Helen Eisner: You can do and can't do. 20 21 Comm. Director: Like a link to it, like "Hey [Communications Director], hope this is more helpful." 22 Helen Eisner: Do you still have that email? 23 Comm. Director: I'm sure I do. 24 Helen Eisner: Okay, we might want to see a copy of that email. Do you do have it? 25 Comm. Director: Yeah. Page 40 of 50 18-5206_0181 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: Okay. Besides those two conversations, have you had any other conversations- 3 Comm. Director: No. 4 Helen Eisner: With the Committee on Ethics. Okay. 5 Bill Farah: With Kevin probably arriving in a couple minutes- 6 Helen Eisner: Right. 7 8 Bill Farah: Do you want to have us have him wait for a little longer or what do you want us to do? 9 10 Helen Eisner: I think I'd actually prefer to have him wait because I think we'll not have him wait that long, and I think we'll still fit within the time period. 11 Bill Farah: Okay. Can somebody let him, if he's here- 12 Helen Eisner: We'll have people let him in if- 13 Bill Farah: Okay, thank you. 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Helen Eisner: Yeah, that's fine, there's a little waiting area for him. Let's go ahead to tab 12, and tab 12 is split into three different parts, so just look at that first document there. Again, another Outlook calendar invite. This is THJR_0016, there's discussion of, well the subject is “conservative radio host Charles Butler”, it looks like there's a scheduling, this is a sort of scheduling notification regarding the September 20, 2017 appearance. What was this appearance and how often does the Congressman appear on this radio program? 22 Comm. Director: He's maybe done it like two or three times. 23 Helen Eisner: Okay. On this occasion, why did he appear on the program? 24 25 Comm. Director: I don't remember, but I mean the topics are saying governor's race, tax reform, DACA. 26 27 Helen Eisner: Okay. So when you look at those topics, does that indicate to you that it was an official appearance or a campaign appearance? Page 41 of 50 18-5206_0182 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 Comm. Director: I guess, hosts usually will send, like "Hey, we want to talk about the Senate race," or, "Hey we want to talk about this." I don't remember. I don't remember who wrote this or who booked it or whatever. I mean that happens sometimes, yeah. 5 6 Helen Eisner: Is this the type of appearance that you would have discussed during those mornings, 7:15 calls with the campaign. 7 Comm. Director: Probably, yeah. 8 9 Helen Eisner: And what, if you remember specifically, that's great, but what would you have said during that call about this appearance? 10 Comm. Director: I don't know, "What topics are you guys talking about?" 11 Helen Eisner: Okay. 12 Comm. Director: Or, "Who's running this one?" 13 Helen Eisner: So who would have staffed him during this appearance? 14 15 16 Comm. Director: I don't know. I leave at like 4:45, because again I've got to get home to the kids, so he probably dialed in himself. I actually know he dialed in himself, it was at 5:00. 17 18 Helen Eisner: Was this an event that was scheduled by the campaign side or by the official side? 19 Comm. Director: I don't remember this one. 20 21 22 23 24 Helen Eisner: Okay. So if you look at the next page in, which is 12, well it's still there, under 12, it's a tweet from the campaign Twitter account @JimRenacci from September 20, 2017 at 4:30 p.m., "Tune into Red State talk at 5 p.m., I'll be talking about tax reform as the first step to provide relief for businesses and families." Why was this shared on the campaign account? 25 Comm. Director: They always post media appearances. 26 27 Helen Eisner: Okay. The next page over is a tweet from @RepJimRenacci, so this is the official account. 28 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Page 42 of 50 18-5206_0183 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: Why was this shared on the official account? 2 3 Comm. Director: I saw it on the calendar, we're talking about tax reform, I posted something about it. 4 5 6 Helen Eisner: Okay. Looking at that calendar invite again, if you go back to THJR_0016, the first page under tab 12, it says gubernatorial run as one of the topics. 7 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 8 9 Helen Eisner: If gubernatorial run was one of the topics, why was it posted to the official account? 10 11 Comm. Director: I guess because I thought he was talking about tax reform and other legislative stuff. 12 13 14 Helen Eisner: Okay. When the Congressman makes a media appearance, and he's discussing official issues and he's discussing his campaign, as the official Communications Director, how do you determine- 15 16 Bill Farah: Well that makes an assumption. That assumes he appears and he discusses both. 17 Helen Eisner: Well, I'm saying in the circumstances where that happens. 18 Bill Farah: Well we don't know if it ever happened? 19 Paul Solis: There's a calendar- 20 Helen Eisner: This right here- 21 Bill Farah: All it says here is gubernatorial run, which could have been- 22 Helen Eisner: Okay. 23 Bill Farah: They were going to alert him to the fact that he was announcing- 24 Helen Eisner: Let me rephrase that. 25 Bill Farah: And they were saying- 26 Helen Eisner: In your experiencePage 43 of 50 18-5206_0184 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Bill Farah: He should be prepared to answer the question. 2 3 4 5 6 Helen Eisner: -working for the Congressman as Communications Director, has the Congressman made media appearances where he has discussed official legislative topics, topics related to constituents, and also discussed topics related to his campaign for either gubernatorial campaign or for the Senate? 7 Comm. Director: Yes. 8 9 10 Helen Eisner: Okay. And in your experience, when you have observed an event where both of those topics were discussed, how do you approach social media posts to the official account. 11 12 Comm. Director: I guess we didn't know. I mean, if he's talking about official stuff we highlight it. If he's talking about campaign stuff they highlight it. 13 Helen Eisner: Okay. 14 15 16 Paul Solis: And so the instance again, as Helen just mentioned, where in the past that's happened where the topics were discussed both regarding campaign issues- 17 Bill Farah: Well we don't know if it was discussed, she said she didn't recall. 18 Helen Eisner: She just told me that there have been instances. 19 Paul Solis: She just told her that happened- 20 Bill Farah: In some instances, but not this instance. 21 Paul Solis: Okay, I'm not talking about this instance. 22 Bill Farah: Okay. 23 Helen Eisner: In other instances where you recall. 24 Paul Solis: And Bill we're trying to ask the questions- 25 Bill Farah: I know. 26 Paul Solis: So we need her to answer them when we ask them. Page 44 of 50 18-5206_0185 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Bill Farah: I want to make sure she understands them accurately. 2 3 4 5 6 7 Paul Solis: She seemed to understand when Helen asked the first time. Those instances where there's campaign issues discussed and official issues discussed, and you said the official side would, if there's official topics they would post. And the campaign side would post because there's campaign issues. Does that just mean there's an independent decision made by both entities that they’re going to? 8 9 Comm. Director: Yeah, we usually listen to him, you know when he's on the air it's important to hear him. 10 Paul Solis: Okay. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Comm. Director: So really it depends and I would say this, just looking at this, usually and especially ... it's rare that they're like, "We want to talk about the Senate race" and then the official office posts about it. It's usually then a campaign event. But this one I think was strange, just because it had more legislative stuff. But again I don't remember what they talked about. This does pop up, sometimes people ask about the Senate race, or the whatever race it is, and then they post it. 18 19 20 21 Paul Solis: And again, not necessarily tied to this event, but those instances where there's been an appearance and both campaign and official issues were talked about, is there communication between you and someone at the campaign about, "Hey are you guys going to post this media appearance?" 22 23 24 25 Comm. Director: It depends. If I'm standing there and I hear something that he's talking about the Senate race, yeah, later on I'll be like, "Hey guys, I don't know if you caught his morning hit, but he was talking about the Senate race, you should grab that." 26 27 28 29 Helen Eisner: I want to keep moving through these posts so we can just be cognizant of time here. Going to tab 4, this is a post to the Twitter account for @JimRenacci, the campaign account, at 5:05 p.m. on June 28, 2017. This looks like a retweet to me, you can confirm that- 30 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah. 31 32 Helen Eisner: Of an official post. Who posted this retweet to the campaign Twitter account? 33 Comm. Director: Renae. Page 45 of 50 18-5206_0186 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: Okay, Renae would have posted that. And the official post, who posted that? 3 Comm. Director: Me. 4 Helen Eisner: Okay, so how did this retweet come about? 5 6 7 8 Comm. Director: So, Jim has his own personal page. He took a bunch of pictures and posted them on his own page. I saw it, I grabbed it, I knew he was going to meet with, all the press had been talking about him traveling with the Vice President. So we tweeted it. 9 Helen Eisner: Okay. And Renae was the one who retweeted it. 10 Comm. Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 11 12 Helen Eisner: Did you have any conversations with Renae about the decision to retweet this. 13 Comm. Director: No. 14 15 Helen Eisner: Okay. At this point have you had any conversations about retweeting official Twitter posts? 16 17 Comm. Director: No, I don't know if we've done this before, but I know that we'll never do it. 18 Bill Farah: Well there's nothing necessarily wrong with this. 19 Comm. Director: Well I didn't know, I guess there- 20 Helen Eisner: I think, well- 21 Bill Farah: I just want to make clear, they're scared at this point- 22 Helen Eisner: I don't want to get into- 23 Bill Farah: Because of this review, and I don't want to get into- 24 Helen Eisner: What's legal or- 25 Bill Farah: What's right or what's not. Page 46 of 50 18-5206_0187 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Helen Eisner: 8 9 10 11 And I certainly don't want to scare you, that's not my goal here. We, as an office, we conduct thorough legal analysis, and we want to make sure we're getting the right outcome for all of our cases, so really our goal here is just to understand the facts so we can apply all of the law, eventually. But I appreciate you kind of walking me through all this. Because it's really a fact process, we're just trying to understand how each of these posts came about, and you're being very helpful. Let's look at the next tab, which is tab 5. And this is a post to the Twitter account for Jim Renacci, it's dated July 27, 2017. Actually, this is Facebook, I think I said Twitter, but this is Facebook. What was your role in this post? 12 13 14 15 16 Comm. Director: So that week, I knew that we were going to be talking about tax, and I knew that Jim had been out front on removing the border adjustment tax, and I knew that we had a hearing that highlighted that. So probably on our Monday call I mentioned that this is going to be something they'll want to use. 17 Helen Eisner: Okay. And did you provide them with this link to the YouTube- 18 Comm. Director: No. 19 Helen Eisner: Okay. Do you know what that link is? 20 Comm. Director: It's a link to our YouTube page, an official YouTube page. 21 Helen Eisner: And did you have conversations with the Committee on Ethics about this- 22 Comm. Director: No. 23 Helen Eisner: Particular post? 24 Comm. Director: No. 25 26 27 28 Helen Eisner: Okay. Let's look at, I'm going to take you all the way towards the end to tab 29. This is a post to Facebook for the Jim Renacci campaign account. There is a video of the Congressman, if you watch the whole video, there's just a screenshot of this here. Do you know what this appearance was? 29 30 31 Comm. Director: Yeah. I don't remember what TV appearance we were on, but I know the video and I know the issue now, and I understand that ... I thought it was a cool idea. Won't do it again. Page 47 of 50 18-5206_0188 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: So explain to me, just a little bit more background about what the video is? 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Comm. Director: So Jim was doing an official hit that I booked, Kevin was with me with his camera, we had just ... Kevin had his own editing software. Jim was doing the hit, and at one point he said something about Ohio, so I was like, "Oh, that would be a good clip for the campaign." So then I told Renae that we spoke on, I don't remember what, maybe Varney or someone, we mentioned Ohio. Kevin was like, "Oh, I have some footage, I can make a cool splice video." Renae posted. 10 Helen Eisner: Okay. And you were the one who did the splice video, or Kevin? 11 Comm. Director: Kevin did, but I told him to be there and video. It was my direction. 12 Helen Eisner: Okay. And how did Kevin send that to Renae? 13 14 15 Comm. Director: Probably through email, Gmail, and the video stuff again, the content would have to had to have been at home because it takes a long time to build this stuff. 16 17 18 19 20 21 Helen Eisner: This is the final tab I have to ask you about. This is tab 23. This is THJR_0022-0023, and this is an email from Renae Eze from December 19, 2017, or at least the original one was. I believe this is forwarded later in time in May. But the original is from December 19, 2017. The subject is December 19 social posts. How common was it for Renae to send this type of email? 22 23 24 25 Comm. Director: We tried to get into a habit, but it was not common at all. Again, to build these calendars, just were not able to do them. I know now, with Leslie and the new campaign they're doing a great job of that, but in December I think this was probably a new thing we were trying to do. 26 27 Helen Eisner: And what was the, when you're saying a new thing you were trying to do. What was it that you were trying to do with this type of email? 28 29 30 Comm. Director: Just see what they're posting, so we know they're not going to say something strange about guns or whatever that's different than what we were saying. 31 Helen Eisner: So when you say they you're talking about the campaign- 32 Comm. Director: Yeah. Page 48 of 50 18-5206_0189 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: And their communications? 2 Comm. Director: Yeah. 3 4 Helen Eisner: Okay. You say, it didn't happen consistently. How often did it happen and at what point did it stop occurring? 5 6 7 Comm. Director: I don't know, whenever we hired Harlan is when we really started getting pre-approved content, you know what I mean. So I don't know, I would assume if it started in December it probably lasted a month. 8 Helen Eisner: Okay. So how did hiring Harlan change that process? 9 10 11 Comm. Director: He created his own stuff. He managed a bunch of accounts of other people, and he would find news stories and then he would write captions for them, and then he would send them to James on Sunday to approve. 12 Helen Eisner: Okay. 13 14 Comm. Director: And then I would see them on Monday, and I'd be like, "Oh god, this is not the position we want to be taking on this." 15 16 17 Helen Eisner: Okay. And was that content-based, or was that a social media concern? Were you concerned about the content of the posts or were you concerned about- 18 Comm. Director: No. 19 Helen Eisner: Anything related to social media? 20 21 Comm. Director: The content. The message. He can post whatever articles he wants, I just thought the gun, that that was a big issue. 22 23 Helen Eisner: Okay. What conversations have you had with the Congressman, Representative Renacci, about this review? 24 25 26 Comm. Director: Well, we've met, we've talked about. He doesn't deal with this stuff, so I think he's just making sure I have all the information I need. I guess I don't understand what ... 27 28 Helen Eisner: You've mentioned some changes, you've said that you sort of made some changes in your approach to social media and communications in general Page 49 of 50 18-5206_0190 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 after learning about this review. What was the Congressman's reaction to those changes? 3 4 5 6 Comm. Director: I think his reaction was that ... the reaction that there needs to be a clear line, I'm no longer going to do anything on the campaign, and we'll hire yet another person for the campaign side to take on all that oversight. A little more experience on the campaign side to do all of it. 7 Helen Eisner: And who did he hire in that case? 8 Comm. Director: Leslie. This was all Leslie. 9 Helen Eisner: Leslie. 10 Comm. Director: Yeah. 11 12 Helen Eisner: And as far as drawing that line, how does he communicate that new direction to campaign staff and to official staff? 13 14 Comm. Director: I don't know that he's communicated, he just said, "We have to draw a line, hire more people on the communications side if you need more." 15 16 17 18 Bill Farah: And there's another development you should be aware of, which is he won the primary right around the time he received notice of this review, which changed the dynamics because suddenly he's in a general election requiring more staff on the campaign side. 19 Comm. Director: That's true too, yeah. 20 21 Helen Eisner: Based on the questions we've asked you here today, is there anything else that you think we should know? 22 23 24 25 26 27 Comm. Director: No. I mean I know this wasn't meant to scare me, but I promise that there was no ill intent. I just was trying to do a good job on social media and making sure there was a little bit of guidance on what we were saying and what they were saying. But I didn't know that you couldn't post stuff inside the building, and I do know that now, and that will never happen again. 28 29 Helen Eisner: Understood. Does anyone else have any questions? Okay, well we will thank you for your time. Page 50 of 50 18-5206_0191 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions ofH. Res. 895 ofthe 1 10th Congress as Amended ERRATA SHEET Page Line Correction Reason This errata sheet is submitted subject to 18 U.S.C. 1001 (commonly known as the False Statements Act). Witness Name: Witness Signature: Date: 1 8-5206_01 92 EXHIBIT 6 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended Transcript of Interview of “Chief of Staff” OCE Review 18-5206 June 26, 2018 Page 1 of 34 18-5206_0194 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 Helen Eisner: This is June 26th 2018 speaking is Helen Eisner from the Office of Congressional Ethics. This is review 18-5206. I am joined by Chief Counsel Omar Ashmawy and Ali Bazzi from the Office of Congressional Ethics. We are here interviewing [Chief of Staff]. Pronunciation correct? 5 Chief of Staff: Yes. 6 7 8 9 Helen Eisner: She is joined by her counsel, Bill Farah. We have given [Chief of Staff] a copy of the False Statements Act and she has signed the acknowledgement form and as I said I'd like to start with some background questions. Where are you currently employed? 10 11 Chief of Staff: For Congressman Jim Renacci in his office over here; I'm his Chief of Staff. 12 13 Helen Eisner: When you say over here, just for recording purposes I'm going to ask is that's the congressional office- 14 Chief of Staff: Yes, it's Washington DC. 15 16 Helen Eisner: Washington DC. Okay. I wish the people in the recording could see our view. How long have you been Chief of Staff? 17 Chief of Staff: Just about a year. 18 Helen Eisner: Prior to that, where did you work? 19 20 21 22 Chief of Staff: I've worked for Congressman Renacci going on what will be eight years. I've worked for him for those last years. Prior to that, the position I had before that was working for the National Republican Congressional Committee. 23 Helen Eisner: Was that before eight years ago? 24 Chief of Staff: Yes. 25 26 Helen Eisner: Before that you are working for the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee? 27 Chief of Staff: Yes. 28 29 Helen Eisner: As far as your work for the Congressman in the official office for the last year you've been Chief of Staff, what other positions have you held? Page 2 of 34 18-5206_0195 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Chief of Staff: Yes. I was Deputy Chief of Staff prior to that for about two years and prior to that was the Office Manager and Scheduler. Though I maintained those same duties, continuously, up until I became Chief of Staff. 4 Helen Eisner: You came on initially as Office Manager and Scheduler? 5 Chief of Staff: I initially was hired as a Scheduler. 6 Helen Eisner: Who do you report to in your position as Chief of Staff? 7 Chief of Staff: The Congressman. 8 9 10 11 12 Helen Eisner: To the Congressman directly. We've talked about your role with the official office what about your role with the campaign and I know there's been campaigns for the House, campaign for governor, campaign for Senate. If you could just go through those different campaigns and tell us about any positions or roles that you've held. 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Chief of Staff: Sure. I would say all of the House campaigns, lumping them all together, that my interaction was mostly just that I was the Scheduler. I had some interaction with them in coordinating his schedule, mostly. That was for the first several years. Then there was a period ... Now I'm going to say maybe 2015 or 2016 where I had some work ... I was partially paid by the campaign for coordinating some fundraising events for the House campaign in 2015 or 2016. Then that came to an end when he was no longer running for re-election. When he was … during the governor's campaign I would say the interaction was still going back to that scheduling coordination and that is ... I still now in the Senate campaign do a lot of that as I oversee that pretty heavily even though we have a new Scheduler, the training process I think is pretty long so I still oversee that. Then have more of an involvement now in just relaying facts about things that we're doing. In terms of just whatever those may be. The votes and things like that. 28 29 30 31 32 33 Helen Eisner: Let me just make sure I un-package that a little bit and understand. Your involvement with scheduling for the Senate campaign and the gubernatorial campaign, was that a role on the campaign side? Were you a campaign scheduler or was that a role on the official side. I think I'm not wording this correctly, but when you say scheduling let's just start there, was that a job responsibility for the campaign? 34 35 36 37 Chief of Staff: No, so at the beginning of the governor's campaign for, maybe the first half of it, I was the official Scheduler in the official office still. That was just a coordination thing and I've continued to oversee that from the official office. Page 3 of 34 18-5206_0196 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: So helping to coordinate the schedule between the official office and the campaign office? 3 Chief of Staff: Yes. 4 Helen Eisner: Besides scheduling, do you have any other type of role for the campaign? 5 Chief of Staff: No, not officially. 6 7 8 Helen Eisner: Have you ever been paid ... Well you did mention that you were paid in 2015 or 2016 for some organization fundraising, but besides that do you receive any disbursements? 9 Chief of Staff: No. 10 Helen Eisner: Okay, no campaign salary for the work you perform? 11 Chief of Staff: No. 12 Helen Eisner: How involved or how aware are you of campaign activities? 13 Chief of Staff: What specifically? 14 15 Helen Eisner: Of the campaigns daily activities, how aware are you of the campaign’s activities? 16 17 18 Chief of Staff: What they do on a daily basis, not very much. I guess I could imagine what they're doing but I don't really have any involvement of what they do on a day-to-day basis. 19 Helen Eisner: Are you involved in campaign strategy in any way? 20 Chief of Staff: Not really, no I don't. 21 22 23 Helen Eisner: You said that there's been someone new who came on and has been working on scheduling, that's on the official side and who is that individual? 24 Chief of Staff: Yes. Rosie Miller. 25 Helen Eisner: How does she interact with the campaign? 26 27 Chief of Staff: That's mostly why I still oversee the scheduling heavily, just the coordination of it, is just to make sure that that goes smoothly. Her major Page 4 of 34 18-5206_0197 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 role is to just really put the things on the calendar and to make sure that they actually work together the way that we hope that they do. 3 Helen Eisner: Okay, understood. 4 Chief of Staff: In that aspect she just talks about those things. 5 6 Helen Eisner: What is the calendar? How do they ... When you're referring to the calendar, what is that? 7 Chief of Staff: The Congressman's calendar. 8 9 Helen Eisner: Is that calendar, a calendar that involves both official and campaign activities? 10 Chief of Staff: Yeah, he just has one calendar. 11 Helen Eisner: Where is that calendar maintained? 12 Chief of Staff: It's in the Outlook program on his email system. 13 Helen Eisner: Who has access to that calendar? 14 Chief of Staff: Access in terms of? 15 Helen Eisner: Who can add events to the calendar and edit events on that calendar? 16 17 Chief of Staff: The only people who are able to actually add or take events off the calendar are the Congressman, myself, and Rosie Miller. 18 Helen Eisner: What about anyone from the campaign side? 19 Chief of Staff: No. 20 21 22 Helen Eisner: When there's a campaign event that requires the Congressman's attention, I'm sure right now it's very busy, how do those events get added to the calendar? 23 24 Chief of Staff: They send a summary email of the pertinent information. Date, time, what it is, where. 25 Helen Eisner: You and Rosie would be the recipient of that email? 26 Chief of Staff: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Page 5 of 34 18-5206_0198 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: I guess you're acting as a conduit; that information comes to you and then you would put that on the calendar? 3 Chief of Staff: Yup. 4 Helen Eisner: Who does that information come from? 5 6 Chief of Staff: I guess it depends on what it is, but from the campaign staff if it's a campaign event either ... Yeah, it just depends on what the event is. 7 Helen Eisner: Is there a campaign manager on the campaign side? 8 Chief of Staff: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yes. 9 Helen Eisner: Is that one of the people who would be sending you information? 10 Chief of Staff: Yes. 11 12 Helen Eisner: Campaign consultants, are there any campaign consultants who would send you any information about- 13 14 Chief of Staff: There are. I don’t think…well, I'm not sure. They could be. I would have to double check or look at specifically who they're coming from. 15 16 Helen Eisner: Going back to your role on the official side, what is your involvement in official communications and press work? 17 18 19 20 Chief of Staff: It's pretty ... It's limited to now my current role just to overseeing message components and then some kind of administrative things. When we do frank mail, press releases, ensuring how they operate within the mail boundary. That type of thing. 21 22 23 Helen Eisner: When you say overseeing message components, is that strategic messaging or specific messages and the content of messages? Can you break that down for me? 24 25 26 27 28 29 Chief of Staff: It depends but mostly insuring that the legislative activity that the Congressman is working on and participating in is accurately portrayed on the communications side. In a way that, I think that many of the things that we work on, on the House floor or in the committee just making sure that they are written in a way that actually get to cross that legislation or ideas or what have you. What it actually is. 30 31 Helen Eisner: Who is responsible for the day-to-day work of communications in the official office? Page 6 of 34 18-5206_0199 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Chief of Staff: Our Communications Director, Kelsey Knight. 2 3 Helen Eisner: How closely do you work with her as far as the messaging and the product that she puts out? 4 5 Chief of Staff: On the messaging closely, on the actual product that she puts out, not very much, or not very closely. 6 Helen Eisner: Who else does she work with? 7 Chief of Staff: She works with everyone in our office. 8 Helen Eisner: Who else is on the communications staff? 9 Chief of Staff: Kevin Knoth. Our Digital Director. 10 Helen Eisner: What official social media accounts does the Congressman have? 11 Chief of Staff: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. I believe that is it. 12 Helen Eisner: Who's responsible for maintaining those accounts? 13 Chief of Staff: Kelsey. 14 15 Helen Eisner: What's the reason for having those accounts? What's the objective of those accounts? 16 17 18 19 20 21 Chief of Staff: Of having social media? Personally, I don't have social media accounts, so we might have disagreement on this. I think that it is primarily to get out the ... To show your constituents the things that you're working on. Show people what we’re ... The Congressman what he’s involved in, what our office is working on, his positions on things, what is currently going on in the news. That type of thing. 22 23 Helen Eisner: Is there a strategy as far as how often the office will post to social media or how the office will approach that account? 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Chief of Staff: I would say that we try to ... I guess going back to what the purpose is, we want to have our constituents see what we’re doing. In a case where ... we’re say in Washington, in session, and there are 20 things going on, we want to be able to relay what all of those things are. In those instances, that would be much more frequent use. Whereas over Christmas break, there's less frequent use. Our strategy is to show people what he is doing and working on, on their behalf. As much as or as little as that is occurring. Page 7 of 34 18-5206_0200 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Helen Eisner: When you're in session and correct me if I'm wrong. If it's active, you're in session, there tends be activity more posts than when you're out of session on recess, is that- 4 5 Chief of Staff: I guess I don't actually know. As far as actual numbers I guess I don't know, I would have to check. 6 7 Helen Eisner: Again, it's fine if you don't know based on actual numbers this is just your sense. 8 Chief of Staff: This is just my assumption. 9 10 Helen Eisner: What's the process for posting content to the accounts, how does that at work? 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Chief of Staff: It depends on what the content is. I feel that now in this day of social media there are a lot of social media type things people post. Like National Selfie Day. Things like that. I believe Kelsey pretty much has full reign on those types of things, or we have constituents that visit the office. They get photos taken; they go on tours. We highlight those things. She just does on her own. It's possible that at some point in time they had been things we agreed on that she would do though, I don't really remember. Then depending on what the content is of a little bit more substantive posts. It just depends if either would go through a conversation between her and the legislative staff, her and myself, perhaps her and the Congressman. We have some posts that go up on a weekly basis that highlight the same type of thing every week. We have Working Women Wednesday, that's not a thing that gets approved because once we find people to fill in those things, and a post is put together, it does not go through an additional approval process for example. 26 27 28 Helen Eisner: It sounds like the large majority of what's posted is under her purview. She could post without approval, but there are certain things, and again correct me if I'm wrong, that she needs to seek approval to post? 29 30 31 32 33 Chief of Staff: I suppose that in theory, she could post whatever she wants, whenever she wants. There's nothing to keep her actually from doing that, but yes when we talk about ... We are commenting on a legislative issue, on a vote, on mark-up, on a bill, we've introduced we obviously make sure that it's correct. 34 Helen Eisner: Just an office procedure? 35 Chief of Staff: Yes. Page 8 of 34 18-5206_0201 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: Who does she come to, to make sure that it's correct if there's legislation or a policy issue? 3 4 5 6 Chief of Staff: Again it would depend on what it is. Sometimes it is the particular legislative staffer who handles that issue, sometimes it is them and our Legislative Director, sometimes it's just me, sometimes it's me and them, it just depends on the situation. 7 Helen Eisner: And what about Kevin, it's Knoth. 8 Chief of Staff: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 9 Helen Eisner: What role does he play in the social media? 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Chief of Staff: Again, I think that more on the things that we have pre-approved that sort of thing. Our weekly posts that we do that he mostly takes charge of those since they've already been pre-approved and it's kind of a submission process for example the Working Women Wednesday that I mentioned. I know that he pretty much puts those together. Then I know that he creates graphics, videos, and he does some of the posting, the actual posting, but I don't know exactly what the makeup is of who does the actual ... Hits the button between the two of them. 18 19 20 Helen Eisner: Okay, understood. What about the Congressman? What role does he play in providing content or maintaining the social media accounts for the official office? 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Chief of Staff: The Congressman has his own personal Facebook account and he does what he would like to do with that account. With that he just puts whatever he'd like to put on there. Sometimes, he will…well, no I guess sometimes we will get content from there, from that page if he posts family photos and things like that. But I wouldn't say that he really has any direct contact with what we actually post on any of the social media pages. As far as ... From an actual standpoint of what we're going to put on Facebook or Twitter or whatever I don't think that ... No, I take that back. There's one thing that for events in the district or I suppose here too in Washington he does always say that he'd like to ... If he's going to events sometimes he'll post those on his own page as well, but on those he will say, “I want people to see I was at the Wayne County Chamber,” or something. 34 35 36 37 Helen Eisner: Let me show you one document which is in here which is under tab 2 and it's the first document that appears there that's a Facebook account. The about section of a Facebook account that was printed on June 12, 2018. It's for Rep. Jim Renacci, so is that the official side's Facebook account? Page 9 of 34 18-5206_0202 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Chief of Staff: I believe so. 2 3 4 Helen Eisner: Then if you could turn to tab 3, the first document here is again the about section of a Facebook account for @jimrenacci, so no longer @repjimrenacci. Is this the campaign’s account or which account is this? 5 Chief of Staff: I assume this is the campaign account. 6 7 Helen Eisner: When you're referring to a personal account is that separate from these two Facebook accounts? 8 Chief of Staff: Correct, yes. 9 Helen Eisner: There's another account that you're referring to? 10 11 Chief of Staff: I don't know what the differences between this @jimrenacci and what that is, so I think this is the campaign account. 12 13 Helen Eisner: He has a personal Facebook account that he sometimes shares information to? 14 Chief of Staff: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mostly photos. 15 16 17 18 19 20 Helen Eisner: Okay. As we've just discussed there’s campaign Facebook account. We understand there's a campaign Twitter account, a campaign Instagram account. You talked a little bit about some of the official social media accounts that you're aware of. How does the official office communicate with the campaign about content that they're planning on posting to social media? 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Chief of Staff: Sure, so I think that generally ... I know that the communications staff would speak on I think a daily basis. I do not believe ... Well, I guess I do not know, but I do not think that those conversations were in regards to what we are posting on social media. What specific posts I think generally those conversations are more about what we're doing communicationswise and not specifically ... Again I guess I'm not 100% sure. Not about what we're specifically doing on social media. 28 Helen Eisner: Have you participated in any of those phone conversations? 29 30 Chief of Staff: I had not been before. I believe that they stopped at a certain period and I did not participate in those calls. 31 Helen Eisner: You did not and have not participated. So they stopped. Okay. Page 10 of 34 18-5206_0203 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Kelsey, as we understand it, has also played a role for the campaign. Do you know what role she played for the campaign? I think this would have been for the Senate campaign. 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Chief of Staff: Yes that she ... Well I would say that her role wasn't much different then what she had been doing. I think there was just a period for the Senate campaign where she was being compensated for it because it wasn't just all of her personal time outside of certain hours. But generally, I think just helping with getting across information, I think that for example, this is how generally the Congressman has approached X, Y or Z. Relaying that information so that the campaign is aware of it. 11 12 Helen Eisner: You said it formalized some work that she had been doing previously for the campaign? Was that- 13 Chief of Staff: That she was doing at that time. 14 Helen Eisner: In a volunteer capacity? 15 Chief of Staff: Yeah. 16 17 Helen Eisner: And what about Kevin? What role does he or has played for the campaign? 18 19 20 Chief of Staff: He currently is on the campaign, is partially paid by the campaign to do some social media stuff or some digital things. I think that that is pretty much the extent of his role. 21 22 23 Helen Eisner: When Kevin and Kelsey and I guess Kelsey is no longer in that capacity but when they perform work for the campaign, where do they perform that work? Physically, a location? 24 25 Chief of Staff: I don't know. I suppose… I thought they were doing it outside of the office. 26 27 Helen Eisner: Let me just try to understand. You thought they were doing it outside of the office or what did- 28 29 30 31 32 Chief of Staff: I think that they are ... I guess Kelsey is not in that same role as you said, so I do not know exactly where ... No actually okay. There are instances where I do know that they are working from the Starbucks down the street so there are some times that I do know that they're working on from there and I guess the rest of the time I just make assumptions. Page 11 of 34 18-5206_0204 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: Okay, let's start with Kelsey. When has Kelsey performed work from the Starbucks down the street? 3 Chief of Staff: I would have to look back to see if I could find an exact date or dates. 4 Helen Eisner: Kelsey is no longer performing work for the campaign committee? 5 Chief of Staff: No. 6 7 8 Helen Eisner: During the time that she was performing work for the campaign committee, you were aware of instances in which she was performing work at the Starbucks? 9 Chief of Staff: Yes. 10 Helen Eisner: Was that during the workday, when would you observe that? 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Chief of Staff: There had been times that maybe fell within the day. I don't know if they were actually during the work day. Our office hours of 9:00 to 6:00. The reason I know that this was a thing that she did was because it was personal. It was personal time that she told me she needed to take to do them. I suppose that I guess, I don't know if that window fell within ... Those times fell within the window of when she was being paid by the campaign. Again I don't know exactly when these things occurred, I just remember that there were times that they did. 19 20 Helen Eisner: When you say personal time, do you mean she'd take off an entire day or a period of hours? 21 Chief of Staff: No, usually a period of hours. 22 Helen Eisner: How often would that happen? 23 24 25 26 27 Chief of Staff: At least for this, for going to Starbucks or something, maybe once. It wasn't even once a week, I just can remember a handful of times that it occurred. And then I would say at least once a week where she would be taking the day and working from home. Maybe not the full day depending on the time. 28 Helen Eisner: Was she working from home on official work or campaign work? 29 30 Chief of Staff: It depends on the time in which it was. It depends on which time, on which day. Page 12 of 34 18-5206_0205 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 Helen Eisner: She would take a day off ... She wouldn't be in the office, but she'd work from home for a day. Would she clarify to you if she was taking personal time for part of that day or was it your understanding that she was performing official work during the entire course of that day? 5 6 7 8 Chief of Staff: No, there was some times where I know that she was taking personal time or even leave to perform some things. I don't know if during that period she didn't ... I assume she worked on official things as well during that time but I guess I don't know what the breakdown was of ... I don't know. 9 Helen Eisner: Does she keep track of her hours? 10 Chief of Staff: Probably not, but I don't know. 11 12 Helen Eisner: What about Kevin, where does he perform work on behalf of the campaign? 13 14 Chief of Staff: On behalf of the campaign I know that he does travel. When he is in Ohio he spends some of his time there in the Ohio campaign office. 15 16 Helen Eisner: When he's in DC performing work for the campaign, where does he perform that work? 17 18 19 20 21 Chief of Staff: I guess, I don't know. There are a couple of instances that I know again same thing where I know he has either worked from home or from a coffee shop or sometimes from the NRCC, the Republican Congressional Committee. Obviously, when he's going to do those things, I know that he's doing some campaign work. 22 23 24 25 26 Helen Eisner: Those instances that you're recalling where he went to Starbucks or he went elsewhere to perform campaign related work or what you said you assume as campaign related work, would that have occurred in the last month or any of those instances that you're recalling, were any of those instances prior to the last ... The time period for the last month? 27 28 29 Chief of Staff: I believe that some of the instances were prior to the last month, but, I'm pretty sure, but I would have to do something to go back and check to see those types of things. I'm just not sure. 30 Helen Eisner: Is Kevin a full-time employee? 31 Chief of Staff: Yes. 32 Helen Eisner: When he does the official work, where does he perform that official work? Page 13 of 34 18-5206_0206 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Bill Farah: Can I ask a question, do you mean now or when? Because his schedule has changed. 3 Helen Eisner: I'm going to break that apart. 4 Bill Farah: Because she said full-time, what is that- 5 Helen Eisner: Is Kevin currently a full-time employee? 6 Chief of Staff: Yes. 7 Bill Farah: He's not paid entirely, by the office. 8 Helen Eisner: I'm just going to have to ask but- 9 Bill Farah: I know but she's misunderstanding your question. 10 11 Helen Eisner: If you've misunderstood the question please let me know. What I asked you was, is Kevin a full-time employee? 12 Chief of Staff: I guess what do you mean ... What do you specifically mean? 13 14 15 16 Helen Eisner: At this current moment and time, is Kevin Knoth a full-time employee of the official office? Is he required to work 40 hours a week? Is he a fulltime employee as in he gets the benefits of somebody who is working a Monday to Friday job? 17 18 Chief of Staff: He does receive full benefits, I believe, and I would say that we all probably work more than 40 hours. I don't- 19 Helen Eisner: Well understood that on the Hill, but- 20 21 22 Chief of Staff: Well I'm just saying for that. I don't ... There is no expectation I suppose there for him to work 40 hour work week now with this separation, but I believe he probably does. 23 24 25 26 Helen Eisner: Is there an expectation that he would have other part-time employment? Do you understand that during the, Monday through Friday are his job responsibilities committed to the official office and the congressional office, currently? 27 Chief of Staff: Yes, but he also has other commitments as well. 28 Helen Eisner: What are those other commitments? Page 14 of 34 18-5206_0207 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Chief of Staff: That he also performs campaign, that he does digital and social media stuff for the campaign, as I think I said before. 3 4 5 6 Helen Eisner: We're talking about currently in the time period that you have worked with Kevin. Is there a time period when he has not been a full-time employee as in somebody who gets the benefits as someone who is there consistently working every work day? 7 Chief of Staff: Yes. 8 Helen Eisner: When was that time period? 9 10 Chief of Staff: Between the time that he was brought on, which I believe was last summer, and then February of this year roughly or late January. 11 Helen Eisner: Was he serving as an intern? 12 Chief of Staff: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 13 14 15 Helen Eisner: Since the time he became Digital Director, that sort of drawing that line in the sand as far as timing, has he been a full-time employee since that point forward? 16 Chief of Staff: As? 17 Helen Eisner: As Digital Director. 18 Chief of Staff: In regards to what I just said before? 19 Helen Eisner: Yes. 20 Chief of Staff: Yes. 21 Helen Eisner: There has been no other change in his employment status? 22 Chief of Staff: I guess I don't- 23 24 25 26 27 Helen Eisner: Let's just break this apart. You're saying that ... I feel like I've potentially made this more confusing than it needs to be. He was an intern, and then became ... Then he was hired as Digital Director. He was no longer an intern. From the time he was hired until currently, has he been a full-time employee? 28 Chief of Staff: Yes in the ... Yes. Page 15 of 34 18-5206_0208 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Helen Eisner: In this capacity, as a full-time employee of the official office, has he performed work when he's not travelling as part of his official responsibilities, does he perform his work in the official office? 4 Chief of Staff: Does he work in the official office as part of his official responsibilities? 5 Helen Eisner: Yes. 6 Chief of Staff: Yes. 7 Helen Eisner: Does he have any type of teleworking agreement? 8 9 Chief of Staff: We have discussed, at times, that he can be working from home or something, that he needs to let ... He needs to let me know. 10 11 Helen Eisner: Specifically with Kevin, is there any type of agreement that he would work from home? 12 Chief of Staff: Yeah we've discussed that. 13 Helen Eisner: Is it a consistent time period when he works from home, a scheduled time? 14 15 16 17 Chief of Staff: Generally I think it's Monday, usually Monday mornings maybe Friday mornings as well. Then I think that that is the extent to what we've discussed. That if there're mornings that he's working from home, that we ... I know that that is a thing. He lets me know about that. 18 Helen Eisner: Why would he work from home on those mornings? 19 20 Chief of Staff: If he needed to do so to complete the campaign activities that he's doing that he gets paid for. 21 22 Helen Eisner: When he's working from home it's so that he can complete campaign related work? 23 Chief of Staff: I guess I don't know what he actually does there, I suppose- 24 25 Helen Eisner: That's what you just relayed to me. Is that a conversation that you've had with Kevin about performing campaign work from home? 26 Chief of Staff: Yes. 27 Helen Eisner: That's the understanding that you have of the work that- Page 16 of 34 18-5206_0209 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Chief of Staff: Yes, that when he's ... Yeah, that in that time that he needs to do that that is what he's doing. 3 4 5 6 7 8 Helen Eisner: Since he's sometimes working from home on Monday and Friday mornings, and my understanding is he's someone who has the responsibilities of a full-time employee, as in someone who would typically work a full day, Monday through Friday. When does he perform official responsibilities that he would have previously performed on Monday and Friday morning? 9 10 11 12 13 Chief of Staff: I guess I'm confused about this whole line of questioning that we've ... As discussed before that he is an employee of both. Or is paid by both entities and there is not an expectation that he therefore needs to be 40 hours in the official office. When he's in the official office, he's doing official work I assume when he's not that he's doing that. 14 15 16 17 Helen Eisner: That's helpful what you're telling me is there isn't an expectation that he would perform 40 hours of work although perhaps sometimes he does but, you're saying in his employee status, it's not expected he would work a full day Monday through Friday on official work? 18 Chief of Staff: On official work, no, no but he is ... No. 19 20 Helen Eisner: Does he have to keep track of his hours to determine when he is performing official work? 21 Chief of Staff: I highly suggested that that be done. 22 Helen Eisner: When did you suggest that? 23 Chief of Staff: Probably in the last two months. 24 Helen Eisner: Was that a conversation you had with Kevin directly? 25 Chief of Staff: Yes. 26 Helen Eisner: Who else was present for that conversation? 27 Chief of Staff: I don't think anyone. 28 Helen Eisner: Did he approach you to have the conversation or did you approach him? 29 Chief of Staff: I do not remember. 30 Helen Eisner: What do you recall about the conversation? Page 17 of 34 18-5206_0210 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Chief of Staff: That I had suggested to him that he should keep a log or something of that time I asked ... Thought that it was probably a good idea that I hadn't thought about previously. 4 5 Helen Eisner: Why did he want to perform that work from home? What prompted the conversation? Why did the conversation occur? 6 Chief of Staff: The conversation about keeping track of the time? 7 8 9 Helen Eisner: No, not about keeping track of the time, that conversation but the conversation about having him work from home on Monday and Friday mornings. 10 Chief of Staff: I don't know. 11 12 Helen Eisner: Was there a concern about his performance of campaign work and the location where it was being performed? 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Chief of Staff: No, when ... Yes, okay I see. This investigation was the first time that I talked to him about ... that's when I suggested that he should be keeping a log of the time, because I hadn't thought about that previously. I guessed I asked him if he was keeping a log, and then I said that's probably a good idea for you to do that to track that time. I think that when he started taking the ... Was taking the time. I don't remember what prompted the first conversation about that. I don't but I presume that that is what it was related to. 21 22 Helen Eisner: Were there occasions on which Kevin was performing campaign work from the official office? 23 Chief of Staff: I don't know. 24 25 Helen Eisner: Did anyone come to you and say that they had observed Kevin performing work related to the campaign from the official office? 26 Chief of Staff: I don't think so. 27 Helen Eisner: What is Kevin's role in the campaign social media accounts? 28 29 30 Chief of Staff: I think he does the same thing that he does for the official office. I believe he creates graphics and videos. Puts some other pre-approved stuff together. 31 32 Helen Eisner: How does he do that? How does he create the graphics or videos? Is there a program he uses, what does he do? Page 18 of 34 18-5206_0211 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Chief of Staff: I have no idea. 2 Helen Eisner: Have you ever seen him put together the graphics or videos? 3 Chief of Staff: No. 4 5 Helen Eisner: Do you know where he does that, where he performs the work of putting together graphics or videos? 6 7 Chief of Staff: No. Again I assume that he's doing that when he ... During that time that he's at home, I assume he's making them then but I don't know. 8 9 10 11 12 Helen Eisner: During the course of this review, the Office of Congressional Ethics review, your office has been very helpful gathering paperwork, by gathering paperwork and conversations you might have had. Have you learned of any occasions in which Kevin or Kelsey performed campaign related work from the official office? 13 Chief of Staff: I have not learned of any specific instances when that has happened. 14 Helen Eisner: What about generally? 15 16 17 18 19 Chief of Staff: I guess I don't really know the ... I don't know. I mean I can't say that I know of any instances where this has been happening. I obviously know that throughout the course of this that obviously there's been a lot of just discussion about making sure that these things, everything that we are doing is up to standards, but I do not know of any instances. 20 21 Helen Eisner: When you say everything you're doing is up to standards, can you break that apart for me a little bit what is the concern? 22 23 Chief of Staff: Just reiterating to Kevin that if that is ... That if he is to do campaign related activity that it be done during those times. 24 25 Helen Eisner: Was there something that you identified as a part of this review that prompted you to have that conversation, reiterate that to Kevin? 26 Chief of Staff: Not specifically, no. 27 28 29 30 31 Helen Eisner: Let's go to tab 9. This is THJR_0015. This is a calendar invitation. The subject is Fox Business Stuart Varney at 10:05AM. It's for September 15th 2017. You talked to us a little bit about the calendar, we were talking earlier about that. At the top, this is your name. Is this from your official account? Page 19 of 34 18-5206_0212 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Chief of Staff: Yes. 2 3 4 Helen Eisner: Can you just walk me through the process of how this type of calendar invite would relate to the Outlook calendar that you were describing before which the Congressman has access to and you have access to? 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Chief of Staff: Sure, so my name is only at the top of this because I printed this. The organizer here, which I believe is in all of the calendar appointments, is the Renacci, J. That is his calendar so this is from his calendar. This is ... Everything that has that on it is from his calendar. Then in order for other people to have it on their calendars so they could see for example on their phones, the only way you could do that is to have it pop up on your own calendar. That's what this is – is to invite these people to the event so that it will pop up on their calendar. And this, the @renacciforcongress.com email address is on most of these. That is the campaign calendar. That's how they're able to view it. Otherwise, you can't actually view it as a calendar because they are not on our... They don't have our same email system or whatever. 17 Helen Eisner: The campaign has access to this 18 Chief of Staff: Which they can view it. 19 Helen Eisner: Which allows them to view the calendar? 20 21 22 23 Chief of Staff: Correct. Everything that goes on his calendar in order for it to populate on a calendar that they can view, goes on this email address calendar which was my old email address. There may be some that have a different one, it's @ any sort of variation of this, that's what it is. 24 Helen Eisner: You said organizer Renacci, J, that is the Congressman's calendar. 25 Chief of Staff: Correct. 26 Helen Eisner: Go ahead. 27 Chief of Staff: Who is it? Is that what you were going to ask? Sorry. 28 Helen Eisner: Yes. 29 30 31 Chief of Staff: It's either ... Like I said, the only people who can make any changes would be either the Congressman, myself or Rosie. It would be one of those three. @renacciforcongress.com- Page 20 of 34 18-5206_0213 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 5 Helen Eisner: Okay. So one of those three individuals who has access to the calendar can send this calendar invite as an update to this common calendar. You send the calendar invite by sending it to @renacciforcongress, it also allows the campaign to access this calendar which is the calendar that you, the congressman and Rosie Miller can view. Is that accurate? 6 Chief of Staff: They can just view it. 7 Helen Eisner: They can view it. 8 Chief of Staff: Correct. 9 Bill Farah: Is it just that event or is it the entire calendar, just that event? 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Chief of Staff: Yes, if they were to open up the calendar for ... Now, for Renacci for Congress, they would open that up it would be blank because they aren't on the same server. You have to invite same way as if ... I asked somebody else in our office if they looked at their calendar would not have the Congressman's anything on it. It's just their own. In order for ... Each event, you have to invite this, so that it pops up on the calendar they can view. 17 18 19 20 Helen Eisner: So, only the three individuals who have access to the calendar can see all of the events in from the calendar. But if you've invited any of these individuals to that particular scheduled event, they would be able to see that event if they opened the calendar? 21 22 Chief of Staff: Correct, so we put most of these ... Most of everything on this calendar so that people can just see it. 23 Helen Eisner: These other individuals, why are they included on the invitation? 24 25 26 27 Chief of Staff: Rosie would be on here so that she can have it on her calendar. Kelsey and Kevin and Joe Benny, all of them and James Slepian all would have this so they could see it on their calendar. So that they know that ... Because they know that he's doing this. 28 Helen Eisner: Joe Benny, what is his role with the campaign? 29 30 31 Chief of Staff: He does not have a role with the campaign. He works out of our Parma, Ohio office which of the two offices we have, is closer to this Broadview Heights location. I imagine that that- 32 33 Helen Eisner: That's why he's included. What about James Slepian, why was he included in this specific event? Page 21 of 34 18-5206_0214 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Chief of Staff: I'm not sure. 2 3 Helen Eisner: What role does he, or did he play for the official office since September of 2017? 4 Chief of Staff: In the official office, none. 5 6 Helen Eisner: Was it common to include Mr. Slepian in these types of calendar invitations? 7 Chief of Staff: I don't know, I'd have to look at the whole thing. 8 Helen Eisner: Well how often were you the one who was sending these calendar invites? 9 Chief of Staff: Probably a fair share. I don't remember this specifically, maybe 50-50. 10 11 Helen Eisner: When you sent them, 50% of the time, how often would you include Mr. Slepian as an invitee? 12 Chief of Staff: I have no idea. 13 Helen Eisner: What would be the reason that you would include him? 14 15 Chief of Staff: Probably ... Maybe if he was in Ohio or maybe because he was going on national television. 16 Helen Eisner: Mr. Slepian, what is his role in the campaign? 17 Chief of Staff: He is the campaign’s general consultant. 18 19 20 Helen Eisner: Let's go to tab 12. This is THJR_0016, again that calendar invitation. I assume like the last on when it says you're name at the top it's just because you printed it, is that correct? 21 Chief of Staff: Correct. 22 23 24 Helen Eisner: This is sent to @renacciforcongress.com as I understand it now that allows the campaign to have access to the calendar that we've been discussing. 25 Chief of Staff: Just to view it. 26 Helen Eisner: To view it. To view this event specifically? 27 Chief of Staff: Yes. Page 22 of 34 18-5206_0215 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: The text at the bottom here, where it says “topics” and it's the information about the appearance, where did that text come from? 3 Chief of Staff: I don't know. It's obviously part of this, but I do not know. 4 Helen Eisner: Was this event an official appearance or a campaign appearance? 5 6 7 8 Chief of Staff: Well I think it was just a phone call not an appearance. Which I'm going to say that because that help clarify it for me. I do not recall this, this show or this interview or where he was at the time or what the context of it was. I don't know. 9 10 Helen Eisner: How often does the official office schedule these types of media appearances for the Congressman? 11 12 Chief of Staff: How often? Again I don't ... I don't know. I would have to look at the overall to be able to tell you how frequently. 13 Helen Eisner: Can you give us ... Is it one time a week, three times a week? 14 Chief of Staff: That he has media appearances? 15 Helen Eisner: Yes, appearing on TV, on radio? 16 17 18 19 20 Chief of Staff: He has two weekly radio hits. On Mondays and Fridays he's been doing from seven years, so whatever that number is and then some weeks you do a lot more TV and radio than others. Twice a month he does two or three other radio shows. Certainly more than once a week he's doing media. He's at least twice every week doing a radio interview. 21 22 Helen Eisner: Then separately, does the campaign stuff also schedule media appearances for the Congressman? 23 Chief of Staff: They do. 24 25 Helen Eisner: Alright and when they do, how do they share information with you from a scheduling perspective about that appearance? 26 27 Chief of Staff: Similar to what I mentioned before, they just send the date, the time, the location, or in a circumstance like this, whatever this info is. 28 29 30 Helen Eisner: This info about the event, the topics that are going to be covered, how common is it for that to be included when the official side sends that information to a calendar? Page 23 of 34 18-5206_0216 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Chief of Staff: It's pretty common. 2 Helen Eisner: Then when the campaign- 3 Chief of Staff: Except from the ones that he does, the weekly ones. 4 Helen Eisner: The weekly ones, it's because- 5 Chief of Staff: Because we've been doing them for a long time. 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Helen Eisner: They're so common that people have a sense of what those ... Okay. We're looking at tab 12. These are separated by green pages. If you go forward one page, you can see that this event, this appearance was posted to the Twitter account for @jimrenacci on September 20, 2017 at 4:30 PM. That's for Red State Talk, and then if you go forward one more document past that green page, you can see that it was posted to the Twitter account for @repjimrenacci, so the official Twitter account ,“looking forward to joining @redstatetalk with Charles Butler at 5.” Why did the official office share this information on Twitter? In this instance, what was the purpose of sharing information? 16 17 Chief of Staff: In this instance I couldn't say specifically but I would imagine it's because he’s talking about tax reform. 18 19 20 21 Helen Eisner: If we go back to the first document where the topics include, gubernatorial run, and this was prior to the appearance and there was an understanding that one of the topics was gubernatorial run. Do you know why the official office would have shared information about this media appearance? 22 Chief of Staff: As I said because the other issues are official issues. 23 24 Helen Eisner: Because of the other issues. Okay so, how does the official office distinguish between campaign appearances and official appearances? 25 26 27 28 Chief of Staff: I'm sorry, did you say how does the official office distinguish ... I believe that if it comes from the official communications staff on topics, official topics, then we consider that official. Obviously consider campaign produced or initiated requests, from the campaign. 29 30 Helen Eisner: Did this appearance again ... You might not know, but did this appearance come from the official staff? 31 Chief of Staff: I don't know. Page 24 of 34 18-5206_0217 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: If it did come from the official staff, would you have shared it with the @renacciforcongress email address? 3 4 Chief of Staff: Yes. Like I said pretty much everything except for some very personal things. 5 6 Helen Eisner: What about with James Slepian, would you have shared with him if that came from the official staff? 7 Chief of Staff: Probably. 8 Helen Eisner: Why? 9 10 Chief of Staff: Well I was going to say if it was as a call, I guess either maybe if they were together or just to let him know I suppose. 11 Helen Eisner: Go to tab 17. 12 Bill Farah: Did you want to take a break at any point? 13 Chief of Staff: No I'm okay. 14 Bill Farah: It's getting late in the afternoon you've been busy I know, all day. 15 16 Helen Eisner: We're going to just try not to take up too much more of your time. Let us know if you do need a break, but I think it's better if we try to get through. 17 Chief of Staff: I'm okay. 18 19 Helen Eisner: This is tab 17. This is a Facebook post to the account for @jimrenacci November 16, 2017. What do you know about this video? 20 Chief of Staff: The actual video I don't ... I know about it in terms of this investigation. 21 Helen Eisner: Prior to this investigation, what did you know about this video? 22 Chief of Staff: Nothing. 23 Helen Eisner: Did you know that it was filmed? 24 Chief of Staff: I did not. 25 Helen Eisner: Was there any type of official purpose for this video? Page 25 of 34 18-5206_0218 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Chief of Staff: I remember that we passed the tax bill that is about what I ... That's what I remember about seeing this. That's what I remember. I don't remember anything about the video or about talking about new postings. 4 Helen Eisner: Do you know who put the video together? 5 6 7 Chief of Staff: I believe that it was Kevin or Kelsey. It would have been Kevin or Kelsey I believe that we discussed, maybe that it was Kevin. I think it’s one of, Kevin or Kelsey. 8 Helen Eisner: Do you know who filmed the video? 9 Chief of Staff: Sorry, that's what I thought you meant. 10 11 Helen Eisner: That's what I asked, sorry initially asked who put it together and you said Kevin and then as far as- 12 13 Chief of Staff: That's what I meant. I guess no I don't. I would assume Kevin but I don't know. 14 Helen Eisner: Do you know where the work was done to put this video together? 15 Chief of Staff: I don't. 16 17 Helen Eisner: After learning of this investigation, have you since learned where the work was done to put this video together? 18 19 20 Chief of Staff: To actually make this video? I obviously know that it was ... That they were out here ... Know where they filmed this video. No I don't believe so that I know where they put it together. 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Helen Eisner: During the course of our conversations, we've learned that it seems like some of these videos, some of the pictures were taken in the congressional complex. There were videos that were put together using programs software or you can splice together video clips that are then placed together and some of those were posted to social media. It's our understanding that some of that work, performing work, with those programs, to put together, the videos, images with overlaid campaign insignias, not in all cases, but in some cases, that work was performed in official offices. What was your knowledge of that? 30 Chief of Staff: I didn't have any. 31 32 Helen Eisner: Since this review, have you become aware that that work was conducted in the official office? Page 26 of 34 18-5206_0219 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Chief of Staff: You just told me that. 2 Helen Eisner: Prior to my statement just now. 3 4 5 Chief of Staff: I do not know. On this specifically even if somebody had told me that, on this I would ... Unless I knew that it was for this specifically no. I wouldn't even remember that also. 6 Helen Eisner: I'm sorry. 7 8 Bill Farah: I don't think this one was ever allegedly put together in a congressional office. I think this was just a video that he took. 9 10 Helen Eisner: This video had edits to it. That were different. There was picture, there was a video component to it. 11 Bill Farah: Separately there was a picture taken. 12 13 14 15 16 17 Helen Eisner: There's another Fox video which I think you might be referring to which had some clips to it. I think my statement was generally during the course of this review we've become aware of videos and of pictures with overlays and we've been told that some of that work using those programs was conducted in official offices. Prior to my statement informing you of that, what you conveyed was that you were not aware of that. 18 Chief of Staff: Correct, correct. 19 Helen Eisner: What is your reaction to that? 20 21 Chief of Staff: Well I did not really talk specifically to our staff about that in terms of this on ... It's obviously a problem that should not have occurred. 22 23 Helen Eisner: Have you had any conversations with the Congressman about staff performing campaign work from the official office? 24 Chief of Staff: No. 25 26 Helen Eisner: No. How often does the Congressman participate in media appearances interviews from Statuary Hall? 27 28 Chief of Staff: When he is ... When we are here in session, all of his ... 99% of his TVs appearances probably are from Statuary Hall. 29 Helen Eisner: Why is that? Just convenience or? Page 27 of 34 18-5206_0220 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Chief of Staff: That's where the cameras are set up. They won't to bring a camera down to some other place. 3 4 5 6 Helen Eisner: Just looking at the documents that are publicly available, it seems that the campaign has frequently shared videos that were filmed in statuary hall including photographs of the Congressman participating in those videos. Did you have any knowledge of that or the use of those photographs? 7 Chief of Staff: Prior to this whole- 8 Helen Eisner: Let's start with prior to this review. 9 Chief of Staff: No. 10 Helen Eisner: What about after this review? 11 Chief of Staff: Yes, I mean I obviously saw on some of them. 12 13 Helen Eisner: Has the office put into place any policies or practices to address that type of conduct? 14 Chief of Staff: Yes. 15 Helen Eisner: Can you tell us about those? 16 17 18 19 Chief of Staff: Just that they will not be sharing media in terms of photos. That kind of media. Multimedia maybe, they will not be sharing those. That the campaign is aware they should not be using some ... It wouldn't even be actually an issue because if they're not sharing it, they're not sharing it. 20 21 Helen Eisner: How is that message conveyed, the message that you've just described to us? 22 Chief of Staff: To the campaign? 23 24 Helen Eisner: No, to the official staff. To your staff, as Chief of Staff to the Congressman. 25 Chief of Staff: Probably just said don't send them any pictures. 26 Helen Eisner: Who did you say that to? 27 Chief of Staff: To Kelsey and probably to Kevin. 28 Helen Eisner: When was that conversation? Page 28 of 34 18-5206_0221 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Chief of Staff: Probably right after we first got into this. Whenever that time, maybe late April or May there, mid-May. 3 Helen Eisner: Was the Congressman involved in any of those conversations? 4 Chief of Staff: I don't think so. 5 6 Helen Eisner: What conversations have you had with the Congressman about that issue of using photos from official office buildings for campaign purposes? 7 8 9 10 11 Chief of Staff: We've talked about this just in terms of this investigation that there are ... That there are some of those in here. We have not talked about, and then we've had conversations just about just going through when we initially got the request letter to pull the posts and look at what they were, just talking about that generally. That's about the extent of it. 12 13 Bill Farah: I think they're waiting for this to conclude so they can make ... They can have some formal recommendations. 14 Helen Eisner: We're not recommending one way or another, or any type of conduct. 15 16 Bill Farah: No, no the process too for the office, and when they find out all the facts they will be in a position then to make any changes to policies- 17 18 19 20 21 22 Helen Eisner: Absolutely understood. I'm not trying to imply one way or the other that any conduct should have happened. I'm just trying to understand what has happened. I think we're almost done here. I'm going to have you look at tab 21. This is a Facebook post to the official Congressman Jim Renacci account. It's about a Facebook live event with Congressman Mark Meadows. Do you remember this event? 23 24 25 Chief of Staff: I remember looking at this. I very, vaguely remember that he actually ... Him actually doing it, I don't really remember, but I'm familiar with this. I’ve seen – I’ve looked at it. 26 Helen Eisner: When you say this, you're talking about the document that we're showing? 27 28 29 30 Chief of Staff: Yes, though I ... I thought that the one that was requested of us in regards to this investigation, I thought was ... That must have been just my misunderstanding. I thought it was a campaign post, not official, but I guess I misunderstood. 31 32 Helen Eisner: Well this is just generally asking you about this event and what you recall about this specific event. This Facebook live event with Mark Meadows. I Page 29 of 34 18-5206_0222 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 think you've said that you remember very little about the event. Do you know who organized the event? 3 4 5 Chief of Staff: I remember that ... No, I don't know who between the two offices initiated it, I don't know. I just remember that we did do something with Mark Meadows. 6 7 8 9 10 11 Helen Eisner: If you look at the next tab which is tab 22, I think this might be similar to what you were just discussing. This is the Facebook account for the campaign, for Jim Renacci, sharing information about this Facebook live event. At the time that this was shared, did you have any conversations about whether the campaign should share information about this Facebook live event? What conversations do you remember? 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Chief of Staff: I did not. I know, just during this course of this is, when and by this I mean learning of this through this investigation, was the first time that I saw that we had even done this. If any posting obviously, a Facebook live is a Facebook post so I guess I knew that we had posted something. I had not ... I did not witness it when it happened. I was told by Kelsey that she spoke to the Ethics Committee about this particular event or situation. That is … I remember her telling me that. 19 Helen Eisner: When did she tell you that? 20 21 Chief of Staff: Once we were going through, pulling the posts together, for the investigation. 22 23 Helen Eisner: When you spoke with Kelsey about that, did she mention any other occasions on when she spoke with the Committee on Ethics about posts? 24 25 26 27 28 29 Chief of Staff: Yes. In regards to just grouping of this that there was also another one she had ... She told me she had spoken to the Ethics Committee. It was the tax Tele-Town Hall that, AFP, Americans for Prosperity hosted. I think that that might have been the only one. I remember that one specifically. I know that she has called them on other occasions. I'm not sure if there are anymore here within this book. 30 31 Helen Eisner: What did the Ethics Committee tell her? What did she say that their advice was to her about these events? 32 33 34 35 Chief of Staff: I remember on the Tele-Town Hall one ... No, I guess for both of these because they were public, because the information had been put out and it was public that they could be promoted on campaign and official accounts. I believe that was the gist of it. Page 30 of 34 18-5206_0223 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Helen Eisner: Was that information conveyed over the phone or is there any type of written record of that information that was conveyed from the Ethics Committee? 4 5 Chief of Staff: I'm pretty sure they were over the phone, otherwise I'm sure we would include it if it was an email. 6 7 8 9 10 Helen Eisner: You've talked a lot about some of your ... It seems like the office has done a thorough job of looking through different records and has been very cooperative as far as making sure they get us different documents that we've requested. During the course of that review of information, has the office instituted any new practices with regards to social media? 11 12 13 14 Chief of Staff: I think that the only actual policy that I have instructed the official staff not to share any photographs and things like that. As I have mentioned before, then ensuring that any of this ... If there is campaign work that Kevin needs to do that he's doing that, outside of the office. 15 Helen Eisner: Is Kevin keeping the logs now of his time? 16 Chief of Staff: He should be. 17 Helen Eisner: Has he submitted any logs to you? 18 Chief of Staff: He has not, no. I have not asked him to do so. 19 20 21 Helen Eisner: Have you had any discussions with campaign staff about their conduct going forward and how to ... Following information that you've discovered in this review, has it in any way affected the campaigns conduct? 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Chief of Staff: I have not specifically spoken to anyone else outside of just the Congressman, Bill, the other folks here, Kelsey, Kevin about this specifically. I have instructed – I told our campaign manager. I have told just to kind of run, that this was something, I didn't really specifically tell her anything about this, but just saying that we were not going to be sharing any photos or things with the campaign. That any conversations communication that she or any ... If the campaign staff wants to have communication with us to run it through her and then through me, filters out a lot of it. 31 32 33 34 Helen Eisner: Other people would not be included in those communications. Before we had talked about people like James Slepian being on those calendar invites and some other individuals from the official side that you had mentioned. Is that what you were referring to? Page 31 of 34 18-5206_0224 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Chief of Staff: Yeah, yes and generally as well. 2 3 4 Helen Eisner: What about the Congressman, has he instituted any policies or changes to how the campaign functions to the extent you know, based on the information learned in this review? 5 Chief of Staff: I guess I don't know specifically what he's talked to them about. 6 7 Helen Eisner: Based on the questions that I've asked you today, is there anything else that we should know? 8 Chief of Staff: About the ... No I don't think so. No. 9 Helen Eisner: Do you have any other questions? 10 11 Omar Ashmawy: Very minor. When the email was sent to who received that email? 12 13 Chief of Staff: I did. I did, but it's not actually an email it's a calendar notification. Well I guess maybe you do get it as an email. 14 Bill Farah: Pops up. 15 Chief of Staff: I could ... I think I could probably show you one- 16 17 18 19 Omar Ashmawy: I guess it's more of a logistical, functional question, which was simply my experience is you receive an email and then you have to accept or you have to, simply, it appears in the calendar but you still have to actively accept that notification. 20 21 22 Chief of Staff: That is how it operates on an Outlook calendar. This is a Google based calendar and I got rid of all the notifications on it because that would mean that I'd be getting 10,000 emails- 23 Omar Ashmawy: It automatically populates the calendar? 24 Chief of Staff: Correct. 25 26 Helen Eisner: Just to clarify that point I think, you might have said earlier at some that it was an outlook calendar, it's a Google calendar. 27 28 Chief of Staff: The Congressman's calendar is an Outlook calendar. The @renacciforcongress.com is a Google based calendar. 29 Helen Eisner: The Renacci, J calendar that- @renacciforcongress, Page 32 of 34 18-5206_0225 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Chief of Staff: Is an Outlook calendar. 2 Helen Eisner: Is an Outlook calendar. 3 4 5 Chief of Staff: That is why you can't share them the way you can share an Outlook calendar from person to person, but you cannot share them across those different fields. 6 7 Helen Eisner: By sending it to that “[Chief of Staff]” campaign email address, it then can populate the campaign’s Google calendar? 8 9 Chief of Staff: It's my Google calendar which I don't use because I use my Outlook calendar. 10 Helen Eisner: That other people can view. 11 Chief of Staff: Yes. 12 Helen Eisner: Understood. Any other questions? 13 14 Omar Ashmawy: Yes to clarify things because perhaps I missed something. Who has access to that Google calendar? 15 16 17 18 19 Chief of Staff: The campaign staff can all view it, but they can't make any changes or anything to it. It's just for them to be able to see it because as I said you can't actually ... There's a function within the Outlook calendar for you to be able to share that with another person with an Outlook calendar but the function doesn't exist in this situation. 20 21 22 23 Bill Farah: And it’s only select things that you put on it. It's not the entire official calendar. It's just things that you pick from the official calendar, that you think the campaign should know about for scheduling and appointment purposes with things he's doing that day. 24 Helen Eisner: What do you put on the calendar? 25 26 Chief of Staff: No, it's pretty much everything, so that they can just see his schedule. There are some exceptions, things that I believe to be personal maybe. 27 28 Helen Eisner: How do you block that time off still but just indicate personal or something that just shows that it’s taken- 29 30 Chief of Staff: It depends on the instance. That might be one way to do it, or we may just not put it on the campaign calendar. Page 33 of 34 18-5206_0226 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: For all the other events that you do put on the campaign calendar, do you include some detail about the event? 3 Chief of Staff: For the most part. 4 5 6 Helen Eisner: Consistent with the documents that we were reviewing earlier, I think we looked at two different calendar invitations detail that's consistent with that. I can- 7 8 Bill Farah: When we say details though, we're talking about time, place, who's going to be there we're not talking about briefing memos or anything. 9 10 11 12 13 Helen Eisner: Let's look at those that we discussed so we can make sure that we're ... Let's look at 12. The first document there. In this information as far as the details there's some discussion – logistical information and then there's some information about topics. Is that consistent with the type of information you would include in a typical- 14 Chief of Staff: For press hits, yeah. 15 Helen Eisner: I think we also looked at- 16 Chief of Staff: Is it nine? 17 Helen Eisner: Yes I think we looked at nine which is- 18 Chief of Staff: That's the same. 19 20 Helen Eisner: THJR_0015 and just for clarification before we were looking at tab 12 which is THJR_0016. For tab 9 again that type of information. 21 Chief of Staff: Yeah. It's consistent. 22 Helen Eisner: I don't think we have any other questions so we'll thank you for your time. 23 Chief of Staff: Okay. Page 34 of 34 18-5206_0227 CONFIDENTIAL ?Suhjecwt the No?ais?losi?-? 'Piovi?iorE "of H. Res. as Adi-Ended ERRATA SHEET Page Line Correction Reason This errata sheet is submitted subject to 18 U.S.C. 1001 (commonly known as the False Statements Act). Witness Name: Witness Signature: Date: l8?5206_0228 EXHIBIT 7 222222222222 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended Transcript of Interview of “Digital Director” OCE Review 18-5206 June 26, 2018 Page 1 of 32 18-5206_0230 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 5 6 Helen Eisner: 7 8 9 This is June 26, 2018. It is review 18-5206. Speaking is Helen Eisner from the Office of Congressional Ethics, joined by Deputy Chief Counsel Paul Solis and Ali Bazzi, also from the OCE. We are here with [Digital Director] and his attorney Bill Farah. We've given [Digital Director] a copy of the False Statements Act. He has signed the acknowledgement form. Let's get started. Where are you currently employed? Digital Director: I'm employed with Congressman Jim Renacci's office, and then also for Renacci for Senate. Both as a Digital Director. 10 11 Helen Eisner: Let's start with the official side first and your role as a Digital Director. How long have you held that position? 12 Digital Director: Since the beginning of January of this year. 13 Helen Eisner: So January 2018 is when you came on as Digital Director. 14 Digital Director: Correct. 15 Helen Eisner: Before that, where were you working? 16 17 Digital Director: From August 2017 until my new role I was a paid intern for Congressman Renacci. 18 19 Helen Eisner: Did your work as a paid intern overlap in any way with your responsibilities that you currently hold as Digital Director? 20 21 Digital Director: Some of the same tasks that I would do were related to what I was doing when I was an intern. 22 Helen Eisner: What are your responsibilities as Digital Director? 23 24 25 26 Digital Director: Basically I provide content for the Congressman's social media. I would write press releases, help out with any op-ed writing or things like that. Just things that our communications director Kelsey Knight would ask me to do. 27 28 Helen Eisner: Did the position of Digital Director exist prior to you being hired in January 2018 to hold that role? 29 Digital Director: No. Page 2 of 32 18-5206_0231 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: Why was it created? 2 3 4 5 Digital Director: I would like to think that I just did an excellent job. Someone in our office had left and so they had an extra spot opening, so it was essentially just an extra communications spot. The person that left was from the Leg side, but it's more of a Digital Director, Press Assistant type of role. 6 7 Helen Eisner: And in your work on the official side as Digital Director, who do you report to? 8 Digital Director: Kelsey Knight. 9 Helen Eisner: And Kelsey is the Communications Director. 10 Digital Director: Correct. 11 12 Helen Eisner: You also mentioned work for the Senate campaign. Tell us what your position is there and how long you've been there. 13 14 15 Digital Director: I've been there since about mid to late February of this year, and it's a similar type of role but it's more based just on social media purposes, so just providing content for social media. 16 Helen Eisner: Did you perform any work for the gubernatorial campaign? 17 18 Digital Director: I would help out occasionally, but it was very rare that I would help with the gubernatorial race. 19 Helen Eisner: Who do you report to in your position for the campaign? 20 Digital Director: Currently? 21 Helen Eisner: Yes. 22 23 Digital Director: That would be Leslie Shedd, the Senior Advisor for Renacci for Senate, and then Brittany Martinez, the Communications Director. 24 25 Helen Eisner: And when you say currently, was there a time when you reported to other individuals? 26 27 28 Digital Director: Kelsey Knight was a Senior Advisor on the Renacci for Senate campaign, and then she eventually transitioned out and then Brittany and Leslie became part of it. Page 3 of 32 18-5206_0232 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: Okay, and approximately when was that transition? 2 3 Digital Director: I don't know for sure. I would say two months ago possibly. A month ago, two months ago. 4 Helen Eisner: Are you paid for your work on behalf of the campaign? 5 Digital Director: Yes. 6 7 Helen Eisner: And is that a regular salary, or how does your payment work on behalf of the campaign? 8 9 Digital Director: I'm split 50/50. Half of my pay is official related and half of it is campaign related. 10 11 12 Helen Eisner: So 50% of your ... Let me just try to break that down. Was there an agreement that 50% of your pay would be related to official work and 50% would be campaign related? 13 14 15 Digital Director: I don't know what the official ... Basically I signed on to the campaign in mid-February for an amount that was about what the official side was, and then it was expected that I'd evenly spend my time. 16 Helen Eisner: Okay. 17 Paul Solis: Where did that expectation come from? 18 Digital Director: Through Kelsey or Michelle, my Chief of Staff. 19 20 Helen Eisner: And the payments that you do receive from the campaign, they're on a schedule? 21 Digital Director: Yeah, I believe it's every two weeks is how the campaign gets paid. 22 Helen Eisner: Where do you perform work for the campaign? 23 24 25 26 27 Digital Director: I do it at home and then I try to manage leaving the office to perform those duties, so currently I work from home on Monday mornings and Friday mornings and then on the other days throughout the week I try to find a time around lunchtime where I can have lunch or go to a Starbucks and then I would perform those duties. 28 29 Helen Eisner: And how many days a week is that, that you would go during lunch and perform those duties? Page 4 of 32 18-5206_0233 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Digital Director: It's typically Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. 2 3 Paul Solis: When you say Monday and Friday you're home in the morning working, that means working for the campaign? 4 Digital Director: Typically I'll do both in the morning. 5 Paul Solis: What do you mean by both? Both official and campaign work? 6 Digital Director: Correct. 7 Paul Solis: How many hours per week are you working on officially related duties? 8 9 10 Digital Director: Well, it's hard to describe just because with a communications role, we're also working weekends and things are late and things are early. He has events that he goes to that he likes pictures being taken and posted. 11 Paul Solis: A typical week, or an average? 12 Digital Director: Probably about 9:00 to 5:00 each day. 13 14 Helen Eisner: That's 9:00 to 5:00 in both capacities, or official capacities? Just to break that down. 15 Digital Director: Just official capacities I would say. I would judge. 16 17 18 19 Paul Solis: We want to be able to make sure we understand that given that you told us that in the mornings you work from home on Mondays and Fridays, and at least some part of that time in the morning on Mondays and Fridays is working for the campaign, correct? 20 Digital Director: Correct. 21 22 23 Paul Solis: Okay. So if you're telling us that it's a 9:00 to 5:00 then we want to make sure we understand how those two different sort of hourly bases you discussed, how they fit together. 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Digital Director: I guess I can describe what I do in the mornings. On a Monday morning I'll have a set of posts that I'll need to create, so then I'll make sure I create those for the campaign side and then I'll switch over and see if the official side needs anything, and then if I would receive any email in the morning that would need my attention then I would address it in the morning, and then once I would go to the official office I would not correspond with the campaign at all until I was at work, if that makes sense. Page 5 of 32 18-5206_0234 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 5 Paul Solis: So again, back to the ... I realize lots of people's jobs on the Hill are sort of flexible and there's different hours that are created, especially when the Members are campaigning back in the districts. But when you say 9:00 to 5:00, do you know if you're paid for 40 hours a week on the official side? Do you know? 6 7 Digital Director: I don't know what the exact would be. I do believe my role is hired as a full time staff member. 8 9 Paul Solis: Also, the same question with the campaign. How many hours per week are you spending? 10 Digital Director: I would say anywhere from ... Oh geez, close to 25, 30 hours a week. 11 12 Paul Solis: And when is the majority of that work taking place? Is that on the weekends, or during the day on the weekdays? 13 14 15 16 Digital Director: It's during that time period either Monday mornings, Friday mornings, when I break out Tuesday through Thursday, and then when he has events on weekends I would be the one. If I get sent pictures from field staff or whatever I would be the one posting that. 17 Helen Eisner: Do you keep track of your hours? 18 Digital Director: I don't keep a log. 19 Helen Eisner: For either the campaign or official. 20 Digital Director: For either side. 21 Helen Eisner: Do you have any type of teleworking agreement with the official office? 22 23 Digital Director: I don't know. I've never discussed that. I don't know if it would be in my employment or what not. 24 Helen Eisner: Okay, but the official office has authorized you to work from home. 25 Digital Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 26 Helen Eisner: How did that come about? Was that a process that you had to go through? 27 Digital Director: What do you mean? Page 6 of 32 18-5206_0235 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Helen Eisner: Since you perform work from home two mornings a week, was there any type of authorizing process that you needed to go through in order to work from home those two mornings a week? 4 Digital Director: Like an approval process? 5 Helen Eisner: Yes. 6 7 Digital Director: I discussed it with Kelsey and Michelle and they agreed that that was okay. 8 Helen Eisner: What official social media accounts does the Congressman maintain? 9 Digital Director: On the official side he has an official Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 10 Helen Eisner: And what is your role in those accounts? 11 Digital Director: Currently? 12 Helen Eisner: Well, let's start with currently. 13 14 15 16 Digital Director: Okay. I maintain them and I ... Well, I don't want to say maintain. I produce content for them per Kelsey's request and then I send them to her for approval, and then if she would say, "Everything's good, okay, okay to post," then either I would post or Kelsey would post. 17 Helen Eisner: Does everything have to get Kelsey's approval in order to be posted? 18 19 20 Digital Director: Almost everything does, yeah. The only examples where that wouldn't be would be things like if we have constituents come in for tours and it's something very, very basic, then I just post it. 21 Helen Eisner: So you have the login credentials for those three accounts? 22 Digital Director: Correct. 23 Helen Eisner: Who else has those login credentials? 24 Digital Director: I believe it's just me and Kelsey. 25 Helen Eisner: What about the Congressman? Does he have the login credentials? 26 Digital Director: I don't think so. Page 7 of 32 18-5206_0236 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: What is his role in the social media accounts? 2 3 4 5 6 Digital Director: The only role that he essentially has is if he was at an event or he's speaking at a hearing or something and the Congressman has his own personal account, and if he views our content and sees something's not up then he'll be like, "Why isn't this up yet?" But he doesn't dictate what exactly goes up. It's more just, I guess as more of a bystander I guess. 7 8 Helen Eisner: Okay, so the Congressman reviews the accounts. He has an awareness of the information. 9 10 Digital Director: Yeah, he has an awareness of what's being posted in a general sense, but it's after the fact. He's not involved in drafting the message at all I guess. 11 12 13 Helen Eisner: How many times have you got any type of communication from the Congressman indicating we just had this event and something's not up yet? How often does that happen? 14 Digital Director: Maybe once every couple weeks. 15 Helen Eisner: And does that come to you directly? 16 Digital Director: No. It comes to Kelsey. 17 18 Helen Eisner: Who trained you as far as how to post information to the social media account? 19 Digital Director: Kelsey. 20 21 Helen Eisner: What is the office's, this is the official office, the strategy regarding social media? How would you describe that? 22 23 24 25 Digital Director: It's a mixture of his hearings or statements and then relevant stories that relate to either current legislation he's working on or just things that he wants to comment on, or I guess that we think relates to him. Then just typical constituent district events, that type of thing. 26 27 Helen Eisner: What role has Congressman Renacci played in developing that strategy, that approach? 28 29 30 31 Digital Director: I would say not really a role at all. It mostly comes from Kelsey will dictate the messaging. Like I had said previously, the only real role that he has is he just likes to see a lot of content, so if he doesn't see it he might say something. Page 8 of 32 18-5206_0237 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: Is there a particular category of content that he puts an emphasis on or he really cares about? 3 4 5 Digital Director: I don't know. He typically comes to Kelsey if he has any reasons or issues or what not, so I couldn't say off the top of my head one particular thing is more important. 6 Helen Eisner: Has Kelsey then communicated that to you? 7 8 9 Digital Director: Only in the sense that if things aren't up or what not, she might ask me, "Why isn't this up?" Or, "We need to get these pictures up," or something along those lines. 10 11 12 Helen Eisner: What about media appearances when the Congressman has a press hit? What is the social media approach when the Congressman appears on a media program? 13 14 15 16 17 18 Digital Director: He'll be on. Say he's on Fox News or something. Then the House Republican Conference has a clipping service that either they can clip or I'll go down and clip, or one of the interns will go down and clip the segment, and then we'll upload it to Facebook or Twitter. Also, I think I forgot to mention that he also has an official YouTube account as well. I don't know if you consider that social media or not. 19 20 Helen Eisner: Sure, that's helpful. So there's this clipping service. You take the clip, and then what do you do with the clip? 21 22 Digital Director: Then we would either make sure it's cut correctly, and then put it on Facebook and YouTube, then upload it to Twitter as well. 23 24 Helen Eisner: When he has a press hit or a media appearance, how often would you say that those appearances are put onto the social media account? 25 Digital Director: Nearly every time. Nearly every time. 26 27 28 Helen Eisner: And are you talking about, because now we've talked about four different accounts including YouTube. Are you talking about one in particular nearly every time? Twitter, Facebook? 29 30 31 32 33 Digital Director: I would say Facebook more than any of the other ones. Recently that hasn't necessarily been the case just because a lot of his TV hits sometimes like recently we'll take another direction that's more political where we can't post to the official accounts so we wouldn't post that, if that makes sense. So say if he's on Fox Business and Stuart Varney or something will Page 9 of 32 18-5206_0238 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 go off about, "Oh, he's also running for Senate, blah blah blah." Like, we don't use that then. 3 Helen Eisner: Okay, and has that always been the case? 4 5 Digital Director: That we don't post on the official account with ... I believe so, to the best of my knowledge. 6 7 8 9 Helen Eisner: Where did you learn or how did you come to know that you wanted to make a distinction between media appearances where he discusses the campaign or someone discusses the campaign, versus media appearances that were more officially focused? 10 Digital Director: I believe per Kelsey. 11 Helen Eisner: And when did you learn that from Kelsey? 12 13 Digital Director: I don't know off the top of my head. I can't give you a direct date. I just don't know. 14 Helen Eisner: Have you always known that in your time period as Digital Director? 15 Digital Director: I don't know when that happened. 16 Helen Eisner: Was there a conversation that you had about that? 17 18 Digital Director: Kelsey and I have had conversations about what can be official and what can be campaign, if that makes sense. 19 Helen Eisner: And how do you make that distinction? 20 21 Digital Director: Just when someone mentions, "You're running for Senate," or something. I would say it's clear, being able to tell I guess. 22 23 Helen Eisner: So if somebody mentions you're running for Senate, what do you then do with that clip? How do you use the clip? 24 Digital Director: We don't use it. 25 26 Helen Eisner: So let me just break that down to your roles. We've been talking about the official accounts. How did the official accounts then use that information? 27 Digital Director: I'm sorry. What do you mean? Page 10 of 32 18-5206_0239 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 Helen Eisner: So there's a clip. There's a media appearance where ... You gave the example of Stuart Varney talking about the Senate campaign. Putting on your hat as Digital Director in the official office. That happens. What do you do with the media clip? 5 6 Digital Director: I mean, I typically, I'd still clip the clip and then I'll send it to Kelsey and then I guess we just don't use it then. 7 Helen Eisner: What does Kelsey do with the clip? 8 Digital Director: I don't know. 9 10 Helen Eisner: What about in your role for the campaign? What do you do with the clip there? 11 12 13 14 15 Digital Director: We have a separate clipping service that we use for that. I believe it's Critical Mention, but typically either Brittany or ... Well, Leslie's brand new so probably not her, or Kelsey, or me would clip it from there then put it up, but that was just recently though that we received Critical Mention. 16 Helen Eisner: You said Leslie's brand new. How brand new is she? 17 Digital Director: Probably about either two, three weeks to like a month. 18 Helen Eisner: Why was she hired? 19 Digital Director: I don't make the hiring decisions and stuff. 20 Helen Eisner: Understood. Why do you think she was hired? 21 Digital Director: I mean, you'd have to talk to- 22 Paul Solis: What do you know about why she was hired? 23 24 Digital Director: I know that Kelsey was transitioning off the campaign and then Leslie was brought on to kind of fill that void. 25 Bill Farah: There was a primary, I should add. 26 Helen Eisner: No, we understand the background. We understand. 27 Bill Farah: Okay. That's why- Page 11 of 32 18-5206_0240 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Paul Solis: This is just about what he knows. What do you know about Kelsey's departure from the campaign? Why did that happen? Again, only what you know about it. 4 Digital Director: I don't really know too much about it. I'm trying to think. 5 Bill Farah: If you don't know you don't know. 6 Digital Director: I just don't know. 7 8 Paul Solis: You and Kelsey had never talked about why she was leaving the campaign? 9 10 Digital Director: I didn't really know much about this thing going on. This complaint or whatever it is, but- 11 12 Paul Solis: Have you and Kelsey ever talked about why she was leaving the campaign? 13 Digital Director: Yes, but it's not like ... 14 Paul Solis: Okay, what was that discussion about? 15 16 17 18 Digital Director: I believe it was just like it was getting to be too much for her with her kids. She has kids at home and a husband, and she was trying to manage to do both, and she wasn't always being available. And James is someone else who's also an advisor/consultant role. 19 Helen Eisner: James Slepian? 20 21 22 23 24 Digital Director: Yeah, James Slepian. He runs his own media company I believe, and so he was having trouble doing everything as well so they thought it was necessary to have someone based in Wadsworth, Ohio where the campaign headquarters is at all times to oversee Brittany and me and that would be just her job or her focus, if that makes sense. 25 26 Helen Eisner: You started to mention. You said this thing, this complaint. Were you talking about the Office of Congressional Ethics review? 27 28 29 30 Digital Director: I don't know if it was just this one in ... I don't know but it was ... I'd heard that The Columbus Dispatch for instance published a story about a complaint against us for what seems similar to this. If it's not. It might be this, but I'm sorry. I forget what your question was. Page 12 of 32 18-5206_0241 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Bill Farah: It's okay. 2 Helen Eisner: No, it's fine. 3 Bill Farah: You’re doing fine. 4 5 6 7 8 Helen Eisner: You had been talking about a complaint, and understood. Just help me connect that to Kelsey and her leaving the campaign, if that's what you were talking about. It seemed like that was what we were talking about and then you mentioned that, and I'm trying to understand the connection between those two things. 9 10 11 Digital Director: I believe that complaint story might have been around a February, Marchish, and then I believe Kelsey left the campaign about a month later from that. 12 Helen Eisner: And were those two things related? 13 14 15 Digital Director: I don't know. I wasn't involved in private conversations with Michelle or the campaign manager and Kelsey, so I don't know the exact details with it. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Paul Solis: Okay, but [Digital Director], Helen asked you a question and you brought up the fact that there was a complaint, so again just be as honest as you can whether or not these two things are related, whether you were part of conversations, whether Kelsey talked to you about it, whether Leslie talked to you about it, whether anybody's talked to you or mentioned to you the fact that our review started or there was a press report and Kelsey's departure from the campaign. Whether there was any relation there. 24 Digital Director: I mean just speaking as honestly as I can- 25 Paul Solis: That's the goal here, yes. 26 Digital Director: I would assume they're linked in some fashion. 27 Bill Farah: You assume. 28 29 Paul Solis: Okay, now is that assumption based on any discussions you've had with anybody or anybody informing you that that's the case? 30 31 Digital Director: No. It's just my general thinking. I was never told that like, “because of this Kelsey's leaving the campaign.” Page 13 of 32 18-5206_0242 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Paul Solis: Okay. 2 Helen Eisner: Okay. 3 Digital Director: Or to the best of my knowledge I wasn't told. 4 5 Paul Solis: And again, as you put it just previously, we want to be as honest as we can. 6 Digital Director: Yeah. I'm trying to be. Yeah. 7 Paul Solis: Going forward we're going to go with that. 8 9 10 11 Helen Eisner: When the Congressman has a media appearance or an event, and you've talked to us about using a clipping service on the official side. There's a social media approach on the official side. How do you communicate with the campaign side about appearances that the Congressman is making? 12 13 14 15 16 Digital Director: I know that the campaign and the official office have scheduling calls where they might go over the schedule for the day or what not, and I believe that's how the campaign knows what's happening but I'm not a part of those phone calls or scheduling or anything like that. I don't do any booking or anything of that nature. 17 Helen Eisner: Okay, so what role do you play in the campaign social media? 18 Digital Director: Currently? 19 Helen Eisner: Yes. 20 Digital Director: I produce content that gets approved by Leslie, our senior advisor. 21 Helen Eisner: And how do you know what content to produce? 22 23 24 25 26 Digital Director: Around Saturdays or Sundays she sends out a weekly ... I don't want to call it like a messaging calendar, or like a social media plan, and then before our office hours we'll have a phone call with some of the campaign staff which Kelsey is a part of that she'll go over what she's thinking about messaging for the day. 27 28 Helen Eisner: You talked about a scheduling call. That's different than the phone call you're talking about now? Page 14 of 32 18-5206_0243 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Digital Director: Correct. I think they do a scheduling call. I don't know what times actually. 3 Helen Eisner: Is that everyday? 4 Digital Director: I don't know. 5 Helen Eisner: How often approximately does it happen? 6 Digital Director: Once a week maybe. 7 8 Helen Eisner: Okay, and then those phone calls with the campaign that you said that Kelsey participates in, how often do those occur? 9 Digital Director: Monday through Friday every morning. 10 11 12 Helen Eisner: Okay, and you mentioned the process of Leslie creating a weekly messaging calendar. You just told us that Leslie has been employed for about two or three weeks. Prior to that, what was the process? 13 14 15 16 17 Digital Director: It was per Kelsey's direction. Then there was also a company. It was Harlan Hill's company. I believe it's called Logan Circle Group, that provided I want to say about two to three social media posts on Facebook and Twitter for every day, and I don't know exactly when that began but I think that ended shortly after the primary in like mid-May. 18 19 Bill Farah: If I can ask one question. To your knowledge, does the campaign monitor the official social media throughout the day? 20 Digital Director: Definitely. 21 22 Bill Farah: Okay, so they would know about events by following what they're seeing on the official post. 23 Digital Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 24 Helen Eisner: Did they also discuss those events during the 7:15 call, the morning call? 25 Digital Director: What, like the media- 26 27 Helen Eisner: Yes, the media events. Any events that they're planning on posting to the official social media account. Page 15 of 32 18-5206_0244 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Digital Director: No, we don't really discuss what we're posting on social media on the official site, because it's a campaign related call. 3 4 Helen Eisner: But during those calls, the morning calls, you said Kelsey's on and correct me if I'm wrong, might inform people about the day's activities. 5 6 Digital Director: She might have informed on what the Congressman would be voting for or something like that. Something that's accessible online. 7 Helen Eisner: Does she inform about media appearances? 8 9 Digital Director: Brittany Martinez does our press update, like what she's working on for the campaign press in the morning. 10 11 12 Helen Eisner: Does that campaign ... So Brittany Martinez does the campaign update in the morning talking about what the campaign is working on for social media. 13 Digital Director: No, in terms of media appearances. 14 Helen Eisner: Media appearances. 15 Digital Director: That are campaign related. 16 17 Helen Eisner: That are campaign related. Would Kelsey talk during that call about any media appearances that were not campaign related? 18 19 20 21 22 Digital Director: We do have weekly radio shows that we're on every Monday or every Friday that are just kind of known that like we're on Bob Frantz every Friday morning at 9:40 or whatever the time is. But she might mention during the calls that, "Oh, today's Friday so we're on Bob Frantz," or whatever. 23 24 Helen Eisner: What are the regular media appearances that work in the same way as the Bob Frantz appearance? 25 26 27 28 Digital Director: We have Bob Frantz on Friday mornings. We have Wills and Snyder in the Morning on Monday mornings. Then I believe we do, although I haven't seen it lately, but we do a monthly call-in with the Jasen Sokol Show. 29 Helen Eisner: What about Stuart Varney? Page 16 of 32 18-5206_0245 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Digital Director: Stuart Varney is not a routine, but that's all booked through Kelsey I believe. 3 4 5 6 Helen Eisner: So if Kelsey booked an appearance with Stuart Varney through the official side, would that appearance have been discussed? Or in your experience, has that type of appearance on the Stuart Varney show been discussed in the morning call with the campaign? 7 8 Digital Director: She would probably mention that he's going to be on Stuart Varney in the morning. 9 10 11 Helen Eisner: You talked about Harlan Hill's group previously posting a few times a day. Who has access to the campaign social media account? The ability to post? 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Digital Director: Currently it is me and Kelsey, Brittany ... Well, I don't know if Kelsey's still on it anymore. Leslie and Brittany and me, and then possibly James. I know we noticed on our campaign account that there were some old people like people who used to possibly work, and also on our official account, that used to possibly work, like old communications director that were still on it, so I believe last week I deleted a couple people that shouldn't have had access to it. Then Harlan Hill had access to post on the campaign account as well. 20 Helen Eisner: What about the Congressman? 21 Digital Director: No. He wouldn't have access. 22 23 24 25 26 27 Helen Eisner: You mentioned we were talking about the official account and you talked about times when, very occasionally you said, but I think you said the Congressman might have attended an event and then communicated to Kelsey that he noticed that the event wasn't on the social media account and should be placed on the social media account. How often does that happen on the campaign side? 28 29 30 31 32 Digital Director: Probably like the same amount. Once every three weeks, once every month maybe. I was going to say, I'd like to think that Brittany or me or someone who would post has gotten, after hearing that he's upset when things aren't posted properly, are now posting much more promptly, so it hasn't been as frequent. 33 34 Helen Eisner: Are there any types of policies or procedures that the campaign, I guess your supervisors in the campaign, which I understand have changed a little Page 17 of 32 18-5206_0246 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 bit over time, have asked you to follow with regards to the campaign social media account? Digital Director: No. I mean when Leslie was brought on new, we outlined what she likes to see on it so it's like less news related stories, so now that we're like postprimary, less partisan I guess posts, which makes sense because we’re going into the general election now, but that would be the only types of things really. 8 9 10 Helen Eisner: I want to start showing you some documents. This is tab 9. This is an Outlook Calendar invite. It says, "Required attendees." I assume that's just alerting you to the fact that this event is occurring. Is that correct? 11 Digital Director: Yeah. 12 Helen Eisner: Would you have attended this event? 13 Digital Director: No. This event's in Ohio. 14 15 Helen Eisner: Your name is listed under the attendees there. What email address would you have been using there? 16 Digital Director: For that one, my official email. 17 18 19 Helen Eisner: I see there's at least Kelsey is listed with her official email address, and then there's @RenacciForCongress. Why did she use her campaign email address in this calendar invite? 20 21 22 23 Digital Director: I don't know. I'm under the assumption that she has a lot of different ... She has a Gmail account as well and I think some of them get forwarded to the same email address, so that could've been what it was, but I don't know. 24 25 Helen Eisner: How often would you say when you get a calendar invite from Michelle does it come from one of her campaign email addresses? 26 27 Digital Director: I would say it almost always comes from her official. I think this calendar invite did come from her official. 28 29 Helen Eisner: Okay, so you're saying it came from her official but she included a separate email address for the campaign as an attendee? 30 Digital Director: I guess so. You would have to ask her why. I don't know. Page 18 of 32 18-5206_0247 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: Is it common for events like this to provide this type of detail section that you see towards the bottom? The show, the host, location, duration. 3 Digital Director: I'm pretty sure that's pretty standard for what they send out. 4 5 Helen Eisner: How common is it when you get scheduling invites generally in your role to see email addresses that are both official and campaign? 6 7 8 9 10 Digital Director: I don't really know. Typically when I get an invite from say Michelle or Kelsey I'll just read the headline and I'll just hit accept. I don't really get too many Calendar invites. Most of the time I use the Congressman's Calendar and I see what he's doing, because that kind of just relates to me in terms of taking pictures or what not. 11 12 Helen Eisner: So you didn't attend this particular event. How often do you attend media appearances, press hits, with the Congressman? 13 14 15 16 17 Digital Director: When he's in DC, I'll attend them, and then only if I'm ever in Ohio. When I'm in Ohio, I'll rarely attend them as well. That would mostly be either Joe Benny who's on our official side who works out of our district office who does these events, or if it's campaign related it would be Brittany Martinez. 18 19 Helen Eisner: When you do attend events in DC at these media appearances, what is your role? 20 21 22 23 Digital Director: I basically just assist Kelsey with what she needs, so I'll walk with the Congressman and her down to Statuary Hall, or if we're doing Fox News that's located outside we'll do that and then I'll take pictures or record video or what not. 24 Helen Eisner: Okay, and why are you taking pictures or recording video? 25 Digital Director: So that we could use it later on, on our official accounts. 26 Helen Eisner: Use the video or pictures on your official accounts? 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Digital Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So like taking pictures beforehand for Kelsey to then tweet out and be like, "Tune in in five minutes or ten minutes and see him on Stuart Varney," and then also I record a lot of video because each week on Fridays I would put together a compilation of his weekly ... Basically a summary of his week. We call it our “week in review videos” every Friday, and then from the beginning of November until halfway through December if he would have a busy day I would do something Page 19 of 32 18-5206_0248 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 called a “Today in 20 video” where it'd be a 20-second clip of his events of the day, and it would be including video. 3 4 Helen Eisner: When you're putting together those week-in review videos or the Today in 20, what accounts is that for? 5 Digital Director: For the official accounts. 6 7 Helen Eisner: The official accounts. The videos and pictures you take, on what occasions have you used them for campaign purposes? 8 Digital Director: Only if I was in Ohio working for the campaign. 9 10 11 Helen Eisner: You described to us, occasionally a media appearance that you have attended in Statuary Hall. I think you said some in Statuary Hall and then sometimes- 12 Digital Director: Sometimes it's at whatever media outlet it is. 13 Helen Eisner: At a media studio. 14 Digital Director: Exactly. 15 16 17 Helen Eisner: When you've attended events in Statuary Hall where there's an interview, or anywhere in the congressional complex, have you taken pictures or videos of those events? 18 Digital Director: I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question? 19 20 21 Helen Eisner: On the occasions where you've attended a media appearance in the congressional office complex, which includes Statuary Hall, have you taken videos and pictures- 22 Digital Director: Mm-hmm (affirmative). 23 24 Helen Eisner: On those occasions? And those pictures and videos, have you ever used them for a campaign account? 25 26 27 Digital Director: There was one video that I think is one of the ones that's flagged in here that Kelsey had asked me to edit together and that included a video inside the Capitol. 28 29 Helen Eisner: So that's the only time, that one video which I think is November of 2017. On any other occasions besides that have you used the pictures or videos Page 20 of 32 18-5206_0249 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 taken in the congressional complex for the campaign social media accounts? 3 4 5 Digital Director: I'm trying to think. I know that I've taken pictures and Kelsey's taken pictures and I send them to Kelsey and she might have posted something on the campaign, but to my knowledge not me in particular I guess. 6 7 Helen Eisner: Okay, so you haven't posted them yourself besides, we're talking about the- 8 Digital Director: I don't believe so. 9 10 Helen Eisner: Okay, so who would typically post that material? Was it Kelsey originally and now it's transitioned over to Leslie and Brittany? 11 12 13 Digital Director: Yeah. They don't really post these "tune in" things anymore. At least I don't believe so, but yeah, if it would've been someone after that it would've been ... Yeah. 14 Helen Eisner: Why don't they post the "tune in" postings anymore? 15 16 17 Digital Director: I'm not sure. One is it's a different staff that's there, and then I think Kelsey wanted to be more cautious about what was being posted, if that makes sense. 18 Helen Eisner: What in particular did she want to be cautious about? 19 20 21 Digital Director: Just making sure that things weren't like, same content related and following … just being very sure that we were in compliance with what we were posting. 22 Helen Eisner: And what was the concern about being in compliance? 23 24 Digital Director: I believe it was using pictures of the Capitol in campaign related functions, and yeah, that was essentially. 25 Bill Farah: Is that your impression, or did you actually have a discussion about that? 26 27 28 Digital Director: I guess it was my impression. Kelsey has access to the accounts exactly the same as I do, but I just noticed that we weren't advertising the media hits like we used to. 29 30 Paul Solis: So one day you just noticed that. There was no discussion whatsoever you had with Kelsey or anybody else related to the ending of that process? Page 21 of 32 18-5206_0250 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Digital Director: No, I wouldn't say that. I would say as the- 2 3 Paul Solis: [Digital Director], I asked you a very specific question. It's a yes or no question. 4 5 6 Bill Farah: No, he's new at this, so if you all wouldn't mind repeating the question for him, and don't suggest that he's being evasive because he didn't answer it right away. 7 Paul Solis: It is a yes or no question Bill. 8 Bill Farah: Well- 9 10 11 Paul Solis: And I've asked a couple times now. So did you have any discussions with anybody, Kelsey, Leslie, anybody, about the process of ending these posts? 12 Digital Director: Yes. 13 14 Paul Solis: There we go. We're off to a good start. See? Okay, what were those discussions about? 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Digital Director: Just essentially that because our race was becoming more high profile and news outlets would like to talk about it that when we advertise on … not advertise but like promo that something's coming up that we wanted to make sure that we weren't promo’ing something that would turn political I guess. So for instance, I used to make some things that are like, "Tune in for the Jasen Sokol Show," or whatever, but we stopped making those because he might begin talking about immigration or something, but it could lead then into something political, if that makes sense. 23 Paul Solis: It does. Thank you. 24 25 26 27 28 29 Helen Eisner: We've talked about you taking pictures and the process of when you might share those pictures and when you wouldn't, and you clearly distinguished between those two. The content that you created, and you talked about that one particular video, but what was your role in creating the videos or the pictures that would be used by the campaign social media accounts? Maybe not you posting them, but the content and the media that was used? 30 Digital Director: Like what was it? 31 Helen Eisner: What was your role? How would you participate in that process? Page 22 of 32 18-5206_0251 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Digital Director: I have Premiere video editing software on my personal laptop that I would use to cut up the video for Kelsey. 3 4 5 Helen Eisner: Okay. And were those videos that, like you had mentioned before, that you might send to Kelsey that she would then send to somebody to post to the campaign social media account? 6 7 8 9 Digital Director: I would assume. I would send them to Kelsey. But I'm trying to think of how many times I actually cut video for the campaign and then sent it along. Are you talking about just like news clips or are you talking about things I would actually edit and splice up? 10 11 Helen Eisner: When you're talking about splicing, you're talking about video? I just want to make the distinction. 12 13 14 Digital Director: Yeah, so say we would take a news segment and then cut to a video that me or Kelsey would shoot of him from a different angle that you couldn't see otherwise. 15 16 Helen Eisner: Okay, and then separately from that for pictures, would you edit pictures using that Premiere software or other type of software? 17 Digital Director: It would typically be on my phone. 18 Helen Eisner: How would you edit them? What was the process? 19 20 Digital Director: Using like Snapseed is an app that you can use on your phone to edit, and then if I wanted text on it then I would use Canva. 21 22 Helen Eisner: And how would you ... Well, let me ask this a different way. Would you ever place a campaign logo or insignia on those images? 23 Digital Director: Yes. 24 Helen Eisner: Okay, and what program would you use to do that? 25 Digital Director: That would be through Canva. 26 Helen Eisner: And was that on your personal computer? 27 Digital Director: Yeah. You can access it on either, but yeah. 28 29 Helen Eisner: Okay, and when you were using ... Well, when you were using the Premiere video editing software, or the CampaPage 23 of 32 18-5206_0252 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Digital Director: Canva. 2 Helen Eisner: Canva. Canva. 3 Digital Director: It's a website that you can use. Yeah. 4 Helen Eisner: Where would you perform that work? 5 6 Digital Director: If she would ask me to do something that was time sensitive it would be in the congressional office. 7 Helen Eisner: Okay, and how often did that happen? 8 Digital Director: When I was a paid intern it wasn't that frequent. 9 Helen Eisner: And what about when you became Digital Director? 10 Digital Director: When I was juggling both roles it seemed to be more frequent. 11 12 Helen Eisner: When you say more frequent, I know you may not know exactly, but can you give us … a few times a week, more than that, less than that? 13 14 Digital Director: Something on the campaign that we tried to do was push daily news stories, so I would probably say every day during the week. 15 Helen Eisner: And what was it that you were doing every day? 16 17 18 Digital Director: If there was a news story that related to us or that was President Trump's or something relating to him I would make a quick graphic and then write a short caption and then send it to Kelsey. 19 Helen Eisner: And would Kelsey then receive it herself in the congressional office? 20 Digital Director: Depending on where she would be, probably. 21 Helen Eisner: Would you text it to her or send it through email? 22 Digital Director: Through email. 23 24 Helen Eisner: Okay, and what email address did you send it to? You don't have to give us the specific one, but the domain. 25 Digital Director: It would have been through Gmail. Page 24 of 32 18-5206_0253 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: Gmail. Okay, and who from the official office was aware that you were performing this work in the official office? 3 Digital Director: Kelsey. I would assume that Michelle was aware as well. 4 Helen Eisner: Okay. Why do you assume that Michelle was aware? 5 6 Digital Director: Just because she's constantly around, but I don't think I ever spoke to her about it. 7 8 Helen Eisner: Okay, and have you continued to perform that type of work regarding images and videos from the official office? 9 10 11 Digital Director: Once I was ... I don't know if you would refer this as being named in the complaint or what not. Once I essentially realized what I was doing I took a zero tolerance type of thing, where I would not perform anything. 12 13 14 Helen Eisner: Okay, and was that the point when you realized that ... When did you realize there might be, not just that you are a third party witness to this review, but when there might be an issue with that type of work? 15 Digital Director: Probably a couple months before that. 16 Helen Eisner: Okay, and how did you learn that there was an issue? 17 18 Digital Director: It just seemed weird that if I was asked to do something that was outside of a congressional format. 19 20 Helen Eisner: I guess I'm having a little trouble understanding that, if you could sort of help clarify that answer. 21 22 23 24 25 Digital Director: Kelsey had discussed with me that we needed to start finding time or sit down and find time where I can work from home, or if I need to step out of the office, step out of the office to discuss that, but I don't believe we ever ended up discussing it until I brought it up that I needed to be working from home and stepping out. 26 Helen Eisner: Okay. When was that? 27 Digital Director: Probably about a month and a half ago. 28 29 Helen Eisner: Okay, so what you described to us earlier, your schedule of working from home in the mornings on Mondays and Fridays- Page 25 of 32 18-5206_0254 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Digital Director: Fridays, yeah. 2 Helen Eisner: That started about a month and a half ago? 3 Digital Director: Probably about a month ago, yeah. 4 Helen Eisner: About a month ago. Okay. 5 6 7 Paul Solis: And this discussion you had with Kelsey and this feeling you had that you needed to be doing more of this work outside of the office and on your own time, what prompted you to have that discussion with her? 8 9 10 11 Digital Director: Honestly probably just my conscience. I felt like I'd read the article in the Dispatch, and I just felt like what I was doing or what I was being instructed to do wasn't what I should be doing and I needed to make some kind of boundary. 12 Paul Solis: What was her reaction to that? 13 Digital Director: She agreed with me. 14 Helen Eisner: You said what you've been instructed to do. Who instructed you? 15 16 Digital Director: When I get assignments like that, before Leslie was brought onboard they came from Kelsey. 17 Helen Eisner: Okay. 18 19 Bill Farah: If I can just ask one thing and redirect a little bit, when you get these instructions, you were told to turn around something quickly normally? 20 21 22 Digital Director: Most of the assignments I get would be things that would then get posted that day. It wasn't something that was being prepped for a couple days in the future or a week in the future. 23 24 Bill Farah: But you also did a lot of work at home and you the next morning come in and you would have done the work? 25 26 Digital Director: Yeah, so if I had assignments that required more time I would go home and work on them, because- 27 28 Helen Eisner: So there were times when you were working from home when it came to that type of media. Page 26 of 32 18-5206_0255 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Digital Director: Correct. 2 Helen Eisner: Okay. 3 Digital Director: Yeah, so- 4 5 6 Bill Farah: Did Kelsey tell ... Would she tell you in those cases, "I need this right away," or did she instruct you to do it right there at that point in time, or might she have thought you were going to do it later or somewhere else? 7 8 Digital Director: She would come to my desk, we sit a couple cubicles apart, and say, "Hey, this is what I'm thinking. Can you do this?" And then I would do it. 9 Helen Eisner: Okay. I want to get to a few specific examples. 10 Digital Director: Okay. 11 12 Helen Eisner: Let's go to tab 17, and this is a post to the Facebook account for Jim Renacci, November 16th, 2017. Sorry it's a little- 13 14 15 Bill Farah: Before you start, should we contact Stephen and tell him we're going to be delayed? Because it's almost noon and he was here at 11:30. I don't want to- 16 17 Helen Eisner: Yeah. I think that we will probably be about 10 more minutes, 15 minutes at most. 18 Bill Farah: Okay. Can we let somebody get a message to him if he's waiting? 19 20 21 22 23 24 Helen Eisner: Let me just pause the recording for a moment. Okay, we are back on the record here. June 26, 2018 with [Digital Director]. Continuing to question. We were talking about tab 17 which is a Facebook post from November 16th, 2017, and I'll also show you the next tab which is tab 18, which is a Twitter post to @JimRenacci, also from November 16th, 2017 at 3:30 PM. What can you tell us about these posts? 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Digital Director: The tab 17 post was something that I edited together, and in fact I remember this video has him walking down the stairs as well. Different from tab 18, but this was something that so during big events or media appearances I accompanied Kelsey and she would ask me to record him walking out of the stairs, and then when it concluded after the tax reform vote then we went into the office and she asked me to cut up the video for her. Page 27 of 32 18-5206_0256 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 Helen Eisner: Okay, and what was the reason that this video was made? 2 3 Digital Director: I believe this was right after the first tax reform vote that he voted in favor of, so it was a biggish deal for the House. 4 Helen Eisner: What was the official purpose of this video? 5 Digital Director: The official purpose? Isn't this on the campaign side? Or- 6 7 8 Helen Eisner: It seems to have been posted to the campaign Facebook account. I'm looking at this video and I realize you don't have the video in front of you but you have the image. 9 Digital Director: Yeah, I recall this video. 10 Helen Eisner: Was it created for an official purpose? 11 Digital Director: No, I believe it was made for the campaign. 12 Bill Farah: What are you basing that on, if I might ask? 13 14 Digital Director: At the end of the video if I remember right there's a Renacci for Governor logo that pops up at the end of the video. 15 16 Bill Farah: But when you were filming this, when Kelsey asked you to do it, did she say this is for the campaign? 17 18 Digital Director: When I was filming it, no. It wasn't intended for that, but then she then asked me to- 19 20 Helen Eisner: What are you basing the fact that it wasn't intended for that on? When you filmed this video, did you think it was for an official purpose? 21 Bill Farah: Or did you not? 22 Helen Eisner: Did you know- 23 Paul Solis: I mean- 24 Helen Eisner: Did you think it was for an official purpose? 25 Paul Solis: Helen just asked a question. Page 28 of 32 18-5206_0257 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Digital Director: No. I mean, whenever he does any media appearances or anything like this, I always film him. Off the top of my head I don't know if it was directly for campaign or directly for official. 4 Helen Eisner: Okay. When he put this hat on, whose idea was it for him to wear this hat? 5 Digital Director: Kelsey's idea. 6 7 Helen Eisner: Okay, and the fact that he was wearing the hat, did that in any way influence your opinion on whether it was an official purpose video? 8 9 10 11 Digital Director: Yes. I'm just thinking, because I believe that's a Make America Great Again hat and I don't think we would've posted something on the official account like that, so I'd probably say yes, it probably was intended to be filmed for campaign purposes. 12 Helen Eisner: And who eventually posted this to the campaign Facebook account? 13 Digital Director: I believe it was Kelsey. 14 15 16 17 Helen Eisner: Let me show you tab 19, which is THJR_0027. This is a grainy image, but the image matches the image from tab 18 of the Twitter post to Jim Renacci of the GIF. It was forwarded on November 16, 2017 to Renae Eze. 18 19 Digital Director: She was a Press Assistant, Press Secretary on the campaign. This one in tab 18 and 19 was filmed by Kelsey. 20 Helen Eisner: And then why was it sent to Renae? 21 Digital Director: To post on the campaign. Which it was, in tab 18. 22 23 24 25 Helen Eisner: Let me ask you about tab 26, which is THJR_0028. This is an email from you to Harlan Hill, among a number of other people, but you address the email to, "Hi Harlan. Attached are three photos." Did you take the photos that are attached? 26 27 28 Digital Director: I thought that I had taken them. I know Kelsey had taken pictures very similar if not like this, so it would've been either of us, and then I sent them to Harlan who I believe had asked for them, but I'm not sure. 29 Helen Eisner: And what was the reason that Harlan wanted to have these photos? Page 29 of 32 18-5206_0258 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 Digital Director: This was for State of the Union. The Chris that’s mentioned in the email is obviously the one next to Jim, he is the head of Bikers for Trump, which is an organization that had either endorsed or supported Jim's campaign. 4 5 6 Helen Eisner: Let me show you tab 28. This is THJR_0006. It's a TV hit with Fox Business, Stuart Varney. You are listed as an attendee. Would that have been your official email address or your campaign email address? 7 Digital Director: My official email. 8 Helen Eisner: Okay. 9 10 Digital Director: Yeah, any calendar invites. The only calendar that I have is an official calendar. 11 12 Helen Eisner: Understood. This says that the location was Statuary Hall. Stat Hall. Can I assume that Stat Hall is Statuary Hall? 13 Digital Director: Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative). 14 Helen Eisner: Did this media appearance take place? 15 16 17 18 Digital Director: I'm assuming so. I mean it was back in February. I don't remember every single media appearance and whether or not they occurred, but most of the time when we scheduled Stuart Varney, they don't typically bump us or cancel so I would say yes. 19 20 21 22 Helen Eisner: If you go to the next tab, tab 29. It's a Facebook post from February 6th, so that's the same day as what we were just looking at for the TV hit with Fox Business, Stuart Varney. There's a video below. What was your role in this particular video? 23 24 25 Digital Director: I'm not necessarily familiar with this post, but judging by it, it looks like I probably shot this video, and then it looks like it's probably like 20 seconds long. And then I cut it and then sent it to Kelsey. 26 Helen Eisner: And then Kelsey would've posted it, or who would've posted it? 27 Digital Director: Either Kelsey or Renae. 28 29 30 Helen Eisner: What was your ... Were there any occasions when the office had a conversation, any conversations with the Committee on Ethics about sharing social media content on the campaign accounts? Page 30 of 32 18-5206_0259 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 3 4 Digital Director: I believe they reached out. I wasn't involved in any of those communications, but I believe they reached out for some Tele-Town Halls and things like that and they ran them by the Committee of Congressional Ethics to make sure that it was okay to post. 5 Helen Eisner: Okay, and what was their response to that? 6 Digital Director: From what I was told they were okay with it. 7 Helen Eisner: And how did you learn about that? 8 Digital Director: Through Kelsey and Michelle. 9 10 11 Helen Eisner: Why don't you go to tab 20, which is THJR_0024 discussing a Facebook Live event with Mark Meadows? Is this one of the events that you're referring to? 12 Digital Director: I believe so, yeah. 13 14 Helen Eisner: What other events are you referring to? Other conversations with the Committee on Ethics? 15 16 17 18 19 Digital Director: I want to say that they reached out as well on an Americans for Prosperity Tele-Town Hall. One of those town halls that you're on the phone answering questions when people can dial in. But those would have been the only two I believe that I was notified of that they reached out to the Ethics Committee. 20 21 Helen Eisner: Following this Office of Congressional Ethics review, how have practices changed within the campaign for social media? 22 23 24 25 26 27 Digital Director: Like I said, my work schedule had changed where now I'm working from home so I'm not doing any campaign related functions in the congressional office, and then I'm also spending that hour or two hour time Tuesday through Thursday to avoid any conflicts. Then Brittany and Leslie on the campaign side. Obviously they were in the campaign headquarters, so when they post things they post things. 28 29 Helen Eisner: What conversations have you had with the Congressman about this Office of Congressional Ethics review? 30 31 Digital Director: The only conversation I've had is he told me that I was being named in it and that I would have to go through this process. Page 31 of 32 18-5206_0260 CONFIDENTIAL Subject to the Nondisclosure Provisions of H. Res. 895 of the 110th Congress as Amended 1 2 Helen Eisner: Okay. What conversations have you had with the Congressman about changing practices with regards to social media for the campaign? 3 Digital Director: I haven't really had any. 4 Paul Solis: I just want to be clear. You haven't had any, or you ... Is it yes or no? 5 Digital Director: No, I haven't had any. They all came from Kelsey and Michelle. 6 Helen Eisner: What did Michelle tell you? 7 8 9 10 Digital Director: When I wanted to divvy up my time and what not, Michelle's the one I went to. Well, I discussed it with Kelsey first and then I went to Michelle to discuss it because obviously since she's the Chief of Staff I wanted to make sure she was okay with it and what not. 11 Helen Eisner: Okay, and what did she say? 12 Digital Director: She thought it was a good idea. 13 14 Helen Eisner: Based on the questions we've asked you here today, is there anything else that you think we should know? 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Digital Director: I don't think so. I want to go back to your question that you had asked about Kelsey being taken off the campaign and whether or not we've had conversations about that. This was mentioned to me very briefly that there was a congressional complaint or whatever you refer it to, but she had said that she can't tell me anything about it or they weren't going into any details at all with anyone, but from those conversations then when I started seeing her, then they hired additional comms staff, I could see that she was being moved back to official and then they were bringing on campaign staff to ... I don't want to say replace her, but so that there's clear standards of campaign related activity and official related activity, if that makes sense. 26 Helen Eisner: Is there anything else you think we should know? 27 Digital Director: I don't think so. Not that I can think of. 28 Helen Eisner: Does anyone have any other questions? 29 Paul Solis: Nope. 30 Helen Eisner: Well thank you for your time. 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