Kanye West 2020 treasurer resigns amid accusation that Milo Yiannopoulos broke federal campaign laws

The former treasurer of rapper Kanye West’s unsuccessful but still legally extant 2020 presidential campaign resigned on Monday, accusing right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannpopolus of committing potential campaign finance violations while working on the rapper’s White House bid last year.

Patrick Krason, the campaign’s former treasurer, alleged in a pair of letters to the Federal Election Commission that Mr Yiannopoulos “submitted falsified invoices for expenditures that would be deemed unlawful” and committed a “potentially serious criminal transaction,” according to the documents, which were obtained by Politico.

While working for the West campaign, Mr Yiannopoulos was paid nearly $10,000 in November for the “domain transfer” of a potential Kanye 2024 website, a purchase which he made using a credit card belonging to the campaign of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, in whose office Mr Yiannopoulos previously served as an intern, according to federal election filings reviewed by The Daily Beast.

The Greene campaign reported an expenditure on a web hosting site the same day worth $7,020, according to the filings.

Mr Yiannopoulos has denied any wrongdoing on behalf of either campaign, telling The Daily Beast a “junior staffer” working for him used the wrong credit card to make the purchase.

“The truth is a junior staffer made an error with the stored credit cards on a third-party vendor GoDaddy account, picking the one ending 2032 instead of 2002,” he said in a statement to the outlet. “The accident was quickly rectified and the correct card charged. I have apologized privately to Marjorie for the mixup.”

“Congresswoman Greene knew nothing about the gross negligence made by a vendor and is being unfairly attacked as a result,” Marjorie Taylor Greene’s office told The Independent in an email statement. “The campaign was told the purchase was refunded. This wasn’t the case and the clerical error will be corrected on the disclosure report covering the time period where the refund is attributed.”

In November, West said he had plans to run for president in 2024, though he hasn’t formally filed paperwork declaring his candidacy.

The rapper has been largely quiet since the end of 2022, in which he made a series of highly antisemitic remarks and was dropped by major partners like Adidas.

Mr Yiannopoulos was previously fired from the West campaign following the rapper’s infamous Mar-a-Lago dinner with Donald Trump and a Holocaust denier, but was rehired last week to serve as the campaign’s political director.

Last month, a documentary filmmaker who had previously worked with West said the rapper and fashion designer wasn’t showing very much interest in his previously announced 2024 campaign for president.

“I just want to be left alone,” the filmmaker reported the rapper as saying.