Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign-in-waiting is now leaking reporter inquiries to other media outlets as Breitbart News pursued questions on the dual citizenship of new communications staffer Liz Mair.
Mair, a supporter of open borders immigration, amnesty for illegal aliens and the Senate “Gang of Eight” bill from last Congress, has dual citizenship in both the United States and the United Kingdom. It doesn’t appear she was born with dual citizenship, meaning she seems to have sought out dual citizenship as an adult in another country after living most of her life as a U.S. citizen.
“I am a dual US-UK citizen, and the NHS [National Health Service in the UK] was my primary source of health care for many, many years,” Mair wrote in a blog post where she, in part, criticized ObamaCare and other government-run healthcare programs. “One of the reasons I returned to the US was to get into a better health care system than the NHS. The NHS provides universal, fairly crappy care for free for many people, and at a higher cost than (IMO) is warranted for a number of people who don’t use it much, but pay for it through their taxes. Sorry to disappoint.”
On another part of her website, she notes she was “born and raised” in the U.S. and got a graduate degree in the U.K.
“Liz was born and raised in Seattle, Washington, and lived in the United Kingdom for ten years,” her bio on the website reads. “There, she earned an MA in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews and attended law school, ultimately practicing corporate law in the City of London for three years. Liz also holds a certificate in Political and Social Sciences from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.”
Breitbart News had asked Mair a pair of questions about her decision to attain dual citizenship. “1.) When did you get UK citizenship? What were the circumstances under which you obtained dual citizenship? You weren’t born with dual citizenship right?” And: “2.) Why wasn’t US citizenship good enough? Why did you seek out dual citizenship in the first place?”
Since Mair hasn’t answered the questions—and has since refused to—it’s unclear whether she was born with dual citizenship or whether she sought it out as an adult after she moved to the U.K. later in life. This could complicate her situation with the Walker campaign, especially after scrutiny of her disdain for Iowans—which was exposed by the Des Moines Register on Monday—or her support of abortion, amnesty for illegal aliens and gay marriage already has.
To make matters worse for the Walker campaign, Mair actually leaked the inquiry this reporter sent to her to another media outlet—an action that’s viewed as widely inappropriate and unacceptable for any campaign or communications professional.
That email seeking comment was sent to Mair at 10:34 a.m. ET on Tuesday.
At 10:49 a.m., Bloomberg Politics reporter Dave Weigel reached out to this reporter with an email headlined: “Are you writing about Mair’s dual citizenship?”
“This is what I am hearing,” Weigel wrote in the body of the email. “She’s been a very public person, and I don’t think she’s ever concealed that.”
Weigel’s right that she has been public and forthcoming about being a dual citizen—it’s on her website. That doesn’t mean it’s not a story in connection with her hiring by Walker, and since Walker is very seriously considering running for president every action he takes and every person he hires is going to come under scrutiny—especially since Walker is neck-and-neck in the polls with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
George Rasley of Richard Viguerie’s ConservativeHQ wrote on Tuesday that Walker “has just put conservative support for his rising presidential campaign in jeopardy” by hiring Mair.
“Governor Walker is new to national politics, but conservatives got the message loud and clear that Scott Walker may not be one of us, or at least that the inside-the-Beltway political class has already infiltrated his allegedly populist campaign, when he hired Liz Mair, who has made a point of attacking conservative Republicans at every opportunity, for a senior position in his campaign,” Rasley wrote.
What’s more, Mair has even tweeted in recent weeks and months—before she was hired for the Walker Our American Revival PAC, his campaign in waiting—about how politically toxic this topic really is for her.
“I am Scottish-American. But that’s also one of many reasons why I’d get my ass kicked if I ever ran for anything,” Mair wrote on Twitter on Feb. 26.
Since this reporter hadn’t sent a separate and distinct inquiry to Walker’s communications director and press secretary, Kirsten Kukowski and AshLee Strong respectively, until 10:54 a.m., the only person who could have leaked the inquiry to Weigel was Mair herself.
When confronted about the fact that she’s leaking reporter emails, Mair threatened to never read or respond to any emails from this reporter again.
“This will be the last email from you I will read or reply to,” Mair wrote back when asked why she leaked the inquiry about her dual citizenship to Weigel—and potentially others.
Kukowski and Strong haven’t responded when asked if they view leaking reporter inquiry emails as acceptable behavior and something they—as Walker campaign communications staffers who have both had a long history in political communications for major Republican figures—would personally approve of or engage in as a tactic.
Kukowski worked for Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus for years, and Strong similarly worked for Sen. John Thune (R-SD) for years. Both have been responsible Republican communications staffers for quite some time, and it’s extraordinarily curious that at this time they are standing by someone on their team that engages in the widely-considered-to-be-unacceptable tactic of leaking.
The real story behind Mair here, however, is where Walker really stands on immigration.
For the second straight day, Walker’s staff is refusing to answer basic questions about where the governor stands when it comes to several detailed areas of immigration policy. He said a few weeks ago that he “changed” on immigration, but he thus far hasn’t laid out his policy viewpoints. As nationally syndicated Iowa-based radio host Steve Deave noted in an interview with Breitbart News on Tuesday, the first move he made on immigration after saying he “changed” from his previous amnesty support is hiring the open borders advocate Mair.
Walker’s staffers Kukowski and Strong haven’t answered whether Walker thinks there should be any increase in H1B visas to bring in cheap foreign high tech labor—or any other legal immigration increase—while American workers are struggling. They also haven’t answered whether Walker thinks Republicans should trust the Chamber of Commerce, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s lobbying outfit FWD.us, Sheldon Adelson, Bill Gates, or other open borders advocates when it comes to immigration policy, and they haven’t laid out, when asked, what type of immigration policy other than a secured border—which even the Democrats say they support—that Walker would support.
If Walker’s going to make a bid for the White House—all the liberal media bashing of him aside—he’s going to have to have well thought positions on these issues rather than just rhetoric. Team Walker is refusing to answer those questions and more, and won’t let the governor do interviews about immigration policy. Moreover, if Walker wants to beat Bush–and then eventually Hillary Clinton or whatever Democrat wins their nomination if he wins the GOP nod–he needs to have a distinct policy on immigration that’s different from them. At this time, he has no such policy–or at least he clearly can’t articulate it since his staff is refusing any interviews on the matter.
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