Trump-Backed Senate Hopeful Hit With Fresh Staff Scandal

ANF Several people with prominent roles in a Trump-endorsed Senate candidate’s campaign have criminal histories, including one who pleaded guilty to sexual battery in an incident involving his stepdaughter, the Daily Beast has learned.

Court records the Daily Beast reviewed show that several of Rep.

Mike Collins’s appointed “convoy captains”—grassroots organizers he has credited with his “successful” campaign—have criminal backgrounds, casting doubt on the tough-on-crime stance he has promoted in his campaign to unseat Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.

“Mike will always be tough on crime, and as your next senator, he’ll vote for strong borders, lower taxes, a booming economy in the greatest military anywhere in the world,” President Donald Trump said of Collins last month in a recorded Oval Office endorsement.’ Brett Benny Langham, one of Rep.

Mike Collins’ campaign leaders, pleaded guilty to felony cruelty to children, sexual battery, and family violence simple battery in 2014, according to court documents reviewed by the Daily Beast.

The charges stemmed from an incident involving Langham’s stepdaughter, who was younger than 16.

Langham did not respond to questions from the Daily Beast and was sentenced to 30 days in prison and 10 years of probation.

Langham, who also serves as a district representative for the Richmond County Republican Party, is one of Collins’ “convoy captains”—campaign-appointed leaders tasked with grassroots organizing in their counties.

Joey Jackson, the convoy captain for Jenkins County, was charged last year with cruelty to children and failure to report child abuse after he failed to pull over a school bus while a 7-year-old passenger was beaten by seven other students, according to authorities.

Jackson, then a school bus driver, was subsequently fired, according to a statement from the Bulloch County Sheriff’s Department.

He did not respond to questions from the Daily Beast.

And Gordon Austin, a convoy captain in Carroll County, pleaded guilty in 2009 to six misdemeanor fraud counts, according to court documents.

The court sentenced him to five years of probation, and his dentist’s license was later revoked.

Eventually, Austin, who served as a delegate at the Republican National Convention, was exonerated under Georgia’s First Offender Act, though the court denied his request to seal his case.