Bill Stepien Testified He ‘Stepped Away’ After Trump’s Election Lies, But He’s Still Raking in Cash from His Campaign and PAC Every Month

Photo credit: Saul Loeb, AFP via Getty Images.

Bill Stepien testified that he felt he had to step away from Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign after the former president kept pushing baseless claims of election fraud, but a new report shows he has continued to rake in the cash from both the campaign and Trump’s Save America PAC.

Stepien was originally expected to testify live at the Jan. 6 House Select Committee’s second hearing on Monday, but his wife went into labor and the committee played a video clip from his sworn deposition instead. Stepien did not testify voluntarily; he was deposed under a subpoena and another subpoena compelled his appearance at the Monday hearing before he was excused.

Bill Stepien: “I didn’t mind being categorized — there were two groups of them, we called them kinda my team and Rudy’s team — I didn’t mind being categorized as Team Normal.”#January6thHearings pic.twitter.com/Mz2RGXnGNU

— CSPAN (@cspan) June 13, 2022

In the clip, Stepien touted his 25 years of working on political campaigns and self-professed reputation for being “honest and professional.” He criticized Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani who were encouraging Trump to push the Big Lie, categorizing his team as “Team Normal,” as opposed to “Rudy’s team.”

“I didn’t think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional at that point in time,” said Stepien, “so that led to me stepping away.”

A new report by Huffington Post’s S.V. Date and Jennifer Bendery on Tuesday revealed that despite Stepien’s claim to have stepped away from the Trump campaign, he continued to work under highly lucrative contracts for both the campaign and PAC.

Stepien “told the Jan. 6 committee that he quit Donald Trump’s campaign after the 2020 election because he could not go along with his election lies” but “nevertheless continues to coordinate Trump’s political operation, which is built almost entirely on spreading those exact election lies,” wrote Date and Bendery.

The article goes on to detail how Federal Election Commission reports show that National Public Affairs, Stepien’s consulting firm, has been paid at least $10,000 per month from the PAC, totaling $130,000 since last May. He has also been paid $90,562 from Trump’s presidential campaign committee (reconstituted for a potential 2024 run), and “has also collected an additional $1.2 million from an all-star cast of pro-Trump election liars, including $190,488 from Harriet Hageman, who is trying to unseat Wyoming congresswoman and Jan. 6 committee vice-chair Liz Cheney in the August Republican primary.”

That’s $1.4 million for an enterprise from which Stepien claimed he was morally obligated to “step away” after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

And Stepien isn’t just some name on the stationery collecting the sweet, sweet cash while underlings manage the day-to-day operations, but is actively involved in shaping strategy, including participating every single week in an hourlong phone call with other members of Trump’s inner circle, including Dan Scavino, Jason Miller, and Donald Trump Jr., according to HuffPo.

One Trump adviser who requested anonymity scoffed at Stepien’s public attempts to distance himself from Trump World. “He’s trying to tell the world he quit,” the adviser said, but he “has been on every call since Jan. 6. He gets paid every month to do that. … I mean, come on, man.”

Stepien took over as Trump’s campaign manager after Brad Parscale was demoted in July 2020 following the embarrassingly poor attendance at a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Parscale’s personal spending habits had drawn scrutiny and mockery — and Trump’s ire as well.

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