Republicans urged to return donations from Steve Wynn following misconduct allegations

(Image credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

published 27 January 2018

The Republican National Committee and GOP candidates are being urged to return or donate campaign donations from Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas casino mogul accused Friday of a "decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct." Wynn serves as RNC finance chair and has contributed to Republican contenders including Sens. Dean Heller (Nev.), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Marco Rubio (Fla.), and Tim Scott (S.C.), as well as Reps. Greg Gianforte (Mont.) and Karen Handel (Ga.).

Wynn also supported Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016, but that has not stopped Democrats from seizing the opportunity to brand the GOP as the party of misogyny.

Wynn has been compared to film producer Harvey Weinstein, whose backing of Democrats the RNC highlighted after he was accused of grave sexual misconduct and assault this past fall. Many Democratic recipients of Weinstein's support quickly sought to sever the financial tie. Democratic Sens. Patrick Leahy (Vt.), Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), and Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) all donated to charity amounts equal to the donations they received from Weinstein.

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Wynn has denied all the allegations against him, labeling them "preposterous."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.