Fresh from settling a massive lawsuit against CNN earlier this year, and another lawsuit against The Washington Post this summer, Covington High School graduate Nick Sandmann has accepted a paid job with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) re-election campaign in Kentucky.
In a tweet late Thursday evening, Sandmann, who is now attending college, revealed he had accepted the position of grassroots director for the McConnell campaign, tweeting that he “finally got to add more to my bio than just my schools.”
Kevin Golden, the campaign manager for McConnell, confirmed the hire in a statement to local news station WYMT on Friday morning, saying: “We’re excited to have Nicholas on Team Mitch. Along with our already strong team, his efforts to bring people together all across Kentucky will be critical to Senator McConnell’s victory this November.”
The Louisville Courier-Journal reports a spokesperson for the McConnell campaign confirmed that Sandmann’s position is paid. On Saturday afternoon, McConnell’s campaign account also tweeted photos of Sandmann knocking on doors on behalf of the Republican senator.
Our Grassroots Director @N1ckSandmann is out knocking doors today with #TeamMitch! #KYSen pic.twitter.com/qua9m7RYrk
— Team Mitch (Text MITCH to 47360) (@Team_Mitch) August 29, 2020
Roughly 18 months after being maligned by the media while just 16 years old, Sandmann appears to be moving slowly more into the public eye, this time on his own terms.
Earlier this week, Sandmann was featured at the Republican National Convention where he gave a speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial—the same place he was filmed in January of 2019 in a moment that changed the trajectory of his life.
“I found myself face-to-face with Nathan Phillips and other professional protesters looking to turn me into the latest poster child showing why Trump is bad,” Sandmann said at the RNC this week. “While the media portrayed me as the aggressor with a ‘relentless smirk’ on my face, in reality, the video confirms I was standing with my hands behind my back and an awkward smile on my face that hid two thoughts. One, don’t do anything that might further agitate the man banging a drum in my face, and two, trying to follow a family friend’s advice never to do anything to embarrass your family, your school, or your community.”
“Before I knew what was happening, it was over,” Sandmann continued, as The Daily Wire previously reported. “One of Mr. Phillips’ fellow agitators yelled out ‘We got him!’, ‘It’s all right here on video’ and ‘We won, Grandpa.’ What I thought was a strange encounter quickly developed into a major news story complete with video footage.”
“My life changed forever in that one moment,” said Sandmann.
“The full war machine of the mainstream media revved up into attack mode. They did so without ever researching the full video of the incident; without ever investigating Mr. Philips’ motives, or without ever asking me for my side of the story. And do you know why? Because the truth wasn’t important. Advancing their anti-Christian, anti-Conservative, anti-Donald Trump narrative was all that mattered,” he said.
