Trump Victory, a joint effort by the president’s 2020 re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee, recently hired a senior campaign operative who appears to have been previously ensnared in a conspiracy to commit a felony, Texas Signal has learned.
This year, Oklahoma-based Stephanie Alexander, a seasoned Oklahoma Republican political consultant, was hired as the regional political director for Texas and the Midwest, according to a Trump Victory news release and reports in the Dallas Morning News and Wall Street Journal.
In 2016, court records show that a Stephanie Dawn Milligan was indicted on illegal campaign finance activities, and a few months later, remarried and began using the last name of Alexander.
Alexander’s personal Facebook and Twitter, corroborating news accounts, and mugshot following her arrest appear to show that Alexander and Milligan are the same person.
In 2014, the Oklahoma County District Attorney began investigating alleged campaign finance crimes by a Republican candidate for Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Joy Hofmeister. According to court documents, the DA found a “conspiracy to commit campaign finance violations and illegal coordination” by Milligan and three others, including Hofmeister herself.
The affidavit reads:
“Between April, 2013 and November, 2014 the crime of conspiracy to commit a felony in violation of Title 21 Section 421 of the Oklahoma Statutes was knowingly and willfully committed in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma by Joy Lynn Hofmeister, Robert Fount Holland, Stephanie Dawn Milligan, Steven Crawford and Lela Odom, who, acting conjointly and in concert with one another, entered into an agreement among themselves or became parties to said agreement…to knowingly solicit and accept monetary or in-kind contributions to Joy Hofmeister, a candidate for superintendent of public instruction in excess of the maximum amounts provided by law.”
On Oklahoma’s FOX 25, the station reported that “the defendants worked together to use Oklahomans for Public School Excellence to exceed campaign donation limits and accept corporation donations in violation of Oklahoma law and that they operated the Super PAC outside the guidelines…while hiding their actions as an Independent Expenditure.”
The alleged conspirators used the funds to pay for an attack ad against Hofmeister’s opponent at the time.
The two-year investigation began after Chad Alexander, whom Stephanie Milligan married in late 2016, was arrested on charges of possessing cocaine and pills. The arrest resulted in his computer and cellphone being seized by authorities. From there, investigators found a trove of communication between Hofmeister’s campaign, Milligan, and others that suggested an illegal campaign coordination, per court records.
The campaign finance charges were dismissed in 2017 “pending further investigation” for reasons unknown, according to Oklahoma Watch.
Emails and direct messages to Alexander, the Trump campaign and the RNC went unanswered.
Milligan worked as the battleground states director for the 2016 Trump campaign and before that as the Oklahoma and Arkansas State Director and Midwest Political Director for his campaign, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Photo: Oklahoma County Jail
Fernando covers Texas politics and government at the Texas Signal. Before joining the Signal, Fernando spent two years at the Houston Chronicle and previously interned at Houston’s NPR station News 88.7. He is a graduate of the University of Houston, Jack J. Valenti School of Communication, and enjoys reading, highlighting things, and arguing on social media. You can follow him on Twitter at @fernramirez93 or email at fernando@texassignal.com
