Report: Rep. Don Bacon’s office used influence to fast-track visa for Trump Media employee
A former Bacon aide said she was told to ‘deal with it,’ according to ProPublica.
Republican Rep. Don Bacon’s office used its influence to help fast-track a visa for a Macedonian man to come to the United States to work for former President Donald Trump’s media company, according to a report from ProPublica, a nonprofit news organization that investigates abuses of power.
A former Bacon aide told ProPublica that she was pressured to intervene in the case on behalf of Trump Media despite her misgivings about mixing politics with performing otherwise routine constituent services.
“I specifically did not want to do this,” Makenzie Cartwright, Bacon’s former director of special projects, told ProPublica. “It was specifically the congressman that suggested I needed to deal with it.”
According to the ProPublica report, a Trump Media executive reached out to Bacon’s office after the visa process got bogged down. Vladimir Novachki, a software developer and resident of North Macedonia, had been approved for a visa, but final approval was being delayed by a backlog of cases at the American embassy.
After Bacon voted in favor of President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill in November 2021, Trump mused about endorsing a Republican challenger in Bacon’s district.
“Anyone want to run for Congress against Don Bacon in Nebraska?” Trump asked in a January 2022 statement.
That same month, Bacon’s office intervened to help fix the visa issue for Trump’s company, according to ProPublica. Novachki was eventually named Trump Media’s chief technology officer and moved to Florida.
“Thank you so much for your help on making sure we push this forward,” Trump Media’s chief operating officer told another Bacon staffer in a January 2022 email, according to ProPublica. “I will make sure to thank the congressman as well!”
Bacon’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment from the Nebraska Independent. He told Omaha television station KETV that “we had a constituent ask for a visa, and this constituent works for the Trump organization and we treated it like every other request we always get. If you’re a constituent and you ask for a visa, we put a check into the administration and say, ‘What’s the status?’ We do this hundreds and hundreds of times. We did nothing more and nothing less than the standard request and … so this is a nothing burger.”
Mallory Payne, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an email to the Nebraska Independent that the report shows Bacon will not hesitate to do Trump’s bidding.
“When Trump needed a special favor, he knew Don Bacon would fall in line,” Payne said. “Bacon will never have the backbone to stand up to Trump because he’s so desperate to keep his seat in Washington.”
Bacon, who is seeking a fifth term representing the Omaha area in the U.S. House of Representatives, is in a tight race against Democratic state Sen. Tony Vargas.
The University of Virginia’s Center for Politics rates the Vargas-Bacon race a toss-up.
A recent survey by conservative pollster Remington Research Group showed Vargas narrowly trailing Bacon 46%-44%.
Vargas lost to Bacon in 2022 by fewer than 3 percentage points.
