Ex-Kanye West Campaigner Funnels Thousands To Hawaiʻi Candidates

For weeks leading up to this year’s elections, listeners of radio stations such as 102.7 Da Bomb have heard ads promoting Honolulu City Council candidate Trevor Ozawa followed by a disclosure: The advertisements were supported by an “America First” themed group. 

A Civil Beat review of public records show the ads were purchased by a new local political action committee called Hoʻoulu Hawaiʻi. With more than $55,000 in reported receipts as of late September, the organization is largely supported by a West Virginia-based business called TAB America First Action Fund Inc. A website for a super PAC by the similar name — TAB America First — promotes conservative values, including parental rights and border control. 

Public records show the TAB America First business and the PAC are run by the same person: Patrick Krason of West Virginia, a political operative who was campaign treasurer for rapper and former presidential candidate Ye, better known as Kanye West. 

“Our citizens, our neighborhoods, our national identity come before any foreign interest or global agenda,” the PAC website states.

Exactly what stake this group has in a nonpartisan Honolulu City Council race is unclear. Ozawa, an attorney and former council member, is decidedly not a Republican. He appeared at this year’s Democrat Unity Breakfast and said in a text that he is a Democrat. He is running against first-time candidate Tara Malia Gregory to represent East Honolulu.

Hoʻoulu reported spending over $4,000 on more than 40 Da Bomb radio spots for Ozawa in late September, according to state campaign spending records and Federal Communications Commission disclosures. 

And it spent another nearly $10,000 on Ozawa radio spots leading up to the primary in July and August, broadcast contracts filed with the FCC show. Those expenses are not reflected in state campaign finance disclosures.  

Reached by phone, Krason declined to explain his interest in local Hawaiʻi candidates.

“I’d love to answer,” he said, “but just by practice, I don’t talk to the press.”

In addition to supporting Ozawa, the PAC bought more than $20,000 in ads ahead of the primary election to support a House candidate named Bulla Eastman, who lost to Rep. Adrian Tam. And it reporting donating $2,000 to Maui Mayor Richard Bissen’s reelection campaign, though Bissen's campaign team denied receiving the funds. 

The candidates said they didn't know anything about the PAC and had not heard the radio advertisements. 

“I don’t think a PAC is needed in this race at all,” Ozawa said.

PACs are not allowed to coordinate with candidates, and are supposed to submit electioneering communications when they spend over $2,000 to support or oppose candidates within 30 days of the primary election or 60 days of the general election. The radio expenditures Hoʻoulu reported within those time periods exceed that threshold, but the group did not file any electioneering communications, according to the Hawaiʻi Campaign Spending Commission. 

Krason did file an electioneering report in July, however, for a different Hawaiʻi PAC he chairs called Patriot Action, which reported spending $30,000 on radio spots to support Eastman. Patriot Action is also funded by Krason’s West Virginia based company TAB America First Action Fund Inc.

The Hawaiʻi Campaign Spending Commission doesn't know whether the radio ads for Ozawa trigger the requirement to file an electioneering communication, General Counsel Eunice Park said in an email, because it doesn't have a copy of the ad. Park said the Commission can request it from the PAC, and that it's currently reviewing the matter and will take appropriate action.

Civil Beat was unable to determine the content of the radio ads themselves. Pacific Media Group -- which owns the stations -- declined share the audio files, even though they’d already aired publicly on numerous occasions. Director of Sales Kamu Kanekoa cited an internal company policy. The PAC too declined to share copies of its ads, and the candidates were not aware of their content. 

History Of Supporting Conservatives

Hoʻoulu Hawaiʻi PAC has a Kailua address and is chaired by Hawaiʻi-based entrepreneur and security professional Blaise-Evans Heneralau, who contributed $17,000 to the PAC, according to campaign finance disclosures. 

Heneralau has not been known to be active in local campaign politics, according to a search of public records. He has not donated to Hawaiʻi candidates or federal candidates as an individual, at least not in the past decade. Heneralau did not respond to a voicemail, email and text message asking for comment. 

The phone number listed for Heneralau in the PAC’s filing leads to a political consulting firm based in West Virginia called Trusted Government Affairs, Communications, Advocacy, and Compliance Inc. (TGACAC). 

TGACAC’s website says it helps “Republican, Conservative, Libertarian, and Right-Leaning” political candidates and entities such as PACs and nonprofits. 

That firm is also run by Krason, who has been listed as treasurer for other conservative political efforts around the country, supporting candidates such as Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Utah Republican activist Mary Burkett as she ran for Congress. He has a super PAC that supported the failed Florida congressional candidate Daniel Bilzerian, whose Instagram account showcases a wealthy playboy lifestyle to his almost 30 million followers.

Krason resigned from his post as treasurer of Ye’s 2020 presidential campaign citing concerns the campaign may have broken campaign finance law.

Krason is listed as the treasurer and custodian of books and records for Hoʻoulu Hawaiʻi PAC. His firm received over $3,000 in “compliance fees” from the PAC at the end of July, according to the PAC’s financial disclosure. He is listed as the person in charge of the business that gave the money to Hoʻoulu. 

Candidates Are Puzzled

Krason tends to support Republican and conservative candidates, but the candidates he’s helping in Hawaiʻi don’t exactly fit that mold. 

Bissen and Ozawa are running for nonpartisan offices at the county level. Ozawa said in an interview that he doesn’t consider himself right-wing, and that he had no clue why Krason or Heneralau would buy ads for him.

“I don’t even know any of these people that you’re talking about,” he said. 

Eastman said the same thing. He heard there were radio advertisements focused on him, he said, but he didn’t even know at first whether they were good or bad. He said he wasn’t bothered by their existence as long as he didn’t get in trouble with the Campaign Spending Commission. 

“I didn’t investigate or anything,” he said. “I asked my finance guy, and he said that he didn’t have any information.”

That may be par for the course. According to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Krason started his PAC supporting Sanders for governor of Arkansas three years before that election and without her knowledge. He had never even been to Arkansas, the Gazette reported, and he turned to social media to find someone based in that state to run the PAC. 

“It took us two months to find the right person in Arkansas,” Krason told the Gazette. 

In an email, Bissen’s campaign team said he and his campaign have no relationship with the PAC, and denied even receiving a contribution from it. His financial disclosure does not include a contribution from the PAC.

Krason's decision to support Ozawa and reportedly support Bissen left University of Hawaiʻi political science professor Colin Moore with questions.

"They're not radical leftists," Moore said, "but they're also not conservatives. They're fairly centrist figures. So who knows?"

Of the three candidates, Eastman appears to be the most politically aligned with Krason.

He said he ran as a conservative Democrat when he challenged Rep. Tam for his Waikīkī House district seat, and he also spoke at a small talk story event last Friday evening for Gregory, Ozawa’s conservative opponent. Gregory was one of three options the Republican Party put forward to replace Rep. Gene Ward when he died last year. 

“It is strange, though,” Eastman said. “But you know, when you look at the political process as a whole, the whole process is strange.”