Timothy Newberry

Skip to main content Politics Fact Checker Biden administration Congress Polling Politics The mystery behind a Flynn associate’s quiet work for the Trump campaign Then-national security adviser Michael Flynn and President Trump arrive at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa on Feb. 6, 2017. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images) By Matea GoldMay 4, 2017 Jon Iadonisi, a friend and business associate of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, had two under-the-radar projects underway in the fall of 2016. One of his companies was helping Flynn with an investigative effort for an ally of the Turkish government — details of which Flynn revealed only after he was forced to step down from his White House post. At the same time, Iadonisi was also doing work for the Trump campaign, although his role was not publicly reported, according to people familiar with his involvement. The project Iadonisi was engaged in for Trump’s campaign focused on social media, according to a person with knowledge of the arrangement. What that work consisted of — and why his company was not disclosed as a vendor in campaign finance reports — remains a mystery. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-mystery-behind-a-flynn-associates-quiet-work-for-the-trump-campaign/2017/05/04/fc86980e-3044-11e7-9534-00e4656c22aa_story.html The Trump campaign did not report any payments to Iadonisi or his firms. However, Federal Election Commission reports show that the Trump campaign paid $200,000 on Dec. 5 for “data management services” to Colt Ventures, a Dallas-based venture-capital firm that is an investor in VizSense, a social-media company co-founded by Iadonisi. The Washington Post made repeated inquiries to Iadonisi and other VizSense officials, but none responded to requests for comment. [The fall of Michael Flynn: A timeline] Michael Glassner, executive director of the Trump campaign committee, said invoices show Colt Ventures was paid for a ­social-media project that involved video-content creation and “millennial engagement” in the campaign’s final month. He declined to comment on why the payment went to a venture-capital firm and whether campaign officials were aware of the firm’s connection to VizSense and Iadonisi. It is common for political vendors to hire subcontractors whose work is not publicly reported. However, campaign committees cannot seek to avoid disclosure by paying an entity that does not have a legitimate relationship with the ultimate recipient, said Washington campaign-finance lawyer Daniel Petalas, who served as the FEC’s acting general counsel and head of enforcement. “A venture-capital company is certainly a strange entity for a campaign to be making an expenditure to, and I would want to look further to assess whether it was it an appropriate recipient,” he said. Colt Ventures was founded by Darren Blanton, a Dallas investor who later served as an adviser to Trump’s transition. Blanton met frequently with Trump strategist Stephen K. Bannon at Trump Tower during the campaign, according to people who saw him there. Colt also sent a report to Bannon about work done for the campaign, according to a person familiar with the matter. It is unclear who approved the contract with Colt Ventures. Bannon declined to comment, but a White House official said Bannon is “not aware of any of these companies or contracts.” Blanton did not respond to requests for comment. However, shortly after the The Post first contacted him, Colt Ventures updated an online list of companies that make up its investment portfolio and added VizSense. VizSense, based in Plano, Tex., promises on its website to “weaponize your brand’s influence” through “military-grade influencer marketing and intelligence services.” Iadonisi, a former Navy SEAL, started the company in 2015 with Tim Newberry, a nuclear engineer who served as a submarine officer. It was spun out of the duo’s consulting firm, White Canvas Group, which they once described as a “a privatized DARPA,” a reference to the Pentagon’s research arm.