Pro-Trump commentators Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson — better known as Diamond and Silk — testified to Congress on Thursday they’d never been paid by the president — but campaign filings prove otherwise.
A $1,274 payment to Diamond and Silk for “field consulting” appears on a Federal Election Commission filing for President Trump, as The Hill’s Will Sommer quickly pointed out.
Diamond and Silk are claiming in their House hearing right now that they've never been paid by the Trump campaign. But the Trump campaign FEC filing disagrees! https://t.co/Fu6VrmXm66 pic.twitter.com/S2iJI3IX8I
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) April 26, 2018
But when pressed on their claim they’d never been paid by the president, the sisters insisted the payment was strictly to cover airline expenses.
“We are familiar with that particular lie, we can see that you do look at fake news,” said Silk. “We’ve never been paid by the Trump campaign,” added Diamond.
The sisters have made a name for themselves as outspoken fans of Trump before and after his 2016 election win, racking up more than 1.5 million Facebook followers in the process. Their testimony to the House Judiciary Committee at times mirrored their passionate videos, which routinely pull in several hundred thousand views.
Diamond and Silk were in Washington, D.C. to weigh in on censorship in social media.
“Facebook along with other social media sites have taken aggressive actions to silence conservative voices such as ourselves by deliberately restricting and weaponizing our page with algorithms that censored and suppress our free speech,” said the sisters in their prepared remarks.
But the issue of whether or not they were paid by President Trump flared up more than once. Hakeem Jeffries, a Democratic representative from New York, asked Diamond and Silk if they were aware they were subject to perjury. Jeffries then pushed the duo on the president’s supposed recommendation they make money off of their support for his campaign.
“He urged us to monetize our platform,” said Diamond. “You as an African-American are not going to make us feel guilty because we are going to get out here and take advantage of these platforms and monetize just like everybody else does.”
You can watch the full House hearing below: