PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mehmet Oz has done several events billed as “community roundtables” on public safety, but it turns out at least one participant was not solely a community member.
The host of one Philadelphia event in September was actually a paid campaign staffer, something the campaign never disclosed.
When I first saw Sheila Armstrong, she was trying to disperse protestors outside the event in Germantown where Dr. Oz was due to appear.
Inside, I asked her name and she said she was the host of the event and active in the community, so in my story, I described her as a community activist.
I also quoted her emotional discussion with Oz about her nephew, who was shot to death by another teenager.
Related
“We’ve got babies killing babies,” Armstrong said through tears at the roundtable discussion.
“I am angry and I’m fed up with the system, the system that’s playing politics with the lives of us that live in these communities … I’m sorry.”
“Can we get a kleenex over here? Oz asked. “You know what gives me confidence is talking to people like you.”
What the campaign did not disclose was that Armstrong was also being paid by the campaign, has a campaign email address and a business card identifying her as the campaign’s Philadelphia County coordinator.
That information came out this week after the Associated Press wrote about the event and Democrat John Fetterman’s campaign complained.
Fetterman’s campaign manager posted a picture of her business card, identifying her as Oz campaign Philadelphia County coordinator, and a campaign expense report showing payments to her.
This came to my attention after a reporter for The Intercept sent me a query on social media, asking whether the Oz campaign had made it clear to me that Armstrong was a on its staff.
When I asked the Oz campaign about not disclosing Armstrong’s job, a spokesperson sent a statement, attacking the Fetterman campaign’s complaint as playing into “tired tropes about Black women not being able to think for themselves.”
The campaign had no response as to why they did not identify her at the event.