Joe Kent pushes back on mystery employment issues
Oct 26, 2022, 12:15 PM
Republican Congressional candidate Joe Kent speaks at a campaign event on October 5, 2022 in Morton, Washington. Kent, who has the support of former President Donald Trump and in the primary defeated moderate incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler, who voted for Trump's impeachment, faces Democratic nominee Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in November for the state's 3rd Congressional District seat. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
(Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
Southwest Washington Republican candidate Joe Kent is coming under fire for confusion over his employer, with an article by The Daily Beast stating the company Kent claimed to work for does not exist.
Kent has previously claimed to be a “project manager” for the tech-startup American Enterprise Solutions, but the article stated it could not find any record of the company’s existence.
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“American Enterprise Solutions holds no patents or trademarks, has no licenses, no website, no social media pages, and not a single publicly announced contract with a government agency or a private wireless provider,” the Daily Beast wrote in its piece.
Kent’s campaign told KIRO Newsradio the article was “fraudulent” and that he had been calling his employer by the wrong name. The company is actually Advanced Enterprise Solutions, headquartered in Herndon, Virginia.
Advanced Enterprise Solutions is a tech startup that collects research related to 5G technology, according to Kent’s campaign.
Looking through the Virginia Corporations Commission’s website though, Advanced Enterprise Solutions’ business license lapsed Aug. 31 and is currently pending inactive due to the company not paying its annual registration fee.
The firm hired Kent in 2019, but he said the company switched its name to Advanced Enterprise Solutions shortly after and provided W-2 tax forms proving it.
The press release has also said that Kent’s campaign is amending its income disclosure documents to the House Ethics Committee to more accurately reflect the proper name of the company.
Advanced Enterprise Solution released a statement through their lawyers, Ambrose Partners, about the article.
“Joe Kent is employed by a U.S. company, which does not wish to be identified, only because while their employees are free as individuals to participate in politics, they as a company do not. They fully support his patriotic pursuit of civil service as they do for all citizens regardless of political affiliation. We confirmed Kent’s employment with this company’s outside counsel.”
Kent will face Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in the Nov. 8 general election for the 3rd Congressional District.
