• The four Americans who perished in the Turkana chopper crash were veteran political consultants.
• The American strategists had begun laying out an elaborate campaign game plan for Ruto ahead of 2022.
Image: DPPS
In 2013, he was the campaign manager for Owen Hill, a Republican senator representing Colorado.
Burke, on the other hand, was an entrepreneur who ran two companies based in San Diego - The Bricks Agency, which did creative and branding work for firms, and Campaign Services Group, a political campaign firm.
In its Website, Campaign Services Group boasts of having run three presidential campaigns, over a dozen US Senate campaigns and congressional campaigns “from California to New Hampshire”.
Part of their services includes writing campaign plans, writing voter contact plans and data management.
EXPERIENCED AMERICANS
According to the Daily Mail, Burke was an entrepreneur who ran two companies based in San Diego - The Bricks Agency, which did creative and branding work for firms, and Campaign Services Group, a political campaign firm.
During his time with Campaign Services Group, Asher worked with Tim Donnelly, a former Republican representative, and Brian Jones, who still represents a large part of San Diego county.
Stapper was also an entrepreneur but worked in the design sector, starting a printing company after moving to San Diego from Michigan as a young man.
He founded two other design companies before starting up his own private equity firm called Crown Grown to acquire and improve businesses.
Kyle Forti was a married father-of-one who was originally from Calremont, California, but moved to Colorado where he co-founded a political consulting firm called D/CO.
“We work in partnership with our clients to craft unique, individualised and highly innovative strategies that are creative, aggressive, responsive and effective,” the website states.
Apart from being a political campaign mogul, Burke had interests in entrepreneurship and is said to have been trying to establish a lodge in Kenya that would cater to entrepreneurs.
He is said to have purchased a lodge months ago and was hoping to develop it into a vacation destination.
Yesterday, Ruto’s office distanced itself from the four Americans.
“Staff who work for the DP are known and are based in his office,” Ruto’s Communication Secretary David Mugonyi told the Star.
The US Embassy in Nairobi declined to comment on what the four were doing in Kenya.
“Out of respect for the families, we have no further comment,” the embassy said in response to the Star's inquiries on what the Americans were doing in Kenya and how long was their stay.
“We refer you to the Kenyan authorities,” the embassy added when asked if they were involved in the ongoing investigation to ascertain what could have brought down the helicopter.
In 2013 and 2017 Uhuru used Cambridge Analytica, a US data mining company accused globally of manipulating elections.
One of its executives was taped saying that they ran “just about every element” of Uhuru’s campaign in 2013 and 2017.
“We have rebranded the entire party twice, written their manifesto, done two rounds of 50,000 (participant) surveys,” Mark Turnbull, MD of Cambridge Analytica, was covertly filmed as saying by UK broadcaster Channel 4.
“Then we’d write all the speeches and we’d stage the whole thing - so just about every element of his campaign,” Turnbull added.
Ironically, in 2013, a Romanian citizen then working for Cambridge Analytica mysteriously died in a hotel in Nairobi.
Renowned Nairobi-based pollster Tom Wolf said one of the reasons Kenyan political figures prefer foreign consultants is because of confidentiality.
“One advantage is that there is less anxiety about foreigners being ‘disloyal’. When you are hiring one, you get guarantees that all they learn will be kept confidential. That might be hard locally since the homegrown experts have their relatives and friends who they can easily talk to, in contrast with foreigners who are easy to keep in a bubble,” he told the Star.
Opposition chief Raila Odinga has also used foreign firms to boost his presidential campaigns.
In 2017, Raila hired a political consulting firm, Aristototle Inc, but its directors were hurriedly deported by Jubilee mandarins, in what is believed to have scuttled the ODM leaders' parallel tallying plans.
The four Americans who perished in the Turkana chopper crash were veteran political consultants alleged to have been flown to Kenya to begin setting up Deputy President William Ruto’s 2022 presidential campaign.
The four, alongside pilot Mario Magonga who frequently flew the DP, died near Lobolo in Central Island National Park, Turkana, at dusk, on March 3.
Sources within the police yesterday told the Star that the American strategists had begun laying out an elaborate campaign game plan for Ruto.
The strategy mirrors President Uhuru Kenyatta’s robust State House drives in 2013 and 2017 that were steered by foreign firms and individuals.
The revelations were the clearest signal that Ruto plans to stop at nothing or let anything get in his way - and he's willing to spend the top dollar - to succeed Uhuru despite aggressive schemes by his opponents to scuttle his bid.
Uhuru has frequently and without success tried to dissuade his DP and his allies to go slow on early 2022 campaigns and focus instead on development.
These pleas appear to have fallen on deaf of unreceptive ears as Ruto continues with his campaign express across the country.
“We have so far established that some of the victims of the crash were working for the DP. However, the circumstances under which the chopper crashed are under investigations,” a senior officer familiar with the probe told the Star.
The four US nationals were Kyle John Forti, Anders Jesiah Burke, Brandon Hower Stapper and David Mark Baker.
Forti is described as one of Colorado’s premier Republican campaign managers and strategists.
In a clear demonstration of his political influence in the US, the Colorado Senate observed a moment of silence for his death, with some describing him as a "prolific figure in Colorado Republican politics”.
Forti had worked as a political consultant for high-profile US politicians, and was the founder and partner in the consulting firm known as D/CO that specialises in, among other things, the creation of “emotionally engaging content”.
“D/CO helps clients leverage influence and direct conversation in the corporate and political space. We’ve worked with Fortune 100 companies, US Senators, nonprofits, and international public relations firms to influence public opinion through targeted data-driven communications, coalition development, and the creation of emotionally engaging content,” part of Forti's profile on Linkedin states.