Kentucky-based Republican fundraiser Kelly Knight Craft is Donald Trump’s pick for ambassador to Canada, according to multiple reports.
In two donations last year, Knight Craft, of Lexington, Ky., gave a total of US$265,400 to Trump’s campaign. Last July, she gave US$16,600 to the Republican National Committee.
In 2016, she made dozens of contributions to Republican funds and candidates across the U.S., none for less than four figures.
She is listed as “homemaker,” “consultant” or “philanthropist” in U.S. election contribution records.
Last week, the Globe and Mail reported that Knight Craft was a leading candidate for the Ottawa job.
Knight Craft’s husband, Joe Craft, is CEO of Alliance Resource Partners, a major coal company. A building is named after him at the University of Kentucky, where he and Knight Craft both studied.
She was accredited to the UN in 2007 as part of the U.S. delegation by former president George W. Bush, and spoke to the General Assembly about U.S. efforts to fight HIV and malaria in Africa, according to a profile issued by Kentucky’s governor’s office.
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In a 2012 profile, McClatchy called Joe Craft “Kentucky’s most powerful non-elected individual.”
In July of last year, the Crafts hosted a fundraiser for Trump in Lexington, Ky.
Earlier in the year, former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was rumoured as being considered for the Ottawa post.
U.S. administrations of both parties have treated the Ottawa post as a reward for party loyalists.
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Bruce Heyman, the outgoing U.S. ambassador, is a Chicago-based investment banker who had been a major donor to former president Barack Obama’s campaigns. His predecessor, David Jacobson, was also a Democratic fundraiser. Before that, David Wilkins was a lawyer who had chaired the Bush-Cheney campaign in South Carolina in 2004.
Former governors of northern states and career diplomats have also been appointed in the past.
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