Mitch McConnell campaign hires Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann as grassroots director

The reelection campaign of Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell announced on Friday that it had hired as a grassroots director Nicholas Sandmann, the Kentucky teen who was catapulted into national prominence last year due to an incident at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. 

Sandmann was among the teen students from Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, KY, who in January of 2019 were videotaped in what initially appeared to be an aggressive confrontation of an elderly Native American man, Nathan Phillips, at the Lincoln Memorial.

Footage of the incident—in which many students were wearing Make America Great Again hats—spread widely over social media and news outlets, leading to national outrage, death threats against the students, and condemnatory statements from both the school and the Roman Catholic diocese that oversees it. 

Full footage of the incident eventually revealed that, contrary to earlier reports, the teens had not instigated the confrontation with Phillips, with the students' diocese subsequently exonerating them of any wrongdoing. Sandmann would eventually go on to obtain settlements in defamation lawsuits against both CNN and the Washington Post. 

McConnell Campaign Manager Kevin Golden said on Friday that the campaign was "excited to have Nicholas on Team Mitch."

“Along with our already strong team, his efforts to bring people together all across Kentucky will be critical to Senator McConnell’s victory this November," Golden said. 

Sandmann spoke at the Republican National Convention earlier this week, slamming the media for what he said was a politically motivated attack against him. 

He urged the country to vote for Donald Trump in November, styling him as "a president who calls the media out and refuses to allow them to create a narrative instead of reporting the facts."