New Trump Adviser Being Sued for Hiring White Men to Attack Black People

President-elect Donald Trump’s newest White House adviser runs a real-estate company currently being sued by African-Americans who accuse it of racial discrimination and hiring white men to physically attack and eject them.

On Wednesday, Trump tapped Reed Cordish as assistant to the president for Intergovernmental and Technology Initiatives. Cordish is an executive of the Cordish Companies, his family’s Baltimore, Maryland-based real-estate business, and the president of Entertainment Concepts Investors, a subsidiary that owns and manages bars, restaurants, and clubs throughout the country.

ECI’s largest holdings are in Kansas City, Missouri, where Cordish partnered with Trump’s son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner on a building in the city’s “Power and Light District.”

But the Power and Light District, a half-million square-foot shopping and entertainment center downtown, has a dark reputation among the city’s black community. Two separate lawsuits against the Cordish Companies say the area is commonly called the “Power and White District” for its owner’s alleged record of racial discrimination.

In 2014, Dante Combs and Adam Williams sued as the lead plaintiffs in a $5 million class-action racial discrimination case. Cordish’s business won an initial ruling in a federal district court, but Combs and Williams are currently appealing the decision.

The two plaintiffs say they were unfairly beat and harassed by white men employed by the Cordish company to “lighten up” its clubs as part of a long-running campaign to keep away black people.

Cordish’s hiring is the latest Trump pick with an alleged racist past. Attorney general nominee Senator Jeff Sessions was famously rejected for a federal judgeship in 1986, after a bipartisan congressional body found his remarks on race to be disqualifying for the role. Trump’s “chief strategist” Steve Bannon helped mainstream a new racist rhetoric at the helm of the far-right website Breitbart, and allegedly made disparaging comments about Jewish children.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment. A Cordish Companies spokesperson declined to respond to these specific allegations when reached by The Daily Beast, providing only a statement from Cordish.

“It is a true honor for me to be appointed as an Assistant to the President. The core foundation of The Cordish Companies was built upon an ethos of public service and a commitment to transforming American cities across the country. Accepting this position is in keeping with those values and I am proud to serve our country in this capacity,” Cordish said in a statement.

Yet Christina Martinez, a former floor manager at the Cordish-owned Tengo club, testified that “Reed Cordish’s code words for blacks was ‘urbans’ or ‘Canadians.’” Martinez added other employees were encouraged to use code words to single out African-Americans for exclusion.

Jake Miller, the vice president of the Cordish Company’s entertainment group, ECI, “did not want any African-Americans” in the club either, according to Martinez.

Martinez said she even heard Miller pick up a DJ’s microphone at the club and demand, “Get that fucking n**ger music off here.”

William Whitlock, a black former Cordish employee, testified that Miller personally threatened him after seeing black people in his club.

“He made the comment that if he ever saw this many n**gers in the building again, he would chain the doors and burn it down with me inside,” Whitlock said. “He was embarrassed and horrified to see what we had done to his club.”

One way Cordish’s company would allegedly scare African-Americans away was to hire a “rabbit,” Martinez said.

“A ‘rabbit’ was a white kid who got free drinks to go around the District, do whatever he wanted, so long as he singled out blacks and started confrontations with them,” Martinez said.

One “rabbit” even testified to the scheme.

Thomas Alexitch said in a sworn affidavit that he was hired to work as an instigator at the Cordish-owned Mosaic club, after supervisors allegedly complained of the club “attracting the wrong kind of crowd.”

Alexitch said his job was to “start altercations with certain groups of people. By starting these altercations, I ensured that these groups of people would be kicked out of the club.”

Superiors allegedly told him which groups to target.

“I would estimate that 90 percent of the people I started altercations with were African Americans,” Alexitch said.

Alexitch said he was given drinks and cash for doing it.

“Most nights I was paid between $50 and $100, but on nights when this would get particularly heated, I would get $125-150,” he testified.

Alexitch said he was hired by Glen Cusimano, a general manager who also testified to witnessing racism at an annual corporate Cordish event.

“At one of the meetings, I and several GM’s from other cities were sitting around a table,” Cusimano said in an affidavit. “Several mentioned that they used a rabbit in their Cordish Districts. I remember one GM bragging that he kept a spray can of mace in his pocket, and from time to time, when it was dark and crowded, he would walk through the open area, and fire a shot up into the air above a group of black males.”

In a separate civil suit from 2009 against a Cordish venue in the District, Ryan Thomas said he was on the receiving end of the violence.

Thomas, who is black, and a friend were wearing jackets when they visited Kansas City Live. Once inside, bouncers allegedly approached and informed them that their jackets were in violation of the dress code.

When Thomas reportedly asked if he and his friend could deposit their jackets at their car and return, a club security officer (who was also a cop) allegedly cuffed him and told him he was under arrest for trespassing.

Thomas was “immediately thrown against a brick wall, taken to the ground, kneed in the back, handcuffed, lifted by his cuffed arms and taken into the security office, where he was held until later released on a signature bond, having been charged with the crime of trespassing.” The charges were later dismissed but afterward Thomas claimed in his complaint that his head, face, and wrist were injured. The case settled in 2013.

In a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Louisville, Kentucky in 2015 that remains open, Shelton McElroy said the club used its dress code to discriminate against him on the basis of race.

McElroy said he was “well within the guidelines of the dress code enforced at Fourth Street Live” when he arrived at the Cordish-owned club. But while McElroy was approved at the door, he “observed the manager make a head movement in [his] direction… while looking at the bouncer,” he alleges in his suit.

Hip-hop music had been playing when McElroy entered the club. Almost immediately upon his entry, “the music abruptly switched to country music,” he alleges. Soon thereafter, the bouncer approached him and allegedly told him his outfit violated the dress code and that his slim-fit pants were “sagging.”

McElroy told The Daily Beast that he was targeted for wearing “a polo and khaki slacks” while “three white men are dancing on top of the bar completely shirtless while the female bartender poured drinks in their mouth.”

A bouncer allegedly tried to wrestle McElroy’s phone from him before hauling him out of the club and flagging down a police officer.

McElroy was booked for second-degree criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct. Police allegedly did not offer bail for his overnight jail stay, making him late to pick up his young daughter the next morning. McElroy said he lost his job as a substance abuse counselor as a result of the arrest.

“We should be talking about whether or not [Cordish] should have to dissolve his business because he’s an outright racist,” McElroy told The Daily Beast. “We shouldn’t be having a conversation about whether or not he should be promoted to working in the White House.”