NC Trump supporter said NHL pushed to have him fired. NHL said it’s never heard of him
A North Carolina man said his support for President Donald Trump cost him his job at a private airline company working charter flights for the Carolina Hurricanes. But the NHL, who he said pushed to have him ousted, said the league had never heard of him.
In an interview Wednesday with The News & Observer, Dawson Buchanan, 20, said his opportunity to work for Private Jet Services as the Hurricanes’ travel concierge ended early this week because of his past work with Trump’s presidential campaign and his support for the president.
Buchanan, a Crossnore, N.C., native who lives in the Washington, D.C., area, said he was packing his bags Monday for the trip to Raleigh when told by PJS he was being fired.
“Then the owner called (Tuesday) morning and explained further the reason they had to let me go was the National Hockey League and some other clients apparently found out I worked for Trump and worked on the Trump campaign,” Buchanan said. “They said because I worked for Trump, the National Hockey League and other folks threatened to cancel their contracts, so PJS had to let me go.”
Greg Raiff, PJS chief executive officer, said Wednesday the company would not comment on Buchanan’s claims, which were first made Tuesday night on Twitter in a string of 11 tweets.
John Dellapina, a spokesman for the NHL, said Wednesday that the league emphatically denies Buchanan’s comments.
“It’s categorically untrue,” Dellapina said. “We have no relationship with Mr. Buchanan and we have no idea who he is.”
In a statement Wednesday, the Hurricanes said: “The Carolina Hurricanes rely on PJS to hire staff for our travel. Until Mr. Buchanan’s social media posts Tuesday night, the Hurricanes knew nothing about him.”
The Hurricanes said they would have no further comment.
North Carolina is what is known as a “employment at will” state, which means employers can fire employees without cause, according to the state’s labor department website.
Dawson Buchanan attended Jan. 6 rally in Washington
Buchanan said he is a 2020 Liberty University graduate, with a degree in political science. He interned for Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy and then worked in the Trump campaign as a staffer.
“I kind of knew I wasn’t the only one in the Trump world who experienced this,” Buchanan said in the N&O interview. “I know I’m not the only conservative to be canceled and I think it’s something toxic and something that needs to be called out. That’s why I felt the need to come forward and share my story. I wanted to share the truth.”
He said he attended the Trump rally on Jan. 6 in Washington but did not march with Trump supporters to the Capitol and was not a part of the violence that ensued when pro-Trump extremists stormed into the Capitol, resulting in five deaths, including a Capitol Police officer. Another Capitol Police officer died by suicide three days later.
Buchanan, in a public Facebook post that day, decried the mayhem and destruction.
“I condemned the riots,” he said.
On Jan. 6 at 3:03 p.m., Buchanan wrote on Facebook: “I was at the march today, alongside hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters. Violence is never the answer. It wasn’t for the BLM and Antifa protests, and it isn’t now. Whoever the thugs are that are inside the Capitol, should be met with the full force of the law. These are not patriots, these are hateful lowlifes that have no place in this movement.”
On Dec. 30, 2020, Buchanan wrote on Facebook about his plan to attend the Trump rally. “See ya there, Mr. President!” His post included a shared post of Trump’s that said “JANUARY SIXTH, SEE YOU IN DC!”
Buchanan’s Facebook account also contains posts that support Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was corrupt.
On Nov. 6, three days after the election, Buchanan posted “Corruption must be rooted out” above a shared post from Trump that said, “I had such a big lead in all of these states late into election night, only to see the leads miraculously disappear as the days went by. Perhaps these leads will return as our legal proceedings move forward!”
Buchanan said that since the tweets about his job on Tuesday, there has been an “outpouring” of support.
“I know I’m not the only person to experience this,” he said. “I think it’s important to come out and share the truth and tell the truth. The fact a private jet company is doing this but also a cancel culture is doing this to a 20-year-old seems absurd.”
PJS and its relationship with Donald Trump, Republicans
In his interview with the N&O, Buchanan noted that Private Jet Services also was used by the Trump campaign, and that was how he first met Raiff, the PJS CEO.
According to the Federal Election Commission’s database, PJS and the Donald Trump campaigns have a business relationship that dates back to 2016.
Private Jet Services, based in Seabrook, New Hampshire, has received millions in campaign funds as recently as November, mostly from the Trump campaign, a Trump-affiliated political action committee and the Republican National Committee, according to FEC data.
Sixty-nine of the jet company’s 79 payments listed in the database came from those three groups. The funds listed are for services that include air travel, transportation services and facility rentals. The largest disbursement of funds was more than $1.1 million on air travel for the Trump campaign on July 15, 2016.
The company also received thousands from the presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz in 2016, Hillary Clinton in 2007 and Mike Huckabee in 2007.
This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 3:02 PM.
