Kasich Campaign Staffer Was Arrested for Allegedly Choking and Punching a Woman

Chrissie Thompson and Jessie Balmert of the Cincinnati Enquirer report that a campaign staffer for John Kasich, the governor of Ohio and fourth-place Republican presidential candidate, was fired today after the campaign learned he had been arrested late last year on domestic violence charges:

Blake Waggoner, Kasich for America’s 30-year-old deputy digital director and director of rapid response, went to work for the campaign in November, according to his LinkedIn profile. That same month, on Nov. 12, officers from the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, D.C., arrested Waggoner after receiving a report of a woman “screaming repeatedly ‘get off me,’” according to the police record. The woman Waggoner was with, who is not identified in the report, told police he choked her and punched her in the back.

Court records obtained by the newspaper suggest that Waggoner plead guilty to the charges, since he was able to enroll in a “diversion” program for first-time offenders who do so.

“The Kasich campaign found out about Waggoner’s arrest on Saturday afternoon, when an Enquirer reporter called seeking comment,” Thompson and Balmert added. “Waggoner was fired within a couple hours.” A spokeswoman for Kasich told the two reporters, “Obviously, this kind of behavior is abhorrent and completely unacceptable. We were unaware of the incident concerning Blake, and he is no longer an employee of the campaign.”

We’ve reached out to Waggoner for comment and will update this post if we hear back.

You can read the rest of the Enquirer’s report here.

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