Elizabeth Dole fires volunteer event planner helping with memorials over Jan. 6 ties
Former Sen. Elizabeth Dole dismissed a volunteer event planner helping organize memorials for her late husband, former Sen. Bob Dole, after she was made aware of his alleged ties to a rally that preceded the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Tim Unes, founder of Event Strategies, was part of an advance team working on memorial events in the wake of Dole’s death at 98 on Sunday. An advance staffer on Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign, Unes had been volunteering his time this week, the foundation said.
Unes was subpoenaed in September by the House committee investigating Jan. 6, which said he had been listed as “stage manager” on paperwork for the rally where former President Donald Trump spoke before his supporters breached the Capitol.
“Yesterday, I made Senator Elizabeth Dole aware of Mr. Unes’ alleged involvement in the events of January 6, 2021. Senator Dole was previously unaware of his participation and terminated his volunteer role,” Steve Schwab, a Dole family spokesman and CEO of the Elizabeth Dole Foundation, said in a statement Thursday.
Schwab said Unes had been part of a large network of former Dole staffers volunteering their time this week.
Dole’s decision to cut ties with Unes was first reported by The New York Times, which said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, had raised the issue with a Dole family contact. McConnell’s office confirmed the reporting in The Times, per a source familiar with the matter.
A request for comment to Unes made through the website of Event Strategies wasn’t returned.
Unes was one of 11 people subpoenaed by the committee as part of an effort to understand the planning, organization and funding of the events in the leadup to the insurrection.
McConnell, who spoke at the ceremony honoring Dole in the Capitol rotunda Thursday morning, denounced the insurrection on the Senate floor on January 6, saying the mob tried to “disrupt our democracy” and failed.
“This failed attempt to obstruct the Congress, this failed insurrection, only underscores how crucial the task before us is for our Republic,” McConnell said at the time.
McConnell later blamed Trump for the insurrection, before voting against convicting the former president of impeachment, citing the fact that Trump was no longer in office. Dole was a supporter of Trump, but affirmed Biden’s victory in a December 2020 interview with The Star.
The events to honor Dole this week — both in Washington and Kansas — have been a mammoth logistical undertaking. Dole’s body is lying in state at the Capitol on Thursday ahead of a memorial service Friday at the Washington National Cathedral. His body will then be flown to Kansas for services in his hometown of Russell and at the Kansas Capitol, where he will lie in repose.
He will be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 2:01 PM with the headline "Elizabeth Dole fires volunteer event planner helping with memorials over Jan. 6 ties."
