Breaking News: Chafee Campaign Manager Resigns

Breaking News: Chafee Campaign Manager Resigns

J.R. Pagliarini, the campaign manager for Lincoln Chafee, resigned this morning amid questions over whether he had received unemployment benefits while also working for the campaign.

A campaign spokesman said Pagliarini resigned after he was confronted by Channel 10 reporter Jim Taracani with documents that he said were illegally leaked to the media.

“J.R has not committed any misdeed, but he decided this morning, 18 days out from the election, he did not want to become a distraction to the campaign,” spokesman Mike Trainor told 630 WPRO, a GoLocalProv media partner.

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Trainor said that Pagliarini was hired as campaign manager on January 4, in an interview on the Dan Yorke show. But he said the campaign’s payroll system had a retroactive feature that made it appear Pagliarini had been collecting pay back into December—overlapping with the time he was receiving unemployment benefits. Pagliarini went on unemployment after he lost his job at the Department of Education.

Trainor called the leaked documents a “low-road” political attack from Democratic opponent Frank Caprio.

Because of the legal complexities surrounding the issue, Trainor said Pagliarini had decided to resign rather than become a “political football.” He said the resignation was a testament to Chafee’s high standards for ethics, transparency, and honesty.

Caprio's campaign manager, Xay Khamsyvoravong, told GoLocalProv he was unaware of the allegations. "This is the first we are hearing about double dipping. How the Chafee campaign conducts itself rests on them," Khamsyvoravong said.

Photo Credit 630 WPRO