Gerald Ford foundation member steps down
Says Liz Cheney was rejected for award because of Trump
A famed news photographer who worked for former President Gerald Ford of Michigan has resigned from the late president’s foundation saying its executive committee rejected former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney for an award three times because members fear retribution from former President Donald Trump if he is reelected this year.
Politico, the Washington, D.C.-based website and news outlet, reported Pulitzer Prizewinning photographer David Hume Kennerly resigned from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation in Grand Rapids, sending a letter to the executive committee and board members
Tuesday accusing members of cowardice in the face of worries that Trump, if reelected, could threaten its IRS-approved tax-exempt status.
Cheney, R-Wyoming, who is also a member of the Ford Foundation’s board and who Kennerly supported for this year’s Gerald R. Ford Medal for Distinguished Public Service, voted to impeach Trump for his role in instigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol as Congress met to certify President Joe Biden’s election, and she served as vice chair of a House committee that investigated the attack and Trump’s actions.
Cheney’s father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, served as Ford’s chief of staff and is also listed as a senior adviser to the board. Liz Cheney was defeated in a Republican primary in 2022 by a Trump-backed opponent and was said to be considering a presidential run of her own this year, though that never materialized.
In the letter, Kennerly — who was Ford’s per
sonal photographer in the White House — said after two other candidates declined, he approached the executive committee with Cheney’s name again, only for her to be rejected a third time.
“It became crystal clear to me that something else was going on,” Kennerly wrote in the letter, which was linked to in Politico’s story. “The process for honoring President Ford by recognizing his virtues in others was being undermined by the same pressures weakening Republican institutions and many conservative leaders.
“A key reason Liz’s nomination was turned down was your agita about what might happen if the former president is reelected,” Kennerly continued. “Some of you raised the specter of being attacked by the Internal Revenue Service and losing the foundation’s tax-exempt status as retribution for selecting Liz for the award.
The historical irony was completely lost on you. Gerald Ford became president, in part, because (former President) Richard Nixon had ordered the development of an enemies list and demanded his underlings use the IRS against those listed.
That’s exactly what the executive committee fears will happen if there’s a second coming of Donald Trump.
“Failing that, I can’t in good conscience stay on the board of an organization representing Gerald R. Ford that doesn’t manifest his kind of guts,” Kennerly finished. “It’s now a place whose leadership is cowed by a demagogue creating and promulgating the greatest crisis our country has faced since the Civil War.”
Kennerly confirmed to Politico that he sent the letter. Meanwhile, the foundation’s executive director, Gleaves Whitney, told Politico that the executive committee, on the advice of legal counsel, considered that it wasn’t “prudent” to award the medal to Cheney, saying in light of a possible presidential campaign on her part it “might be construed as a political statement and thus expose the Foundation to the legal risk of losing its nonprofit status with the IRS.”
During Trump’s political rise, Grand Rapids and surrounding Kent County have become a hotbed of activity, with the former president campaigning there many times, including as recently as last week.
But there has also been a clear strain of antipathy at times in the traditionally GOP-leaning region toward Trump: former U.S. Reps. Justin Amash and Peter Meijer, who represented the region as Republicans (though Amash later left the party) voted to impeach Trump at various times (Amash, in 2019 as an independent, for allegations Trump solicited political aid from Ukraine against Joe Biden and obstructing Congress in its investigation and Meijer for the Jan. 6 attack).
And Betsy DeVos, perhaps the most influential Republican in the state whose home base is in west Michigan, resigned as Trump’s education secretary for his involvement in the Jan. 6 incident.