Conspiracy theories spread after questions raised over Trump-endorsed Joe Kent’s ‘mystery backer’

Democrat says article ‘raises important unanswered questions about where exactly Joe Kent is employed’

Joe Kent is favourite to win keenly-watched contest

Questions have been asked about a mystery account said to be supporting the campaign of Trump-backed Joe Kent – triggering wild speculation and theories about the former Green Beret.

A report published at the weekend claimed that a company listed by the 42-year-old Maga champion as paying his salary, did not appear to exist.

The Daily Beast said Mr Kent, who is involved in a showdown with Marie Gluesenkamp Pérez in Washington State’s third congressional district, had listed a company, American Enterprise Solutions, which he said was a tech start-up, as having paid him $122,110.36 last year as a “project manager”.

The public filing also listed pension payments made to the former special operations soldier, and for his late wife, Shannon Kent, who was killed by an Isis bomb in Syria.

The report said: “One problem: There’s no record the company exists”.

The article added “American Enterprise Solutions holds no patents or trademarks, has no licenses, no website, no social media pages, and not a single publicly announced contract with a government agency or a private wireless provider”.

It said: “The Daily Beast phoned the owner of the only company ever formed under that name in the Commonwealth of Virginia, who said that the entity—listed as inactive in the State Corporation Commission—has been defunct for the better part of a decade, did not work in the tech sector, and never employed Kent.”

Even during more sober times, Americans are not immune to creating conspiracy theories to fill in the blanks for issues that might otherwise have a simple solution.

Yet in an era that some have described as being “post-truth” the article said the mysterious filing, along with the background in general of someone who spent two decades engaged with the CIA as part of the so-called war of terror, were creating a sub-species of theories all of their own.

Polls suggest Joe Kent is starting with much higher name recognition than the Democrat (Andrew Buncombe)

It said one one website had uploaded multiple videos in which audience members questioned the candidate about his employment situation. In one clip from May, Mr Kent repeated the name of his employer was “American Enterprise Solutions”.

Mr Kent, who has been holding campaign events with former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard who has endorsed him, told The Independent that his campaign would shortly be releasing a statement about the article.

Mr Kent’s spokesperson, Ozzie Gonzalez, told The Daily Beast: “AES is a technology company registered in Delaware and operated out of Reston, VA.”

Mr Kent is facing off with Ms Perez, 34, after beating incumbent Republican Jaime Herrera Beutler in a primary this summer. Ms Herrera Beutler was one of 10 Republicans in the House who voted for Mr Trump’s impeachment and he vowed to oust.

Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez claims she beat hardline Republican Joe Kent (Andrew Buncombe)

The website Five Thirty Eight gives Mr Kent a 97 per cent of winning the race.

In a statement, Sandeep Kaushik, an adviser to Ms Perez said: “We don’t know anything more than what the Daily Beast has reported, but their story raises important unanswered questions about where exactly Joe Kent is employed and what the source of his income is.”

He added: “There are obviously very serious ethical and public disclosure implications if it is true that, as the Daily Beast story states, Joe Kent is claiming his six-figure income comes from a company that may not exist.”