He speaks in a sober and serious tone and presents himself as a common-sense family man. When asked about his family life before an interviewer“His children are all grown up and gone,” he said, adding that nowadays, “I think of my grandchildren” about the battles he fights.
But his family life was rocky. His family members said he has been married four times and separated for more than two decades with two adult children, whose children he does not know. (He also has two sons.)
He talks a lot about his experience as a police officer and a firefighter in Kalamazoo, Michigan. But personnel records obtained from that city’s Department of Public Safety, which he left in 1999, include this note in his file:Retired, poorly rated, will not be rehired. A ministry spokesman declined to comment.
Mr. Fenchem raised more than $1.2 million, a significant sum for the Secretary of State’s campaign. (Mr. Lin has raised about $1.1 million, with the other two candidates significantly behind.) Much of the money has come from out of state — seven of the eight donors listed as donating a maximum of $5,300 in his last campaign. The filings were from somewhere else. Major donors include Brian T. Kennedy, the former president of the right-wing Claremont Institute, and Michael Marsicano, mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, who recently lost the Republican primary.
Despite all of that, he had few visible signs of campaign staff or office. About three-quarters of his expenses, more than $750,000, went to a Florida political consulting firm run by Spence Rogers, nephew of Wendy Rogers, a lawmaker in Arizona. Relations with white nationalistsCampaign deposits appear. Another $53,000, or roughly 5 percent of his total expenses, went towards payments to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. (a lot of others Trump-backed candidates Likewise, including Carrie Lake, Trump’s favorite for governor of Arizona, whose campaign has spent more than $100,000 on Mar-a-Lago).