Campaign staffers for presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden have donated to a group in Minnesota that is paying the bail for people arrested during the protests over the death of George Floyd by a white police officer, according to a report.
At least 13 members of the former vice president’s campaign made donations to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which opposes cash bail to avoid being jailed before trial, Reuters reported on Saturday.
The fund uses donations to pay bail fees in Minneapolis.
Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman, told the news service that Biden opposes the institution of cash bail as a “modern day debtors prison.”
Bates declined to answer questions about whether the donations have been coordinated with the campaign.
President Trump’s re-election campaign in a statement to Reuters on Saturday said it was “disturbing” that Biden’s team “would financially support the mayhem that is hurting innocent people and destroying what good people spent their lives building.”
In a speech at Cape Canaveral after the SpaceX launch, Trump said he understood the “pain that people are feeling” and supports “the right of peaceful protesters.”
“But what we are now seeing on the streets of our cities has nothing to do with justice or with peace,” he said. “The memory of George Floyd is being dishonored by rioters, looters, and anarchists.”
The report said it’s unclear how many arrests have been made in Minnesota since the protests broke out following Floyd’s death last Monday.
Derek Chauvin, who has been fired from the Minneapolis police force, has been charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
Video images showing Chauvin pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck sparked protests around the country seeking justice for Floyd and the arrest of the three officers with Chauvin.
Colleen May, who describes herself as a Biden campaign organizer in South Carolina, Florida and Wisconsin, posted her $50 donation to the Minnesota Freedom Fund.
“It is up to everyone to fight injustice,” she said.