CRIME CASH: Democrats’ Big Donor Problem

Theranos CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes listens along with other attendees as Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton B. Carter delivers remarks at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, April 17, 2013. (DoD Photo By Glenn Fawcett) (Released)

It’s not yet certain that Sam Bankman-Fried committed a crime in his mishandling of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, but the potential is there. One of the revelations uncovered as FTX collapsed was that Bankman-Fried was the Democrat Party’s second-biggest donor (after George Soros, of course) in the 2022 election cycle. If Bankman-Fried is found to have committed crimes in his multi-billion dollar bungle of FTX, he will join a long list of other big Democrat donors who have found themselves in legal jeopardy.

Andrew Stiles lists some of the worst offenders on the Democrats’ big donor list in the Washington Free Beacon, writing:

Assuming he is ultimately charged and convicted of orchestrating a financial scam, Bankman-Fried will live in infamy alongside the following Democratic megadonors of degenerate disrepute—the giants upon whose shoulders he once stood.

Harvey Weinstein

• The once-beloved Hollywood mogul donated almost $600,000 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2000, and hosted a number of celebrity fundraisers for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

• Serving a 23-year sentence for rape and currently on trial for multiple sex crimes. Reporting suggests Weinstein’s atrocious behavior was an open secret in Hollywood. The serial offender routinely exploited his influence among Democratic politicians and their allies in the media to bury stories about his predatory behavior. In 2017, Weinstein reached out to Anita Dunn, a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, for “damage control advice.”

Jeffrey Epstein 

• The prolific pedophilia aficionado donated more than $150,000 to Democratic candidates and committees, including a $10,000 contribution as recently as 2018, several months before his arrest on sex trafficking charges.

• He courted prominent journalists, cavorted with liberal billionaires, and wrote checks to Ivy League universities. Former president Bill Clinton took several trips on Epstein’s private jet, aka “The Lolita Express.” (Not to be confused with Democratic megadonor Ron Burkle’s private jet, aka “Air F—k One,” on which Clinton has also flown many times.)

• The sex criminal “hanged” “himself” in his jail cell in 2019. Earlier this year, his female accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell received a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. She was among the prominent figures who attended Chelsea Clinton’s wedding to failed hedge-fund manager Marc Mezvinsky in 2010.

Ed Buck 

• The longtime liberal activist donated more than $500,000 to Democratic candidates and committees.

• Buck was sentenced in April to 30 years in prison for luring young men to his home, sexually assaulting them, and (in at least two cases) injecting them with a fatal dose of methamphetamine. Federal authorities described Buck as a “violent, dangerous sexual predator” who exploited “vulnerable victims—men who were drug-dependent and often without homes—to feed an obsession that led to death and misery.”

Bernie Madoff 

• The once-beloved investment guru donated $200,000 to Democratic Party committees and candidates including Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer.

• Madoff defrauded his investors, including several prominent charities, of nearly $65 billion while orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in history. He pleaded guilty to 11 felonies in 2009 and was sentenced to 150 years in federal prison, where he died in 2021.

Francis Menton continues the list in the Manhattan Contrarian:

• Elizabeth Holmes. Just today the Theranos founder and CEO was sentenced to 11 years in federal prison following her conviction in a multi-billion dollar scandal for faking information about the company’s blood testing technology. But back in 2016 — when negative information about Theranos was just starting to come out in Wall Street Journal reporting — Holmes was busy raising money for the Hillary Clinton campaign. From Vox, March 14, 2016:

  Next Monday, Holmes is hosting a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in Palo Alto. The event includes a conversation with former First Family member Chelsea Clinton, and participants who pay $2,700 get to go to a “host reception” with Chelsea. According to an email sent out to potential attendees, the fundraiser will take place at the Theranos Palo Alto headquarters.

• Norman Hsu. In 2007 Hsu pleaded guilty to fraud charges in connection with a Ponzi scheme said by Reuters to have stolen in the range of $60 million. He then was promptly indicted on charges of illegal campaign fundraising on behalf of Hillary Clinton and others, and convicted of that in 2009. From Reuters, May 19, 2009:

  Jurors convicted Hsu of violating four counts of federal election law between 2004 and 2007. During the trial, prosecutors said Hsu pressured some of the investors involved in his Ponzi scheme to make thousands of dollars in contributions to political candidates on his behalf. . . . A voicemail recording was played to the jury in which Clinton, then a U.S. senator from New York and now the U.S. secretary of state, praised Hsu for his support.

• And then there’s my personal favorite, Hassan Nemazee. Nemazee was the Finance Chair, no less, of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 run for President, up until she dropped out of the primaries in favor of Barack Obama. In 2010 Nemazee pleaded guilty to bilking banks out of some $292 million. From Politico, March 18, 2010:

A major donor to and fund-raiser for the campaigns of President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, Hassan Nemazee, admitted in federal court today to a fraud scheme that bilked banks out of a staggering $292 million. . . . Nemazee was a well-known Hillary Clinton backer who was regularly consulted by journalists, including this one, especially as Clinton prepared to make the difficult decision to drop out of the presidential race in 2008 and endorse Barack Obama.

Nemazee is my personal favorite because I actually represented him in a matter during the 1990s. That matter was a partnership dispute, in which I thought that Nemazee had a pretty good position; but the judge took a strong dislike to him, and was not about to give him anything. At the time, Nemazee was living a lavish lifestyle, but never seemed to have any money when it was time to make a contribution to the partnership.