It is hardly the case that every big money donor to the Democrat Party is a scammer, nor that all scammers are donors to the Democrat Party. Money, power, and corruption go together, so I am certain that plenty of Republicans have taken donations from scammers.
But an awful lot of the big scammers and moral midgets of the past few decades have been huge Democrat donors. Off the charts Democrat donors. The Venn diagram between big Democrat donors and scumbags shows a ton of overlap.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the latest fraudster to (maybe) face the music was the 2nd largest donor to the Democrats for the past two election cycles. His contributions were only exceeded by George Soros. Bankman-Fried had been promising to spend up to a billion dollars in the next election cycle to ensure Democrats win the presidency and all power in Washington.
Probably not going to happen now, I would guess.
Bankman-Fried, though, is hardly unique among the ponzi schemers and frauds to throw in their lot with the Democrats, relying on their power to shield them for years or even decades from the arm of the law. Harvey Weinstein was able to skate by for decades as a rapist and abuser in Hollywood because he made tons of money for people, and even more importantly gave tons of money to the right people.
In just the past few years a parade of prominent Democrat donors have been revealed to be evil and/or frauds; not only were these people donors to Democrats, but they were chummy with the politicians who obsequiously pumped them up as paragons of virtue. In exchange for the cash a stamp of approval was bestowed, along with a respectability that kept the worst people in the world afloat and wealthy.
Jeffrey Epstein, of course, famously palled around with the glitterati and the powerful. Princes and presidents, billionaires and academics all palled around with him in exchange for cash and…favors. Favors that will never be revealed, now that Epstein is conveniently dead of suicide. It’s not that nobody knew–Epstein had been convicted of sexual crimes long before he was abandoned by the best and the brightest. It was known that he was a pedophile, but the money flowed, so no biggie.
Ed Buck–sentenced just this past April to almost no coverage–was a Democrat mega donor and fundraiser. He also lured young men to his home and drugged them, eventually killing two of them with overdoses of meth. “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.”
Buck remained prominent in Democrat circles even after men started dying in sex romps with him. It took civil rights activists to push for an investigation into the deaths. Until then, prosecutors weren’t interested.
Buck, a 64-year-old white man, previously was investigated in the July 2017 death of Gemmel Moore, a 26-year-old black man who died of a methamphetamine overdose in Buck’s home, which was littered with drug paraphernalia, according to a Los Angeles County coroner’s report.
Prosecutors this summer declined to file charges, and Buck has not been arrested in either case. The Sheriff’s Department said he was present for both deaths.
Protesters, most of whom were black, gathered outside Buck’s apartment this week demanding his prosecution. Some protesters turned on Buck’s neighbors — most of whom were white — accusing them of being complicit.
The feds came in because civil rights allegations were brought. And, of course, a Democrat wasn’t president at the time. If it had been Hillary? Who knows?
I went to YouTube to look up what coverage there was of his sentencing for his crimes, and the only video I found was of local Los Angeles TV stations covering the story. It was pretty much memory holed.
It’s Ed Buck and Hillary Clinton. pic.twitter.com/AHUgdQxgdJ
— Merissa Hansen🇺🇸🕵🏻♀️ (@MerissaHansen17) April 16, 2022
Bernie Madoff, too was a major Democrat donor and friend of Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, to whom he was extremely generous. With other people’s money. Surprised? Of course not. All the best Ponzi schemers know where to send their campaign contributions.
As her Theranos empire was falling apart around her, Elizabeth Holmes was still arranging fundraisers for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
[B}ack 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.
Even after her conviction, Holmes still has her Democrat friends.
Cory Booker asks for leniency for Theranos fraudster Elizabeth Holmes: Wants to make world ‘a better place’ https://t.co/rOIh0bHFT9 #FoxNews
Oh yeah, we all know why. He’ll expect her/they to compensate him in a Clinton-styled manner.
— Richard Sparks (@HoneybadgerAVP) November 18, 2022
Then there was Norman Hsu, a Ponzi schemer and friend of Hillary:
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.
Hillary Clinton’s Finance Chair for her 2008 presidential bid was a Ponzi schemer as well:
[Hassan] 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.
The Clintons are masters of collecting illicit money. Many of their contributors from the 90s were convicted of campaign finance violations . The Clintons, though, have come up smelling like roses.
As I said, I am quite certain Republicans have taken money from frauds and moral midgets, but a pattern has emerged that is difficult to deny: all the best frauds know how to curry favor, and they know that the best bet is to ally with the people who control almost all the levers of power in government. That would be Democrats, even when Republicans are nominally in charge.
Democrats control the commanding heights of power and influence in America, and aren’t afraid to use that power to clean up financially. The schemers donate to Democrats, who use the money to gain power, use that power to protect the schemers, and the circle of life continues.
So it goes.