New documents reviewed by investigative journalists at Capital & Main and non-profit political money watchdog MapLight show that New Jersey’s and Ohio’s state pensions are heavily invested in Chatham Asset Management. Chatham Asset Management has received at least $625 million in “pension cash” from both states—with about $500 million of it coming from New Jersey under Gov. Chris Christie. This is significant, since Chatham has taken control of American Media, Inc. (AMI). AMI’s CEO is David Pecker, whom you might remember from the news for recently being granted immunity in the federal investigation of President Trump’s campaign and all of the dirtbags therein—including David Pecker. The tangled web of Chatham and AMI is tightly wound around the Republican donor apparatus.
The hedge fund is run by Anthony Melchiorre, a GOP donor who reportedly met with the president and AMI CEO David Pecker at the White House soon after Trump took office. Melchiorre and his wife have donated more than $100,000 to Republican candidates and party committees since 2010.
According to the report, then-Gov. Chris Christie made sure to move a lot of taxpayer money into the hedge fund during his tenure.
In 2013, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration moved $300 million of pension cash into the Chatham Fund, LP, which has owned a stake in AMI, according to SEC records. Last year, barely three months before Christie left office, his administration steered another $200 million to another Chatham vehicle. AMI gave $10,000 to a super PAC supporting Christie’s 2016 presidential bid, and Mother Jones reported that Christie placed Pecker on his campaign leadership team.
In 2013 and 2014, an Ohio pension system partially controlled by Gov. John Kasich’s appointees committed $125 million to Chatham. The hedge fund finalized its deal to buy an ownership stake in AMI in the summer of 2014.
If that seems like a lot of money, that’s because it is. Chatham manages $3.2 billion, and (grabbing my abacus) New Jersey and Ohio’s share of that is about 15-16 percent. This news comes as a bit of a revelation for some people.
“I am personally appalled by the Enquirer being an accessory to Cohen’s criminal behavior on behalf of the candidate,” said Tom Bruno, a state union representative who is the chairman of the pension’s board of trustees and serves on New Jersey’s State Investment Council, which oversees the pension system’s investments.
“If asked to vote, I can assure you I will be voting for us to divest,” he said. “I cannot talk on behalf of the entire SIC, but I will be doing everything in my power to convince a majority to vote the same way.”
And while earlier stories have put just New Jersey and Ohio on blast for their investment in Chatham, MapLight has recently added California to the list, with over $200 million invested. There’s a lot of dirt to dig up, and investigators are handing out grants of immunity in the hope of exposing how tangled a web has been woven.