An article came across my feed this last weekend from Dan Abram’s Law & Crime:
Buttigieg Supported by GOP Oligarch Len Blavatnik
Democratic presidential candidate and former South Bend, Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg is facing questions after recent revelations that his 2020 effort has taken campaign contributions from an infamous Republican Party billionaire with direct links to the Russian oligarchy. That’s according Federal Election Commission (FEC) data reviewed by Law&Crime.
I’m not sure what to think. At first glance, it looked like it could be another bullshit article fresh off the RT presses, but I decided to follow the trail back at bit just to see where it would lead.
The first few hops went through a few Twitter posts which didn’t provide any direct information, but they eventually led to the FEC.gov website which appears to confirm the allegations showing that Pete for America Inc received $5,200 in individual contributions from Blavatnik ($2400) and his wife ($2800) in 2019. That puts it pretty close to the legal limit of $2800/person.
Are these just harmless donations? It’s so hard to tell anymore...
UPDATE
Elwood Dowd “encouraged” me to dig a little deeper (now that I had a little more time):
I tweaked the FEC filters a little to see who else received contributions from the Blavatniks’ 2019-2020 donations:
Republican ($552,100)
- Jim Risch for U.S. Senate Committee (Jim Risch R-ID): $5600
- NRCC (National Republican Congressional Cmte): $224,900
- Majority Committee PAC—MC PAC (Rep Leadership PAC): $5000
- McCarthy Victory Fund (Rep Joint Fundraising Cmte): $200,000
- Kevin McCarthy for Congress: $5600
- Alamo PAC (Rep Leadership PAC): $5000
- Cornyn Majority Committee (Rep Joint Fundraising Cmte): $50,000
- NRSC (National Republican Senatorial Cmte): $45,000
- Cotton Victory (Rep Joint Fundraising Cmte): $10,800
- Cotton for Senate (Tom Cotton R-AR): $200
Democratic ($284,100)
- Markey Committee (Ed Markey D-MA): $2800
- Biden for President: $2800 + $2800 (Len & Emily)
- DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Cmte): $124,250 + $124,250 (Len & Emily)
- Peters Victory 2020 (Dem Joint Fundraising Cmte): $5600
- Peters for Michigan (Gary Peters D-MI State): $5600
- Chris Coons for Delaware (Chris Coons D-DE): $8000 + $2800 (Len & Emily)
- Pete for America (Pete Buttigieg): $2400 + $2800 (Len & Emily)
Len Blavatnik seems to have a bias towards Republicans but is happy to throw a little towards centrist Democrats, too — which I suppose isn’t all that unusual for a billionaire businessman. I think it’s mildly interesting that Emily only contributes to Democratic recipients which makes me wonder if she might be the liberal in that family.
In 2008 he also donated to the Romney and Obama campaigns.
The only significant area for concern appears to be his long friendship and business partnership with Viktor Vekselberg who is closely connected to Putin and one of the Russian nationals who was sanctioned in 2017 & 2018 (despite protestations and feet dragging from Trump).
I’d still be a lot happier if Mayor Pete wasn’t taking money from someone who donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration fund.