Ruth May, who broke the news of Blavatnik's donation of $7.35M to numerous @GOP leaders, has updated her research. Most of the $ donated occurred late in the '16 campaign & was accepted by GOP members after they had been briefed of Russian collusion: bit.ly/2FAyza7
"We have allowed our campaign finance laws to become a strategic threat to our country." ~ Ruth May.
The SCOTUS 2010 Citizens United decision allowed unlimited donations by US citizens & corps. This has been weaponized by the Kocks, Mercers, and Russians, including Blavatnik, Intrater, Shustorovich, & Kukes.
99% of Russian donations in '16 were to @GOP, many which went to party leaders late in the election & even after the election, including the $7.35M outlined in Ruth May's 1st article here: bit.ly/2wcv6tE
"In total, Blavatnik, Intrater, Shustorovich and Kukes made $10.4 million in political contributions from the start of the 2015-16 election cycle through September 2017, and 99 percent of their contributions went to Republicans."
"Why didn't the PACs say, "Thanks, but no thanks," like the Republicans said to Shustorovich in 2000? Yes, it was legal to accept their donations, but it was incredibly poor judgment." ~ Ruth May
"Two weeks after the DHS & DNI issued a joint statement in OCT'16 that the Russian gov't had directed the effort to interfere in our electoral process, McConnell's PAC accepted a $1 million donation from Blavatnik's AI-Altep Holdings." ~ Ruth May
"Blavatnik's campaign contributions dating back to 2009-10 were fairly balanced across party lines & relatively modest for a billionaire. During that season he contributed $53,400. His contributions increased to $135,552 in 2011-12 and to $273,600 in 2013-14, still bipartisan."
"In 2015-16, everything changed. Blavatnik's political contributions soared and made a hard right turn as he pumped $6.35 million into GOP PACs, with millions of dollars going to top Republican leaders including Sens. Mitch McConnell, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham." ~ Ruth May
Did the @GOP break laws by taking Russian money? Not technically, because of US citizen status for the oligarchs involved.
SCOTUS architected a terrible decision full of loopholes with Citizen's United that Russia and the GOP jumped right through with reckless abandon.
SCOTUS architected a terrible decision full of loopholes with Citizen's United that Russia and the GOP jumped right through with reckless abandon.
No wonder the @GOP ignored Merrick Garland's nomination for 263 days. They wanted to insure nothing would be done to alter the Citizens United decision that they knew they were abusing to take control of US democracy.
These Russian donors have close ties to Putin. All were made rich from Putin's largess through various oil deals. All collaborated to provide ample funds to the @GOP in '16 & '17, including hefty amounts to Trump's Inauguration fund, $80M of which is unaccounted for. (per Maddow)
Err..."Kochs", not "Kocks". OK, for this once, I applaud auto-correct. How did it know?
