Failed presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) began her political career – and her campaign – decrying the reliance on Super PACS, “dark money,” and allowing billionaires to buy politicians.
Once her campaign started flailing, however, she reversed her position on all these past statements. She still claimed she wanted money out of politics, it was just that she needed more money to get to a position of power where she could tell other people they couldn’t raise too much money from specific people.
Now the Super PAC that popped up in the waning days of her campaign has filed its financial disclosure, and The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald has gone through it and found that a single donor provided almost all of the funding for Persist PAC.
“Elizabeth Warren’s SuperPAC has finally filed its disclosure. The vast majority of its money – $14.5 million – came from a single donor: Karla Jurvertson, a super-rich Silicon Valley funder who had previously donated to the DNC on behalf of Warren’s campaign,” Greenwald reported on Twitter.
This same donor previously gave the Democratic National Committee a check for $100,000, which she demanded be used to aid Warren, specifically.
“The Warren campaigned had previously obtained a $100k donation to the DNC to allow it access to a valuable database, so it’s not as if @ewarren can credibly claim this SuperPAC donor – who donated almost $15 million in dark money – was some stranger,” Greenwald continued, pointed to a July 2019 Buzzfeed article that showed Warren’s campaign reached out to a major donor to give the money to the DNC so the campaign could access a major voter database.
The Warren campaigned had previously obtained a $100k donation to the DNC to allow it access to a valuable database, so it’s not as if @ewarren can credibly claim this SuperPAC donor – who donated almost $15 million in dark money – was some stranger:https://t.co/sb3JfEpHmZ https://t.co/gqwbj7jUqe
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 21, 2020
Warren herself did not reach out to Jurvertson, which allowed her to claim she didn’t violate her pledge not to allow big donors to pay for access. As Buzzfeed’s Ruby Cramer said at the time, however, the donation “risks putting [Warren] at odds with the spirit, if not the letter, of her pledge.
Greenwald further reported that Karla Jurvertson is married to venture capitalist Stephen Jurvetson, who was “an early investor in Elon Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX.” Karla is one the board of Emily’s List, a prominent Democrat fundraising organization that helped produce smear ads against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
“Why didn’t Karla Jurvetson just say all along she was the one pouring almost $15m of dark money into Warren’s SuperPAC? Why disclose it only once it no longer matters? Is Warren going to denounce Jurvetson for doing this & refuse future donations? Is @emilyslist
good with this?” Greenwald asked.
“So basically, @ewarren — who mocked ‘wine cave funderaisers [sic]’ — had her campaign crash when it was running on the fumes of venture capitalist oligarch wealth, delivered in the form of $14.5m dark money SuperPAC contributions from a single donor. Sounds like the right ending,” Greenwald continued.
So basically, @ewarren — who mocked “wine cave funderaisers” — had her campaign crash when it was running on the fumes of venture capitalist oligarch wealth, delivered in the form of $14.5m dark money SuperPAC contributions from a single donor.
Sounds like the right ending.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 21, 2020
As The Daily Wire previously reported, Warren only changed her stance on accepting money from big donors once she started losing. She defended her obvious hypocrisy by saying she was doing it because no other Democrat listened to her – which itself was a damning indictment of her ability to lead.
“So, here’s where I stand. If all the candidates want to get rid of super PACs, count me in. I’ll lead the charge,” Warren said. “But that’s how it has to be. It can’t be the case that a bunch of people keep them and only one or two don’t.”