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June 21, 2023

So who took those $10,000 amounts from Blackrock?

By Monica Showalter

When you pull the lid off an already stinking garbage pail, it shouldn't be a surprise that it stinks even more.

That's what seems to be the case with James O'Keefe's latest undercover video targeting Blackrock, the financial services giant which is famed for its investments in big corporations that have suddenly been forced to embrace DEI and ESG wokester policies.

 

 

It turns out that a corporate recruiter for the company, named Serge Varnay, is bragging about buying politicians, with senators going for a cheapie $10,000 a pop.

Is it time to look at those senators who've taken the Blackrock dime?

According to OpenSecrets.org, citing the 2022 cycle, 20 Democrat senators and senate candidates got a grand total of $303,837, and 18 Republican senators and senate candidates got $168,250 from Blackrock, both the company itself, and its individual employees. 

Here are the big fish:

Chuck Schumer, who pocketed $113,950 from the financial giant, including the nice neat $10,000 from Blackrock itself.

Lisa Murkowski, who took $46,400, again including that nice neat $10,000 from Blackrock itself, and the rest from employees of Blackrock.

Could they have been donations by the Blackrock employees and agents whom the recruiter Varnay said were handed half a million dollars and told that they knew what to do? That's too murky to know for sure, so let's just look at the members of the Blackrock $10,000 club and see who we find besides Schumer and Murkowski:

Ron Wyden, a leftist from Oregon, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, who won her election by a very thin margin, Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, Republicans Chuck Grassley of Iowa and John Boozman of Arkansas, Democrat Chris Van Hollen, Republican Todd Young of Indiana, Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas, Republicans James Lankford of Oklahoma and John Thune of South Dakota.

Bob Menendez of New Jersey also took cash from Blackrock as a company, but at the fire sale rate of $4,000. Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina took $2,000. Democrat Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut got $5,000. Democrat Tammy Baldwin got $2,500. Republican Bill Hagerty of Tennessee got $2,500.  Democrat Sherrod Brown got $2,500. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky got $2,500. Republican Steve Daines got $1,500. Texas Republican John Cornyn got $1,000. 

Other senators took lesser amounts only from employees of Blackrock, not the company -- Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin were seen in that club.

Plenty of prominent names from the House came up as prodigious takers of the Blackrock campaign cash, too -- Paul Ryan, Maxine Waters, Rob Portman, Ruben Gallego, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Gregory Meeks, Nancy Pelosi, Brad Sherman...

Joe Biden took $537 from Blackrock employeesm so it's possible he was very cheap indeed, but based on the House investigation led by Rep. James Comer, he seems to have commanded higher prices elsewhere.   

Now, this is not to say that everyone who took money from Blackrock was taking a bribe. I have a very hard time thinking Sen. Chuck Grassley would ever take a bribe, especially from these Blackrock guys, given his fearless work rooting out Democrat corruption. There are probably others. But still, we'd be naive to say that money doesn't buy influence in Washington.

If I were a senator and saw that tape from O'Keefe's target, though, I'd be thinking about returning that money back to Blackrock, given Varnay's boast. 

Blackrock has already been the topic of videos like these:

GatewayPundit has more summarizations of what O'Keefe found in his video from the Blackrock employee.

And here is a chart featured in O'Keefe's video, showing Blackrock's big corporate holdings.

Now there's an allegation that they buy senators cheaply and "everybody" does it. If that's the case, nobody should want to be holding that money ,which given the latest allegations, might just say to some voters: 'I got bought cheaply.'

Image: Twitter screen shot

 

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