Financiers Linked to George Soros Donate to Bush and Kasich
Two fund managers who have made billions for investor George Soros are reported to have donated money to Republican Presidential Candidate John Kasich’s New Day for America fund according to RT.
Federal Election Commission records have shown that Scott Bessent and Stanley Druckenmiller contributed $588,375 to Kasich’s political action committee (or PAC), which has been described as “a soft money fund.”
“It’s not surprising that the Ohio governor is an attractive investment for big finance guys,” said Russ Choma, a reporter for Mother Jones, who noted that Kasich worked for Lehman Brothers from 2001 until it collapsed in 2008 after he retired as a congressman.
Bessent served as George Soros’ chief investment manager until December 2015, and Druckenmiller is the manager of a $4.5 billion hedge fund, which Soros has $2 million invested. Druckenmiller and Soros were responsible for “breaking” the bank of England in 1992, which lead to the British pound being devalued and earned Soros $1 billion.
Druckenmiller has also been reported to have given $103,375 to Republican Presidential Candidate Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise PAC. He also gave a further $100,000 to the PAC America Leads, which supports New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who last week dropped out of the race for the White House. He has also called for cuts to Social Security Payments.
Bessent, who notably placed a bet on the Japanese yen in 2013 with Soros, has previously given to both conservative and liberal groups. In March 2015, Bessent donated $5,400 to New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat and $1,500 to South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican.
Russ Choma describes the Hungarian-born George Soros as “a boogeyman for conservatives” due to his financial support for progressive organizations and the Democrats, making the news of these recent donations as quite a surprise.
In January, Politco reported that in December 2015, Soros donated $6 million to the leading super PAC that supports Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign for president. All together, Soros has donated $8 million in total to groups that support Clinton.
“We must reaffirm our commitment to the principles of open society and resist the siren song of the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, however hard that may be,” said Soros, who has also given money to Barack Obama’s race for the Senate in 2004.
“He is one of the few liberals who has shown a willingness to drop eight-figures in an election cycle, having donated more than $20 million in 2004 to groups that tried to oust then-President George W. Bush,” said Kenneth P. Vogel, a writer for Politco, who noted that Soros, until now scaled back his donations to political campaigns.
George Soros made news last week for declaring that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a bigger threat to Europe than ISIS in an op-ed for The Guardian.
“Putin is a gifted tactician, but not a strategic thinker. There is no reason to believe he intervened in Syria in order to aggravate the European refugee crisis,” said Soros, who said the Putin’s intervention was “a strategic blunder,” and that the Russia will have to deal with bankruptcy in 2017.
Soros continued, “The fact is that Putin’s Russia and the EU are engaged in a race against time: the question is which one will collapse first.”
Tom Wilson, a fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, believes that Soros’ op-ed piece is full of “bizarre claims.”
“If we buy Soros’ claims that Putin is bombing civilians in Syria to generate a refugee crisis, then we would also have to assume his aim is to destabilize Syria’s neighbors and not Europe,” said Wilson, who noted that ISIS will still be a security concern to the West.
Early last week, George Soros, along with Warren Buffett were criticized by anti-abortion website Lifenews for giving more than $6.6 million to the National Abortion Rights Action League (or NARAL).
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
