by Frank Holmes, reporter
One of the newest and most celebrated stars in the Democratic political universe is falling to earth.
The senator rode into office with praise, but it appears as though she couldn’t outrun a financial scandal from her recent past.
Just days after being appointed to the U.S. Senate, Democratic California Senator Laphonza Butler has announced she won’t be running for even one single, full term in her own right.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, an undeclared candidate to replace Joe Biden atop the 2024 presidential ticket, appointed Butler to office on October 1, to replace the late Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Newsom promised that Butler—who lives in Maryland but owns a second home in California—would “break glass ceilings and fight for all Californians in Washington D.C.” But Butler is breaking records as one of the shortest-serving senators in U.S. history.
Just last Thursday Butler, who won praise for being the first openly lesbian Black woman to serve in the Senate, announced she would not run for election in 2024.
“Knowing you can win a campaign doesn’t always mean you should run a campaign,” Butler said. “I know this will be a surprise to many because traditionally we don’t see those who have power let it go,” she said.
NEWS: Sen Laphonza Butler (D-CA) will not run for reelection.
Confirming the NY Times' scoop.
Butler: "I’ve decided not to run for Senate in the upcoming election.” pic.twitter.com/84w2GmJzIe
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) October 19, 2023
Butler claimed her decision was based on “what kind of life I want to have, what kind of service I want to offer, and what kind of voice I want to bring forward.”
But it could also have to do with a news report that links the new California senator to one of the most shocking financial scandals of recent times.
Butler led a group that took money from FTX, the cryptocurrency fraud led by CEO and founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
FTX, the world’s third-largest cryptocurrency exchange, collapsed into bankruptcy last fall.
Fried donated a large amount of his $23 billion net worth to Democrats, including a group led by now-Senator Butler.
On October 3, Bankman-Fried (or “SBF,” as he is known) went on trial — but first, he gave out $40 million in political donations to left-wing groups and Democratic campaigns. SBF’s political spending spree included donating a cool $5 million to a political action committee supporting President Joe Biden when he became a candidate for president in 2020.
One of Sam Bankman-Fried’s advisors testified in court that he told the crook he would have to donate “to a lot of woke shit for transactional purposes.”
One of them was led by Laphonza Butler.
Sometimes, SBF would funnel money through FTX employees in what are known as “straw donors,” so that his fingerprints were not on the donation itself.
Reporters say one of those straw donors was then-FTX executive Nishad Singh, who gave $2.25 million to a group called Women Vote, a project of EMILY’s List, which was led by Butler. (He also gave $1.1 million to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which would have supported Butler.)
Singh broke the donations up into two lots: $1.5 million to Women Vote last July 19, 2022, followed by another $750,000 on Aug. 16, 2022.
Singh wanted both groups to support a House candidate named Becca Balint, D-Vt., probably on SBF’s behalf—and both groups did so immediately. EMILY’s List backed Balint on September 1.
Butler knows the importance of funneling financial support to friendly left-wingers. Butler announced she would spend “tens of millions of dollars” in a campaign to try to pull up Kamala Harris’ sagging popularity ratings. “We’re going to tell the story about who she is, what she’s done, support her at every turn,” said Butler in March.
Then the other shoe dropped. When word broke that a crypto-crook donated millions of dollars to the pro-abortion movement, Butler’s organization announced it was “engaged and cooperating with the multiple authorities seeking to reclaim these contributions.”
NEWS: Sen Laphonza Butler (D-CA) will not run for reelection.
Confirming the NY Times' scoop.
Butler: "I’ve decided not to run for Senate in the upcoming election.” pic.twitter.com/84w2GmJzIe
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) October 19, 2023
But then the scandal blew over, and the Left went back to normal.
Of course, Women Vote hasn’t given back a dime to FTX’s financial victims.
Siding with disgraced cryptocurrency con artists is a bad look, and a deal-breaker, even for a Democrat in California.
Do you think this explains Butler’s decision to back out of running for U.S. Senate, or did she really decide the office she’s coveted her entire life just isn’t enough?
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”