In February, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., railed against Koch Industries for continuing business in Russia.
“Koch Industries is shamefully continuing to do business in Putin’s Russia and putting their profits ahead of defending democracy,” Schumer said in a joint statement with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
“As the democracies of the world make huge sacrifices to punish Russia for Putin’s illegal and vicious invasion of Ukraine, Koch Industries continues to profit off of Putin’s regime.”
Schumer added on Twitter, “It must stop.”
Koch Industries donates to Republicans up and down the ticket.
However, Schumer has failed to apply those same standards to himself. He has yet to issue a similar statement about Disney or Microsoft, despite those companies’ soft response to Russia. Perhaps Schumer can’t afford to alienate his big-money Democrat donors.
The Yale School of Management maintains a list of large corporations’ relationships with Russia. The list ranks the companies on a scale of “business as usual” to “suspend all operations in Russia.”
According to the list, Microsoft has only suspended “new sales” in Russia. “Existing users can still access,” the list specifies.
Meanwhile, Disney has decided only to “pause new content releases.”
Sure enough, Schumer has taken $139,860 from Microsoft since 2017, according to OpenSecrets.
That figure doesn’t even count the donations to the Democratic National Committee.
The D.N.C. pocketed $1.815 million from the software company during 2020’s election cycle, OpenSecrets reported. Plus, the party reportedly took $644,583 from Disney.
It’s no wonder that Schumer has remained silent on the two companies’ moneymaking in Russia.
Koch Industries shamefully continues to do business in Putin’s Russia—putting profits ahead of defending democracy
It must stop@SenateDems, @RonWyden, & I are exploring legislation to add Russia to existing laws denying foreign tax credits for taxes paid to North Korea & Syria
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 17, 2022
Worse yet, Schumer may be reaping the benefits of cash from even more unseemly sources. There’s no way to tell.
As majority leader, Schumer has benefitted from the Senate Majority PAC, a political action committee “solely dedicated to building a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate.” In 2020, the PAC took $51 million from a nonprofit called Majority Forward, according to FEC records reviewed by Fox News in February.
As a 501(c)4 organization, Majority Forward can get away with keeping its donor list a secret.
In other words, Schumer has benefitted from dark money, despite having railed against dark money on Twitter.
“Dark money is casting a shadow over our political process,” he tweeted in 2014. “We need to pass the DISCLOSE Act.”
In other words, the Democrats’ donor list reveals that Schumer has failed to lead by example.
Dark money is casting a shadow over our political process; @SenateDems agree: we need to pass the DISCLOSE Act. pic.twitter.com/pJ0tQteayU
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) June 24, 2014
The Horn editorial team