Tag: nepotism

Top Democrat Funneled More Than $200,000 In Campaign Cash To Family Members

Democratic South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn has distributed more than $200,000 in campaign funds to entities controlled by his relatives, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.

Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, has made 15 rental payments to a company controlled by a daughter and son-in-law, and 39 direct payments to another daughter and son-in-law. Clyburn’s grandson also appears to be a salaried employee, and has received twice-monthly payments from the Clyburn campaign since October 2021.

The disbursements were first reported by Fox News.

The Clyburn campaign paid 49 Magnolia Blossom LLC $62,500 in 15 installments from March 2020 to January 2022 for “office rent,” according to FEC filings. 49 Magnolia Blossom LLC was incorporated in 2018, with Clyburn’s son-in-law Walter A. Reed listed as the company’s agent. Walter Reed is married to Clyburn’s daughter Jennifer Clyburn Reed, whom President Joe Biden appointed federal co-chair of the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission. In addition to the funds paid to his LLC, the Clyburn campaign paid $650 to Walter Reed personally for “office maintenance lighting” in May 2021, Fox News noted.

Clyburn Reed also received significant payments from the Clyburn campaign. During her father’s successful 2020 re-election campaign, Clyburn Reed was paid $45,000, which the Clyburn campaign described in filings as a “campaign management fee.”

Walter and Jennifer’s son, Walter A.C. Reed, was employed by the Clyburn campaign as well. Walter A.C. Reed, Rep. Clyburn’s grandson, received $37,500 across eleven payments from the campaign since October 2021. 

The Clyburn campaign also paid the congressman’s other daughter and son-in-law, Angela and Cecil Hannibal, a combined $90,762 for various activities dating back to 2010.

Overall, Friends of Jim Clyburn has paid Clyburn’s family members and entities they control $236,412 since 2010.

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Biden Says His Family Weren’t Involved In Govt During The Obama Admin. That’s Not True.

President Biden promised that “no one” from his “family and extended family” would be involved with his White House, pointing to the days of the Obama administration as an example.

The pledge – praised by establishment media outlets as a refreshing change from the Trump administration – was announced via a recent interview conducted by People magazine.

Sitting next to his wife, Biden professed:

“We’re going to run this like the Obama-Biden administration. No one in our family and extended family is going to be involved in any government undertaking or foreign policy. And nobody has an office in this place.”

But Biden’s claim that no one from his family worked in the Obama administration is patently false.

At age 26, Biden’s niece Casey Owens worked at the Treasury Department as a Special Assistant to the Senior Coordinator for China in the Obama administration.

She wielded considerable influence over the direction of U.S.-China relations between 2009 and 2011, as she described her team as “advising” former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and responsible for “coordinat[ing] the priorities within the agenda for the Dialogue” and “spearhead[ing] the negotiations of proposals.”

What’s more, an unearthed cable reveals Owens was part of the elite Strategic and Economic Dialogue II planning trip to Beijing as part of an economic with senior State and Treasury officials. And despite being out of the administration for five years, she attended the Obama administration’s final state dinner.

Similarly, another niece of Biden, Missy Owens, worked at the Department of Energy as a Deputy Chief of Staff from 2009 to 2011. There, she “oversaw and coordinated strategic interaction with the White House, Cabinet agencies, Members of Congress, business leaders and interest groups and acted as a primary point of contact for Agency leadership.”

And in early 2011, Owens was promptly promoted to Chief of Staff to the Deputy Secretary of Commerce.

Valerie Biden Owens, the former veep’s younger sister, was also a presidential nominee for the position of Alternate Representative of the United States to the General Assembly of the United Nations.

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