Staunch pro-Israel billionaires are the “biggest donors” of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s super PAC (Political Action Committee) that has reportedly secured $154 million in donations to wage an advertising campaign to win the election.
In a Saturday statement, the communications director of super PAC Priorities USA Justin Barasky said the group has banked $110 million in donations and secured an additional $44 million in “commitments” from its donors, reported The Hill – published by Capitol Hill Publishing Corporation. The statement also mentioned George Soros and Haim Saban as the largest donors of Clinton’s super PAC.
“Some of the Clinton super PAC's biggest donors include hedge fund billionaire George Soros and California-based entertainment mogul Haim Saban,” said the report.
Ranked by Forbes as the 143rd richest person in America, Saban is the founder of Saban Entertainment -- an independent American-Israeli television production company – and the co-owner of Univision Communications -- the largest Spanish-language American media company. Univision has a history of “explicitly cooperating with the Clinton Foundation,” according to a Alternet.org report published on Friday.
According to disclosures published by OpenSecrets.org, Haim Saban and his wife Cheryl donated $5 million to Clinton’s Super PAC between 2015 and 2016. At least $3 million of that sum was contributed following a letter by Clinton to Saban in July of 2015, in which she sought his advice on "how we can work together” to overpower the growing movement to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction Israel (BDS).
Saban is the same guy that has always said his top priority is not democratic policies; It’s Israel. “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel,” he told the New Yorker in 2010.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 10 TV, Saban insisted that he has an open line to Hillary Clinton and he is not afraid to use it, Forward.comreported in a July 29 article. Saban added that he feels free to call Clinton “whenever he feels there is something he needs to tell her."
According to the report, Saban would not put a dollar amount on his contributions to the Clinton campaign, but said it was an “eight figure” number.
Meanwhile, Priorities USA has also put more than $35 million into digital advertising, a significant and growing amount of which is aimed at motivating Hispanic voters — a group that overwhelmingly opposes Trump.
The group, according to The Hill, finished July with $38.7 million cash on hand — “money that will be used to continue the group's strategy of portraying Trump as temperamentally unfit to be president and hammering the GOP nominee over his rhetoric about women, minorities, and people with disabilities.”
Officially known as independent-expenditure only committees, Super PACs can raise funds from individuals, corporations, and other groups without any legal limit on donation size, unlike traditional PACs.
Tags
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton
International Politics
Israel (country)
Politics
Spotlight
the United States
United State's History
United States
United States (Overview)
US
US Presidential Election
