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With 10 days to go before the vote for Republican National Committee Chair, seat warmer Ronna McDaniel has dropped a list of 150 donors who are backing her to remain in the seat. McDaniel gave the letter to Fox News to disseminate to the Republican and conservative masses.
From the letter:
Ronna has led the Party with integrity and transparency. She has demonstrated good judgement [sic] and a steady hand as she guided the RNC through challenging political times. Her care and concern for our Party and country is undeniable and she represents us well.
From RedState’s and other reporting over the past two months, we know this is a blatant falsehood. Good judgment and a steady hand do not get you over $20 million of flagrant spending and three cycles of massive electoral loss.
Under Ronna’s unwavering leadership, the RNC has made consistent, critical contributions to the Republican ecosystem. In addition to fulfilling her current term promise of flipping the House and retiring Nancy Pelosi:
Notably absent a mention: Losing the Senate, and the Arizona governorship.
McDaniel’s list includes former ambassadors, also-rans, and fossils who have held sway over the Republican Party for decades, and have no desire to be dislodged from that position. So, it is in their interest to maintain the status quo. They know McDaniel will leave them alone as long as they keep supporting her and funneling money into the coffers. Here are just a few examples of those on the list:
Under the “keeping it in the family category,” you have Marlene and Joe Ricketts of Omaha, Nebraska. That name ring a bell? They are the parents of former Nebraska governor Pete Ricketts. The same Pete Ricketts (now termed out of the governorship), who was chosen by new governor Jim Pillen to fill the Senate seat vacated by Ben Sasse. According to The Los Angeles Times, Pillen said 111 people applied to fill the Senate seat.
Pillen surprised no one in naming fellow Republican Pete Ricketts to the seat vacated Sunday by Ben Sasse, also a Republican, after Ricketts helped Pillen get elected in November.
The governor said 111 people had applied for the vacant seat.
“I don’t believe in placeholders. I believe that every day matters. … Placeholders don’t have any accountability to the people,” Pillen said.
And neither do Ricketts or Pillen. The Post Millennial reported that Ricketts gave $100,000 to Pillen’s campaign in the lead-up to the May 2022 primary, and gave $1.28 million to SuperPAC Conservative Nebraska, with his largest single donation to the PAC ($775,000) coming just before the primary. Former Democrat Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was convicted and sentenced to 14 years for selling then-Senator Barack Obama’s seat. How is this any different?
Speaking of Illinois and The Chicago Way, Sylvie Légère and Todd Ricketts of Wilmette also signed the letter. Légère is the wife of Todd Ricketts, and Todd is the brother of Pete, co-owner of The Chicago Cubs baseball franchise, and served as RNC Finance Chairman from 2018 to 2021. No doubt that whatever financial machinations occurred under McDaniel’s watch also involved him, so consider this circling the wagons.
Then you have the ambassador connections. Ambassador appointments are merely sops to big money donors who have no interest in holding a government office or would not be able to, but want an “in” on political and presidential power. Former Ambassador Robert Kohorst is now fat, happy, and back in Pasadena, Calif. where he is president and founder of Everest Properties, a nationwide real estate investment firm. But in 2016, according to FEC filings, he contributed nearly $300,000 to the Trump Victory PAC, a McDaniel-connected SuperPAC. Kohorst was subsequently appointed ambassador to Croatia in 2018 and served until 2021.
Richard “Duke” Buchan III took over the RNC Finance Chair position in 2022. An American financier, farmer, and philanthropist, Buchan also served as the Ambassador to Spain and Andorra under the Trump administration. As the Finance Chair, his future is locked with McDaniel, whether he wants it or not.
Bobby Schostak was the Michigan GOP Chair before Ronna McDaniel, and part of an early list of Mega Donors who endorsed McDaniel as our Managing Editor Jennifer Van Laar uncovered.
McDaniel issued her own endorsements from a group of seven mega donors last week, including Bobby Schostak. The endorsement did not mention, though, that Schostak, a former Michigan GOP chair, owns Templar Baker Strategies, which has been paid more than $1 million by the RNC since 2017, and is part of the leadership team of Mad Dog Technology (and a fund manager and former CEO of its venture capital arm), which has been paid over $300,000 in the same time frame.
So, essentially, Schostak and McDaniel have been political bedfellows for a long time, which makes him loyal, bought, and paid for. Schostak’s business partner Peter Karmanos is also a signatory to the letter, so their fortunes also seem to be tied together.
The Michigan GOP trafficks in the sketchy, as indicated by signatory Ron Weiser, the current Chair. In 2018, Weiser paid a candidate for Michigan Secretary of State $200,000 to do some consulting on the condition that he drop out of the race.
Michigan Republican Party Chair Ron Weiser will not face criminal charges for using GOP party funds in a deal that pushed a 2018 GOP candidate for Secretary of State out of the contest, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Monday.
Weiser has already paid $200,000 on behalf of the GOP through a conciliation agreement with the Secretary of State to resolve possible violations of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act. Nessel’s office concluded that because that agreement has been complied with, it precludes criminal prosecution by her office for campaign finance violations.
And among the California contingent of donors supporting McDaniel, one cannot fail to mention Shawn Steel, who serves as the Republican National Committeeman from California and is the husband of U.S. Congresswoman Michelle Steel. Steel still has the taint of influence peddling for the Chinese Communist Party as a 2020 report from The Wall Street Journal alleged.
Several of those involved worked closely with China’s national-security apparatus, including organizations linked to its military, and briefed prominent Chinese political figures about their efforts.
As guests of a Republican official named Shawn Steel, Chinese nationals, including a man working for China’s central government, attended an invitation-only gathering in May 2017 where GOP leaders discussed campaign strategies and other issues.
In response to inquiries, the Republican National Committee said it had instructed Mr. Steel to break ties with several people identified in Wall Street Journal reporting.
“It’s important to do all we can to safeguard our politics from illegal foreign meddling,” the RNC said in response to questions. It said it wouldn’t return donations identified by the Journal that facilitated access to the president and other officials because it didn’t believe campaign-finance laws were broken.
Separately, Mr. Steel, a Republican national committeeman from California, said it would be “false, defamatory, and offensive” to say he aided any Chinese efforts. He didn’t respond to specific questions.
That, along with his endorsement of losing California Governor Recall candidate and radio host Larry Elder in 2021 reflect Steel’s penchant for manipulating behind the scenes while pretending to have clean hands. While Steel and RNC Chair candidate Harmeet Dhillon work closely together on the Republican National Committee, it is telling that Steel has chosen to continue with the status quo. Apparently, he feels no course correction is necessary and will follow Ronna McDaniel into that ditch where she has driven the Republican Party.
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