No, Carly Fiorina Is Not a Hillary Clinton Donor

A recent report from the Conservative Review alleging that GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina is a “former donor” to Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton is untrue, Fiorina’s team tells Breitbart News.

Fiorina did give money to Political Action Committees (PACs) that in turn donated to Clinton’s various campaigns—but those PACs also donated to scores of Republicans including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and former Club For Growth president Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA)—and therefore, making the claim that those donations makes her a “former donor” to the former Secretary of State’s various campaigns is scurrilous, Fiorina’s campaign says.

“Wait for it. Carly Fiorina, it turns out, is a former donor not only to the Democratic Party at large, but to one high profile Democrat in particular: Hillary Clinton,” Jeffrey Lord wrote in the Conservative Review on Thursday. “And unlike Donald Trump, who has been quite open about his own donations for business reasons, Fiorina has tried to convey the exact opposite impression, as in her first debate appearance in August, when, looking around at her fellow candidates on the ‘second tier,’ Fiorina went after Trump with this line.”

Lord then quoted Fiorina from the early August Fox News Channel debate in which she attacked GOP frontrunner billionaire Donald Trump for having received a call from former U.S. President Bill Clinton—Hillary’s husband—before he got into the race for president.

“I didn’t get a phone call from Bill Clinton before I jumped in the race,” Fiorina said then. “Did any of you get a phone call from Bill Clinton? I didn’t. Maybe it’s because I hadn’t given money to the foundation, or donated to his wife’s Senate campaign.’”

Lord attempted to provide evidence to support his claim that Fiorina was a “former donor” to Clinton. He wrote:

The Federal Election Commission records that Ms. Fiorina was a donor to the Technology Network (Technet) Federal PAC. The FEC documents that Technet’s ‘In Kind Contributions’—represented by the provision of goods or services in lieu of actual capital—included nine separate donations to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign, as well as one contribution to her presidential campaign in 2007. Other recipients of Technet’s generosity, divided between ‘Contributions’ and ‘In Kind Contributions,’ include Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer (later Fiorina’s 2010 Senate opponent), Senate Democratic Leaders Harry Reid and Tom Daschle, and the late Ted Kennedy. Contrary to the impression she seeks to make, Mrs. Fiorina’s generosity, it would seem, does not differentiate party or principle.

He added later in the article more evidence of Fiorina’s donations to another PAC that in turn supported Clinton:

Even more startling is that as CEO of Hewlett Packard, Fiorina was giving to HP’s own Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company PAC—a committee that represented the company she was in charge of and presumably was responsive to her personal direction. And among the beneficiaries of the HP PAC? Six separate contributions to Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid; eight to House Speaker/Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi; and nine to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (an independent donor to Hillary Clinton in its own right).

Fiorina’s campaign responded to the story by noting—correctly—that Technet PAC supports both Republicans and Democrats.

“It’s a strange and misleading article that is clearly an orchestrated attack on Carly’s record,” Fiorina deputy campaign manager Sarah Isgur Flores told Breitbart News. “15 years ago, Carly donated to a pac that has supported Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Pete Sessions and Mike Lee. She has been the most outspoken critic of Mrs Clinton in the GOP field. Maybe others should focus more of their fire on Hillary’s lies and less on their fellow conservatives.”

Lord’s claim that a donation to Technet is in turn a donation to Clinton would also mean that a donation to Technet was a donation to former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and more Republicans. The PAC has donated to each of those Republicans and more—and several Democrats including Clinton—over the years.

What’s more, the HP PAC that Lord references, throughout the years, has in addition to donating to Clinton, donated to former Club For Growth president Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Sen. Grassley, and scores of other Republicans and Democrats.

Lord later in his article criticizes Fiorina on other relevant issues — for example, on comments she made praising Jesse Jackson. He also pointed out that Fiorina said she will “never make a personal comment” about Hillary Clinton and that she feels “empathy” for Clinton, which Breitbart News previously reported. However, donating to two PACs that gave money to both Republicans and Democrats does not prove Fiorina is a “former donor” to Clinton.