It appears that there is another member of the Bush clan supporting Hillary Clinton for president after reports surfaced that George W’s daughter, Barbara, attended a Saturday night fundraiser for Hillary. The $5,000 per ticket event allowed partygoers the opportunity to hobnob with Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin.
Barbara Bush spent the night of October 1 rubbing elbows with Abedin in Paris, France, at a special Clinton fundraiser held during the City of Light’s famed Paris Fashion Week. According to The Daily Mail, Bush “paid at least $5,000 for the privilege.”
The party featured Abedin, Hollywood actress Dakota Fanning, and other celebrities. Black Eyed Peas band member Will.i.am also participated in events during the weekend geared at “mobiliz[ing] the expat vote with just five weeks to go.”
The special party was co-hosted by Vogue magazine’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and concluded with a dinner at American socialite Lauren Santo Domingo’s Paris home with tickets costing $5,000 per seat ($10,000 to “co-host” with “preferred seating”).
Huma Abedin, Hillary’s long-time top aide, has been in the news quite a bit lately. She was embarrassed yet again by the sexual abuse allegations against her husband, Anthony Weiner. The one-time Congressman is now under investigation for soliciting sex from a 15-year-old girl. He was also condemned for allegedly using his infant son as a “chick magnet” to get women.
But more worrisome is Abedin’s troubling involvement with Hillary’s email scandal. During an FBI investigation, for instance, Abedin told agents she had no knowledge of Hillary’s illegal email server yet released documents suggests she lied to the FBI.
Despite all these scandals, young Barbara Bush was seen mingling with Abedin and, according to The Daily Mail, shelling out big dollars for Hillary’s campaign to do so.
Barbara is hardly the first Bush said to be refusing to support the duly nominated candidate for the Republican Party, Donald Trump, and supporting Clinton instead. Many were aghast when her grandfather, former President George H.W. Bush, was reported as telling a member of the Kennedy clan that he was voting for Hillary.
The former President is only one of the Bush clan seemingly acting the turncoat to his own party. H.W.’s son, former Florida Governor and failed GOP presidential candidate, Jeb Bush, has also been on record as refusing to support his own party.
Even after Donald Trump essentially won the GOP nomination for president, for instance, Jeb petulantly insisted that he would never vote for Trump. And at the end of September, Jeb reiterated his refusal to support the party by insisting that Republicans should stay home in November because, in his estimation, not voting would make a “powerful political statement.”
Jeb’s super rich, establishment donors have followed their preferred candidate’s lead, too. One Bush donor pledged to donate a whopping $2 million to Hillary’s Latino outreach program to help her get elected in November.
Still another Bush has also been reticent to support the party’s nominee. Texas Land Commissioner and Texas GOP Victory Chair George P. Bush, Jeb’s son, initially said he would never vote for Donald Trump. But only a few months later it appears he softened his stance by saying it is important to stop Hillary so Republicans should “swallow a bitter pill” and vote Trump.
But not everyone in the Bush family orbit have turned against the Republican Party. Recently no less than 50 Bush appointees came out with a bold and forceful endorsement of Donald Trump.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.