Remember this the next time President Joe Biden claims the Republicans are the party of the “rich”: Daniel S. Goldman, heir to the Levi Strauss clothing fortune, just bought a congressional seat in New York, spending $5 million of his personal stash.
Goldman, former henchman to Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) as impeachment counsel for the House Intelligence Committee, is also a certified Russia hoaxer who doggedly pushed the fraudulent “dossier” on Trump and hoped a “pee tape” would emerge.
In the impeachment investigation, he questioned witnesses behind closed doors and would not explain to the House Judiciary Committee why his committee had snooped on the phone records of Trump’s lawyers and Republican members of Congress.
A former federal prosecutor, Goldman has no natural constituency, but won the 10th congressional district Democratic Party primary — and hence the seat — by vastly outspending his more prominent rivals by dipping into his personal piggy bank.
The New York Times reported:
Mr. Goldman, an heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, has a net worth of up to $253 million and pumped nearly $5 million of his own money into the race.
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He vanquished several candidates who had stronger political ties to the area and who were drawn into the 10th Congressional District after an unusually messy redistricting process earlier this year.
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Mr. Goldman lacked the political connections of many of his opponents. He had never held elective office before, nor had he been particularly involved with local Democratic political clubs or neighborhood community boards. But his wealth enabled him to carpet bomb the district with television ads.
Goldman, who cast himself as a “progressive” within the Democratic Party, also highlighted his experience in the Trump impeachment — one in which he and other wealthy Democrat donors used their clout to cast themselves in starring roles. Not surprisingly, Goldman carried the Wall Street portion of the district on primary day, while losing in working-class Brooklyn.
Now, Bloomberg News notes, Goldman “will become one of the richest members of Congress if elected in November.”
It takes a lot of wealth to be that “progressive.” It takes a certain sense of personal security to violate other people’s constitutional rights. And for a rich, entitled kid in New York City, it takes about $5 million to buy a congressional seat.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.