After Anthony Scaramucci was named the new White House communications director it took only moments for people to let slip the Google hounds of online research and dig up some interesting tidbits. The first one which caught my attention was a max single contributor donation he made to Barack Obama’s campaign as reported at The Week among many other outlets.
Anthony Scaramucci, President Trump’s newly hired communications director, is on the books as having donated a nice chunk of change to former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden in 2008. FEC donor records indicate the Wall Street financier and longtime Trump supporter gave $2,300 to Obama for America on May 31, 2008, the Chicago Sun-Times’ Washington Bureau Chief Lynn Sweet reported.
Now, Trump has also donated to Democrats, so perhaps that wasn’t particularly problematic to him. Trump, for instance, previously donated to Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, as well as the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
As noted in that excerpt, if this were the only donation on record it would be rather petty of the President to hold it against him too much, particularly given his own history of political contributions. Also, you’ll find 2008 Obama donations in all sorts of surprising places. He was riding that whole Hope and Change train all over the country and it’s well known that Obama attracted a lot of independent and even crossover support.
But that wasn’t nearly the only time Scaramucci was being generous to the left. A quick glance at his record over at Open Secrets shows that he’s been quite generous indeed. The list of names includes:
- Hillary Clinton (which is kind of weird because he donated against her to Rick Lazio during her 2000 Senate run)
- Kirsten Gillibrand
- DNC Services Corp. ($28.5K)
- Joe Liberman
- John Kerry
- Joe Biden
- Harry Reid
- Chuck Schumer
- Tom Daschle
Now, to be fair, the majority of his Democrat donations (though not exclusively all) seemed to take place up through 2010. Starting in 2012 nearly all of his donations went to Republicans, including all of the congressional leadership, various PACs, the RNC and, of course, President Trump himself. Perhaps he just had a change of heart and experienced a conversion as many other Americans do.
But it wasn’t just the money, either. The Washington Examiner did some digging and found that he’s been rather vocal in the past when it comes to many bread and butter issues which are near and dear to the hearts of liberals.
In 2012, Scaramucci reacted to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings with a call for gun control.
“I have always been for strong gun control laws,” Scaramucci wrote in December 2012…
Earlier that year, he wrote, “We (the USA) has 5% of the world’s population but 50% of the world’s guns. Enough is enough. It is just common sense it apply more controls.”
The 53-year-old Long Island native also urged conservatives to embrace gay marriage and rights in 2012.
“Republicans should support Gay marriage,” he tweeted…
“Walls don’t work,” he wrote. “Never have never will.”
So was this a case of Trump not being aware of this history (lack of vetting) or simply an acknowledgement that the guy has “seen the light” and will be a loyal foot soldier? The President was clearly aware that people were pointing out Scaramucci’s early criticism of him and support for another candidate, but saw that as water under the bridge. As to some of his earlier, liberal positions, Donald Trump held a few of those himself in years past. All in all I don’t think we have that much of a mystery on our hands here. Trump clearly seems to judge people based on his own perception of how solid they are and he’s examined Scaramucci and found him to be a stand-up guy, so I doubt he’ll be going under the bus any time soon.
Now if I could only get Bohemian Rhapsody out of my head.
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