As incumbent U.S. Senator Clarie McCaskill fights for her political life, her campaign and state democrats have found a new weapon. A Democratic group, funded with $1 million from George Soros, is flooding the airwaves with attack ads.The ads attempt to tie popular Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley to the Gov. Greitens scandal. McCaskil is seen as one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators up for reelection in the 2018 midterms.
Greitens last week was indicted on a felony invasion of privacy charge stemming from an extramarital affair that occurred in 2015. Greitens faces both an indictment by a St. Louis grand jury and an investigation by a state House panel. He has denied blackmailing or taking pictures without consent of the woman with whom he had an affair. The indictment and investigation came on the testimony of the woman’s ex-husband though no evidence of a photo has surfaced. The investigation itself has come under scrutiny as the St. Louis judge has been accused by the St. Louis Police Department of lying about details of the investigation itself.
Senate Majority PAC, a group that supports Democratic Senate candidates, released an ad that linked Hawley to Greitens. The 30-second spot is running in multiple markets and is part of a buy that began two weeks ago, the PAC’s spokesman, Chris Hayden, said.
The ad’s narrator says, “Scandals in Jefferson City. Now real questions about Attorney General Josh Hawley.”
“Josh Hawley, he’s just part of the problem in Jefferson City,” the narrator of the ad says, over footage of broadcast news coverage of the Greitens scandal, adds. The ad also knocks Hawley for accepting money donors who also donated to the Greitens’ campaign.
McCaskill
Hayden said the initial buy on the ad was more than $900,000 and that the group added an additional $500,000 when the ad targeting Hawley was added. The group did not disclose how long the ad would run.
Asked to comment on the ad, a Hawley campaign spokeswoman highlighted the ties between McCaskill and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, and added that McCaskill was in the “worst position” of her decades-long political career.
“For two weeks in a row, Senator McCaskill provided negative attacks for her good friend Chuck Schumer to spend millions on her behalf,” spokeswoman Kelli Ford said. “It’s clear she is more worried than ever. She’s in the worst position of her 36-year political career because she broke her promise to be bipartisan and votes with Schumer every time it matters. Schumer is taking a prominent role in these efforts because he wants to keep Claire McCaskill’s vote in his back pocket.”
Soros’ money is funding the political left
But more than McCaskill’s ties to liberal Senate Democrats, the real story is the connection to George Soros. Soros is one of the world’s largest donors to radical left-wing nonprofit organizations and politicians worldwide. Soros has given hundreds of millions of dollars to nearly 5,000 liberal and ultra-left organizations campaigning for a more powerful role in international affairs for the United Nations, population control, socialism, and the defeat of Republicans and election of Democrats in the U.S. Soros also funds the radical extremist group antifa. The group, known for anarchist activities including violent demonstration to shut down conservatives and Christians on college campuses, has grown in strength based on support from many democrats.
Soros amassed much of his fortune via the controversial practice of global currency speculation, including earning $1 billion in a day by manipulating the British pound – which earned him the title of the “man who broke the Bank of England” in 1992. The dual Hungarian and U.S. citizen has used that fortune to manipulate world events. Soros is credited with funding and organizing the downfall of Georgia’s President Eduard Shevardnadze.
An article in the Winter 2017 edition of City Journal titled “Connoisseur of Chaos” noted how Soros giving and power is underrported in the press, stating “Soros’s global reach and influence far outstrip those of the Koch brothers or other liberal bogeymen – and that underlying it all is a vision both dystopian and opportunistic.”
In October 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that Soros had transferred a staggering $18 billion to his Open Society Foundation, meaning the bulk of his lifelong fortune would be dedicated to promoting left-wing causes and organizations.
Hawley, a practicing Christian, is seen as the top candidate who can defeat McCaskill in November. President Donald Trump is expected to headline an invitation-only fundraiser for Hawley in St. Louis on March 14. The state went for Trump by almost 20 points in 2016 and Trump and Hawley remains hugely popular in the state.
What does this mean for Josh Hawley?
Hawley, who is new to the politics and won in part because he was seen as an outsider, has received praise for fair and balanced investigations into state officials–including Greitens. His office has opened an in inquiry into the Mission Continues, the veterans charity that Greitens founded after returning from Iraq. There have been questions about Greitens’ ties to the charity, which he left in 2014, dating back to at least 2016 when the Associated Press reported that Greitens had raised nearly than $2 million for his campaign from donors that also gave significant amounts to The Mission Continues.
Loree Ann Paradise, a spokeswoman for Hawley’s office, said that there was an “open inquiry into the charitable activities” of the Mission Continues “pursuant to the AGO’s enforcement responsibilities under the consumer protection and charitable registration and reporting laws.”