Courtesy of Pam Martens
Protesters Stage a Sit In at Senator Chuck Schumer’s Office in November 2016 Over Wall Street Democrats Selling Out
Something smelled unusually rotten in Trumpland when Democratic Senator from New York Chuck Schumer fell all over himself to endorse Donald Trump’s nominee, Vincent Viola, as Secretary of the Army. Viola has never served in battle and has spent the bulk of his adult life as an oil and gas futures trader. He became a billionaire from his stake in a high frequency trading firm, Virtu Financial, which he took public last year.
Multiple media outlets reported that Viola was a donor to Donald Trump’s campaign. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, however, Viola’s only Federal election contribution in the past two years was a $5,000 donation to the CME Group Pac in December 2015.
Raising further questions about what is actually going on here, Virtu Financial’s CEO, Douglas Cifu, was a major donor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, giving $10,000 to the Hillary Victory Fund on August 22, 2016. On the same date, Cifu gave $10,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
Even more eye-popping, Cifu and nine other executives of Virtu Financial gave donations ranging from $1,000 to the maximum $2700 to Senator Chuck Schumer’s re-election campaign. Those executives include Brian Palmer, the Global Head of Development and Joseph Molluso, Virtu’s Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
The FEC shows no employee of Virtu Financial making a donation to Donald Trump’s campaign.
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