Courtesy of Pam Martens
Senator Cory Booker Endorses Joe Biden on March 9, 2020, One Day Before Second Super Tuesday Voting Begins
There has been the feeling of an invisible hand in the miraculous comeback of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Biden lost all three of the first races in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, then spiraled to a long series of state victories despite a lackluster and sometimes rambling performance in the presidential debates.
Since the invisible hand in unlikely elections always has a money trail somewhere, we decided to pull back the dark curtain using campaign financing data at the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org). The name of the giant Wall Street law firm – Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP – emerges as a common denominator.
Paul Weiss has not only been a major donor to the Biden campaign but it was simultaneously a major donor to the campaigns of the four presidential candidates who dropped out of the race and then endorsed Biden at critical moments in his miraculous resuscitation. (As the Center for Responsive Politics notes on its website, the law firm itself is prohibited from making donations under federal law. The money came from the law firm’s partners, employees, their immediate family members or its PAC.)
Donors from Paul Weiss rank as the 12th largest donor to the Joe Biden campaign with a tally of $168,412. Paul Weiss was the top donor to Senator Cory Booker’s presidential campaign, sluicing $151,102 into his campaign coffers. Senator Amy Klobuchar, who hails from Minnesota – pretty far from the law firm’s Wall Street focus – received $76,932 from Paul Weiss, making it her third largest donor in her presidential bid.
Pete Buttigieg, who was the former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana – about as far from Wall Street as one can get, received $133,261 from those generous folks at Paul Weiss, making it his seventh largest donor.
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