Whitehouse Eyes Attack on Conservative Donors in Democrat-Led Senate – By Kevin Daley (Free Beacon) / Nov 2 2020
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D., R.I.) is urging Democrats to unmask GOP donors through a wide-ranging investigation into the conservative legal movement if they take control of the Senate after Tuesday’s election.
Legal conservatives are digging in for the fight, connecting his proposals with an ugly history of attacks on anonymous political activity and warning that such probes would trigger an in-kind response from the GOP. Nor is their concern idle speculation, as the Rhode Island Democrat’s name was previously floated to lead the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee during Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination hearings.
“If we do get to control committees in the Senate and we have the ability to do real investigations instead of all the covering up that the Republican committees have done, then I think we need to start asking questions, like who wrote a $17 million check to pay for the ad campaigns that helped get Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court,” Whitehouse said during an Oct. 26 interview on MSNBC.
Such an attack puts left-wing groups at considerable risk. A 2018 watchdog report found that progressive groups have eclipsed conservatives in the dark money arms race, a trend that continues apace in the 2020 campaign. Whitehouse critics are quick to seize on this point, noting that anonymous giving has powered a wide range of political movements. In the long term, his tactics could chill giving around climate-change activism or LGBT rights, they say.
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