Read on Twitter
I've been covering Kelly Loeffler (R-Cayman Islands) pretty steadily for @Salon, and since today's Georgia runoffs make it a special day, here's a recap of some standout stories that might offer a snapshot of just who she is and what she's all about 1/16
First, Loeffler's husband chairs the New York Stock Exchange. They sold more than $58 million of their own stock this year, even under scrutiny for insider trading. Loeffler says DOJ cleared her, but neither will say what happened to the SEC investigation https://www.salon.com/2020/11/28/kelly-loefflers-husband-dumped-his-own-stock-this-spring-breaking-years-long-pattern/
Months after the Great Recession hit, Loeffler & her husband set up an offshore system for the world's biggest banks to keep trading the same derivatives that contributed to the crisis in the first place — tax-free! Then they bought a $10 million mansion. https://www.salon.com/2020/11/21/kelly-loeffler-marketed-derivatives-during-great-recession-at-worlds-most-notorious-tax-haven/
She named the mansion "Descante," which translates loosely to "chill." It's also the name of the company that operates her private jet. Loeffler says that the jet saves taxpayers, yet she still takes public flights — probably some in first class, I found https://www.salon.com/2020/12/21/kelly-loeffler-says-she-uses-private-jet-to-save-taxpayers-but-took-publicly-funded-flights/
Oh - taxpayers may have paid for the jet, too https://www.salon.com/2020/11/10/did-sen-kelly-loeffler-take-advantage-of-a-trump-tax-loophole-to-write-off-campaign-jet/
A Loeffler PAC got millions from billionaire hedge fund mogul Ken Griffin the day after his company announced a major acquisition the NYSE had to approve. Loeffler's husband, again, chairs the NYSE. Griffin threatened to sue me for this one. https://www.salon.com/2020/12/17/this-hedge-fund-billionaire-is-a-huge-fan-of-sen-kelly-loeffler--but-why/
Speaking of billions of dollars, Loeffler didn't disclose who employed a family of donors named Asplundh, owners of the multibillion infrastructure clearing company & gov't contractor also named Asplundh. (Fined $95 million for using illegal labor btw) https://www.salon.com/2020/12/24/loeffler-didnt-disclose-top-donors-own-multibillion-dollar-company-cited-for-illegal-hiring-scheme/
Speaking of billions of dollars, Loeffler became a billionaire a few days ago, during her first year in the Senate, while she sat on the committee that oversees her husband's industry https://www.salon.com/2021/01/05/days-before-georgia-runoff-kelly-loeffler-officially-became-a-billionaire/
Loeffler's Senate post, her work history, & her husband's companies — combined with her refusal to fully divest — makes it essentially impossible for her to avoid impressions of conflicts of interest. Such as, say, with the entire energy industry. https://www.salon.com/2021/01/01/kelly-loefflers-extensive-ties-to-the-energy-sector-suggest-major-conflict-of-interest/
All those conflicts of interest might explain why some of these hundreds of Loeffler donors haven't disclosed the name of their employers... https://www.salon.com/2020/12/31/kelly-loeffler-makes-mysterious-last-minute-multimillion-dollar-donation-to-her-own-campaign/
But Loeffler is the type of candidate who really embraces her contradictions. Here she is slamming Big Tech because Trump did it, while just one year earlier she ran a cryptocurrency joint venture with Microsoft. What a complex, nuanced person. https://www.salon.com/2020/12/11/loeffler-sides-with-trump-against-big-tech--after-building-a-massive-fortune-in-the-industry/
Loeffler also ran a campaign ad declaring that she knows what it's like "waiting on that paycheck," which is also a very complex and nuanced position for her, a billionaire, to take. https://www.salon.com/2020/11/30/new-kelly-loeffler-ad-claims-multimillionaire-knows-what-it-feels-like-waiting-on-that-paycheck/
And who knows, maybe Loeffler does know what it's like to be poor. Her campaign was apparently so strapped that she solicited donations in the halls of the Senate — which would be a crime https://www.salon.com/2020/11/18/kelly-loeffler-under-fire-for-soliciting-campaign-cash-in-halls-of-the-senate--an-apparent-crime/
But Loeffler was chosen in part because she was thought to be a moderate who could appeal to the suburbs as Georgia's demographics shift. Less than a year later she's posing in a campaign selfie with a known neo-Nazi. https://www.salon.com/2020/12/14/kelly-loeffler-apologizes-for-photo-with-with-longtime-kkk-member-convicted-of-beating-a-black-man/
After that imbroglio, a coalition of more than 100 Black pastors told Loeffler that her rhetoric against opponent Raphael Warnock, the pastor at MLK's former congregation, amounted to an attack on the Black church https://www.salon.com/2020/12/22/black-pastors-call-on-kelly-loeffler-to-cease-and-desist-her-attack-against-the-black-church/
And last week this suburban, inclusive Romney-Republican chose to cap off her campaign by darkening her Black opponent's skin color in an ad, then dumping 10x as much money into that ad as one the same day, with the same clips, but which weren't darkened. https://www.salon.com/2021/01/04/kelly-loefflers-new-facebook-ad-darkens-skin-of-raphael-warnock-her-black-opponent/
