A political action<\/u> committee funded by a Republican megadonor is running the first ads of the Pennsylvania primary season by an outside group attacking Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The group, Moderate PAC, launched in January 2023 to target progressives in Democratic primaries. It\u2019s doing so with Republican money<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ads back the candidate recruited by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to run against Lee, Bhavini Patel, in hopes of making it to a general election against Republican candidate Laurie MacDonald.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Moderate PAC has employed Democratic consultants, including former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, its primary funder is Jeffrey Yass, one of the richest man in Pennsylvania and a major donor to the GOP. Yass, though formally registered as a libertarian, is one of former President Donald Trump\u2019s picks for Treasury secretary<\/a> should he win election in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yass, a co-founder of a large hedge fund, has become increasingly involved in spending against progressives, aimed at keeping a regressive tax code in place and cutting funding for public schools in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If you have to rely on a Super PAC bankrolled by Pennsylvania’s richest Republican \u2014 who has made it his mission to defund public education and ban abortion in PA \u2014 you’re not just unfit to run in a Democratic primary, you’re actively anti-democracy too,\u201d said Usamah Andrabi, communications director for Justice Democrats, which is backing Lee. \u201cTake a cue from Laurie McDonald and just run as a Republican.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Moderate PAC president and founder Ty Strong told The Intercept that other Pittsburgh area donors, including labor unions, had given to the PAC to fund ads against Lee in the race for the Pennsylvania\u2019s 12th Congressional District.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll the money raised for the ads in PA-12 were received from members of that community and Pittsburgh labor unions,\u201d Strong said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though he didn\u2019t identify the labor unions, Strong named six individual donors \u2014 including one registered Republican and five Democrats. Among them were private equity and venture capital executives Todd Reidbord and Gregg Perelman, who run the Pittsburgh private equity firm Walnut Capital; Richard and Arlene Weisman, who are active philanthropists in Pittsburgh\u2019s Jewish community; and Evan Segal and Andy Rabin of the 412 Venture fund. Rabin is registered as a Republican.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strong said the names of other donors would be revealed in the PAC\u2019s next filings with the Federal Election Commission, which is due on April 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n One of those donors, Segal, a Democrat who worked in the administration of former President Barack Obama, told The Intercept he hardly agreed with Yass on anything, including his reasons for funding the PAC in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMr. Yass\u2019s reasons for funding this are in support of a very, very ultra-right-wing group of crazies who despise Summer Lee,\u201d he said. Though he is supporting Yass\u2019s PAC, Segal said, \u201cI don\u2019t support people on the extremes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Segal said he gave to Yass\u2019s PAC not because he believes the enemy of his enemy is his friend, but that observers are anticipating further outside spending to back Lee. \u201cWe firmly believe that there will be money that will come in from the outside \u2014 from people who also hate marginalized communities \u2014 to support Summer Lee, as well as people from the right like Mr. Yass who want to run these Machiavellian games with their billions of dollars,\u201d Segal said. (The other five identified donors did not respond to a request for comment.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Segal said he\u2019s backing Patel because she\u2019ll support Democratic leaders including President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., to fight for issues like reproductive freedom and women\u2019s equality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For her part, in a press statement last week, Lee said, \u201cRepublican-funded Super PACs and their chosen candidate couldn\u2019t stop us last cycle, and they won\u2019t stop us this time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lee faced an onslaught of spending from pro-Israel lobbying groups in 2022. AIPAC and its ally, Democratic Majority for Israel, spent millions<\/a> against her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also not the first time Lee\u2019s opponents have claimed she\u2019s not really a Democrat \u2014 while themselves taking money from Republicans. Patel and her campaign have strategized<\/a> about how to encourage Republicans to get involved in the primary, how Patel\u2019s campaign appeals to Republican voters, and how the campaign can encourage Republicans to switch parties to vote in the April 23 primary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Moderate PAC\u2019s Strong compared the donors who funded the new ads, including Republicans, to one of Lee\u2019s donors. \u201cThis is in contrast to Rep. Summer Lee, who receives money from people condemned by the White House,\u201d Strong added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Strong said he was referring to Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whom the White House denounced in December after he said he was happy to see the people of Gaza breaking the long-running siege against the territory on October 7. Awad has explicitly condemned the Hamas attack and clarified<\/a> that his comments were in support of Palestinians\u2019 fight against Israel\u2019s illegal occupation, not in support of Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yass is also a major donor to a far-right Israeli think tank<\/a> that has tried to reconfigure the country\u2019s judicial system and suppress criticism of human rights abuses by the Israeli government.<\/p>\n The post GOP Megadonor\u2019s PAC Fires Off First Ads in Summer Lee\u2019s Democratic Primary<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Moderate PAC, funded by Republican megadonor Jeff Yass, became the first outside group to run ads in a contested Democratic primary.<\/p>\n The post GOP Megadonor\u2019s PAC Fires Off First Ads in Summer Lee\u2019s Democratic Primary<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1564549"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1566296,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1564549\/revisions\/1566296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1564549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1564549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1564549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cTake a cue from Laurie McDonald and just run as a Republican.\u201d<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Moderate PAC Donors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Past Spending Against Lee<\/h2>\n\n\n\n