DSCC: Give Back Madoff's Money!
Glenn Thrush over at Politico has flagged an item from the Weekly Standard that definitely deserves some attention.
It appears that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has $100,000 in money donated by one Bernard L. Madoff.
This would be an ideal time for Sen. Bob Menendez, DSCC chair, to show some actual leadership, especially after his embarrassing behavior in the omnibus bill debate. And I think we should do all we can to encourage young Robert to give back this (obviously dirty) cash.
With that in mind, please avail yourselves of the contact information below. I'd love nothing better than to help refund some of the $50,000,000,000+ that Madoff has stolen over the past two decades, and get some completely unnecessary taint off our party's brand in the process.
Senator Robert Menendez
DC Office: 317 Senate Hart Office Building, 202-224-4744
Newark, NJ Office: 973-645-3030
Barrington, NJ Office: 856-757-5353
Website: http://menendez.senate.gov
Web e-mail: http://menendez.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm
As WhoRunsGov has noted, Menendez has a bit of a history when it comes to campaign finance. If he is not pressed on this issue, it is safe to say that Madoff's contribution will remain in the DSCC's coffers, and be a valuable tool - for the Republican noise machine.
When former Sen. Henry Ashurst (R-AZ) was congratulated for seeing the light on an issue he'd reversed position on and voted against, he said, "I didn't see the light - I felt the heat!" Let's see if we can't warm things up a bit for Menendez and get him to do the right thing. (Any NJ readers, your contribution would be especially appreciated.)
Thank you for the great information, again!
March 13, 2009 9:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
It would be interesting to see all Madoff's contributions over the past 20 or so years.
As a side point about the size of the theft, it is not clear to me that he really stole $50B or $60B etc. I'd also like to see the net original investments figures over time (this doesn't count reinvested fake profits and it subtracts out monies paid out whether as profits or as returns of capital). Wouldn't it be close to $1B unless he transferred large sums to secret accounts?
March 13, 2009 11:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The man has apparently not made a single trade in at least 15 years.
Wouldn't it make sense, therefore, to just add up all the money funneled through BLMI since 1993, and assume it's all stolen (even any payouts, as they were obviously not paying out on real trades?)
March 14, 2009 1:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Could be it was all paid out to other investors except for his "take home pay" which I read seems to come to almost $1B. That is, he paid out almost everything he took in. So if you take all the inputs and subtract the capital returns, you're left with the "interest" payments he made over the years plus $1B.
March 14, 2009 4:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
But the money paid to other investors is still considered stolen. (In fact, those investors who got payouts from Madoff may very well be on the hook for those payments.)
What Madoff *stole* may not be the same amount as what Madoff *took home*. But, if I rob a bank for $100,000, and spend $5,000 for a flight out of the country, I'm still considered to have stolen $100,000, not $95,000.
March 16, 2009 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink