A mysterious billionaire supporter of Josh Hawley and other lawmakers has suggested he was “misled” by the Missouri Republican senator, which led to the attempt to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election.
Jeffrey Yass is a co-founder of Susquehanna International Group – headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a critical swing state – who donated tens of millions of dollars to hardline Republican groups following Donald Trump’s attempt to defeat him at the ballot box by Joe Pray to invalidate, supported. .
Yass privately told a longtime collaborator he did not foresee how his contributions would lead to attempts to overthrow American democracy.
“Do you think anyone knew Hawley would do that?” Yass writes to Laura Goldman, a former stockbroker who has known him for more than three decades.
“Sometimes politicians deceive their donors.”
Yass, who does not give interviews and generally avoids publicity, also told Goldman he does not believe the 2020 election was “stolen”, although he did support right-wing and indirect right-wing Republicans who repeatedly – and falsely – tried to to discredit the results. .
The latest outburst of the January 6 attempt to invalidate the election, in which 147 Republicans in Congress objected to the outcome of the Electoral College in the aftermath of the attack on the Capitol, comes because both Hawley and his donors are under pressure and face criticism for his role.
Hawley said he was objecting to the counting of election votes to spark a ‘debate’ about the integrity of the election. He denied that his actions incited the violent eruption and destruction of the Capitol in which five people died, including a police officer.
Goldman told the Guardian that she emailed Yass because she was upset about his support for Hawley and other Republicans, especially because lawmakers wanted to invalidate the election results in their home state of Pennsylvania, which helped Biden get the To conclude with White House.
‘I approached Jeff Yass in dismay after reading the Guardian article [about his involvement in donations] “because I was shocked, he would possibly invalidate my vote and the voice of his neighbors by politicians to whom he gives millions of dollars,” she said.
She added: ‘Yass lives here. He knows local politicians … he can simply call them and ask questions if he thinks the election results are funky, which absolutely was not. He does not need Josh Hawley, a Missouri senator, or Ted Cruz, a Texas senator, to question the election results in the state he has lived in for nearly 40 years. ‘
Goldman posted snippets of Yass’s private remarks to her on Twitter. The Guardian was able to verify the authenticity of the statements.
Yass, a trader and poker enthusiast who is an active Republican donor and a force in the Pennsylvania election, donated about $ 30 million to conservative Super Pacs in the 2020 election cycle, making him the eighth largest donor in the election. compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Most of these donations were made to the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group that backed 42 Republican hardliners in 2018 and 2020 who eventually chose to reverse the election results even after the insurgents stormed the U.S. capital.
The Club for Growth was a major supporter of Hawley and Cruz, his partner in invalidating the election.
Yass did not respond to requests for comment from the Guardian. He also did not respond to questions about whether he would continue to donate to the Club for Growth and whether he had discussed issues with Hawley and others. Goldman said she spoke to him in part because she knew he was a “practical” political donor.
The Club for Growth did not respond to a request for comment. The group’s president, David McIntosh, has been a staunch supporter of some of the most anti-democratic legislatures elected in 2020, including Lauren Boebert, a QAnon supporter and gun rights advocate from Colorado, who has been criticized for his position on the speaker of the House tweeted. , Nancy Pelosi, during the riot in the Capitol, against the advice of the police.
In an endorsement by Boebert in July 2020, McIntosh praised the restaurant owner and political novice for her understanding of the “irreparable damage” caused by “government rule” and said he no doubt Boebert was a “conservative firefighter” in Washington would be.
Yass told Goldman he donated to the Club for Growth a year ago and suggested he could not expect what Hawley and others would do.
According to public reports, Yass also donated $ 2.5 million to the Protect Freedom Pac on November 10, 2020, a week after the US election. The Protect Freedom Pac, affiliated with Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, ran ads against Democrats ahead of the two elections in Georgia in January, including ads claiming Democrats wanted to defend the police, set up “socialist health care” and “trillions” new tax ”.
The Protect Freedom Pac’s website currently states – and falsely – that Democrats “stole” the 2020 election and used the Covid-19 crisis to change the election laws illegally. It also endorsed personal voter legislation, a policy that would excessively block minority elections.
Yass has received far less attention than other billionaire donors, such as Mike Bloomberg or the late Sheldon Adelson, but is known for getting involved in local politics and donating money to candidates who support business schools.
Goldman told the Guardian Yass is a longtime Republican majority in the Pennsylvania legislature that led to the fight to stop the ballots from being counted until election day. Pennsylvania’s final results were not known until days after the election, and Biden’s victory was largely due to hundreds of thousands of ballots counted after personal ballots.
Hawley’s office did not respond to a request for comment.