Montana GOP Candidate Owns Stake In Company Accused Of Paying Off ISIS -- President Donald Trump attacked Hillary Clinton last year for accepting a donation to her foundation from the scandal-struck European firm. By Alexander C. Kaufman
Greg Gianforte, the millionaire GOP contender for Montana’s open seat in the House, reported owning $47,066 worth of shares in LafargeHolcim as recently as December. The shares are in an individual retirement account at TWP, a brokerage firm and private wealth manager, on which he and his wife, Susan Gianforte, are listed as trustees.
LafargeHolcim operated a factory in the north Syrian town of Kobane for three years after civil war broke out and most foreign companies fled. The company evacuated foreign employees in 2012, but kept the business going with local workers until ISIS fighters seized the factory two years later. Payments made to local armed groups to secure the factory may have unwittingly ended up in ISIS coffers, French newspaper Le Monde reported last year. CEO Eric Olsen resigned from the firm last month.
There's a place for political correctness, and a place for cautious common sense. Sometimes they are the same place, and sometimes clueless politicians miss the drift. What HuffPo means is the Russian stuff and this stuff was in the portfolio back during the contest for governor, and stayed. Chutzpah turmps good sense? What?
The matter cannot be dropped without quoting this paragraph pair, without links in the original, so go there and expand your personal understandings:
The revelation of Gianforte’s interest comes months after Republicans attacked 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton because the Clinton Foundation had accepted from a donation of between $50,000 and $100,000 from LafargeHolcim. In August, the campaign of then-GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump hammered its Democratic rival for her ties to the firm. Breitbart News, the conservative news site that Steve Bannon led until he became White House chief strategist, criticized Clinton for sitting on the board of directors for LafargeHolcim’s North American division 25 years ago.
“More than any major presidential nominee in modern history, Hillary Clinton is tied to brutal theocratic and Islamist regimes,” Stephen Miller, a senior Trump policy adviser, said at the time. “Now we learn she has accepted money from a company linked to ISIS.”
That's lean to the green Donald, saying no, no, no. Not some nattering cluck of the far left. THE DONALD! TOO RAW FOR THE DONALD!
One can wonder, was that French firm's US lobbyist in on the GG conference call? GG has not been prompt to disclose such stuff, so we are left guessing.
Breitbart, August of 2016. Having refused to vote Clinton last November, going ballot third candidacy, let the Brietbart criticism of the firm and the Clinton ties stand. Let GG differentiate his betting his money on the same racehorse. Tap dance expected? How many before the taps get sanded down to falling off the nails, from Gazprom, etc.?
_____________UPDATE_____________
LaFargeHolcim USA lobbies the state legislature in Minnesota. This link, for its lobbyist. The man has a ton of firms paying him to lobby.
This page from the past:
Minnesota revenue commissioner Ward Einess is leaving office on December 3 to start his own lobbying shop. Einess also served in Gov. Tim Pawlenty's administration as acting director of the Department of Employment and Economic Development and as a senior policy adviser.
Moving from an agency head's paycheck during the Tim Pawlenty [R] days in Minnesota into lobbying, the stench of Republican is unmistakable. Ward Einess might well have been a part of the Gianforte conference call. It's former Minnesota single-term Senator Norm Coleman's SuperPAC money in Montana, for Gianforte. Go figure.