Back in December, The Des Moines Register did some digging. They reported a whopping $250,000 contribution from Nishnad Singh to the Iowa Democratic Party. $250,000 is a massive contribution from a west coast tech bro to a state party with no competitive statewide campaign.
Unless you’re following the FTX scandal pretty closely, you have no idea who Singh is. Good news for you, Iowa Field Report is here to help fill in the blanks. During the 2022 election cycle, the second largest contributor to Democrat causes nationally were FTX employees led by disgraced CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, a charlatan and thief who ran the crypto company FTX and affiliated businesses. He lured investors into his crypto funds with promises of huge returns, kept government oversight at bay with massive campaign contributions to Democrats, and lulled the media to sleep with banal, saccharine phrases like “effective altruism.”
This worked until, like all scams, the money ran out. According to CNBC, Singh took out a $543 million loan from Alameda Research, the stolen money slush fund Singh and other FTX executives accessed for personal and political expenses.
The new leadership of the now-bankrupt FTX is asking politicians to return the stolen money donated to their campaigns to make defrauded investors whole. Some Democrat organizations have pledged to give the dirty money to “charity.” In all likelihood, these “charities” will be some left-wing outfit paying woke, over-educated, 30-year-old infants, to moan about climate change or abortion on Twitter. All Democrat campaigns should be held to public account and return the stolen funds to the victims of the theft, not left-wing groups thinly veiled as “charity.”
Holding Democrat campaigns accountable for accepting stolen money is why this piece appears before you today. Possibly the worst state party chair of either party in history, Ross Wilburn, promised in the December Register article to investigate the contribution.
His executive director told the Register in December, “We are aware of the situation and the recent developments,” Iowa Democratic Party Executive Director Erin Davison-Rippey said in a statement to the Des Moines Register. “We are looking into the matter.”
Nearly two months later, it’s time to ask, what were the results of the investigation? Has new Chair Rita Hart found the report? Does a report exist? Will IDP return the stolen funds like other Democrat campaigns have promised? What controls will IDP implement to protect against accepting stolen funds in the future? Will Election Denier Hart put victims first, not politics?
Where are the answers?