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A secret billionaire supporter of Josh Hawley and other right-wing lawmakers suggested he was “cheated” by the Republican senator from Missouri, who led the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.
Jeffrey Yass is the co-founder of Susquehanna International Group – headquartered in critically critical Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – which has donated tens of millions of dollars to extremist Republican groups who have supported Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat at the polls by Joe Biden.
Yass privately told a longtime associate that he did not foresee how his contributions would lead to attempts to overthrow American democracy.
“Do you think anyone knew Hawley was going to do this?” Yass wrote to Laura Goldman, a former currency exchange firm who has known him for more than three decades.
“Sometimes politicians cheat on their donors.”
Yass, who does not give interviews and generally avoids publicity, also told Goldman he did not think the 2020 election was “stolen” even though he directly and indirectly supported right-wing Republicans who have repeatedly – and falsely – sought to discredit the results. .
The latest fallout from the Jan.6 attempt to invalidate the election, in which 147 Congressional Republicans clashed with electoral college results following the attack on Capitol Hill, comes as Hawley and his donors face pressure and criticism for his role.
Hawley said he opposed the counting of the electoral votes in order to start a “debate” on the issue of electoral integrity. He denied that his actions helped incite the violent explosion and violation of the Capitol in which five people died, including a police officer.
Goldman told the Guardian she emailed Yass because she was upset to learn of her support for Hawley and other Republicans, especially as lawmakers sought to invalidate the election results in their home state, Pennsylvania, which helped Biden win the White House.
“I approached Jeff Yass upset after reading the Guardian article [about his involvement in donations] because I was shocked, he would allow my vote and the votes of his neighbors to be eventually invalidated by politicians to whom he is giving millions of dollars, ”she said.
She added: “Yass lives here. He knows the local politicians… he could just call them up and ask questions if he thought the election results were great, which they absolutely weren’t. He doesn’t need Josh Hawley, a senator from Missouri, or Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, to question election results in the state he has lived in for nearly 40 years.
Goldman posted snippets of Yass’ private remarks 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 was a force in the Pennsylvania election, donated approximately $ 30 million to Conservative Super Pacs during the 2020 election cycle, making him the eighth election donor, according to the data. compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Most of these donations were made to the Club for Growth, an anti-tax group which in 2018 and 2020 supported 42 Republican extremists who ultimately voted to overturn the election results even after insurgents stormed the US Capitol.
The Club for Growth has been one of the main supporters of both Hawley and Cruz, his partner who seeks to invalidate the election.
Yass did not respond to The Guardian’s requests for comment. He also didn’t answer questions about whether he would continue to donate to the Club for Growth or whether he discussed issues with Hawley and others. Goldman said she sought to chat with him in part because she knew he was a “practical” political donor.
The Club for Growth did not respond to a request for comment. Group chairman David McIntosh has been a staunch supporter of some of the most undemocratic lawmakers elected in 2020, including Lauren Boebert, a QAnon follower and Colorado gun rights advocate who has been criticized for tweeting the location of the Speaker of the House. , Nancy Pelosi, during the riot at the Capitol, against the advice of the police.
In an endorsement from Boebert in July 2020, McIntosh praised the restaurant owner and political novice for his understanding of the “irreparable harm” caused by “the disproportion of government” and said he had no doubts that Boebert would be a “killer. of late conservative ”in Washington.
Yass told Goldman he donated to the Club for Growth a year ago and suggested he couldn’t have foreseen what Hawley and others might do.
But public records show that Yass also donated $ 2.5 million to the Protect Freedom Pac on November 10, 2020, a week after the U.S. election. The Protect Freedom Pac, affiliated with Republican Sen. of Kentucky Rand Paul, ran ads against Democrats ahead of the January runoff in Georgia, including ads claiming Democrats were seeking to defeat the police, institute ” socialist health care ”and to raise“ trillions of dollars in taxes ”.
The Protect Freedom Pac website is currently – and incorrectly – declaring that Democrats “stole” the 2020 election and used the Covid-19 crisis to illegally change election laws. He also approved a law on in-person voter identification, a policy that would disproportionately block minority voters.
Yass has received far less attention than other billionaire donors, such as Mike Bloomberg or the late Sheldon Adelson, but he is known to get involved in local politics, donating money to candidates who support schools in charter.
Goldman said the Guardian Yass was a longtime supporter of the Republican majority in the Pennsylvania legislature who led the fight to prevent the counting of postal ballots until election day. Pennsylvania’s final results were not known until days after the election, and Biden’s victory was won in large part because of the hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots that were counted after in-person votes.
Hawley’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
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