DENVER, CO – Secretary of State Jena Griswold claims to abhor the idea of foreign meddling and dark money in U.S. elections, but fundraising with former Attorney General Eric Holder tells a much different story.
Holder chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC), a partisan redistricting group whose advocacy arm the National Redistricting Action Fund (NRAF) received millions from left-wing Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss.
Wyss was the subject of a recent New York Times profile that called him a “leading source” of hundreds of millions of “difficult-to-trace money to groups associated with Democrats.”
The Swiss billionaire refused to tell the Times whether he holds U.S. citizenship.
Holder’s NRAF is active in Colorado via their group All on the Line – CO, which hosts trainings for liberal activists to influence Colorado’s Independent Redistricting Commission in ways that favor Democrats.
“Big corporations should not have a blank check to influence candidate elections, nor should we permit foreign influence in our electoral process,” Griswold said recently.
Maybe Griswold makes a special exception for liberal Swiss billionaires who want a say in how we draw Congressional maps in Colorado?
If you are covering Griswold’s fundraiser today, please consider the following statement from Compass Colorado:
“Since Hansjörg Wyss won’t tell journalists whether he is a U.S. citizen, maybe Jena Griswold can get an answer from Eric Holder,” said Compass Colorado Executive Director Kyle Kohli.
“Griswold can’t pretend to be against foreign election meddling and then fundraise with someone whose group accepted millions from a foreign national to elect Democrats.”
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BACKGROUND:
- Between 2018 and 2020 Holder’s NRAF received $3 million from a fund controlled by Wyss.
- IRS forms filed by NDRC say its purpose is”to build a comprehensive plan to favorably position Democrats for the redistricting process through 2022.”
- Like Griswold, Holder has repeatedly decried the influence of foreign money in U.S. politics.
- Wyss gave $35 million in 2019 to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a left-wing dark money outfit that funded numerous groups like Rocky Mountain Values who targeted then-Sen. Cory Gardner.
- Inside Sources: “Using names like ‘Maine Momentum’ and ‘Rocky Mountain Values,’ Sixteen Thirty makes it appear that their operation is not part of a larger liberal push by a billionaire from Switzerland.”
- In 2009 Wyss’s medical device company and several of his subordinates were indicted following an unauthorized human bone cement trial that resulted in several deaths.
- In 2017 Wyss was investigated by authorities in New Jersey on allegations of sexual assault.