Wall St. money talks, but voters aren’t listening
(Photo Illustration: Yahoo News, photos: AP, Robert F. Bukaty/AP)
In the latest sign that hedge fund gurus have little influence over the political marketplace, Wall Street billionaire Steven Cohen and his wife pumped another $2 million into a super-PAC backing Chris Christie’s presidential candidacy less than three weeks before the New Jersey governor flamed out in the New Hampshire primary, according to newly filed campaign finance reports.
The Jan. 22 contributions by Cohen and his wife, Alexandra Cohen, to the pro-Christie super-PAC, America Leads, amounted to 55 percent of the $3.6 million raised by the group last month, the reports show. The fresh contributions brought to $6 million the amount the Cohens had invested in America Leads over the past year in an effort to elect Christie president, making the couple by far the largest bankrollers of his failed candidacy.
The role of Cohen was highlighted in a recent Yahoo News article disclosing that the hedge fund kingpin had principally financed an America Leads TV ad during the New Hampshire primary deriding rival John Kasich as a one-time “Wall Street banker.” This would seem an ironic line of attack, given that Cohen was long one of the most well-known and controversial figures on Wall Street and, in recent years, the focus of an insider trading investigation by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney in New York, Preet Bharara.
The investigation resulted in Cohen’s now defunct firm, SAC Capital, paying a $1.8 billion fine and, just last month, shortly before his latest six-figure contribution, reaching a final settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that bans him from investing money for others until 2018.
Cohen’s financial largesse did Christie little good: He finished in sixth place in the New Hampshire primary, with 7.4 percent of the vote, and suspended his candidacy the next day.
