Sheldon Adelson pledges to inundate Republicans with money

Original Link: http://www.capitolcolumn.com/news/sheldon-adelson-pledges-to-inundate-republicans-with-money/

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has donated $10 million to the Koch brothers' efforts to elect Republicans and oust President Obama and other Democrats

Casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson has pledged to donate another small fortune in an effort to support Republican candidates and remove President Barack Obama from the White House, the Associated Press reports.
Adelson, listed in the Forbes 400 as the eighth wealthiest American with a net worth of $24.9 billion, is contributing $10 million to the campaign efforts of billionaire oil executives Charles and David Koch, a source told the AP. The brothers have organized several conservative political groups, including Americans for Prosperity, one of the biggest funders of attack ads aimed at Obama.

According to POLITICO, Adelson’s commitment was given at a donor summit held by the Koch brothers in suburban San Diego and was one of the biggest offered, along with a seven-figure pledge by investment mogul Charles Schwab and a large sum from the Koch brothers themselves.
The CEO of the Las Vegas Sands, Adelson has a long donation history so far in the 2012 campaign season, aided by 2010 federal court rulings that made it possible for unlimited contributions to super PACS or other outside groups. He has pledged $10 million to Restore Our Future, a super political action committee that supports presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney. During the GOP primary, Adelson and his family donated more than 20 million to the super PAC promoting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s failed presidential campaign. In addition, he donated $5 million each to a super PAC tied to House Speaker John Boehner and a conservative nonprofit group affiliated with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. According to the Huffington Post, Adelson has also pledged $20 million to Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a nonprofit group linked to Karl Rove.

Adelson did not attend the Koch brothers’ summit himself, POLITICO reports, but sent Andy Abboud, an executive at Las Vegas Sands Corporation, in his place. Adelson had previously attended a similar donor summit put on by the Koch brothers in January, though he refrained from making any pledges at that meeting.

While Adelson is busy writing big checks to conservative campaign efforts, his team is preoccupied this week with denying allegations made by a former Sands Corp. executive that Adelson personally approved of prostitution and improper behavior at a company property in China, the AP reports.

Steven Jacobs, who was fired as the chief executive of Sand Corp.’s Macau casinos, is suing Adelson and his companies for breach of contract and pushing him into illegal activities. Brad Brian, the attorney representing Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Sands China Ltd., called the allegations false and “scurrilous.”


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