GOP Senator Never Returned Campaign Donations

ABC News reports:

Despite calls for refunds, new campaign filings show Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith kept $50,000 in donations from major companies like Walmart and Facebook in the wake of her controversial special election victory in November.

The latest Federal Election Commission filing — released amid the government shutdown at the end of last week — showed that Republican Hyde-Smith did not issue refunds to most of the corporate donors who asked for their campaign contributions to be returned in November in the wake of her “public hanging” comment.

Among them were Aetna, Amgen, AT&T, Boston Scientific, Facebook, Google, Leidos, Major League Baseball, Pfizer, Union Pacific and Walmart.

The Jackson Free Press reports:



Hyde-Smith’s refusal to issue around $50,000 in refunds to others who have requested them may have something to do with the fact that her campaign has just under $64,000 cash on hand, the filings show.

They also show that Hyde-Smith did return a donation to white supremacist Peter Sieve, who donated $2,700 to her campaign after the “public hanging” video surfaced.

Despite pressure, Amazon was conspicuously absent from the group of Hyde-Smith donors who requested refunds; the retail giant never asked that its $5,000 donation be returned.