Politico's Eric Hovde Attack Completely Ignores Tammy Baldwin's Partner's "Ultra High Net Worth" Tax Minimization Work
Tax minimization: bad when a Republican does it, but not even worth mentioning when a Democratic senator's domestic partner does it
According to a recent story in Politico, investing in Bermudan companies is bad if you are a Republican like Eric Hovde, but worth completely ignoring if you are the domestic partner of his Democratic opponent or, even more ironically, a top shareholder in Politico’s parent company!
Politico dedicated an entire story on how “Hovde invested tens of millions of dollars in insurance companies that operated in the U.S. but were based in Bermuda, and therefore benefited from not having to pay U.S. corporate taxes.”
The premise here is that Hovde is hypocritical for one of his companies having non-controlling interest in these companies, which were all publicly traded, because he lamented in a 2012 campaign that “major corporations often pay little to nothing in corporate taxes.” Okay, fine–but how about his opponent?
Here’s where things get pathetic and wildly biased.
Politico never once mentions that Senator Tammy Baldwin’s domestic partner, Maria Brisbane, writes in her biography on Morgan Stanley’s website that she helps her “Ultra High Net Worth client base” focus on, you guessed it–tax minimization!
“With a long-term view, Maria creates each portfolio according to a client’s personal preferences and continues to focus on the use of tax minimization strategies,” her site reads. That’s right: tax minimization for the ultra-wealthy.
Not to mention, Brisbane has a $20 million minimum account size for new business, per Forbes!
If you actually want a story on hypocrisy, Tammy Baldwin gives you no shortage of examples:
Days before urging Americans to “just stay home” during the COVID-19 pandemic, she charged her constituents a couple hundred bucks for a taxpayer-funded flight to New York City, where Brisbane works. She since paid the government back. Her jaunt likely broke New York’s draconian COVID-era travel restrictions, as Josh Christenson reported in the New York Post.
Despite vowing to “hold big oil accountable,” Baldwin “is fundraising alongside a campaign donor who has consulted for companies majorly reliant on fossil fuels,” as Gabe Kaminsky reported in the Washington Examiner.
Despite decrying “big corporations and their price-gouging tactics,” she has taken “donations between 2010 and 2024 from boatloads of political action committees tied to corporations, including Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills, Walmart, Procter & Gamble, and Mondelez International,” as Kaminsky also reported.
While Baldwin attacks Hovde as an “out of state millionaire,” her domestic partner is of course, also, an out of state millionaire–who “paid down half of the cost of the $1.31 million condo in cash” the two share in Washington, DC. The condo’s real estate agent noted that the pad has three bedrooms, three bathrooms, soaring ceilings, and a private roof deck “with monument views like you cannot believe!” as Daniel Bice reports in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Despite attacking Hovde for living part-time and doing business in California, Baldwin has no qualms about doing fundraisers with some of Hollywood’s biggest communists, like “Hanoi Jane” Fonda, as Houston Keene reported at Fox News.
Finally (for now), I’d also note that Democratic megadonor James Simons, who “has spent decades building a hidden offshore fortune of more than $8bn in the tax haven of Bermuda,” is a Tammy Baldwin donor to the tune of several thousand dollars.
All of this is to say that this strikes me as a fairly weak hit against Hovde. In fact, in the latest bit of great news for Senate Republicans, businessman Scott Mayer announced that he’ll pass on the Senate race in Wisconsin, leaving the mustachioed Hovde as the likely GOP standard bearer.
It’s a huge win for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and its chair, Montana Senator Steve Daines–and a big shift from last cycle, where the NRSC was far more hands off in primaries. So, Democrats are shifting to panic mode in Wisconsin, with recent polls showing Hovde neck-and-neck with Baldwin.
Hilariously, it turns out that KKR, one of the top shareholders in none other than Politico’s parent company, Axel Springer, in fact also does significant business in Bermuda! Just two months ago, Bermuda Insurance Magazine reported that “investment giant KKR has completed its acquisition of the remaining 37% of Bermuda-based life re/insurer Global Atlantic, giving it 100% control of the company.”
I reported a few weeks ago about the Democratic Party’s fake news outlet in the Midwest, Heartland Signal, which kicked off the 2024 election in Wisconsin by straight up lying about Eric Hovde. Now, Politico can join the club after publishing this piece that omitted so much relevant information that I had an entire article’s worth to list here.
I’m sure this was just an honest mistake that Politico won’t repeat again…
…
I won’t hold my breath though.