WASHINGTON (US) – As many as 10 US corporations have slashed donations to candidates federal offices by more than 90 per cent in January. This comes after they vowed to cut off lending to Republicans who backed former President Donald Trump’s bid to overturn his election rout.
None of the political action committees of 10 major companies, including Microsoft Corp, Walmart Inc, AT&T Inc and Comcast Corp, made donations to any of the 147 congressional Republicans who voted to back Trump’s claims hours after the former president’s supporters laid siege to the US Capitol.
According to disclosures made to the Federal Election Commission ahead of a Saturday filing deadline, the group of corporate PACs affiliated with those 10 companies made $13,000 in fresh donations to candidates in January.
The money donated during the month was less than one-tenth of the $190,000 the 10 company PACs donated to candidates in January 2017, and tiny relative to the $10 million donated to candidates during the 2019-2020 election. The 147 lawmakers who pledged support to Trump had received more than $2 million from those 10 PACs during the past two years.
American Express’ PAC donated $5,000 to Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota, while GE’s handed over $5,000 to Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois – a known critic of Trump- and $1,000 to Representative Rick Larsen of Washington, who belongs to the Democratic party.
Political lending normally slows down in the months following a general election and funds from corporate political action committees is just a small slice of the funds amassed by political campaigns.