Who's Paying For Patrick Murphy's Sleazy, Conservative Political Career?

One of Chuck Schumer's and Steve Israel's front groups for tricking low-info grassroots Democrats into contributing to their Wall Street candidates disguised as Democrats calls itself EndCitizensUnited, a scam that funnels money into its own pockets and to right-of-center Democrats like Patrick Murphy (New Dem-FL), Kyrsten Sinema (Blue Dog-AZ), John Delaney (New Dem-MD), Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA), Cheri Bustos (Blue Dog-IL), Ami Bera (New Dem-CA), Monica Vernon (R-IA), Sean Patrick Maloney (New Dem-NY), Brad Schneider (New Dem-IL), Brad Ashbrook (Blue Dog-NE), Pete Gallego (Blue Dog-TX), Baron Hill (Blue Dog-IN), Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA), and Ann Kirkpatrick (New Dem-AZ). These are garbage candidates who don't necessarily care about ending Citizens United-- or about anything to do with a progressive vision-- but who are careerists happy to help Wall Street take over the Democratic Party the same way the banksters have taken over the GOP.

Although these are the worst Democrats running for Congress, Murphy is the worst of the worst of these candidates, Wall Street's #1 priority for the Senate this cycle. By October 16, the banksters had already lavished his campaign with $787,750, more than any other non-incumbent from with party running for the Senate-- and more than many incumbents up for reelection. For example, bankster-backing senators up for reelection in November who have gotten less in legalized bribes than Patrick Murphy:

• Richard Burr (R-NC)- $786,150
• Mark Kirk (R-IL)- $713,460
• Johnny Isakson (R-GA)- $685,240
• John McCain (R-AZ)- $674,659
• Ron Johnson (R-WI)- $660,565
• Roy Blunt (R-MO)- $446,896
• Mike Lee (R-UT)- $294,250
• John Boozman (R-AR)- $278,450

Another deceptive right-wing PAC, "Floridians for a Strong Middle Class," is funneling the corrupt money Murphy falsely claims to oppose, into his election bid. An entity run by Schumer/Wasserman Schultz related sleaze-ball Nicholas Mastroianni, II, called the "230 East 63rd-6 Trust LLC" just gave them $50,000 for Murphy's campaign. Mastroianni, who gives immense sums to corrupt right-wing Democrats and has personally maxed out to Murphy, was profiled by Fortune a year and a half ago. He's a super-rich mini-Trumpf from Long Island with "a long history of legal problems, failed ventures, and unpaid debts-- which have continued even as his professional fortunes have turned sharply upward-- leaving a legacy of conflicts, judgments, and entanglements."

In recent years, the EB-5 visa program, which essentially allows wealthy foreigners to buy U.S. citizenship by investing $500,000 in a project that creates U.S. jobs, has exploded: The number of visas granted under the program has more than doubled since 2009. As that has happened, the program has taken on more and more glamorous, big-budget projects and the controversy surrounding it has increased.

It would be hard to find a figure who has risen faster in this burgeoning realm than Nicholas Mastroianni, II. In just four years, he has developed a lucrative role raising money for marquee projects such as Atlantic Yards, the giant Brooklyn development anchored by the Barclays Center, home of the NBA’s Nets. Forest City Ratner, which is developing Atlantic Yards, has also retained Mastroianni to raise EB-5 money for its renovation of the Nassau Coliseum, home of the NHL’s Islanders. Other Mastroianni clients include the developers of three large Manhattan projects: the Charles, a 31-story condominium tower on the Upper East Side where the penthouse reportedly sold for $38 million; Bryant Park, a 32-story midtown Manhattan building with a luxury hotel and condos developed by HFZ Capital Group; and 855 Avenue of the Americas, a 41-story mixed-use edifice being developed by the Durst Organization.

All told, Mastroianni’s website boasts of involvement with $5.5 billion in development projects over the years, funded with $1.4 billion in EB-5 money, resulting in “40,000 jobs created.” Those are massive sums given that the entire EB-5 system raised a total of about $1.8 billion last year. Forest City Ratner CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin calls Mastroianni the"'go-to' leader in the field of EB-5 funding."

...Mastroianni’s life and business career have also left a long legal trail. He grew up in Huntington, Long Island, where his father ran the Dover House, a popular restaurant owned by songwriter Burt Bacharach. After two years at Farmingdale State University of New York ending in 1983, Mastroianni moved to Rhode Island, where he went into the construction business at age 19.

Trouble started early. Between 1985 and 1993, court records show, Rhode Island police arrested Mastroianni four times for felony possession of a controlled substance. He pleaded no contest four times, and received a suspended sentence and probation each time. (“It happened,” Mastroianni says through a spokesperson. “It’s the past, life goes on and people move on.”)

Despite the setbacks, Mastroianni began opening businesses at a young age. Recognizing opportunity in a government program that paid for soundproofing homes and businesses near airports, in 1989 he founded a company called Interstate Design & Construction. By underbidding competitors, Mastroianni won dozens of government noise-abatement contracts from Louisiana to Wisconsin to Massachusetts.

But homeowners and subcontractors complained that Interstate did poor work and didn’t complete its jobs, according to newspaper reports dating back to 1996. In May 2000, records show, Mastroianni’s business went into receivership. Banks foreclosed on his office properties and two homes. In 2002, a surety bond company sued Mastroianni to recover costs for completing 28 of his soundproofing jobs and won a $1.1 million default judgment. (Mastroianni didn’t pay until December 2013.)

That wasn’t the end of the troubles. In July 2003, the U.S. Department of Labor sued Mastroianni, accusing him of diverting $401,361 in required employer pension-fund contributions, which were to be made “no less than quarterly.” The suit claimed Mastroianni illegally used the money for “various personal expenses” and to provide seed money for another business that he owned. After the government won a default judgment, the case was finally closed in April 2006 with a negotiated partial restitution; Mastroianni paid $75,000.

Mastroianni had personal financial woes, too. In September 2003, he filed for bankruptcy. In that proceeding, a court-appointed trustee accused him of “knowingly and fraudulently” lying about his assets, including hundreds of thousands in cash and retirement accounts. Ultimately, Mastroianni agreed, “without making any admissions,” that he would not be relieved of his debts in the bankruptcy.

...Even as legal disputes dragged on in Rhode Island courtrooms, Mastroianni relocated to Palm Beach County, Fla., where he began operating a new company, Allied Capital & Development. Allied specializes in projects “with the highest standards of quality and construction,” according to its promotional materials. Allied’s website says Mastroianni has been “recognized for his commitment to excellence in construction,” and notes that he has “hosted numerous charitable events with both prominent sports figures and political constituents.”

Yet in Florida, virtually every one of the dozen or so projects Allied launched over the past decade has faced delays, lawsuits or construction problems. Allied has completed few of them.

In July 2004, a building collapse at Allied’s townhouse development in Hobe Sound, named “Tranquility,” killed two workers and seriously injured several others. Allied, the developer and construction manager, faced no criminal charges or regulatory penalties, but it settled multiple lawsuits. Afterwards, Mastroianni defended the concrete contractor he’d hired to a local reporter, saying Allied had “checked them out” and had “no reason to believe they caused any problems here.” Local press later reported that the contractor had a history of serious safety violations and lacked workers’ compensation insurance. After investigating the matter, Florida regulators barred the concrete company from doing business in the state and fined it $2.4 million.

Today Mastroianni describes it as “a tragic accident on the part of the General Contractor” and insisted “my partners and I were not constructing the project and had no involvement in the day-to-day operations.” (OSHA’s final report of its investigation, dated Dec. 1, 2004, recounted the role of Mastroianni’s firm in key construction decisions.)

Meanwhile, a lender foreclosed on a nearby Allied townhouse development called Heron Cove after a Mastroianni-led business defaulted on a $12.3-million loan. And four other Mastroianni projects, in Cocoa and Palm Beach County, have not been built. Court records show the developments have faced lawsuits and foreclosure actions. Mastroianni recently settled with one lender who demanded an additional $6.3 million from him and a former partner, who signed personal guarantees.

In numerous instances, Mastroianni has failed even to respond when a lawsuit is filed. For example, in 2007, owners at Marbella Villas, 54 townhouses that Allied developed in North Palm Beach, sued a Mastroianni company, citing its refusal to fix “construction deficiencies and defects,” which homeowners and their lawyers say included a broken water main that allegedly created a sinkhole, unfinished landscaping, a malfunctioning front gate, and structural defects. Mastroianni didn’t contest the charges, and the homeowners won a $1.25 million default judgment. But they have yet to collect a penny. According to the lawyer for the homeowners, by the time the judgment had issued, Mastroianni abandoned the two corporate entities ordered to pay the judgment, allowing their registrations to lapse.

Mastroianni is an associate of Murphy's corrupt father, another crooked Florida builder and Mastroianni has been incredibly generous to Papa Murphy's ethics-free son, Patrick. And speaking of Thomas P. Murphy and Coastal Construction, he just dropped another $200,000 into Patrick's SuperPAC, the ironically named "Floridians For A Strong Middle Class." I say ironically-named because the PAC has scooped up $535,050 already (from just 23 criminal types seeking to put Murphy in the Senate) and its one candidate, Patrick, is a plague to ordinary working families and destructive of Florida's-- and America's-- middle class. No problem, of course, in terms of the Schumer/Israel shill PAC, EndCitizensUnited. Other criminally-oriented entities which have been sending bribes to Patrick via the SuperPAC include:

• Apogee Investment Partners- $15,000
• Stephen Bittel of Terranova Corporation, Schumer-related mega-donor- $25,000
• CC1 Companies LLC (maxed out Wasserman Schultz donor)- $10,000
• LRP Publications- $20,000
• Anthony Mastroianni of Allied Capital and Development LLC- $5,000
• Pride United Limited Partnership (Jeb Bush donors)- $20,000

Murphy was one of only 7 co-sponsors of GOP crook Aaron Schock's EB-5 Regional Center Extension Act of 2014, a bill that would ease restrictions on EB-5 regional centers like the one Mastroianni runs, directly benefitting Mastroianni's business, a highly illegal and unethical quid pro quo if I ever heard of one. If you'd like to help Grayson beat this sleazy pack of conservatives, you can do that here. And if you'd just like to keep Schumercrats like Murphy out of the Senate in general... there's this page.

A Culture Of Corruption At The FEC? You Bet!

Last week, I tried catching everyone up on the complaint DWT filed with the FEC last year against a cook of crooks, Nicholas Mastroianni and then-Congressman Patrick Murphy. Murphy, Upchuck Schumer's pick to run for the Florida Senate seat, was taking massive bribes from Mastroianni for help in getting wealthy Chinese "investors" into America on EB-5 visas-- same trick the Kushner-in-law family has been using to make some cash. Florida is a swingy purple state and the presidential election was very close last year. Trump edged Hillary 4,617,886 (49%) to 4,504,975 (84%). But Upchuck Schumer's Senate candidate fell flat on his ass, despite all the money Mastroianni poured into Murphy's pockets. Rubio outpolled Trump and Murphy underperformed Hillary. Rubio beat Murphy 4,835,191 (52%) to 4,122,088 (44.3%). Sorry for the tangent.

To reiterate what transpired last week with the FEC... they dismissed the case, which centered on how Mastroianni was paying Murphy off for his help in corruptly using the EB-5 visa program that Murphy has pushing in Congress. Basically, we were quite certain that Mastroianni had orchestrated a scheme to funnel more than $100,000 into Murphy’s political campaign efforts by using shell companies and straw entities to hide the source of the money, which were coming from Chinese nationals participating in Mastroianni’s EB-5 visa-for-sale program. Shell companies were already being broadly scrutinized for being possible illegal donor entities under the law. But more importantly in this case, Chinese nationals cannot legally make contributions in federal races. We complain about the help the Russians gave Republican Donald Trump... but what about this Chinese cash being funneled into Democrat (barely) Patrick Murphy?

In return for these donations to his campaign and his Super PAC, Murphy co-sponsored legislation for Mastroianni’s benefit. Namely, Murphy used his elected office to try to expand the EB-5 program and make it permanent. In return, Mastroianni has used LLC’s, businesses, family and associates to move money to Murphy, his EB-5 go-to boy.

So, as I said, last week we finally heard back from the FEC-- 36 pages of legalese claptrap. I finally got an attorney to help me put it into English. Remember, Mastroianni had been taking in foreign partners in the EB-5 program, and buying real estate. In one case, the real estate partnership made the contribution to Murphy’s campaign, not Mastroianni. Foreigners can’t contribute to political campaigns in America, though they have been doing it very regularly. When Mastroianni was challenged on it, he said, in essence, "you haven’t proved that my partner was foreign." The FEC didn’t bother to ask him whether his partner was, in fact, foreign. Instead, they just said, in sum, "the papers before us don’t prove that Mastroianni’s partner is foreign, we are not going to bother to ask, and therefore, we are dismissing the complaint."

Oddly enough, this happened right around the time that Mastroianni (or maybe his foreign friends) contributed $150,000 to Señor Trumpanzee’s Super PAC. Love that bipartisanship! You too?

Two of the three Democratic FEC Commissioners dissented, and basically said, “this is BS." I mean, this was an incredibly blatant case of corruption. This was the dissent:

But Thursday it got stranger. One of the dissenting commissioners, Ellen Weintraub, complained about the decision on Twitter, something I’ve never seen before:

Weintraub went right to the heart of the problem. In the Trumpian kakistocracy there is no such thing as Justice or even right and wrong-- just what works for the kakistocrats. I was surprised to see Bloomberg cover the story a couple days ago. They were also perplexed that the FEC dropped the case without investigating it. "Two Democratic FEC commissioners, Ellen Weintraub and Ann Ravel, said the allegations raised 'serious questions of misconduct' that should have been investigated," wrote Kenneth Doyle.

The case was among the first involving allegations of illegal foreign campaign money released by the FEC following the 2016 election cycle. Pending cases are kept secret until they’re resolved; FEC officials have indicated more than a dozen matters involving foreign money allegations still are pending.

A complaint filed with the FEC alleged that a $50,000 contribution to the pro-Murphy super PAC, called Floridians for a Strong Middle Class, came from money raised by real estate developer Nicholas Mastroianni. The money was collected from Chinese nationals seeking to participate in an immigration program known as EB-5, the complaint said, citing news reports.

The EB-5 visa program, which facilitates immigration by foreigners investing in U.S. projects, has been derided by critics as “cash for citizenship.”

The FEC complaint said foreign money from aspiring Chinese immigrants was funneled by Mastroianni into a limited liability company called 230 East 63rd -6 Trust LLC, which in turn contributed to the pro-Murphy super PAC.

The complaint also alleged two other LLC contributions to the super PAC, worth an additional $25,000, were made illegally with money that actually came from Mastroianni.

Floridians for a Strong Middle Class spent a total of nearly $2.5 million on ads supporting Murphy and opposing his opponent, Sen. Marco Rubio (R), who won the Florida Senate race. Overall, more than $90 million was spent on the 2016 Senate race in Florida, according to FEC reports analyzed by the Center for Responsive Politics.

A “statement of reasons” was filed in February by Weintraub and Ravel, following a preliminary vote on the case-- designated Matter Under Review (MUR) 7081.

“For our democracy to work, the American public must have confidence that they-- and not some unknown foreign actors-- are financing our candidates for office,” their statement said.

A Sewer Is Open In Florida And Endless Dark Money Is Flowing Out Of It, Corrupting Politics

Chuck Schumer has picked this garbage as the Florida Democratic Party's Senate nominee

It was almost 4 months ago that we started writing about the corrupt relationship between Patrick Murphy and Nicholas Mastroianni, II. At the time we wrote that a deceptive right-wing PAC, "Floridians for a Strong Middle Class," is funneling the corrupt money Murphy falsely claims to oppose, into his election bid. An entity run by Schumer/Wasserman Schultz related sleaze-ball Nicholas Mastroianni, II, called the "230 East 63rd-6 Trust LLC" just gave them $50,000 for Murphy's campaign. Mastroianni, who gives immense sums to corrupt right-wing Democrats and has personally maxed out to Murphy, was profiled by Fortune a year and a half ago. He's a super-rich mini-Trumpf from Long Island with "a long history of legal problems, failed ventures, and unpaid debts-- which have continued even as his professional fortunes have turned sharply upward-- leaving a legacy of conflicts, judgments, and entanglements."

In recent years, the EB-5 visa program, which essentially allows wealthy foreigners to buy U.S. citizenship by investing $500,000 in a project that creates U.S. jobs, has exploded: The number of visas granted under the program has more than doubled since 2009. As that has happened, the program has taken on more and more glamorous, big-budget projects and the controversy surrounding it has increased.


It would be hard to find a figure who has risen faster in this burgeoning realm than Nicholas Mastroianni, II. In just four years, he has developed a lucrative role raising money for marquee projects such as Atlantic Yards, the giant Brooklyn development anchored by the Barclays Center, home of the NBA’s Nets. Forest City Ratner, which is developing Atlantic Yards, has also retained Mastroianni to raise EB-5 money for its renovation of the Nassau Coliseum, home of the NHL’s Islanders. Other Mastroianni clients include the developers of three large Manhattan projects: the Charles, a 31-story condominium tower on the Upper East Side where the penthouse reportedly sold for $38 million; Bryant Park, a 32-story midtown Manhattan building with a luxury hotel and condos developed by HFZ Capital Group; and 855 Avenue of the Americas, a 41-story mixed-use edifice being developed by the Durst Organization.


All told, Mastroianni’s website boasts of involvement with $5.5 billion in development projects over the years, funded with $1.4 billion in EB-5 money, resulting in “40,000 jobs created.” Those are massive sums given that the entire EB-5 system raised a total of about $1.8 billion last year. Forest City Ratner CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin calls Mastroianni the"'go-to' leader in the field of EB-5 funding."

Mastroianni is an associate of Murphy's corrupt father, a crooked Florida builder and Trump partner, and Mastroianni has been incredibly generous to Papa Murphy's ethics-free son, Patrick, who was one of only 7 co-sponsors of GOP crook Aaron Schock's EB-5 Regional Center Extension Act of 2014, a bill that would ease restrictions on EB-5 regional centers like the one Mastroianni runs, directly benefitting Mastroianni's business, a highly illegal and unethical quid pro quo if I ever heard of one.

Yesterday, the Tampa Bay Times' DC bureau chief, Alex Leary, introduced Florida newspaper readers to Papa Murphy, who is destined to share a prison cell with the father of another crooked conservative New Dem, Ami Bera. He describes rich Republican Trump partner Thomas Murphy as the financial muscle behind Patrick Murphy's Senate bid. That's partially true; Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid and the Wall Street bankster cabal are funneling even more money into Patrick's sleazy campaign than Thomas is. Leary wrote that Thomas "has given more than $1 million to super PACs supporting his son's campaigns and used donations to help create allies in Florida and Washington. His Coastal Construction Group has been the source for more than $180,000 given directly to the candidate's House and Senate campaigns." But that's just the beginning of the money trail.

A month before Patrick Murphy launched his first campaign, his father gave $10,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Last August, Tom Murphy contributed $33,400 to the committee, which a few months earlier endorsed his son.

The financial muscle gave the younger Murphy standing in the party and he's been able to build on that, drawing financial support from across Florida and the country. He is Democrats' best chance for taking the seat being vacated by Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. No other Florida Senate candidate has raised more.

But the family advantage has provoked criticism from Democrats and Republicans who cast him as a rich kid and a hypocrite because he laments the influence of money in politics while benefitting from his father's largess.

"It's not unlawful. But it's just a way of playing the inside game of politics that I find distasteful and I think a lot of voters would find distasteful, too," said Pam Keith, a longshot Democratic candidate who volunteered for Murphy's first House campaign.

"This is about politics by the wealthy for the wealthy," she said.

Also rising are questions from his rivals about a potential overlap between Murphy's work in Congress and the family business. His father's company has partnered with developers who have an interest in visas given to foreign investors, a program Murphy has supported on Capitol Hill.

Currently, Coastal Construction is the general contractor for the $1.7 billion Miami Worldcenter project, which has actively sought Chinese investors.

Developers on that project and other businessmen with interests in the visa program, known as EB-5, have given to Murphy's campaign or the super PAC backing him.

The candidate, who holds between $1 million and $5 million in Coastal stock, said contributors get no special treatment. He said he gives the same commitment to any size donor: "I'm going to be the hardest-working congressman I can be and hopefully the best senator this state has ever seen."

Leary forgot to mention that in the history of the known universe, no politician has ever admitted that the bribes he was paid resulted in special treatment for the people bribing him. And bribery and quid pro quos come into questions Murphy has had to deal with again and again, since bribery and quid pro quos define his entire political career. Apparently Patrick a chip off the old block, even before he met the Senate's most corrupt Democrat, his sponsor, Chuck Schumer.

A Republican, Tom Murphy has long been politically active and has given money to Charlie Crist, Alex Sink, George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. (Patrick Murphy also donated to Romney and was a registered Republican until shortly before launching his first campaign.)

The builder has given at least $1.7 million since 2000, according to Federal Election Commission records.

That does not include money Murphy's wife or employees of Coastal Construction, which include Patrick Murphy's two older brothers, have given the candidate. All told, people affiliated with the firm have given Murphy at least $182,000 since 2011.

Current donors can give a maximum $5,400 covering the primary and general elections. But no such limits apply to super PACs.

In 2012, Tom Murphy sank $550,000 into two super PACs helping his son, one of which produced a controversial ad showing West, the Republican incumbent, in a boxing ring punching women. Now he has given $500,000 to Floridians for a Strong Middle Class, the committee set up to aid Murphy's Senate bid. More than half the money collected has come from Mr. Murphy.

...Murphy also played down questions about his support for the EB-5 visa program. His campaigns have received contributions from Florida developers who tap into the funding source. Foreigners who invest at least $500,000 are given green cards; many participants are from China. The program has enjoyed broad support but also come under scrutiny for fraud and a perception it sends the wrong message about the country's immigration system.

Nicholas A. Mastroianni II, a major EB-5 player based in Florida, has along with family members given Murphy about $25,000 and he has used companies to give at least $50,000 to the pro-Murphy super PAC. Another EB-5 developer and Murphy donor is Jeffrey Berkowitz, who is developing SkyRise Miami, a $430 million entertainment and observation tower.

Coastal Construction was a partner in that project but no longer is, according to Murphy campaign spokesman Joshua Karp. Company officials could not be reached. A registered lobbyist for SkyRise, Brian May, is part of the team working for the super PAC, records show.

Murphy said Mastroianni and Berkowitz are friends and he gives them regular updates on the campaign. But he said he did not recall specific conversations with them about legislation he sponsored in 2014 to make the EB-5 program permanent. He also did not recall meeting with Liu Yu, a New York based lawyer who specializes in the field. The two appeared in a 2014 article on a Chinese-language website.

Murphy said the EB-5 program has enjoyed bipartisan support and that it brings investment and creates jobs.

"I'm a member of Congress and I'm not actively involved in the family business ... so feel free to reach out to them and learn more about what they do," he told reporters on a conference call his campaign arranged last month to blast Grayson over alleged ethics issues. "But as far as I know, they have not done any projects to do with EB-5."

In February, Coastal, in a partnership with Tishman Construction, was named general contractor for the Miami Worldcenter, a $1.7 billion shopping, entertainment and housing project planned for 27 acres in the city's downtown. Financing will come in part from EB-5 investors.

Project developers and family have given Patrick Murphy more than $30,000 plus $25,000 to the super PAC.

Murphy's campaign said Friday it was unaware Coastal was involved in the project.

I'm outraged by the role Patrick Murphy and his parents-- yes, his mother is in on it too-- are playing in the corruption of the EB-5 visa program and, let me guarantee you, this isn't the last you'll be hearing about it here at DWT. Meanwhile, please consider helping Alan Grayson fight back this overflowing sewer of money propping up less-than-zero congressman Patrick Murphy.

UPDATE: The FEC Dropped My Complaint

You may remember that last year DWT formally complained to the FEC and the Office of Congressional Ethics about a crooked Patrick Murphy contributor named Nicholas Mastroianni II. In June of 2016 I wrote about the complaint and published the official complaint here. As I wrote at the time, our complaints centered on how Mastroianni was paying Murphy off for his help in corruptly using the EB-5 visa program that Murphy has pushing in Congress. Basically, we were quite certain that Mastroianni had orchestrated a scheme to funnel more than $100,000 into Murphy’s political campaign efforts by using shell companies and straw entities to hide the source of the money, which appears to be coming from Chinese nationals participating in Mastroianni’s EB-5 visa-for-sale program. Shell companies were already being broadly scrutinized for being possible illegal donor entities under the law. But more importantly in this case, Chinese nationals cannot legally make contributions in federal races. We complain about the help the Russians gave Republican Donald Trump... but what about this Chinese cash being funneled into Democrat (barely) Patrick Murphy?

In return for these donations to his campaign and his Super PAC, Murphy co-sponsored legislation for Mastroianni’s benefit. Namely, Murphy used his elected office to try to expand the EB-5 program and make it permanent. In return, Mastroianni has used LLC’s, businesses, family and associates to move money to Murphy, his EB-5 go-to boy.

This week we finally heard back from the FEC-- like 36 pages of legalese claptrap. I finally got an attorney to help me put it in English. So again, Mastroianni had been taking in foreign partners in the EB-5 program, and buying real estate. In one case, the real estate partnership made the contribution to Murphy’s campaign, not him. Foreigners can’t contribute. When Mastroianni was challenged on it, he said, in essence, "you haven’t proved that my partner was foreign." The FEC didn’t bother to ask him whether his partner was, in fact, foreign. Instead, they just said, in sum, "the papers before us don’t prove that Mastroianni’s partner is foreign, we are not going to bother to ask, and therefore, we are dismissing the complaint."

Oddly enough, this happened right around the time that Mastroianni (or maybe his foreign friends) contributed $150,000 to Señor Trumpanzee’s Super PAC. Love that bipartisanship! You too?

UPDATE

A member of Congress sent me a note about this post the day after I wrote it. It included these painfully honest lines: "That’s accurate. The last thing that either party wants right now is to focus attention on the illegal contributions that both take... with a smile."

Swamp Times A Billion: Michael Cohen + Nicholas Mastroianni, The Worst Of Long Island

Mastroianni

In 2016 DWT looked closely, over the months, at a vile character named Nicholas Mastroianni, a real crook. He was the biggest financier of Patrick Murphy's ill-fated campaign-- other than Murphy's own father-- for Senate. Mastroianni contributes hundreds of thousands of dollars to both parties, especially to the most corrupt politicians, Debbie Wasserman Schultz being one of his favorites-- as well as Charlie Crist, Chuck Schumer, Donald Trump... he always manages to find the worst of the worst. These corrupt politicians continued backing pay-for-play with him, even after Fortune exposed him in 2014 as a super-rich mini-Trump from Long Island with "a long history of legal problems, failed ventures, and unpaid debts-- which have continued even as his professional fortunes have turned sharply upward-- leaving a legacy of conflicts, judgments, and entanglements." And what did he want from all these corrupt politicians? EB-5 visa manipulations to make himself very, very rich.


It would be hard to find a figure who has risen faster in this burgeoning realm than Nicholas Mastroianni, II. In just four years, he has developed a lucrative role raising money for marquee projects such as Atlantic Yards, the giant Brooklyn development anchored by the Barclays Center, home of the NBA’s Nets. Forest City Ratner, which is developing Atlantic Yards, has also retained Mastroianni to raise EB-5 money for its renovation of the Nassau Coliseum, home of the NHL’s Islanders. Other Mastroianni clients include the developers of three large Manhattan projects: the Charles, a 31-story condominium tower on the Upper East Side where the penthouse reportedly sold for $38 million; Bryant Park, a 32-story midtown Manhattan building with a luxury hotel and condos developed by HFZ Capital Group; and 855 Avenue of the Americas, a 41-story mixed-use edifice being developed by the Durst Organization.


All told, Mastroianni’s website boasts of involvement with $5.5 billion in development projects over the years, funded with $1.4 billion in EB-5 money, resulting in “40,000 jobs created.” Those are massive sums given that the entire EB-5 system raised a total of about $1.8 billion last year. Forest City Ratner CEO MaryAnne Gilmartin calls Mastroianni the"'go-to' leader in the field of EB-5 funding."

His career was all about Patrick Murphy and his father, Donald Trump, Chuck Schumer, Debbie Wasserman Schultz... everyone with no sense of ethics who could help his endeavors. And Thursday the Wall Street Journal connected Mastroianni to-- no surprise to anyone paying attention lately-- Michael Cohen and Kushner-in-law. The Journal reported that Mastroianni paid Washington's sleaziest law firm and lobbyist outfit, Squire Patton Boggs $370,000 to lobby Congress and the Trump Regime on EB-5 matters. Cohen was paid $500,000 a year to bring clients to Squire Patton Boggs. The Miami Herald chastised me in 2016 for breaking this news then.



Now, in the national examination of what kind of a creep Michael Cohen has always been, let's move away from Mastroianni and Patrick Murphy (currently floating trial balloons about a run for governor of Florida as the No Labels candidate) and take a look at what Pam and Russ Martens have found for Wall Street on Parade, First Republic: Meet the Bank at the Center of the Michael Cohen Scandal. Trump and Cohen both do banking with First Republic, which caters almost exclusively to the super-wealthy.

According to Avenatti, $500,000 that came into Cohen’s First Republic Bank account is tied to the Russian oligarch, Viktor Vekselberg, now on a U.S. sanctions list and closely tied to Russian president Vladimir Putin. The $500,000 came from a U.S.-based company, Columbus Nova, which has denied any corporate ties to Vekselberg. However, those clever folks at Think Progress, used the Wayback machine to access the Columbus Nova website as of January of 2017 where Columbus Nova is listed as a subsidiary of Renova Group, Vekselberg’s Russian company.

The people and businesses who have direct or indirect connections to Cohen’s account at First Republic are starting to mount up. They include AT&T, which has confirmed paying Cohen $600,000 for advice, and the giant Swiss pharmaceutical company, Novartis, which has admitted to transmitting $1.2 million to the Cohen account in order to seek “insights” on Trump. Both AT&T and Novartis confirmed to the New York Times that they had been contacted last November “by investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III….” According to a report by CNN yesterday, also questioned by Mueller’s team was Vekselberg-- the Russian oligarch tied to the $500,000 that found itself in Michael Cohen’s Essential Consultants LLC account at First Republic Bank.

Another connecting dot is Trump’s longtime personal friend, Tom Barrack, who served as Chair of Trump’s Inaugural Committee. According to the Associated Press, Barrack has also been interviewed by Mueller’s investigators. Barrack is the Founder of Colony Capital, LLC, now known as ColonyNorthstar, where he continues to serve as Executive Chairman. Barrack served on the Board of Directors of First Republic Bank from 2001 through 2007 and from 2010 to the present. The bank was previously owned by Merrill Lynch, which was absorbed into Bank of America during the financial crash in 2008. In 2010, Barrack’s Colony Capital was part of a buyout team that included General Atlantic LLC which put up “$1.86 billion in new equity capital” to purchase the bank according to a press release issued by First Republic Bank. On November 29, 2010, the bank sold shares to the public in an Initial Public Offering.

According to First Republic Bank’s 2018 annual proxy statement, Barrack owns 12,335 shares in the company. At this morning’s opening price of $97.06, that’s about $1.2 million – not a particularly large amount of money for a man that Forbes estimated to be worth $1 billion in 2013.

According to the Washington Post, “It was Barrack who persuaded Trump to hire political operative Paul Manafort-- whom Barrack first met in Beirut 40 years ago-- for the presidential campaign.” Manafort has been indicted by a grand jury convened in the Mueller probe.

Yesterday, it was widely reported that the U.S. Treasury’s Inspector General has opened an investigation into the leak of financial documents from First Republic Bank. Stormy Daniels’ attorney, Avenatti, has released information that would seem to have only come from Customer Account Cards inside the bank or documents seized in the raid on Cohen by the FBI in the Southern District of New York or from the Mueller investigation.

In a document released by Avenatti on his Twitter page, precise details from the Customer Account Card for Essential Consultants LLC at First Republic Bank appears to have been provided to him. Avenatti writes:

“In connection with the establishment of that account, Mr. Cohen was required to make certain representations to First Republic regarding Essential’s business as part of First Republic’s Know Your Customer (‘KYC’) anti-money laundering protocol.

“In order to establish the account, Mr. Cohen subsequently submitted information claiming, among other things, the following:

(a) Essential is a real estate consulting company that collects fees for investment consulting work;
(b) The company’s typical clients are U.S.-based high net worth individuals;
(c) The company’s primary source of funds will be derived from within the U.S. or a U.S.-based company;
(d) The company expected one (1) to twenty (20) incoming domestic only wires totaling $1,000 to $10,000 each month for consulting fees, and one (1) to twenty (20) ACH credits and electronic transfers totaling $1,000 to $10,000 each month;
(e) No outgoing wire transfers and debits related to ACH or electronic transfers were expected; and
(f) Receipts of the business would be internally transferred to Mr. Cohen’s personal account at First Republic Bank.

According to the Wall Street Journal, First Republic Bank filed a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) with the U.S. Treasury’s FinCen unit on the Cohen account. Avenatti has said at least three SARs have been filed with FinCen related to this matter. In early April, Avenatti wrote to U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin requesting that the SARs information be released to the public, citing numerous legal case precedents for doing so. Thus far, Mnuchin has not supplied the information.

So where did all this illicit money sloshing around between Cohen, Trump, various Mafias and corporate America wind up-- and who got what? This morning Robert Cruickshank of Demand Progress reminded us that the $600,000 that AT&T funneled to Trump through Cohen's phony shell consulting firm went "to influence Trump’s position on regulatory issues at the FCC-- including net neutrality." The U.S. Senate is scheduled to vote-- in just a few days-- on whether to overrule Trump's crooked FCC and save net neutrality. Perhaps we'll get a hint about who else got some of this illicit dough by watching which sleaze-bag senators vote against it. Jack Shafer this morning: Giuliani insists that Senor Trumpanzee had no idea Cohen was raking in influence bucks. Really? "Money always leaves a trail. Dirty money leaves a trail of slime that taints everybody it touches. One unanswered question this week is whether all the consultative moolah coursing through Cohen’s LLC and moving through his 'shadowy business empire' of real estate, New York City and Chicago taxi medallion holdings, and assorted investment is on the up and up. If proved dirty, will they contaminate his boss, Trump, who traditionally loves using other people’s money? And, if Cohen has committed the money crimes that some suspect of him, will special counsel Robert S. Mueller III convince him to flip on his one-time boss and testify against him? Mueller has already demonstrated his interest in the slosh of Cohen cash and deal-making on behalf of the Trump Organization to Georgia, Kazakhstan and Russia."

What Is Patrick Murphy's Role In Selling EB-5 Visas To Chinese Nationals?

Patrick Murphy is a rich, spoiled Republican without a single legislative or professional accomplishment that he can honestly point to. The key word being honestly. He’s been outed recently for lying about his resume and background, and he got caught doing it again this week. As we've been warning readers for 3 years, he’s worse than a liar and Wall Street sellout. I believe Patrick Murphy and his corporate cronies are breaking campaign finance, bribery and ethics laws. So this week I filed separate complaints with Department of Justice, the Office of Congressional Ethics and the Federal Elections Commission, calling for investigations into Murphy and his dirty donors. I started this blog with the express purpose of doing my part to make sure Duke Cunningham (R-CA) had his day in court. I'm proud that our work helped-- in whatever small way-- put him in prison. Let's keep our fingers crossed that the law catches up with the equally reprehensible Patrick Murphy and his cronies.

The complaints center upon the sleazy Nicholas Mastroianni II and EB-5 program Murphy has pushed in Congress. DWT has written quite a bit about this shady fundraising figure and his ties to Murphy and other corrupt corporate Democrats. Basically, I believe he’s orchestrated a scheme to funnel more than $100,000 into Murphy’s political campaign efforts by using shell companies and straw entities to hide the source of the money, which appears to be coming from Chinese nationals participating in Mastroianni’s EB-5 visa-for-sale program. Shell companies are already being broadly scrutinized for being possible illegal donor entities under the law. But more importantly in this case, Chinese nationals cannot legally make contributions in federal races.

In return for these donations to his campaign and his Super PAC, Murphy co-sponsored legislation for Mastroianni’s benefit. Namely, Murphy used his elected office to try to expand the EB-5 program and make it permanent. In return, Mastroianni has used LLC’s, businesses, family and associates to move money to Murphy, his EB-5 do boy.

As the complaint lays out [and I've included the documents I submitted to the Office of Congressional Ethics], it appears that Mastroianni used a Manhattan luxury condo and a shady LLC linked to it, to possibly funnel Chinese national money on to Murphy’s Super PAC.

Murphy’s family has been linked to dodgy campaign fundraising schemes in the past, including playing a key role in Ami Bera’s father being convicted of campaign finance fraud. But Murphy’s EB-5 antics are just too much. If investigators take these allegations seriously, it could prove to be a great federal test case for whether shell companies can be used to fund SuperPACS.

But hopefully these complaints will also draw attention to the shady fundraising that Murphy and his SuperPAC are engaging in, which appears to be directly tied to his official efforts to expand and make the EB-5 program permanent.

All of this, of course, doesn’t account for the fact that Murphy’s own family business, Coastal Construction, stands to make money off the EB-5 program. It’s been hired by high-profile EB-5 developers, and Murphy is an owner of Coastal, possibly sitting on as much as $5 million in company stock. It looks like Murphy pushed EB-5 legislation not only to pad his campaign account, but also to benefit personally through Coastal; that's just as corrupt as anything Duke Cunningham did to land him in prison. The Depratment of Justice needs to look into it, even if Murphy calls himself a "Democrat." And other developers tied to EB-5 projects have showered Murphy’s various campaigns with hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years. As the Miami Herald’ Alex Leary recently explained:

Murphy also played down questions about his support for the EB-5 visa program. His campaigns have received contributions from Florida developers who tap into the funding source. Foreigners who invest at least $500,000 are given green cards; many participants are from China. The program has enjoyed broad support but also come under scrutiny for fraud and a perception it sends the wrong message about the country's immigration system. Nicholas A. Mastroianni II, a major EB-5 player based in Florida, has along with family members given Murphy about $25,000 and he has used companies to give at least $50,000 to the pro-Murphy super PAC. Another EB-5 developer and Murphy donor is Jeffrey Berkowitz, who is developing SkyRise Miami, a $430 million entertainment and observation tower. Coastal Construction was a partner in that project but no longer is, according to Murphy campaign spokesman Joshua Karp. Company officials could not be reached. A registered lobbyist for SkyRise, Brian May, is part of the team working for the super PAC, records show. Murphy said Mastroianni and Berkowitz are friends and he gives them regular updates on the campaign. But he said he did not recall specific conversations with them about legislation he sponsored in 2014 to make the EB-5 program permanent. He also did not recall meeting with Liu Yu, a New York based lawyer who specializes in the field. The two appeared in a 2014 article on a Chinese-language website. Murphy said the EB-5 program has enjoyed bipartisan support and that it brings investment and creates jobs. ‘I'm a member of Congress and I'm not actively involved in the family business... so feel free to reach out to them and learn more about what they do,’ he told reporters on a conference call his campaign arranged last month to blast Grayson over alleged ethics issues. ‘But as far as I know, they have not done any projects to do with EB-5.’ In February, Coastal, in a partnership with Tishman Construction, was named general contractor for the Miami Worldcenter, a $1.7 billion shopping, entertainment and housing project planned for 27 acres in the city's downtown. Financing will come in part from EB-5 investors. Project developers and family have given Patrick Murphy more than $30,000 plus $25,000 to the super PAC. Murphy's campaign said Friday it was unaware Coastal was involved in the project.

Murphy and his EB-5 connections are deeply troubling and deserve a hard look by investigators. What’s more stunning is that Chuck Schumer and the Establishment didn’t vet Murphy enough to spot these or Murphy’s many other weaknesses. Maybe federal investigators will ultimately do that job for them. Meanwhile, Blue America has, once again, endorsed progressive icon, Alan Grayson, who the establishment is running Patrick Murphy against. It's the one race in the country where Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell both agree! Please help Grayson defeat party bosses Reid, Schumer and McConnell and their corrupt conservative puppet by tapping on the thermometer:

Does Schumer Wish He Had Vetted Patrick Murphy Before He Recruited Him To Run For The Senate?

I'm not supposed to write about this but last weekend Beltway party boss Chuck Schumer schlepped down to Florida for a come-to-Jesus meeting with his-- and Wall Street's-- puppet candidate, Patrick Murphy. No one taped the meeting but Schumer was down there to tell Murphy to stop screwing up, meaning that he should stop exaggerating his nonexistent accomplishments. This means, in effect, that he wants Murphy-- who already doesn't ever debate his opponents-- to stop doing any public appearances where the media may ask him questions, which is basically where Murphy already is. When the Florida Dems had their annual meeting a week ago, Murphy ducked every caucus meeting. (There were a dozen of them.) Murphy sent a "surrogate" to at least one of them, even though he was in the building at the time, but they wouldn’t allow any surrogates to speak and people started wondering what Schumer is saddling the Florida Democratic Party with.

If Schumer imagined their meeting was going to stop the bleeding, though, he must have been very disappointed when the biggest local paper in Murphy's district ran another feature about Murphy's role in the EB-5 scandal, the scandal this blog has filed a complaint with the FEC about. Isadora Rangel reminded TCPalm readers that on Sept. 18, 2014, Murphy co-sponsored a bill to expand the controversial foreign investor program. That same day, a developer who's using the program to help fund a project in Miami gave $15,000 to a political committee affiliated with Murphy whose own company, Coastal Construction, is building the Miami Worldcenter. "Murphy's connections to developers who rely on the foreign investor program known as EB-5," she wrote, "have been called into question by his U.S. Senate race opponents, and the Democrat has had to do a lot of explaining lately. Seven developers who used EB-5, their family members and employees have given $309,000 since 2012 to Murphy and political committees that support him, a Treasure Coast Newspapers analysis found. That's more than previously reported by other media outlets. Murphy's family company, in which he owns stock, was involved at some point in at least two of those donors' projects."

Murphy's opponents accuse him of trying to benefit his family and donors when he signed onto two unsuccessful bills in September 2014 to make the EB-5 program permanent. The program allows foreigners to apply for a green card if they invest at least $500,000 and create at least 10 U.S. jobs, but there have been allegations of fraud and questions over whether it has been the economic driver its creators intended it to be.

GOP incumbent U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and the other U.S. House member running for his seat, Democrat Alan Grayson, did not receive money from the EB-5 developers who gave to Murphy, federal campaign finance records show.

"Voters deserve to know that Patrick's own company stands to make millions off this program that he's pushed while in office," said Grayson's campaign manager Michael Ceraso.

Murphy's campaign points out the EB-5 program has received broad bipartisan support in Congress and Grayson also was a co-sponsor of one of those extension bills. The immigration reform package Rubio spearheaded, which cleared the Senate but failed to become law in 2013, also would have made EB-5 permanent and the program has received praise from Republican leaders such as Gov. Rick Scott.

"This is an absurd smear from Alan Grayson and Republicans who also support this program," Murphy's campaign spokesman Joshua Karp wrote in an email.

Developers who benefit from EB-5 have given hundreds of thousands to Congress members. Some of the donors who gave to Murphy also gave to other co-sponsors of those two bills. Former U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia, a Miami Democrat who introduced one of the bills, received the most. After leaving office in 2015, he was hired to work for an EB-5 regional center, which connects foreign investors with projects in need of capital in Florida.

Murphy told the Tampa Bay Times in April he didn't know whether his family company had done any EB-5 projects. Yet Coastal Construction's ties to the program and Murphy's ties to developers who benefit from it are inextricable.

Coastal Construction, in partnership with New York-based Tishman Construction, was picked as the Worldcenter's general contractor in February and held a groundbreaking ceremony for the retail, entertainment and housing complex in March.

Two weeks later, a company owned by the brother of Worldcenter developer Nitin Motwani gave $25,000 to a pro-Murphy super PAC. Dev Motwani also hosted a Murphy fundraiser in March 2013, according to the website Political Party Time, which tracks political fundraisers.

One of the directors of that pro-Murphy super PAC, Floridians for a Strong Middle Class, also is a registered lobbyist for SkyRise, whose developer Jeffrey Berkowitz is a Murphy family friend. Also a family friend: Murphy's top EB-5 donor, Nicholas Mastroianni II, a major player in the program and developer of Jupiter's Harbourside Place.

Coastal also served as a lead contractor for the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort, which initially sought EB-5 funding but ultimately relied on other financing.

Murphy's campaign said he has "no management role in Coastal Construction, and hasn't since taking office" and said donations from EB-5 developers had no input on his decision to support the program.

"This program is a bipartisan effort to create jobs in America and it is widely supported by both Democratic and Republican leaders, including President Obama," Karp wrote.

On top of that, the investigation into all the straw donors-- straw donors are illegal-- from the Saudi's maids and in-law's grandmother to cronies of Steve Israel's-- look who else came up: Mastroianni’s former fiancée, Jennifer Genco. Before she and Mastroianni got engaged towards the end of 2011, she had never made any political contributions. And then-- suddenly-- a year and a half worth of donations to all the corrupt Dems in Patrick's circle of corruption-- $32,700 to three of Congress' most corrupt and "for sale" New Dems: Patrick Murphy, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Joe Garcia. Genco, who lists herself as a "homemaker," is almost sure to have been given the money by Mastroianni to buy influence with these 3 notorious crooked congressmembers. Same technique Murphy has used to get the Al-Rashid family to have their associates and employees max out to Murphy's campaign. Did I mention that straw donations are illegal?

Patrick Murphy's Money Problems

Al Franken hasn't been a bad Senator... unless you were expecting a real fire-breathing progressive champion like Elizabeth Warren or Jeff Merkley. He votes well enough... and that's more than you can say for 10 Senate Democrats who have F-rated voting records or even for the half dozen who are C-rated. And you can't really blame Franken for the political calculus that saw him jump on the Hillary Clinton bandwagon. Even far better Democrats than he stepped into that open pit sewer. But... he did suck up to Chuck Schumer and endorse one of the most right-wing Democrats in the House, life-long Republican Patrick Murphy against lief-long stellar progressive Alan Grayson for the Florida Senate seat. Of course, the thousands of dollars he got from Murphy's parents may have made that even easier for Franken.

This week, Murphy has been stumbling all over a ridiculous stunt which he's using to trick actual working families think he;s sympathetic to their plight, "The Patrick Murphy Minimum Wage Challenge," which has been laughed about far and wide.

These publicity-stunt "minimum wage challenges" the Democrats love to stage never work. Remember the legislators in Florida who tried last September to live on $8.05 a day but threw in the towel on the second or third day?

All they did is make real poor people mad.

Now it's happened again. Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy, a candidate for Marco Rubio's Senate seat, decided to "go liberal"-- build a little empathy, see what it feels like to live poor. At least, that's what he told the media when he joined the latest "minimum wage challenge."

“Far too many people in this country are working full-time jobs yet still living in poverty,” Murphy said in a video he promoted on his Twitter account Wednesday.

Well, the poor guy got unlucky. There he was enjoying the media attention, tweeting scenes from living on Florida's $8.05-an-hour minimum wage, attracting admiring paparazzi even-- when ... boom! ... he decided to stray from the path of poverty and messed up.

On Day 2 he slipped away to a port-and-caviar-style fundraiser thrown by wealthy supporters, and little did he know (but probably should have suspected it could happen), a Republican opposition group found him and filmed him livin' lush and large.

Murphy would have been wiser to fess up rather than exposing his silver spoon to voters.

Here's what he did: On Thursday afternoon, he tweeted a photograph of himself using cash to pay for a ticket on Washington’s subway system. He wrote, "Day 2 of my Minimum Wage Challenge-- take public transit. Rode the DC metro to work this morning.” And on Friday, Murphy tweeted, “Minimum Wage Challenge, Day 3-- groceries with my $17 daily budget was a challenge. #FLfor15 #FightFor15”.

What actually happened was, a few hours after sharing the subway station photograph on his congressional social media account, Murphy boarded a plane for Florida and attended the fundraiser at the Tampa home of former City Councilwoman Linda Saul-Sena, and her husband Mark.

To make matters worse, Murphy left the fundraiser in a car with a driver, causing the man who had photographed him, Ian Prior, the communications director for Republican groups American Crossroads and the new Senate Leadership Fund, to quip, "Minimum wage goes a lot further than I thought!"

But the big money in this race isn't about Murphy's chauffeur-driven limousines and visits to yacht clubs but about the flood of financing coming into the race from special interests. There is no non-incumbent running for the Senate this cycle anywhere-- not a Republican nor a Democrat-- who is being more financed by the banksters. The banksters want a proven sycophant in the Senate and the last thing they want is another Elizabeth Warren/Bernie Sanders (i.e., Alan Grayson). The Finance Sector has seen Murphy kissing its ass for the last 3 years in the House Financial Services Committee, where he is known as "Wall Street's errand boy" and they have shoveled $872,350 into Murphy's coffers so far. The non-incumbent Republican Wall Street has given the most to is Todd Young (R-IN), who got $402,015 from the banksters. Another big source of money for Murphy has, once again, been daddy's bank account. His parents, who have been bribing dozens of Democrats into endorsing their son, dumped another $200,000 into their own personal SuperPAC.

A super PAC that launched last spring to support Democratic U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy's U.S. Senate bid raised $535,000 from donors since July-- including $200,000 from Murphy's father.

The fundraising haul for "Floridians for a Strong Middle Class" was revealed today in the super PAC's end-of-year disclosure report to the Federal Elections Commission, which was due Sunday. The super PAC reports its finances every six months.

Through June, the committee had just $25,000 in donations, so its collections in the latter six months of the year reveal a stark increase in activity. Super PACs are not bound by the $2,700 cap on individual contributions-- as candidate's campaign committees are -- nor can they coordinate directly with the candidate.

The super PAC's warchest is separate from the $4.3 million Murphy has in the bank for his personal campaign committee.

Murphy's father, construction executive Thomas Murphy, gave $200,000 to "Floridians for a Strong Middle Class" just before year's end, the report showed. Thomas Murphy has a history of donating to political candidates in both parties, including his son.

Other large donations detailed in the disclosure report include $100,000 from a "Michael Smith" of Boulder, Co. (his employer information wasn't listed), $50,000 from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians in Alabama and $50,000 from "230 East 63rd-6 Trust LLC."

According to Florida business registration filings, that company is an "inactive" business venture associated with Nicholas Mastroianni II. Mastroianni developed the $150 million Harbourside project in Patrick Murphy's home city of Jupiter in Palm Beach County. Mastroianni's son, Anthony, also gave $5,000 to the super PAC, the filing showed.

While Murphy was stumbling around incoherently with his fake minimum wage challenge at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club, Grayson was in Congress introducing H.R. 4494, the Renters Fairness and Equality Act, which will, according to Grayson, "allow renters to deduct the amount they pay for the main roof over their head, and help level the tax playing field between renters and homeowners... If the bill becomes law, a renter paying $1,500 a month, for example, could save about $4,500 annually with a rental deduction if she is in a 25 percent tax bracket... There’s an unequal treatment now of owners and renters," Grayson told Realtor.com. "Renters should be able to share in the tax savings. This is a tax benefit that would go primarily to people who need it." According to Realtor.com, more than a third of all American households are renters, and of those, half of them are having a tough time making those monthly payments. If you're not a bankster or a member of the Murphy family, you might want to help Grayson win the Florida Senate seat that Marco Rubio has abandoned and that Wall Street and their fully-owned subsidiary, Chuck Schumer, are desperately trying to deliver to Murphy. If Grayson wins this one, it would be historic. Just tap the thermometer:

A little bonus: who won the debate in Flint tonight between Bernie Sanders and the establishment candidate who has been endorsed by virtually every member of the Democratic Party establishment and all it's subsidiaries and media allies? TIME Magazine asked it's readers to weigh in. They did: