Pennsylvanians React to New Reporting on David McCormick’s Close Ties to Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund
Judi Reiss, Advocate Whose Son Was Killed On 9/11: “Dave McCormick Sold My Family Out, He’ll Sell Your Family Out”
PENNSYLVANIA — Today, Pennsylvanians reacted to the new groundbreaking reporting from HuffPost which revealed David McCormick’s deep ties to the Saudi government.
See some highlights below and view the full recording here.
“It turns my stomach,” said Judi Reiss, an advocate whose son died during the 9/11 attacks. “David McCormick sold my family out, he’ll sell your family out.”
“As a former member of the military, McCormick swore an oath to protect the Constitution,” said Pennsylvania veteran Jack Inacker. “It’s disqualifying for him to have abandoned those principles when he had the opportunity to profit from doing so.”
“It’s almost insulting to me that [McCormick] can say these things and thinks he can fool voters, and then goes and takes actions that are completely antithetical to the values he’s touting,” said Pennsylvania veteran Elizabeth Baik. “And so I don’t trust him and he does not have my vote.”
HuffPost: A Saudi-Linked Businessman Is The Key To The Gop’s 2024 Senate Plan
- David McCormick, a likely Senate candidate, reportedly urged continued ties to the Saudis after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, and his wife is close to top Saudis.
- McCormick is the former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, an investment firm that works with sovereign wealth funds like the one maintained by Saudi Arabia. He reportedly pushed for Bridgewater to demonstrate loyalty to the Saudis amid international outrage over Saudi agents’ murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And he is married to a fellow financier, Dina Powell McCormick, a longtime Goldman Sachs executive who is known for her links to Saudi officials and recently took a new job partly focused on sovereign wealth funds.
- The web of relationships could pose a political liability for McCormick as he seeks office ― and an ethical challenge if he is ultimately elected.
- “The Saudi regime has made clear over and over again that it’s willing to use financial, economic, any sort of business incentive it has to garner influence over American politics. So whenever we hear of anybody running for office, I think it’s imperative to know: Do they have business interests in Saudi? Have the Saudis invested in their business here? What sort of interactions have they had with Saudi lobbying or [public relations] firms?” said Ben Freeman, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “It’ll give [voters] a sense of how potentially vulnerable this person might be to Saudi influence.”
- Freeman cited one example in which that question would be especially salient for a public office-holder: if Congress tried to block a weapons deal with Saudi Arabia, as it has repeatedly since 2015 as the Saudis have used U.S. equipment to kill civilians in a military campaign in Yemen.
- “If you’re a sitting senator and you have the opportunity to vote on stopping an arms sale but you know you have financial ties in Saudi Arabia, there’s a clear conflict of interest there,” [Freeman] said.
- Beyond Bridgewater, McCormick developed links to Saudi officials through Dina Powell, whom he married in 2019.
- After she left the Trump administration to return to the investment bank Goldman Sachs, Powell McCormick specifically worked on government-backed funds, particularly those in the Middle East, and helped Goldman contend for the initial public offering of the Saudi state oil company Aramco.
- For McCormick, the pressure to offer real transparency about his Saudi links seems likely to grow. His wife’s extensive ties merit attention, too, in Freeman’s view: He noted that there is a history of powerful interests trying to manipulate politicians through their spouses, including on national security matters.
- “My advice is: Number one, don’t have these ties in the first place ― do your best not to make bankroll off of working for dictators,” Freeman said. “But if you can’t do that, the very least you can do is disclose it ― and let the voters decide for themselves how much they care about it.”
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