The Dr. Manny Sethi campaign for U.S. Senate released an ad Monday featuring his wife, Maya, in which she clarified what she said was confusion over how and why the Federal Election Commission recorded her husband donating $50 to a liberal political candidate in 2008.
Mrs. Sethi said in the ad that she donated $50 to help a friend.
The Sethi campaign said in a press release Monday that Maya shared a credit card account at the time with her husband.
“Because of that, when the credit card processor itemized the donation, it was reported as a donation from Dr. Manny,” according to the press release.
As The Tennessee Star reported, Federal Election Commission filings show Manny Sethi donated to the left-leaning ActBlue in April 2008. Specifically, Sethi donated $50 to Democrat Congressional candidate Tom Peirrelo in 2008 through ActBlue. Perriello won, but he served only one term. In 2018 Perriello was hired by George Soros’s Open Society Foundation.
In an email, Sethi Campaign Chair Chris Devaney said the following about Sethi’s opponent Bill Hagerty:
“Out of this $50 donation, Bill Hagerty has spent over a million dollars lying about Dr. Sethi in hopes that voters would ignore the $100,000 he gave to [Mitt] Romney and [Al] Gore, the fact that his company helped implement Common Core, and that until just two weeks ago when he got caught, Hagerty was sitting on the board of a company supporting Black Lives Matter.”
Peirrelo, a former Democratic Party congressman from Virginia, complained in a 2017 Los Angeles Times opinion piece that he lost his seat because he voted for Obamacare.
“In 2010, as a freshman congressman, I stared down the same threats that many Republican representatives face today, and I had to balance what I thought was right versus what I knew was politically advantageous. I was a Democrat representing a red Virginia district,” Peirrelo wrote.
“Back then, a vote backing the Affordable Care Act — which Republican strategists had already branded ‘Obamacare’ — meant facing millions of dollars in right-wing attack ads and almost certain defeat at the polls that fall. My critics were right: I did lose my seat. But I never regretted my vote. Not once.”
The Star asked Devaney why either of the Sethi’s would donate to a candidate whose political views are so left-of-center?
Devaney did not answer our question.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Image “Maya Sethi” by Dr. Manny Sethi.
I can’t listen to the radio without listening to a barrage of negative ads from Hagerty. It’s one after another. If being a RINO doesn’t seal his defeat, the constant mudslinging should.
Hagerty’s smear campaign against Sethi has been pathetic from the start. I hope Sethi wins, the GOP needs more outsiders to be elected, not more swamp establishment candidates!
The donation to a school FRIEND of 50 bucks is a big old nothing burger! Most if not all of us have given money to and voted for people who are not “friends” and never will be! Do the names McCain, Romney or Bush ring a bell for you? And all of them helped give us Common Core, Obamacare, and other terminal, governmental overreaches that we cherish so much!
Here’s the issue. If Hagerty is already a “card carrying” member of the establishment! He’s been hob-knobbing around with them for decades! If he becomes our Senator, the entire political machine will line up behind him and he will be in DC FOREVER! In 6 years IF Sethi goes off the rails, he’ll be a whole lot easier to vote out than Bill Has-gerty
Kevin, thanks for the correction. After watching Maya Sethi again in the TV ad responding to the Hagerty accusation, the Sethi’s $50 donation in 2008 was made to a friend. In the Hagerty ad, this is used to say he “bankrolled Pelosi and the Democrats”. Wow! That $50 to one candidate sure got spread around and went a long way!