James O’Keefe Drops Bombshell Video On BlackRock: ‘You Got $10k? You Can Buy A Senator’
By Virginia Kruta
Jun 20, 2023 DailyWire.com

Independent journalist James O’Keefe dropped a bombshell video on BlackRock Inc. — a prominent investment management and financial services firm — revealing just how broad the company’s impact might be.

A journalist working for the O’Keefe Media Group (OMG) spoke with BlackRock recruiter Serge Varlay — who told her that because of the vast sums of money the company controls in the global market, they can essentially “run the world.” He began with a caveat, noting that BlackRock did not necessarily want people to notice what they were doing.

“They don’t want to be in the news. They don’t want people to talk about them. They don’t want to be anywhere on the radar,” he said, and when the journalist asked him why, he paused. “I don’t know, but I suspect it’s because it’s easier to do things when people aren’t thinking about it.”



Varlay went on to explain that while BlackRock might be one of the biggest players, the asset management firm was not the only game in town.

“All of these financial institutions, they buy politicians,” he said. “You can take this big f*** ton of money and buy people … It’s not who is the president, it’s who is controlling the wallet of the president. You could buy your candidates. First, there is the senators, these guys are f***ing cheap. Got 10 grand? You can buy a senator. I’ll give you 500k right now … It doesn’t matter who wins, they’re in my pocket.”

In another segment of the video, Varlay discussed the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine — but strictly from a financial perspective.


“Ukraine is good for business, you know that right? Russia blows up Ukraine’s grain silos and the price of wheat is going to go mad up. The Ukrainian economy is the wheat market. The price of bread, literally everything goes up and down, this is fantastic if you’re trading,” Varlay continued, adding, “Volatility creates opportunity to make profit. War is real f***ing good for business. It’s exciting when s*** goes wrong, right?”

Varlay said several times that there were other financial institutions taking similar steps to “buy politicians” and influence the global markets, but that the sheer volume of capital that BlackRock was controlling made the company even more formidable.

“BlackRock manages $20 trillion. It’s incomprehensible numbers,” he said.

https://www.dailywire.com/news...ou-can-buy-a-senator

What a shock. NOT! Soros, anyone?

Blackrock is ESG and runs companies by implementing investment strategies to influence how companies promote social justice.

Always knew Senators were for sale, but didn't realize it was only $10k.

No wonder one shitty US manufacturer buys Senators rather than having working thermocouples (temperature is a critical parameter in the item they manufacture) and actual QA/QC. I guess it's cheaper to get their whore(s) to push for a tariff against superior foreign products (i.e. without tariff superior foreign product would cost less).

I would imagine the same applies for Vanguard.

We've known politicians and corporations are evil and on the take. Hero's like James O'Keefe are shining the light on these dark dealings for all of us to see. It's what we the people do with this information that matters.
Recently, we the people were able to successfully boycott budweiser, target, and others. We have parents in the school board meetings fighting back against groomers. We have pressured our states to pass laws protecting our children and keeping men out of women's sports.
I've been going to local Republican meetings. I think as more of these stories come out, more people will get out an involved.
God Bless you James O'Keefe.

quote:

We've known politicians and corporations are evil and on the take. Hero's like James O'Keefe are shining the light on these dark dealings for all of us to see. It's what we the people do with this information that matters.

It looks like Republican senators are cheaper than Democrat senators...

So who took those $10,000 amounts from Blackrock?

When you pull the lid off an already stinking garbage pail, it shouldn't be a surprise that it stinks even more.

That's what seems to be the case with James O'Keefe's latest undercover video targeting Blackrock, the financial services giant which is famed for its investments in big corporations that have suddenly been forced to embrace DEI and ESG wokester policies.



It turns out that a corporate recruiter for the company, named Serge Varnay, is bragging about buying politicians, with senators going for a cheapie $10,000 a pop.

Is it time to look at those senators who've taken the Blackrock dime?

According to OpenSecrets.org, citing the 2022 cycle, 20 Democrat senators and senate candidates got a grand total of $303,837, and 18 Republican senators and senate candidates got $168,250 from Blackrock, both the company itself, and its individual employees.

Here are the big fish:

Chuck Schumer, who pocketed $113,950 from the financial giant, including the nice neat $10,000 from Blackrock itself.

Lisa Murkowski, who took $46,400, again including that nice neat $10,000 from Blackrock itself, and the rest from employees of Blackrock.

Could they have been donations by the Blackrock employees and agents whom the recruiter Varnay said were handed half a million dollars and told that they knew what to do? That's too murky to know for sure, so let's just look at the members of the Blackrock $10,000 club and see who we find besides Schumer and Murkowski:

Ron Wyden, a leftist from Oregon, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, who won her election by a very thin margin, Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, Republicans Chuck Grassley of Iowa and John Boozman of Arkansas, Democrat Chris Van Hollen, Republican Todd Young of Indiana, Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas, Republicans James Lankford of Oklahoma and John Thune of South Dakota.

Bob Menendez of New Jersey also took cash from Blackrock as a company, but at the fire sale rate of $4,000. Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina took $2,000. Democrat Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut got $5,000. Democrat Tammy Baldwin got $2,500. Republican Bill Hagerty of Tennessee got $2,500. Democrat Sherrod Brown got $2,500. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky got $2,500. Republican Steve Daines got $1,500. Texas Republican John Cornyn got $1,000.

Other senators took lesser amounts only from employees of Blackrock, not the company -- Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin were seen in that club.

Plenty of prominent names from the House came up as prodigious takers of the Blackrock campaign cash, too -- Paul Ryan, Maxine Waters, Rob Portman, Ruben Gallego, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, Gregory Meeks, Nancy Pelosi, Brad Sherman...

Joe Biden took $537 from Blackrock employees so it's possible he was very cheap indeed, but he seems to have higher prices elsewhere.

Now, this is not to say that everyone who took money from Blackrock was taking a bribe. I have a very hard time thinking Sen. Chuck Grassley would ever take a bribe, especially from these guys, given his fearless work rooting out Democrat corruption. There are probably others. But still, we'd be naive to say that money doesn't buy influence in Washington.

If I were a senator and saw that tape from O'Keefe's target, I'd be thinking about returning that money back to Vlackrock, given Varnay's boast.

Blackrock has already been the topic of videos like these:

GatewayPundit has more summarizations of what O'Keefe found in his video from the Blackrock employee.

Now there's an allegation that they buy senators cheaply and "everybody" does it. If that's the case, nobody should want to be holding that money which given the allegations, might just say to some voters: 'I got bought cheaply.'

https://www.americanthinker.co..._from_blackrock.html

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Now, this is not to say that everyone who took money from Blackrock was taking a bribe. I have a very hard time thinking Sen. Chuck Grassley would ever take a bribe, especially from these guys, given his fearless work rooting out Democrat corruption. There are probably others. But still, we'd be naive to say that money doesn't buy influence in Washington.

Big companies give money all the time to both sides of the aisle, some you might give in order to feign impartiality.

It's not that they give these amounts to senators that matters so much but how much do they put into PAC's, thats where they can do whatever they want with as much money as they want to influence elections.

$10K to a senator is nothing, chump change, and doubt it really buys you a Senator, maybe if you put $100K into Choomer every year it will, But put several million dollars of marketing against a senators rival with negative campaign ads paid for by "citizens concerned about X" pac, that's where the power and influence sits.

quote:

Originally posted by VANQUISH:
I would imagine the same applies for Vanguard.

...and State St, and Jane St Capitol, etc.

These are the largest securities and financial trading firms in the world, they have investments in every single company that comprises the Fortune 500 and then some. No surprise they have contacts and influence with political figures, next step is to expose them and their process.

@chellim1 - WOW! Good research.

How long was Biden a Senator? There ya go.

So what needs to change so politicians can't be purchased?

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Originally posted by bryan11:
So what needs to change so politicians can't be purchased?

Go back to the Founders intent; it's a part time job and one you don't have for life like some kind of royalty.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:

quote:

Originally posted by bryan11:
So what needs to change so politicians can't be purchased?

Go back to the Founders intent; it's a part time job and one you don't have for life like some kind of royalty.

When a federal politician is convicted of taking a bribe, hang them in a gibbet inside the Capitol Dome, until their bones fall out.

quote:

Originally posted by bryan11:
So what needs to change so politicians can't be purchased?

The Founder's intent was what I'll call Federalism. The federal government was tasked with very specific roles defined in a bullet-point list in Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution.

All other powers are left to the STATES. (We are the United STATES of America, of course.)

This means we start taking away powers the feds have now. If the STATES pick up the slack, they can go for it.

My father wrote a letter to Clinton in 1993 when the current president had asked to hear from people with "deficit solutions."

One of the first items on the list was to disband the federal Department of Education. There is no need for it or call for it in the US Constitution. All the states have one, all the counties have one, and all the cities and towns have one. This is just one example of hundreds of items that can be wiped off the books of federal regulation and law.

Some states like California may go full tilt with mandated single-payer, state-run healthcare. TEXAS may elect to be completely OUT of the healthcare business. Same with education - fully state-run and funded versus fully private. In reality, most likely, you'd see some mix at the state level, and that's OK. To a certain extent, you're seeing this in practice this year with the abortion legislation since SCOTUS correctly ruled the federal government had no place in the issue.

I hate to use a Romney point, but he once used the term "50 incubators of ideas" in a presentation when referring to this subject. I think the topic was healthcare in Massachusetts. Somehow, he dropped the issue when elected to the US Senate. Surprise, surprise.

No doubt, this culture change - and it really is a culture change - may take a really long time. Think 25 to 50 years.

Back to the topic at hand...

As powers are moved from the feds to the states, you'd see more people interested in running for state legislature and executive positions since there would be more power there. Washington positions would be less important so that the Congress-critters would go home. Most of the lobby shops throughout DC would fizzle and close up shop since they could not "buy" anyone or anything.

I'm not saying you'd have no bribery, corruption, or back-room deals when the states have more power. It would just be easier to root out. Since politicians from Illinois, New York or wherever can't live and hide in the DC bubble, they would be home and easily accessible to their constituents. They would be State Legislators, living at home in the community and making decisions that neighbors support. If not, they are voted out in two years. I think that makes a difference. In short, local politicians would be more accountable to their constituents.

I used to write about this topic a lot ten years ago when I had some hope. I really don't have any hope regarding this subject anymore. Trump won't fix it, either. His ego is about "Watch me; I can fix education and healthcare!"

Bullshit, I want you to get the feds out of those topics not clearly specified in Article 1, Section 8. If not, you're not in it to fix anything.

quote:

Originally posted by bryan11:
So what needs to change so politicians can't be purchased?

Remove the government's power over the economy, and there'd be no point for companies, unions, etc. to try to persuade the goverment to leave them alone, or do them favors.

As long as there's a 'visible hand' messing up markets, there's going to be competition for 'guiding' that visible hand. That competition winds up being denominated in coin of the realm, or in vote delivery, whichever the competitor finds easier to deliver.

quote:

Originally posted by steve495:
Trump won't fix it, either. His ego is about "Watch me; I can fix education and healthcare!"

I saw Trump's proposals/policies more about 'un-fucking' things than him wanting to 'fix' it. His approach was more representative of the Federalist Principles of government/Federalism than ANY President in my memory!

quote:

I used to write about this topic a lot ten years ago when I had some hope. I really don't have any hope regarding this subject anymore. Trump won't fix it, either...

steve495: Good post. Thanks, I'm with you. The problem is, most people don't understand Federalism.

Trump won't fix it. Trump can't fix it. No President can fix it. It's primarily up to Congress. They could get rid of most of the Federal government spending and function and we would be much better off.

Section 8: Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To ...