Elizabeth Warren recently made headlines jabbing 2020 Democratic rival Pete Buttigieg over his Napa Valley “wine cave” fundraiser. But the Massachusetts senator’s own campaign fundraisers have sometimes taken place at a restaurant boasting bottles that cost more than $6,500.
Federal Election Commission records show Warren’s political action committee, PAC for a Level Playing Field, and her Senate joint fundraising committee enjoyed at least four events at New York City’s Gramercy Tavern, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Manhattan co-owned by celebrity chef Danny Meyer. Both of the Warren-affiliated organizations paid thousands of dollars to the restaurant for reception and catering expenses between December 2014 and October 2017.
A dinner at the restaurant’s main dining room runs $134 for a three-course tasting menu — and that’s before the wine. While customers can find wines such as the Chilean white La Ruptura at $48, Gramercy Tavern’s 34-page wine list also offers bottles of Burgundies costing $6,600, such as Domaine Coche-Dury’s 2013 Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru.
The Warren campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Revelations of Warren’s own ritzy fundraisers come after her attacks on Buttigieg’s wealthy donor base. At Thursday’s Democratic primary debate, Warren implied the South Bend, Indiana, mayor was selling access to his campaign through fundraisers held in locations such as wine caves that featured $900 bottles of wine.
“We made the decision many years ago that rich people in smoke-filled rooms would not pick the next president of the United States,” Warren said. “Billionaires in wine caves should not pick the next president of the United States.”
Buttigieg responded by saying Warren was “issuing purity tests [she] cannot pass,” citing the money she raised from wealthy donors for her Senate campaign, of which millions of dollars were transferred to her presidential campaign. Following the debate, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and winery owner himself, condemned Warren’s comments and said wine was “one of America’s great exports.”
The Washington Examiner reported that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once hosted donors and Democratic powerbrokers at the home of the California wine cave owners in 2014. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Democratic lawmakers such as California Rep. Ami Bera headlined the event, which was for attendees who paid at least $32,400 to be members of the 2014 Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Speaker’s Cabinet.
UPDATE: Warren’s campaign responded to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment by referring to a press gaggle earlier this month, during which she was asked if she regrets her past fundraisers.
“I saw how the system worked. And I decided when I got in the presidential race that I wanted to do better than that, and that’s why I just quit doing it,” she responded. “I don’t sell access to my time, I don’t call high-dollar fundraisers, I’m out there raising money, grassroots, all across this country because I want to move this in the right direction, we can’t be a country that just keeps getting worse and worse.”
