A wealthy Saudi-Arabian family with close ties to the royal family and a history of violence donated millions of dollars to the Clinton foundation and to prominent Democrats.
Nasser Al-Rashid, who is among the top five wealthiest men in the country and an adviser to the royal family, donated between $1 million-$5 million to the Clinton Foundation, making him one of the foundations’ top donors, according to the Washington Free Beacon. That puts him in the same category as prominent donors such as Barclays Capital or Anheuser-Busch.
Additionally Al-Rashid’s children, including one who plead guilty to assaulting his wife, have donated nearly $600,000 to Democrats over the past several years.
Clinton has already faced scrutiny about her close ties to foreign governments and donations from their wealthy elite, including donations from the Saudi Arabian government. This latest revelation could damage her campaign as she gears up for a general election fight against Donald Trump.
“This raises a very simple question in my mind — why is this family of one of Saudi Arabia’s richest billionaires and a key adviser to the royal family pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into our political system to elect and influence these Democrats?” said Ian Prior, a Republican political operative and spokesman for the Senate Leadership Fund, which advocates the election of Republican candidates, to the Beacon.
Each of Rashid’s three sons have contributed large amounts of money to down-ballot Democratic races, including to Rep. Patrick Murphy’s senate race, which could ultimately help decide whether the democrats control the Senate in 2017. But Murphy, a Florida Democrat, has already returned the cash donated by Al-Rashid over the last three cycles. The Clintons have yet to do the same.
