Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., probably didn’t have the best birthday this year.
A Kansas City Star report on Tuesday revealed that a whole lot of federal dollars have been flowing to businesses tied to the senator’s husband since she took office in 2007. According to the report, more than $131 million in federal subsidies have been routed to companies McCaskill’s husband, Joseph Shepard, has invested in since she entered the Senate.
“Based on the data, it appears that a growing percentage of Shepard’s personal earnings come from new businesses he has invested in that are receiving federal awards, primarily rural rental assistance through the USDA,” the Star noted.
From the investigation:
It’s a curious pattern, though it’s one McCaskill insists she’s had nothing to do with. But even if it’s unintentional (and that’s not clear at all), being married to a senator comes with some measure of special insight, especially for someone in Shepard’s line of work. As James Freeman suggested in the Wall Street Journal, “Perhaps the senator or her husband ought to explain his method for identifying projects likely to receive taxpayer subsidies.”
This all matters for McCaskill because she’s defending her seat in a state that voted for President Trump over Hillary Clinton by a nearly 20-point margin. It’s not a good look for a senator whose constituents want to “drain the swamp.” And Republicans are working hard to depict McCaskill, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, as an out-of-touch elitist who does the bidding of her donors in Hollywood and on Wall Street. Like her private plane saga, this only makes the GOP’s work on that front easier.
