Former Rep. Dan Maffei, D-N.Y., who is already running to regain the seat he lost in 2010, was forced to give $3,500 in political donations from Koch Industries Inc. to charity this week, after he criticized the firm for doing business with Iran. There is just one problem: Maffei has taken at least $18,000 from other companies that have done business with Iran in the past.
Justifying his flip-flop on taking Koch money, Maffei cited a Bloomberg Markets Magazine article detailing past Koch deals with Iran. But not only was that article so weak that Bloomberg Businessweek editorialized against it, but Maffei has a long history of taking money from other companies that have done similar business with the U.S.-labeled state sponsor of terrorism.
Between 2008 and 2010, Maffei took $4,000 from General Electric, $4,500 from JP Morgan, and $9,500 from Honeywell. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., ran into a similar problem last week, when he tried to single out Koch without first checking to see how many other Iran-linked companies he had taken money from.
Koch General Counsel Mark Holden told The Examiner: “Similar to Senator Tester’s comments last week, former Representative Maffei’s comments yesterday are part of an orchestrated attack against us and hypocritical. A review of publicly available campaign finance records reveals that Mr. Maffei accepted contributions from other companies that did or are still doing business in Iran. To our knowledge, Mr. Maffei has not donated those contributions to charity.”
