SVB collapse: Biden and DNC to return political donations from bank executives
Emily Jacobs
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President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and the Democratic National Committee will hand back political donations tied to Silicon Valley Bank, the DNC said Friday.
Recipients of donations from the shuttered bank’s political action committee and top executives have come under pressure to return those funds or give them to charity in the wake of SVB’s collapse last Friday. Biden’s campaign and PACs obtained around $11,900 from SVB executives, while the DNC was given at least $32,250, Federal Election Commission filings show. A DNC spokesman told USA Today on Friday that contributions from 2020 or later would be donated to charity.
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The DNC did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment on the returned donations, nor did Biden’s team.
The donations referenced in the USA Today report included a $5,600 contribution in 2020 to Biden for President from SVB Managing Director Gerald Brady. Claire Lee, who took over one of Brady’s roles running a division of the bank, gave $6,300 to the Biden Victory Fund. Brady also donated $17,050 to the DNC, including a $5,000 contribution in 2012, while Lee gave $15,200 in two payments: $15,000 in 2018 and $200 in 2020.
Donations from SVB CEO Greg Becker to Biden’s campaign and the DNC will also be returned, a spokesman for the party told the outlet. Becker gave Biden’s 2020 campaign $2,800.
News of the returns come three days after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), the leading Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, attempted to distance themselves from the fallout of the bank collapse by returning donations. A Schumer spokesman said Tuesday that the majority leader was giving contributions from Becker and the bank’s PAC to charity, while Waters told the outlet she planned to return her donations from the PAC.
Banking regulators shut down SVB last week, two days after the nation’s 16th-largest federally insured bank announced that it needed to raise more than $2.2 billion to remain solvent, which sent its stock price plunging over 60% in 48 hours.
On Sunday evening, they also announced the closure of Signature Bank while revealing plans to make customers of both financial institutions whole. The SVB failure is the second-largest in U.S. banking history while Signature Bank is the third.
Eight senators and House members received almost $45,000 in campaign donations from SVB’s political action committee between 2012 and 2022, according to FEC records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.
Among those eight, Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) has received the most through the years in campaign donations, $21,600, from SVB’s PAC, filings show. The Democrat, who has long sat on the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, received the funds between 2013 and 2022.
Filings reveal that Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), who serves as House Financial Services Committee chairman, received $10,000 from the bank’s PAC between 2015 and 2022. The Republican was on the committee for those years and has called for an investigation into SVB’s “supervisory failures.”
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Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) received $3,500 in campaign donations between 2020 and 2022 from the PAC, records show. Rep. French Hill (R-AR) got $1,000 in 2019, and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) took $1,000 in 2017. All three men sit on the House Financial Services Committee under Waters and McHenry’s leadership.
Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Jon Tester (D-MT), who are members of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, also received contributions from the PAC. Filings show that Scott received $3,700 in 2015, while Tester took $5,000 between 2012 and 2017.