Asshole of the Month: Harlan Crow
“Money is the root of all evil,” goes the old saying repeated by theologians and moralists. That might not be the whole story, but in the world of American politics, we can definitely say “dark money” has become the root of evil ever since our conservative-leaning Supreme Court green-lighted unlimited campaign spending with the 2010 Citizens United decision. The sky’s the limit now, and “dark” means that most of it does not have to be reported; the donors can remain totally anonymous. For all we know, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin could be funneling funds into our campaigns through well-disguised cutouts, and we would have no clue as to where the money came from.
One of the major fatcats flooding funds into Republican coffers over the past two decades is the Dallas real estate mogul Harlan Crow, heir to an empire started by his father, Trammell Crow, once described as the “largest landlord in the United States” by Forbes magazine. Harlan was a founding member of the Club for Growth, advocating for rock-bottom taxes and slashing government spending—it might as well have been named Grow Our Country Club. Since 1996, he has served on the board of the powerful right-wing lobby the American Enterprise Institute and also on the board of the Hoover Institution. When Harlan tires of buying Nazi memorabilia to add to his collection, he starts writing checks to regressive candidates and causes everywhere.
In 2004, he made one of his first forays into large donations when he gave money to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (SBVT) group that smeared the Vietnam service record of Presidential candidate Democrat John Kerry. The smear ranks as one of the most vile hatchet jobs in the history of our republic. Kerry had enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve after college and served a combat tour in the Vietnam War, commanding a Swift boat. Wounded three times and awarded Purple Hearts and the Silver Star and Bronze Star medals for valor, he later joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War in protesting that hopeless fiasco. But the SBVT goons, none of whom actually served with Kerry, alleged that he had lied about his service and was unworthy of the medals. Fellow veterans who had actually served with Kerry called the allegations “totally false,” “garbage” and “a pack of lies.” Even Republican John McCain was disgusted by the vicious slander.
