The president’s re-election campaign and a Democratic Party campaign committee have had to set aside $340,000 from a donor currently embroiled in fraud and misconduct allegations.
Frozen Funds
Joe Biden’s presidential re-election campaign has frozen hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of campaign donations from a donor who has been accused of fraud. The campaign office, along with a Democratic Party committee, chose to place $340,000 in escrow that Indian-American businessman Gaurav Srivastava donated.
The announcements were made on Tuesday after Srivastava was accused of fraud and misconduct, including falsely claiming to have working ties to the CIA. Srivastava made a $50,000 campaign donation to the Biden Victory Fund last April and an additional $290,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sometime in 2023.
Concerns Around Legality
Concerns have since been raised concerning the legality of these donations, and the Biden campaign has placed their funds in escrow. While it may be a small blow to the president’s re-election campaign, Biden’s finances still look good. He raised $10 million in campaign donations in just 24 hours following his State of the Union speech.
A spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also confirmed that their donations from Srivastava had been put aside for “the foreseeable future.”
Donor History
Srivastava, a Los Angeles-based businessman, has a long history of giving to philanthropic causes and political efforts that he supports, including the Atlantic Council, an international affairs think tank. The businessman donated $1 million to the think tank back in 2022, but the organization has since cut ties with him after failing to verify information about his background.
Broader alarm bells began to ring in October 2023, when the news outlet Project Brazen released a damning profile that alleged that Srivastava had attempted to defraud a Dutch oil trader and falsely claimed to be associated with the CIA, amongst other issues.
Since then, the businessman and the foundation he runs with his wife, Gaurav and Sharon Srivastava Family Foundation, have been embroiled in controversy.
International Community Service
The official website for the foundation describes the couple’s background in “international community service and solving financial and security related challenges,” and that its mission was to secure “food and energy access for families across the globe”.
In the campaign filing for his donation to the Biden campaign, Srivastava listed his occupation as an urban designer with AECOM, an infrastructure consulting firm. However, AECOM later confirmed that there was no employee with that name working for their company.
In the filing for the DCCC donation, he included a different address and occupation, listing himself as the “chairman” of the Unity Resource Group. URG describes itself as “providing and managing high-level personal and major event security operations.” Whether he was working for them at the time has yet to be confirmed.
While Srivastava has not addressed these accusations directly, his lawyer has slammed the Project Brazen profile as “categorically false.”
Various Donations
Outside of the Biden Victory Fund and the DCCC, he made several other donations to smaller Democrat campaigns, including $6,600 for Rep Mikie Sherrill and $3,300 for Senator Maria Cantwell. He also donated $6,600 to Senators Mark Warner and Robert Menendez. All respective campaigns have announced their intentions to donate the funds to charity.
While U.S. election laws state that no more than $3,300 can be donated to an election campaign by a single individual, under certain requirements they can contribute more to campaign committees.
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Featured Image Credit: Shutterstock / Andrea Izzotti.