Progressive Billionaires Funding Larry Krasner's 'Social Experiment'

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

Progressive out-of-state billionaires are big fans of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.

According to the last annual campaign finance report filed last February, of the 64 total donations made to Krasner's reelection campaign for D.A. in 2019, 33 donations came from out-of-state contributors, including 16 from California alone. 

Of course, Krasner's biggest billionaire backer remains George Soros of New York City, with an estimated net worth of $8 billion. In 2017, Soros used PACs to funnel $1.7 million to Krasner's election campaign.

But in 2018 and 2019, Krasner's biggest donor was the Real Justice PAC of San Francisco, which according to its website was founded to "fix our broken criminal justice system" by electing "reform" D.A.s across the country like Larry Krasner. The PAC donated $25,000 to Krasner in 2018 and another $9,000 in 2019, for a total of $34,000. Two top leaders of the PAC also made personal contributions to Krasner's campaign of another $9,000.

A big backer of the Real Justice PAC is Cari Tuna of Palo Alto, CA, a former reporter at the Wall Street Journal who's married to Dustin Moskovitz. Moskovitz, Mark Zuckerberg's roommate at Harvard, was a co-founder of Facebook. In 2011, Forbes proclaimed Moskovitz, then 27, to be the youngest self-made billionaire in history. Today, he has a net worth estimated between $12 and $16 billion. 

According to data online posted by the Federal Election Commission, Moskovitz's wife, Cari Tuni, has poured $2.25 million into the Real Justice PAC, beginning on March 9, 2017 with a donation of $653,480.

Real Justice got so involved in the 2017 Krasner campaign that the PAC's extra contributions resulted in fines for both donor and recipient for violating the city's elections laws.

According to the city's Board of Ethics, the Real Justice PAC violated the law in 2017 by paying for three embedded staffers on the Krasner campaign. The expenses for the embedded staffers amounted to "in-kind contributions to the Krasner campaign totaling $34,820.08 in 2017, which was $11,020.08 in excess of the limits imposed by the city’s Campaign Finance Law." 

That's what the Board of Ethics stated in a settlement agreement signed by both Michael Reed of the Board of Ethics, and Rebecca Bond, the treasurer of the Real Justice PAC.

Bond, pictured above, is a co-founder of the Real Justice PAC, and served as the PAC's advisor to both Bernie Sanders's 2016 presidential campaign and the 2018 Beto for Texas Senate Campaign.

She's also a partner at The Social Practice, which defines itself as "an ideologically driven political consultancy." And she's the co author of the manifesto, "Rules for Revolutionaries: How Big Organizing Can Change Everything." 

In a May 22, 2017 press release, Bond bragged about the effect Real Justice's contributions and embedded staffers had on Krasner's victorious campaign:

In the world of criminal justice and the fight to end mass incarceration, Krasner’s win in the
Democratic primary over six former prosecutors in the Democratic primary to serve as
Philadelphia’s next district attorney was a massive earthquake. And RealJustice PAC was at
the epicenter . . .

Real Justice PAC made the greatest contribution of any organization directly to the Krasner
for District Attorney campaign. While there were many independent efforts, we placed three
seasoned organizers inside the campaign, a bigger commitment than any other organization.

In part as a result of their relentless efforts and experience with innovative technologies rarely used in a municipal race, they helped make it possible for volunteers to personally send over 160,000 text messages and make over 36,000 phone calls to the voters the campaign targeted as most needing to hear Larry’s message.

And while volunteers talking to voters was the soul of the campaign, every campaign needs funding, and Real Justice PAC also raised more than $36,000 directly into the Krasner campaign. This is a significant percentage of funds raised in a municipal race and it made a real difference because the money could be used directly by the candidate to cover the campaign’s most pressing needs.

So when you're fighting a revolution, and invading somebody else's turf, it doesn't matter if you have to break a few of the local rules, as long as you win, right?

Under terms of the settlement agreement with the Ethics Board, Krasner paid a $4,000 fine and gave the city $11,000 to compensate for the excess contributions that came from Real Justice PAC. According to the settlement, the PAC also agreed to pay an $8,000 fine to the city.

Real Justice apparently was willing to put up the money to pay the Krasner campaign's fines, but the Ethics Board closed that door. 

The settlement agreement, dated Feb. 27, 2019, stipulates that the Krasner campaign "shall not use funds received from Real Justice PAC, its officers, or affiliates to pay the penalties or disgorgement required by this Agreement."

According to Krasner's last campaign finance report, filed last year, his 2019 donations from out-of-state contributors included:

-- $3,000 from Pat Stryker of Fort Collins, CO, a billionaire, businesswoman and philanthropist, and daughter of Homer Stryker, founder of the Stryker Corp. a medical technology company; Pat Stryker has a net worth of $5.5 billion.  

-- $3,000 from Patricia Ann Quillin of Santa Cruz, CA, the philanthropist wife of Reed Hastings, the billionaire Netflix chairman and co-CEO who has an estimated net worth of $5.8 billion.

-- $3,000 from S. Donald Sussman of Fort Lauderdale, FL, a hedge fund billionaire who runs Paloma Partners Advisors LP. Sussman was Hillary Clinton's top donor, contributing $21.6 million to her failed presidential campaign.

-- $3,000 from Elizabeth Simons of San Francisco, daughter of James Simons, the hedge fund billionaire who has a net worth of $23.5 billion.

--  $2,000 from Susan Pritzker of San Francisco, who's heir to the Pritzker and Hyatt fortunes; her husband, Nicholas Pritzker, with a personal net worth of $3.4 billion, runs Tao Capital Partners.

 -- $1,000 from Daniel Souweine of Oakland, CA, co founder and CEO of GetThru, a peer to peer political  text messaging platform; Souweine was national texting program director for Bernie Sander's political campaign. 

-- $1,000 from Michael Kieschnick of Palo Alto, CA., co founder and former CEO of CREDO mobile,  a mobile virtual network operator, and co founder of the Real Justice PAC.

-- $2,000 from M. Quinn Delaney of Oakland, CA., a lawyer whose husband, Wayne Jordan, is founder, president and CEO of Jordan Real Estate Investments; the couple bought a penthouse in New York City for $5.4 million in 2014. 

Delaney is the founder and board chair of Akonadi Foundation which supports development of social change movements to eliminate structural racism and create a racially just society. The foundation focuses on "ending the criminalization of people of color." 

-- $6,000 from the aforementioned Rebecca Bond of San Francisco.

-- $3,000 from Zachary Malitz West Lake Hills Texas, pictured above with Rebecca Bond; he's the co founder of Real Justice PAC, a partner at The Social Practice, and the former field director of the Beto for Senate campaign. 

As of Dec, 31, 2019, these donors helped Krasner raise $114,833. Krasner's campaign committee lists a previous balance of $25,597, with total funds available of $140,430.

Carlos Vega, Krasner's sole opponent in the May 18th Democratic primary for district attorney, was not impressed by Krasner's wealthy campaign donors.

"The thing is, Larry with his billionaire elite are conducting an experiment on the people of Philadelphia," Vega said. "And we're the guinea pigs."

"The rules do not apply to them," Vega said about Krasner's wealthy donors. "All they know about poverty and violence is what they've read in a book."

The way Vega sees it, Krasner's campaign finance report shows that Krasner "is subsidized by the elite" and Krasner is using them to pay for another four years in office, so the D.A. can "continue his social experiment."

An experiment that under Krasner's progressive policies has resulted in a skyrocketing murder rate, with 499 murders last year, the highest total in 30 years, and 36 murders so far over the first 24 days of this year.

"Every day since we started the new year, there's been a knock on some mother's door," Vega says. "And every day, a mother is told she's going to have to bury her child and live with a broken heart the rest of her life."

As a new candidate for D.A., Vega's been doing some fundraising of his own. But in contrast to Krasner, he doesn't have any billionaires contributing to his campaign. It's a David and Goliath scenario that Vega faces in his uphill battle against Krasner and his wealthy backers.

Vega says he's been taking in donations of $10 and $20 "from poor people who don't have much to give, but they believe in me," he said. "And they're giving because they want their neighborhoods to be safe again."

In the last two weeks of the year since he announced his campaign on Dec. 16th, Vega was able to raise more than $120,000.

Regarding Krasner's other contributors in 2019, he also received sizable donations from labor unions including:

-- $11,900 from the AFL-CIO in Washington D.C.,

-- $11,900 from the Laborers District Council of Philadelphia.

-- $11,900 from the UNITE HERE TIP Campaign Committee of NYC.

-- $11,900 from Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters, in 2018.

-- $5,000 from Plumbers Local 690 of Philadelphia.

-- $5,000 from Local Union 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers' Committee on Political Education. But since the local leader of IBEW 95, John "Johnny Doc" Dougherty, is under federal indictment for alleged corruption, Krasner decided to return that contribution.