07 August 2023

PRIVATE EQUITY BILLIONAIRE TIED TO JEFFREY EPSTEIN LED INDUSTRY BACKING FOR KYRSTEN SINEMA | The Intercept

All told, Sinema has raked in well over $3 million from investment and private equity firms in the past six years

PRIVATE EQUITY BILLIONAIRE TIED TO JEFFREY EPSTEIN LED INDUSTRY BACKING FOR KYRSTEN SINEMA

Now embroiled in scandal, Leon Black made a safe bet on Sinema during her 2018 Senate campaign.

by Daniel Boguslaw

August 3 2023, 10:19 a.m.

Sinema's close relationship with the titans of the private equity industry, whose agenda she has relentlessly championed in Congress, continues to bedevil her reelection campaign. In 2018, the first year she was elected to the Senate, she was backed by powerful private equity executives. Leon Black, then the CEO of Apollo Global Management, one of the largest such firms in the world, was one of them.

Now Black is back in the headlines, this time accused of raping a 16-year-old girl in the home of Jeffrey Epstein, a serial sex trafficker Black financed with more than $150 million.

Black’s support of Sinema is a window into the devil’s bargain the one-time radical leftist cut in order to rise through the ranks. Wall Street financing enabled her rise, even as it has forced her into politically unpopular positions, defending indefensible private equity giveaways in the tax codes, and linked her to unsavory characters always at risk of becoming a public relations liability.. .

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Forbes

Meet The Billionaires Donors Who Have Contributed To Senator Kyrsten Sinema's Campaign

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> PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN’S massive spending bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, was a pivotal point in Sinema’s mounting unpopularity.

Sinema, along with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., had to be wooed for her yes vote.
The Arizona senator was eventually placated by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., agreeing to kill many of the bill’s taxation priorities, most notably efforts to close the carried interest tax loophole.

That’s a tax break that allows hedge fund managers and private equity executives to pay taxes on their income as tax deferrable capital gains, subject to far lower rates than standard income.

Eliminating the loophole would have generated an estimated $14 billion in revenue over 10 years.

The American Investment Council, which represents firms including Apollo, Blackstone, Carlyle, and KKR, staunchly opposed the reform effort, launching a media blitz pressuring Sinema and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly to preserve the carried interest tax loophole — and in turn their executives’ salaries.

> Sinema’s preservation of the carried interest tax loophole ensured that private equity billionaires like Black will continue to raise massive fortunes with little intervention by the IRS. The Senate committee interrogating Black’s finances has accused the former executive of consulting with Epstein to avoid hundreds of millions in taxes with payments that “were inexplicably large; well in excess of what Black paid any other financial advisors and far higher than the median compensation of Fortune 500 CEOs at the time.”

> Last month, Black agreed to a $62.5 million settlement with the U.S. Virgin Islands to avoid a potential lawsuit in relation to the U.S. territory’s ongoing investigation into Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. This month, he continues to fend off investigators in the Senate.

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Billionaire Leon Black Under Investigation

UPI News

Senate committee investigates billionaire Leon Black, $158 million paid to Jeffrey Epstein

By Sheri Walsh,

58 minutes ago

July 25 (UPI) -- The Senate Finance Committee is investigating $158 million paid to accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein by billionaire and Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black for tax and estate-planning advice.

https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2nJMMI_0ncCuzHt00 — On Tuesday, Senate Finance committee chairman Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., revealed that the Senate Finance Committee is investigating $158 million paid to accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein by billionaire and Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black for tax and estate-planning advice. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI

Finance committee chairman Sen. Ron Wyden , D-Ore., revealed the investigation Tuesday, calling it an inquiry into how "ultra-high net worth persons avoid or evade paying federal taxes, including gift and estate taxes."

Wyden said the investigation uncovered serious tax issues, allowing Black -- who is a private equity investor -- to avoid more than $1 billion in future gift and estate taxes. The investigation alleges Black paid the late disgraced financier a total of $158 million in several installments between 2012 and 2017.

"Despite not being a certified public accountant or licensed tax attorney, Epstein was paid amounts that far exceeded what you paid other professional advisors, including some of the most high-priced legal counsel in the nation," Wyden wrote.

Epstein, a billionaire financier, died by suicide in August 2019 while in federal prison in New York, where he was being held on sex trafficking charges.

https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=0KXUe3_0ncCuzHt00 — The Senate Finance Committee is investigating Apollo Global Management co-founder Leon Black and $158 million in payments to accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein for tax and estate planning advice. Photo courtesy of Apollo Global Management

Wyden's letter to Black on Monday requests further clarification on a number of tax issues. . ."

Newsbreak.com

NY Post

Kyrsten Sinema ignoring Democratic donors who want money back

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07 August 2023