Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) took hundreds of thousands of dollars from three drug companies at the center of the opioid epidemic in the U.S.
According to FEC financial reports cited by the New York Post, Brown raked in more than $200,000 from political action committees associated with Cardinal Health, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen since 2003. The three pharmaceutical giants paid out a $26 billion settlement to settle thousands of individual lawsuits from states and local governments. Ohio is also one of the states hardest hit by the opioid epidemic.
According to FEC filings, Brown took in a total of $144,500 in contributions to his campaign and leadership PAC, America Works PAC. He raised $85,000 from Cardinal Health, $56,500 from AmerisourceBergen, and $1,500 from McKesson. The latest donation was a $2,500 donation from Cardinal Health on September 21. The New York Post further reported that he took in $54,100 from lobbyists who worked for the three pharmaceutical distributors, including $5,600, the legal maximum, from a McKesson lobbyist in 2020 and again in 2021.
Separately, individual employees donated another $40,025. Cardinal Health Chief Information Officer Mark MacNaughton was a frequent small-dollar donor. Former Cardinal Health CEO George S. Barrett donated a total of $15,400 between 2011 and 2019, all in large amounts. Theodore Frank of McKesson donated $1,000 to his 2018 campaign. Rita Ersfeld Norton of AmerisourceBergen gave him $1,000 in 2017.
Together, Cardinal Health, McKesson, and AmerisourceBergen account for 90% of the U.S. supply chains for drugs and medical supplies. But the companies have allegedly been complicit in the proliferation of opioids; the New York Post reported that for more than a decade, the three pharma giants failed to track suspicious orders or increases in opioid use among purchasers, in spite of doctors potentially criminally overprescribing the drugs.
The three companies, along with Johnson & Johnson, settled a $26 billion lawsuit with 49 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories, and thousands of municipalities in February 2022. In a joint statement in February, the three companies announced that, beginning on April 2, 2022, they would pay out more than $19.5 billion over the next 18 years: Amerisource is set to pay out $6.1 billion; Cardinal Health, $6 billion; and McKesson, $7.4 billion. The settlement dealt with 46 of the 49 states; Alabama, Oklahoma, and Washington State refused the settlement. West Virginia settled previously. The Cherokee Nation also settled separately, and the remaining Native Americans had reached an agreement in principle at the time.
The New York Post also reported that the Drug Enforcement Administration settled a $150 million payout for violating federal controlled substance laws in 2017, the largest penalty in the DEA’s history.
Ohio had an estimated 5,068 deaths from drug overdoses in 2021, the fifth-highest in the nation, according to the CDC’s National Vital Statistics System. The CDC reported 107,622 deaths from drug overdoses in 2021, the highest number on record, as The Daily Wire reported last year. The New York Times reported at the time that synthetic opioids accounted for 71,000 deaths.
In 2017, Brown himself called the opioid crisis “one of biggest public health emergencies in my lifetime [and] all too often addiction starts in [the] medicine cabinet.”
Brown is running for a fourth term in the Senate in 2024. But he faces an uphill battle in a state that is rapidly turning red: former President Trump won the state by eight points in 2020; Republican Senator J.D. Vance won the state by six points in 2022. So far, State Senator Matt Dolan and businessman Bernie Moreno have entered the Republican primary.
According to him, it’s standard practice to improperly claim multiple tax credits:
Brown, who is running for reelection in a red state, claimed two owner-occupancy tax credits — which potentially violates Buckeye State rules for such incentives, NBC News reported on Tuesday. Additionally, he and his wife have habitually paid their property taxes late.
When asked about the report on Wednesday by Spectrum News’s Taylor Popielarz, the Buckeye State Democrat claimed, “It’s a pretty common practice, but once we learned about it, we fixed it.”
Responding to paying the tax bill for his Cleveland residence late at least seven times since purchasing it in 2013, Brown said, “We’ve paid all of our taxes. Every cent we owe, and we will continue too.” When pressed on why he has been late on it so many times, he added, “It was an oversight…we’ve paid all of our taxes. Period.”
Popielarz also noted that this isn’t the first time Brown has claimed multiple tax credits, pointing to delinquencies on his Washington, DC, apartment that were reported during his 2012 reelection campaign. At the time, Brown also claimed that “It won’t happen again.”
……The NBC News report on Tuesday revealed that Brown had improperly been claiming multiple tax credits on two homes, including one he does not use as his primary residence, in addition to making a habit of paying his property taxes late. Officials who spoke to NBC News emphasized that to use the tax credit twice, as it is only intended to be used once for the primary residence, a married couple would need to demonstrate somehow that they live separately.
It’s pretty common for Dems to get away with tax violations. Just ask Al Sharpton.
……In 1990, Brown’s Ohio Secretary of State office awarded a certificate of recognition to Rick Nagin, chairman of the state’s Communist Party USA chapter, for having registered more than 2,000 voters during his failed campaign for Cleveland City Council.
In 2003, Brown served on the advisory committee of the Progressive Majority.
On December 11, 2003, Brown wrote a commentary for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch depicting Republican proposals for the partial privatization of Medicare and some mild reforms to entitlement programs as duplicitous assaults on children, veterans, the elderly, the poor, and the middle class. The piece was reprinted eight days later, with the author’s permission, by the Communist Party USA’s People’s World.
……When Brown ran for the Senate in 2006, his campaign was supported by the Ohio Democratic Socialists of America, the Peace Action PAC, and the Progressive Democrats of America. Other groups that have backed Brown over the years include the 21st Century Democrats, the Council for a Livable World, the J Street PAC, and the League of Conservation Voters.
……Brown has spoken in glowing terms about the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)—a group closely tied to Hamas and hostile to Israel. In June 2011 he wrote that CAIR had made many valuable contributions to society, and that he himself wished to help Americans “build understanding about Islam.” More extended comments by Brown were read aloud at a CAIR event around that time, but both Brown and CAIR subsequently refused to release the full text of those remarks.
Some noteworthy individuals who have donated money to Brown’s various political campaigns include: (a) billionaire George Soros, who, according to CampaignMoney.com, gave Brown $2,100 in 2005 and another $2,000 six years later; (b) Ihsan Haque, an affiliate of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a leader of the Islamic Society of Akron, who from 2003-10 gave Brown four separate donations totaling $3,000 in aggregate; and Marcus Raskin, co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies.
……in October 2011, Brown praised the anti-capitalist, anti-corporate Occupy Wall Street movement, saying: “I think the energy coming out of the Wall Street Protesters is always a good thing.”
……Over the years, Brown has received a few donations from high-ranking officials and/or board members of Islamist organizations. Specifically, from 2003-2018 he received a total of $8,276 in contributions from individuals affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society.
He’s a flaming leftie who denigrates the wealthy, but he’s doing everything he can to enrich himself and defraud the tax system.
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