In 2018, U.S. Senate candidate Don Blankenship (R-WV) released a campaign advertisement warning the American people of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s ties to communist China.
The anti-establishment candidate was facing a Republican primary in West Virginia, aiming to eventually defeat incumbent Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). Blankenship accused McConnell, who he referred to as “swamp captain,” of running negative advertisements against him throughout his campaign for Senate due to his pro-American, pro-Trump, anti-swamp sentiments that ran contradictory to establishment Republican policies.
“Swamp captain Mitch McConnell has created millions of jobs for China people,” said Blankenship.
“While doing so, Mitch has gotten rich. In fact, his China family has given him tens of millions of dollars,” said Blankenship. “The war to drain the swamp and create jobs for West Virginia people has begun. I will beat Joe Manchin and ditch ‘Cocaine Mitch’ for the sake of the kids.”
McConnell has recently been under fire for his ties to communist China. The senator’s family ties to the Bank of China and a top Chinese shipping firm have resurfaced, after he praised the US election process and declared Joe Biden as the “President-elect,” as National File reported.
“McConnell and the Chaos have repeatedly dismissed concerns about conflicts of interest relating to the Senate Majority leader’s family ties to Foremost and Beijing, with Angela Chao insinuating that her ties to McConnell have only come under scrutiny because of anti-Chinese prejudice.
However, critics have noted that the fact McConnell’s public refusal to help President Trump in the latter’s fight to restore election integrity could be influenced by the fact that President Trump’s pro-American, hardline stance towards trade with China may pose a threat to business interests close to McConnell.”
Furthermore, National File reported that McConnell had also taken thousands of dollars from Dominion Voting Systems, prior to his blocking of two bills that aimed to ensure election security in July last year.
In July, McConnell blocked two bills, one that would provide $775 million to “bolster election security,” along with requiring a physical paper trail of every single ballot cast in the country, and a second that would mandate political candidates, their staff members, and their families, to notify the FBI if any foreign government offered to assist them.
“Clearly this request is not a serious effort to make a law. Clearly something so partisan that it only received one single solitary Republican vote in the House is not going to travel through the Senate by unanimous consent,” said McConnell on the Senate floor, as he refused to allow the bills to be put to a vote.
However, within the previous year, multiple lobbyists representing Dominion Voting Systems and Election Systems and Software, who together make up around 80% of all voting machines in the country, donated thousands of dollars to the McConnell campaign.
David Cohen and Brian Wild, both of lobbyist Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, who lobbied for Dominion in 2019, donated $2,000 and $1,000 respectively to the McConnell campaign funds. And around the same time, Emily Kirlin and Jen Olson, who have lobbied for ES&S, also donated $1,000 each.
In 2018, Blankenship was dead set on convincing the American people that McConnell’s connection to the Chinese communists was to be of great concern. In an interview with Politico, Blankenship suggested that McConnell was not putting American interests first. It is worth noting that Republicans at the time plotted on how to ensure Blankenship’s defeat, amid his promise to oppose McConnell’s efforts to become the Senate GOP Leader.
