When will Republicans give back the millions of dollars Steve Wynn donated to them?
January 28, 2018
I never thought I would see the day when the Wall Street Journal got into the business of outing sexual predators, but here we are. Even before Rupert Murdoch bought the WSJ, it would have seemed unthinkable that the editors would have greenlit an article accusing a major political donor and powerful white guy of rape, serial sexual harassment, abuse and assault. And now that the WSJ is part of Murdoch’s stable, it’s even more unthinkable. But, as I said, here we are. On Friday, the WSJ published an article accusing Steve Wynn of being a serial abuser, harasser and rapist. You can read the full piece here.
In the article, Wynn’s victims were the younger women who worked for him in various capacities, like in-house masseuses at his Las Vegas hotel, spa employees, salon employees, assistants, lower-level hotel managers and other hotel employees. One of the more disturbing details is that Wynn was usually accompanied by his two German Shepherds, and women were deathly afraid that if they didn’t do what he said, Wynn might command his dogs (in German) to attack. The complaints of harassment, abuse and assault go back for years and years – Wynn is 76 years old, and God only knows how long he’s been doing this. All of his adult life, probably.
So is this just a story about another powerful man being outed as a predator? For sure, but there’s a hyper-political twist to it too. When this article came out on Friday, Wynn was the Republican National Committee’s Finance Chair. Because of course he was. He was also a large donor to the RNC and to individual Republican candidates, and to Donald Trump’s campaign in particular. Even though Wynn denied these stories up and down to the Wall Street Journal, he still ended up resigning as the RNC’s Finance Chair. But there’s still a problem, because the current head of the RNC, Ronna McDaniel, was one of those Republicans eager to take swipes at the Democratic Party for Harvey Weinstein’s donations. These were her tweets in October 2017:
This New York Mag piece spells out the Republicans’ bad-faith arguments and their rank hypocrisy vis a vis Weinstein vs. Wynn. They were so eager to tie Weinstein – who was a big Democratic donor, but held no position in any Democratic Party organization – to ALL Democrats, and yet there are *crickets* when the sitting RNC Finance Chair is accused of serial rape, abuse, assault and harassment. And Wynn has donated millions to candidates too.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
