Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren launched barbs at a hedge fund manager for seemingly defending Donald Trump in an op-ed this month. But not only did she take his comments out of context — the man she had dragged through the mud was actually one of her loyal donors, married to one of her former law students!
In a Facebook post a little over a week ago, Warren attacked an individual she described as a “hedge fund billionaire” who is “thrilled by Donald Trump’s economic team of Wall Street insiders.”
The senator named Kase Capital manager Whitney Tilson and quoted his comments from a Bloomberg article: “I think Donald Trump conned [voters]. I was worried that he was going to do crazy things that would blow the system up. So the fact that he’s appointing people within the system is a good thing.”
Warren then ripped into Tilson:
Tilson knows that, despite all the stunts and rhetoric, Donald Trump isn’t going to change the economic system — he’s going to tilt the playing field even further for those at the very top. …
If Trump gets his way, the next four years are going to be a bonanza for the Whitney Tilsons of the world — at the expense and pain of everyone else.
There are a few major problems with this, but the most glaring one is how wrong Warren was in attacking Tilson. Not only is Tilson not a billionaire — he’s also a long-time supporter of Sen. Warren!
Facebook screenshot of Elizabeth Warren’s attack on her own supporter.
In the article, Tilson did express relief that Trump had nominated Goldman Sachs executive Steve Mnuchin to be his Treasury secretary. He had expected Trump to nominate people who were entirely unfit for the job, but was pleasantly surprised that the president-elect selected someone with experience.
As Bloomberg’s Max Abelson noted, while Tilson “was relieved Trump picked an industry veteran instead of a wildcard, still has concerns, especially because Trump promised to dismantle the Dodd-Frank Act.”
Like Warren, Tilson praised Dodd-Frank, declaring “I’m a fan of Dodd-Frank, I think banking should be boring.” The very Bloomberg article Warren quoted also noted that Tilson voted for Hillary Clinton.
But it gets worse. Recently, the hedge fund manager gave Clinton’s campaign a $1,000 donation so he could see Sen. Warren speak at a campaign fundraiser.
“I’ve donated money to her, attended her events, and did everything in my power to stop Donald Trump,” Tilson told The New York Times. “In addition, I agree with her 100 percent that large swaths of the financial industry have run amok and prey on vulnerable Americans, and thus strong regulation, including a muscular Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is strongly needed.”
In other words, not only is this hedge fund manager a donor to Warren, he’s a true believer.
Even worse, Tilson’s wife, Susan Blackman Tilson, was in the very first Harvard Law bankruptcy class that Warren taught, in the fall of 1992. Like her husband, Mrs. Tilson is a true believer in the leftist senator’s cause. Last week, she wrote a letter telling Warren the she had been “cheering from the sidelines as you rose to national attention for your excellent work on behalf of consumers.”
Both the Tilsons sent letters to Senator Warren, expressing dismay at the Facebook post and trying to set the record straight.
Next Page: How the senator’s office responded.
How did the senator’s office respond? An aide sent a cursory email:
She asked me to relay to you that she is removing the word ‘billionaire’ from the post, as you have indicated that is factually inaccurate. The senator has decided, however, not to remove the overall post.
This did not exactly endear the Tilsons to Senator Warren.
“Personally, I feel betrayed,” Tilson told the Times. “In recent years, I’ve really stuck my neck out by very publicly supporting her, the C.F.P.B., and a tough regulatory approach on banks — none of which wins me any friends — and this is how she repays me.”
The disgruntled donor attacked his long-time idol, comparing her to Donald Trump. “By engaging in factually incorrect, ad hominem attacks, she’s getting down into the gutter with Trump. This is misguided and counterproductive.”
Nevertheless, Tilson is remaining faithful to the left-wing legislator. “I still support her because I share her belief that banking should be boring.”
Even so, this incident “certainly reduces my enthusiasm for her,” the hedge fund manager admitted.
I would certainly hope so. If this is how Senator Warren treats her own supporters, why should we trust her opinions on economic issues? If she attacks her own donors online based on reading only half of an article, why should anyone listen when she attacks Trump as irrational or unbalanced?
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