RNC Refuses to Return Steve Wynn’s Donations

It’s a very different response from the GOP’s outrage over Harvey Weinstein.

Javier Rojas/ZUMA

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The Republican National Committee says that it will hold off on returning donations made by casino magnate Steve Wynn, who resigned Saturday as the RNC finance chair amid allegations of sexual misconduct, until an investigation into the claims provides evidence of wrongdoing.

RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Tuesday called the allegations against Wynn “troubling” but argued that they differed from the sexual harassment scandals that brought down Harvey Weinstein and Al Franken—both of whom are Democrats—because Wynn has denied the allegations.

“Steve has denied these allegations, unlike Harvey Weinstein and Al Franken and others, Steve has denied them,” McDaniels said during an appearance on Fox News. “There is an investigation that is going to take place. He should be allowed due process. And if he is found [guilty] of any wrongdoing, we will absolutely return 100 percent of the money. But we’re going to let that process take place.”

The remarks are the RNC’s first response to mounting demands that it return all donations provided by Wynn, since the Wall Street Journal reported Friday on decades of sexual harassment claims against the billionaire casino mogul by women who worked for him. The slow response opened the party to charges of hypocrisy, with critics pointing to its very different response to sexual misconduct controversies involving Democrats.

McDaniel’s rationale—that with his denial, Wynn has sufficiently shielded himself—is similar to the logic applied to President Donald Trump and his own sexual harassment allegations. 

“Sen. Franken has admitted wrongdoing and the president hasn’t,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters in November, in the wake of accusations against Franken. She added, “I think that’s a very clear distinction.” As Mother Jones noted then, the White House’s defense appears to leave out Trump’s own admission to having a habit of groping women without their consent. 

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

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