Mitch McConnell May Have Sold Access To Senate Dining Room In Return For Donations

President Obama meets with Senate minority leader Senator Mitch McConnell, R-Ky
President Obama meets with Senate minority leader Senator Mitch McConnell, R-Ky


Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has served five terms in the Senate, and is hoping to crown his career by becoming Senate Majority Leader. But his bid for a sixth term has turned into the fight of his political life. Most polls show him just barely ahead of his Democratic challenger, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. McConnell now finds himself in an unusual position–needing a lot of breaks to go his way. Well, this week, a big break went against him. This week, National Journal discovered that McConnell received hefty donations to his leadership PAC from the CEO of Delta Air Lines–just days after McConnell dined with the CEO in the Senate dining room. Now the Kentucky Democratic Party wants to know whether McConnell illegally solicited campaign donations on government property.


In late July, McConnell invited Delta CEO Rick Anderson to breakfast in the Senate dining room and picked up the tab. On July 28–just days after the breakfast–Delta’s PAC donated $2,500 to McConnell’s leadership PAC, the Bluegrass Committee. The next day, Anderson and his wife, threw in $10,000 of their own money. The Kentucky Democratic Party found this timing highly suspicious, and on Friday wrote the Senate Select Committee on Ethics asking for a formal investigation into the donations. PoliticusUSA got a copy of the letter; read it here. It claims that if McConnell solicited donations from Anderson in the Senate dining room, he held what amounted to a campaign breakfast on federal property–a violation of both Senate ethics rules and the Hatch Act. I talked with a longtime friend of mine from Northern Kentucky who works with the Grimes campaign, and he told me that the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee has filed a complaint as well.

It’s not likely that the Ethics Committee will take this up before November. However, if there is even the tiniest bit of fire behind this smoke, McConnell is finished. Stay tuned, and let us know your thoughts at the Liberal America Facebook page. Sign up for our free daily newsletter to receive more great stories like this one.


Darrell Lucus.jpg Darrell Lucus is a radical-lefty Jesus-lover who has been blogging for change for a decade. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook.

Darrell is a 30-something graduate of the University of North Carolina who considers himself a journalist of the old school. An attempt to turn him into a member of the religious right in college only succeeded in turning him into the religious right's worst nightmare--a charismatic Christian who is an unapologetic liberal. His desire to stand up for those who have been scared into silence only increased when he survived an abusive three-year marriage. You may know him on Daily Kos as Christian Dem in NC. Follow him on Twitter @DarrellLucus or connect with him on Facebook. Click here to buy Darrell a Mello Yello.