Harry Reid: Dark money bad. Black money good.
You remember former Senate Majority and/or Minority Leader Harry Reid railing against the anonymous political campaign contributions? It was in all the papers.
Harry Reid (NYT pix)
“I am here because the flood of dark money into our nation’s political system poses the greatest threat to our democracy that I have witnessed during my time in public service,” Reid said in a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting in June 2014. “The decisions by the Supreme Court have left the American people with a status quo in which one side’s billionaires are pitted against the other side’s billionaires.”
It turns out, according to The New York Times, Reid managed to slip $22 million in the Defense Department budget between 2008 and 2011 and keep 97 of his fellow senators in the dark about what it was being used for — specially, to investigate UFOs. Only Ted Stevens of Alaska and Daniel Inouye of Hawaii were in on it.
“This was so-called black money,” Reid was quoted as saying. “Stevens knows about it, Inouye knows about it. But that was it, and that’s how we wanted it,” referring to the Pentagon budget for classified programs.
The “black money” was funneled to a company owned by Las Vegan Robert Bigelow.
“The funding went to Mr. Bigelow’s company, Bigelow Aerospace, which hired subcontractors and solicited research for the program,” The Times reported. The company modified buildings in Las Vegas for the storage of materials recovered from UFOs sighting and talked people who said they encountered UFOs.
Reid said Bigelow, who says he is convinced space aliens have visited the planet, convinced him to fund the project.
According to FEC records, Bigelow over the years has contributed $15,800 to Reid and one of his political action committees — at least that is what has been reported.
Robert Bigelow (NYT pix)
4TH ST8 