The chief executive of Alphabet, Eric Schmidt, Google’s parent company has been paid millions of dollars by various Democratic committees as they sought help from a data providing firm backed by Schmidt.
The Federal Election Commission filing shows many of the transactions that took place between the mentioned parties and the amounts add up to millions of US dollars.
Eric Schmidt is an investor and is also on the board of Civis Analytics- a consulting firm founded by Dan Wagner, the Chief Analytics Officer for the Obama campaign in 2012.
Schmidt offered his services as recruiter and trainer for the presidential campaign for Obama and after the campaign and elections the “Civis” project took off as he reached out to Wagner about starting an analytics consultancy company.
The company received substantial funding from the democratic committees in the form of $27500 from DNC for polling expenses this year alone, similarly it was paid $22500 to provide website services to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). From January of 2015 to December of 2016, this well-connected firm also received nearly $3 million, and over half a million from the DSCC and DNC respectively, for similar contracts.
These and many more funding and payments caused Schmidt and Google are now under scrutiny as Republicans have claimed that Google manipulated searches in favor of Hilary Clinton and against Donald Trump.
Schmidt responded to these accusations by stating that the company stays neutral no matter what the political situation is. Though such assurances ring hollow, as Schmidt lent enormous direct assistance to Hillary and her campaign in his guise as a private citizen.
Schmidt has helped the democrats for a long time, supporting Clinton not only by funding the campaign but also by providing tech and data support to both the Obama and Hilary’s presidential campaigns, and providing vital networking opportunities to those in the democratic party.
Though Schmidt repeatedly denied any links with the Democratic party, he was seen at the Hilary’s election night party wearing a staff badge, and was helping Clinton with tech. Clinton also steered campaign service contracts towards Schmidt-supported companies, such as the Groundwork, during the course of the 2016 campaign.
The Chief integration and innovation officer for Obama’s Presidential run, Michael Slaby launched the Groundwork from a company that he founded called Timshel, in which Schmidt was a major investor.
Google, however, had to buckle under the pressure of scrutiny and was forced to pivot, in an attempt to court Trump and Republicans during the elections. Google has always enjoyed lobbyists who have direct access to the White House, and were left scrambling for a lobbying foothold when Donald Trump won the 2016 election.
During the Obama tenure Google Lobbyists visited the White House more than 400 times for meetings. Google has been trying to make up lost ground by having Schmidt appear at Trump Tower during a meeting of tech industry giants. Schmidt also ended up donating $280000 to Trump’s inauguration in the last minute, though he openly rooted for Clinton in the election.
Google also posted job postings for veterans based in Washington D.C, to help the Conservative outreach in developing their policy teams.
Schmidt failed to respond to a request for comment.
