Dori: Kshama Sawant is a con artist

In terms of political corruption, we are as bad as any city in the country has ever been.

An independent citizen journalist recently posted on his website, sccinsight.com, some hidden truths about Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant’s finances.

RELATED: Where is Kshama Sawant’s decency? 

When Kshama Sawant first got elected to the Seattle City Council, she pledged that she would only accept an ordinary worker’s salary, $40,000 per year, and would give the rest of her salary away. How noble.

Now that she has updated her filings, I want you to see what a fraud this “caring socialist” is. I want you to hear how a person who pledged to live on an ordinary worker’s salary finances her life at a much higher level than the ordinary worker. She lives in a house that is worth between $800,000 and $900,000 and has over a half-million in equity in her house. Yeah, she’s part of that “proletariat.”

But what does she do with the money she gives away? First of all, let’s talk about her husband. She got rid of the six-figure Microsoft guy — I guess it doesn’t look too good to decry the rich when you’re married to a Microsoftie. So she’s now married to a guy named Calvin Priest. Priest has what is described as “an undefined relationship” with an organization called 15 Now —  an organization dedicated to raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Fifteen Now is not registered with the FEC or IRS as a political group, so there’s no paper trail there.

Last year, Sawant gave a total of about $25,000 to 15 Now and Socialist Alternative.

Let’s talk about what those groups do for her. Sawant and her husband have had over $13,000 worth of travel paid for by … drumroll … Movement for the 99 Percent and Socialist Alternative. So she gives money to Socialist Alternative and they pay for her and her husband to fly all around the country. Well that’s odd.

Sawant’s husband apparently works for Socialist Alternative, where he last year made between $10,000 and $25,000. Sawant gives $13,800 to Socialist Alternative, and Socialist Alternative pays for her and her husband to fly all around the country, and they give a salary between $10,000 and $25,000 to her husband.

So the money Kshama Sawant “gives” to Socialist Alternative comes right back to Kshama Sawant. That’s a pretty handy little relationship there.

Socialist Alternative, which is no longer a nonprofit, paid for Sawant and her husband to go to Minnesota and represent them at a conference. This is all, by the way, to do with her building her personal brand as a firebrand socialist, not to do with her being a Seattle City Councilmember.

So that’s what this kind, generous philanthropist is doing with the money she claims to give away. I’m not saying this is illegal — she is well within her rights. I’m simply showing what a phony she is, pure and simple. She’s a con artist. She deceives people and lies to them.

Sawant has a lot of dopey people following her around, cheering for her as some socialist icon. But really, she is all about herself.

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