"Reformer" Wild Brings Top Dem Donor to SOTU

Murat Guzel and Susan Wild

At last night's SOTU, both President Donald Trump and numerous members of Congress brought guests to use as props for points they wanted to make. Trump brought the surviving family of an elderly couple killed by an undocumented immigrant (or illegal alien) in January. Not to be outdone, Democrats hosted an air traffic controller, a Liberian under threat of deportation and at least least one transgender. So who did SusanWild, the Lehigh Valley's voice in Congress, bring? Was it the cancer survivor (and employee of Wild's law firm) who railed against Marty Nothstein in a TV ad? Was it the woman who must work a second job to pay for her health insurance? Nah. The candidate who said her top priority is campaign finance reform brought top Democratic donor Murat Guzel.

The message this sends is pretty clear.

Susan Wild lauded Guzel for his "countless contributions to the Lehigh Valley," but you can count them. They fill the coffers of local, state and national Democratic candidates.

In years of examining campaign finance reports, I've seen Guzel's name often. He contributes to just about every Democrat on the ballot. Lots of money, too. For example, he seeded Executive Lamont McClure's race with $5,000. But that's (organic) peanuts to him. As of April, 2018, the CEO of Natural Food Group and SMART Juices has contributed over $1 million to Democratic candidates through Super PACs, Hybrid PACs, historical soft money party accounts and joint fundraising. This is in addition to his direct contributions, which add up to at least $642,000 to 79 filers over the past nine years.

That's a lot of health food!

He even kicked in $5,000 to Governor Tom Wolf's first inauguration party.

Now I don't blame Democrats for taking this money. They need all the money they can get, what with the feds shutting down the money stream from engineers, developers and unions. Pay-to-play is more difficult these days. What could be more innocent than accepting a donation from a health food purveyor who presents himself, as he did in The Morning Call, as a successful new American?

If you're in Congress, there's lots wrong with taking money from this guy, though Wild took the maximum amount he could give.

Thanks to Wikileaks, we know that the man Wild invited as her SOTU actually may have paid a former Congressman to write a pro-Turkey op-ed. "[W]e were able to get an article from a very important person and we didn’t spent that much money for it,"he boasts in an email to a Turkish official. “To stand by Erdogan and do whatever we can against evil powers is not just an act of kindness but rather an Islamic obligation upon all of us,” he adds.

Through a lawyer, Guzel denies sending this email. Uh huh.

I'd like to know whether these political donations come from Guzel or Turkey.

In addition to his support for an authoritarian, Guzel has also lobbied Congress to end any financial support for the Kurds, who have been the driving force in the fight against ISIS. Aside from Israel, the Kurds have been our only real ally in the Middle East.

We complain about possible collusion with Russia, but it's pretty clear that Guzel is using either his or his country's treasure to support a strongman government in Turkey as well as suppress an ethnic minority. Considering that Erdogan had a goon quad beat up Kurdish protesters here in the United States, I am leery of both him and his health food salesman.

So there you have it. Our representative in Washington, who claims to be all about about campaign finance reform, brought a top Dem donor to the SOTU. Not just that, but a top Dem donor who supports an authoritarian and is all for suppressing an ethnic minority.

Brilliant, Susan.