So long as we are on the topic of National Public Radio, let's credit the news organization for this graphic on "funding an attack ad," explaining how Donald Sussman put $1 million into something called the Fund for America. From NPR: "Donald Sussman: Chairman of Trust Asset Management LLP, a hedge-fund management firm in the Virgin Islands. Sussman is a generous donor to Democratic causes, including $400,000 to America Coming Together in 2004 and $350,000 to the September Fund in 2006."
As of this morning, the Web site of the U.S. Virgin Islands Economic Development Authority still lists Trust Asset Management LLP as a beneficiary, and a person who answered the phone at Trust Asset this morning said Mr. Sussman is still involved with the firm.
As we've covered here in previous posts (here and here and here), Mr. Sussman is now dating a Maine congresswoman, Rochelle Pingree, and the two of them took a Sussman-paid-private wintertime jet trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands along with Rep. Barney Frank and his domestic partner. The plane trip has figured into two congressional campaigns, Mr. Frank's and Ms. Pingree's, with Republicans criticizing the Democrats for jet-setting at Mr. Sussman's expense.
The fact that Trust Asset Management LLP is still apparently taking the Virgin Islands tax benefits, and that Mr. Sussman is apparently still affiliated with the firm, puts a different spin on the response the Pingree campaign was reportedly giving to voters who inquired about the issue: "I contacted Pingree's campaign and they told me that Donald Sussman hasn't been a resident of the U.S. Virgin Islands since 2008, that he lives in Maine's 1st District, that he has a Maine drivers license, and pays Maine income and property tax." Maybe he hasn't been a resident of the Virgin Islands since 2008, but one of his companies still is there. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just something that voters in Maine and Massachusetts might want to know the straight story on before they cast their ballots.
Ms. Pingree, for what it's worth, rose to public prominence as the head of the group Common Cause as an advocate for restricting exactly the sort of big money gifts in which Mr. Sussman apparently specializes in.