Like Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton before him, President Barack Obama continues to reward donors, fund-raisers and other loyalists with plum diplomatic posts.

Obama has now elevated 24 of his high-profile fund-raisers to diplomatic posts with the rank of ambassador following Monday’s nomination of civic leader and campaign money bundler Beatrice Wilkinson Welters to serve as the U.S. ambassador to the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago.

By the Center for Responsive Politics’ count, Obama has now nominated 99 people to represent the United States as ambassadors. These include ambassadors to foreign countries and more obscure top diplomats representing the nation to international organizations or championing issues such as war crimes prosecution, counterterrorism and AIDS.

The two-dozen bundlers elevated by Obama to serve in these diplomatic posts raised a minimum of $10.9 million for Obama’s committees, the Center for Responsive Politics has found.

Since the Obama campaign only released information about its bundlers in broad ranges, this figure could be thousands, even millions, of dollars higher. The sum includes not only the dollar amount raised for Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign committee, which you may view on OpenSecrets.org here, but also the amount bundled for his presidential inauguration committee, per the records maintained by Public Citizen.

Obama has additionally nominated other presidential candidates’ bundlers.

Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis raised at least $100,000 for former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and has been nominated to serve as ambassador to Hungary. Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, meanwhile, raised at least $100,000 for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain and is now serving as ambassador to China.

Here is a list of the 24 Obama bundlers-turned-ambassadors, as well as the minimum amount they bundled and what country or diplomatic post for which Obama nominated them. The numbers are based on data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics and Public Citizen.

Name Diplomatic Post Minimum Bundled Nicole Avant Bahamas $800,000 Charles H. Rivkin France & Monaco $800,000 Cynthia Stroum Luxembourg $800,000 Howard W. Gutman Belgium $775,000 Don Beyer Switzerland $745,000 Matthew W. Barzun Sweden $687,500 William C. Eacho III Austria $600,000 Bruce J. Oreck Finland $575,000 Jeffrey Bleich Australia $500,000 William E. Kennard European Union $500,000 John V. Roos Japan $500,000 Donald H. Gips South Africa $500,000 Alan D. Solomont Spain & Andorra $500,000 Louis B. Susman United Kingdom $500,000 Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe UN Human Rights Council $500,000 Beatrice W. Welters Trinidad & Tobago $500,000 Miriam E. Sapiro Deputy U.S. Trade Representative $390,000 Samuel Kaplan Morocco $200,000 Barry B. White Norway $200,000 Vinai Thummalapally Belize $100,000 Laurie S. Fulton Denmark $100,000 David C. Jacobson Canada $50,000 Ron Kirk U.S. Trade Representative $50,000 Susan E. Rice United Nations $50,000 Total $10,922,500

The Center for Responsive Politics also found that 58 of the 99 ambassadors have at least some history of making campaign contributions to some federal candidate or committee. The amounts of these contributions range from just a few hundred dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Thirty-five of these ambassadors — or about 35 percent — are career members of the U.S. Foreign Service. Only one of these 35 people has any record of making any campaign contributions to federal candidates or committees. This was a $1,000 contribution in 1992 to a failed Massachusetts Republican congressional candidate by Glyn Davies, who represents the United States before the United Nation’s Vienna Office and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Additionally, seven of the ambassadors who were politically appointed have, likewise, never personally contributed to federal politicians above the FEC’s $200 reporting threshold.

Forty-six of the president’s ambassador picks — more than 46 percent — personally donated to Obama, CRP found, giving him a combined $306,700.

Welters is among these 46 percent.

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She, along with her family, have contributed $28,400 to Obama’s campaign and leadership PAC since 2005. Not only did she and her husband contribute the legal maximum of $4,600 to Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign, but her sons, Bryant, a college student at Notre Dame, and Andrew, a high school student in Washington, D.C., also gave the maximum amount. According to records filed with the Federal Election Commission, the boys’ occupations were classified as “not employed/student.”

Welters, along with her husband and children, actually ranks fifth among most prolific givers to date among the people tapped by Obama to serve as ambassadors.

Together, the Welters have contributed about $571,500 to federal candidates, committees and leadership PACs since 1989. This is just behind the $578,000 donated by investment banker Louis Susman, who was nicknamed the “Big Bundler” and “The Vacuum Cleaner” for his ability to suck up money for Democrats.

And more than 30 percent of the Welters’ campaign contributions to candidates, party committees and leadership PACs have gone to Republicans.

Welters and her husband, Anthony, donated $6,000 to Republican President George W. Bush between his campaigns in 2000 and 2004. Anthony Welters also gave former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani $2,300 during his failed 2008 bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Anthony Welters is an executive with UnitedHealth Group, and between 2003 and 2008, he donated $11,500 to the company’s political action committee, which has given to a mix of Republicans and Democrats over the years.

Most of the money from Obama’s ambassador picks, however, has flown to Democratic candidates, Democratic organizations and Democratic-leaning groups.

The Center for Responsive Politics found that these people contributed about $9.4 million to federal candidates and committees since 1989. Of that amount, 92 percent went to Democrats. Four percent went to Republicans, and four percent went to committees not tied to a specific party.

CRP found that 39 of these ambassadors donated a combined $2.3 million to the Democratic National Committee since 1989, the top recipient among all beneficiaries of Obama’s ambassador picks.

Here is a list of the top 10 party committees and PACs to which Obama’s ambassador picks have contributed since 1989, along with the total amount donated and the number of individual ambassadors who donated to each recipient. The numbers are based on a CRP analysis of campaign contribution reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Recipient Amount # Democratic National Committee $2,257,490 39 Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee $1,084,037 19 Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee $861,877 19 Republican National Committee $80,000 2 North Side Good Government Committee $70,000 1 Democratic Party of Virginia $65,946 12 Democratic Party of Ohio $57,831 9 Democratic Party of Michigan $57,584 9 EMILY’s List $53,000 10 Democratic Party of Iowa $43,593 13

Read more of Capital Eye‘s on-going coverage of Obama’s ambassadors with money-in-politics ties here. And check out this updated, download-able spreadsheet of campaign contribution data regarding all of Obama’s ambassador picks. Please note the multiple tabs in the document. *

(If you do use this data, please be sure to credit CRP.)

CRP researchers Douglas Weber and Carolyn Sharpe contributed to this report.



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