Pete Hoekstra, who supported giving billions in bailouts to Wall Street, not only went to work for the law firm that defended convicted felon Bernie Madoff but yesterday announced his campaign to defeat U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow from the firm’s law offices.
The press is calling this bad “optics” on the part of Hoekstra, but his record of support for Wall Street CEOs, Big Banks and Big Oil suggests something else—blindness to the plight of Michigan’s middle class families.
Just for starters, Hoekstra voted to give Big Oil companies $2.6 billion in taxpayer subsidies and voted to help big banks while taking $32,725 in campaign donations from them. But when it came to middle-class families, Hoekstra refused to support an exemption from the Alternative Minimum Tax for 21 million Americans.
Any question about whose side Pete’s on?
Hoekstra defends his decision to sign on to work for the DC-based Dickstein Shapiro law firm, saying he started working there after the firm defended Madoff, who was convicted of 15 counts in a massive billion Wall Street Ponzi scheme.
So, Pete, with all the firms that an important guy like you with gold-plated access could work for you chose the firm that sided with Bernie Madoff?