The Left Hook was contacted by Dr. Sophia Yen, one of the contributors to Ro Khanna who asked for a refund. Here’s her account of his response.
He responded that he refunded those who had asked earlier in the campaign. I said I waited b/c i was hoping he would re-consider or drop out or people would convince him to drop out. Or that he/Mike would come to some agreement. But looks like he is going ahead. I said that we have been long friends in the democratic party and will continue to be so for 40 years, so why doesn’t he just refund me the money and do the honorable thing. He said no but he would be willing to talk about it if I wanted to call him.
Looks like that bad week may be extending. Here’s the original post:
MLK weekend can’t come soon enough for Ro Khanna’s team. They’ll need the extra day off to forget this week.
On Monday, Sophia Yen, Steve Silverstein and Ted Fang penned a letter to Ro Khanna demanding a refund for their campaign contributions, claiming the donations were collected under false pretenses. At the time, the donors believed the money would be used to secure Khanna’s bid to replace Pete Stark. In their letter, the trio affirmed their support for Mike Honda in no uncertain terms:
We request a refund of the $6,000 we gave you under the false pretense that you would use it to run in an open seat, which you clearly are not doing now. We did not give you the money to replace Congressman Mike Honda – a well-respected, accomplished, former Japanese internment camp survivor, former science educator, Asian-American trailblazer and legislator.
Ouch.
Then on Tuesday, Khanna’s team launched a new campaign website with the questionable moniker of Truth Squad. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s a rehash of then candidate Obama’s Truth Team, which launched during the 2012 re-election bid. One would assume that Khanna’s paying the former Obama campaign crew at 270 Strategies enough money that they would come up with something more original.
The website is a weird amalgamation of recycled attacks against Honda, and a less than honest rebuttal to the claim from progressive icon Howard Dean that Khanna is corporate backed. Too bad the Truth Team Squad fails to live up to its name by calling out the high profile CEOs (who work for corporations) who have endorsed Khanna and opened their piggy banks to help the cause.
Unfortunately, filling the Truth Team Squad website with half-truths wasn’t the only launch-day goof. As Josh Richmond pointed out in the Contra Costa Times the Truth Team Squad accidentally listed several Republican endorsers as “local Democratic officials,” prompting Richmond to quip that the Khanna campaign needed a “dose of its own medicine.”
Speaking of physicians, Khanna’s bad week didn’t end with the bungled rollout. Dr. Vanila Singh, the new Indo-American GOP challenger from Fremont appears to be the real deal. Just five days into her campaign she’s touting her team has raised a cool $100k. As we wrote earlier this week, a viable Singh can only hurt Khanna’s base.
Tough week and it’s only Wednesday.
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Update:
He (Ro Khanna)responded that he refunded those who had asked earlier in the campaign. I said I waited b/c i was hoping he would re-consider or drop out or people would convince him to. or that he/Mike would come to some agreement. but looks like he is going ahead.
I said that we have been long friends in the democratic party and will continue to be so for 40 years, so why doesn’t he just refund me the money and do the honorable thing. He said, no. but he would be willing to talk about it if I wanted to call him.
sincerely,
Sophia Yen MD MPH