Jet-owning Biden nominee poured major cash into president’s campaign: ‘Swampy’

A wealthy President Joe Biden nominee for a key transportation board has double-dipped as a Biden campaign donor and bundler, Federal Election Commission records show.

The president tapped Samuel Slater in 2021 to serve on the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, a body overseeing the Ronald Reagan Washington National and Dulles International airports in Virginia, though the real estate mogul’s nomination stalled in the Senate Commerce Committee, and Biden renominated him earlier this year. In a November hearing, Slater said he was “passionate and excited about the opportunity to serve on MWAA’s Board.”

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“I believe my professional skill set will be of value to this board in the continued pursuit of a pleasurable passenger experience, the management and development of its facilities, and its continued economic development,” Slater testified. “If confirmed, I hope to bring this experience, perspective, and focus to the board.”

Slater, who is on the board of the Seattle Kraken in the NHL and co-founded the Hollywood film studio Burn Later Productions, is the managing partner of Tremont Asset Management in Boston, a real estate firm and subsidiary of Slater Family Holdings, his father’s firm. In September, Boston magazine reported that Slater recently bought a private jet from Playboy, the adult entertainment company.

Slater also personally gave nearly $140,000 in 2020 to Biden’s presidential campaign, a fact that raised concerns for at least one conservative watchdog group. The nominee, however, reportedly rejected the idea that his contributions could amount to a conflict of interest while speaking to Congress before the November hearing.

“This is as swampy as it gets,” Tom Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation, told Fox News. “Biden is rewarding a billionaire donor who flies around the world in his private jet by giving him a government job for which he’s completely unqualified.”

The donations, coupled with Slater’s large cash transfers to the Democratic National Committee, are likely to lead to further questions about Slater’s nomination among Republicans in Congress. Slater was also on the 2020 Biden campaign’s national finance committee and served as a “bundler” for Biden, which is someone who helps organize and gather donations from other people, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan elections tracker.

A cohort of left-leaning watchdogs notably sent a letter to 2024 presidential campaigns in October calling for them to report information about their bundlers. The organizations said that “accountability depends on transparency in our campaign finance system.”

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“This is everything the American people hate about how Washington, D.C., operates,” Jones said. “It is an absolute disgrace. We hope the U.S. Senate will not go along with this and restore honest, good government to our Capitol.”

The White House and Slater Family Holdings did not return requests for comment.