Buffett says he didn’t know Ready for Hillary was super-PAC

Billionaire Warren Buffett, a vocal opponent of super-PACs, said he cut a $25,000 check to super-PAC Ready for Hillary last year because he didn’t know it was one.

Ready for Hillary is a group designed to lay the groundwork for Hillary Clinton’s expected presidential run in 2016. Some noted Buffet’s donation was at odds with his historic opposition to super-PACs.

{mosads}“It’s a good one, because I did not know it was a super-PAC. They had a maximum — which was $25,000 — I think of super-PACs as these things with hundreds of thousands or millions in them,” he told CNN’s Poppy Harlow in an interview published online on Thursday. 

“I am not for super-PACs, but it’s absolutely true that I contributed $25,000 dollars which I later found out was [to] a super-PAC,” he said.

In 2012, Buffett he told Harlow he doesn’t “like unlimited money in politics.”

He reiterated his concerns about money in politics this week.

“I just don’t believe that the election should be decided by the super-rich,” he said, before adding that he understood why candidates accepted large contributions from wealthy donors.

“You can’t blame anybody. If you pour your heart and soul into running for election and your opponent’s outspending you, obviously it’s very tempting to take a very big check for somebody who has a special interest,” he said.

Buffett said that he would not personally make any astronomical donations to a Clinton campaign, should it materialize, but that he would help them fundraise — and he said he was as staunch a supporter for the former secretary of State as he had ever been.

The Berkshire Hathaway mogul brushed off concerns about Clinton’s use of a personal email account while she was serving at the State Department.

“I’d like to see your emails, too, Poppy, but there’s a curiosity factor,” he told Harlow. “What I care about is what she believes in and her ability to get what she believes and turn it into law.”

Tags Campaign finance Hillary Clinton Warren Buffett

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