Kirsten Gillibrand Challenged By John Oliver Over Wall Street Donations [Video]

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) came under fire by John Oliver on The Daily Show last week. As you can see in the above video, Oliver wanted Gillibrand to talk Thursday about the Wall Street donations she has received.

Oliver took direct aim at Gillibrand. “You were the number one recipient of money from Goldman Sachs in 2011 to 2012 for all sitting congressmen,” he said. “JPMorgan was your number two corporate donor over the last five years.”

And he more or less demanded to know what she had to do to get the money.

Gillibrand dodged and weaved. Basically, she said she lived in New York and got the donations from Wall Street you might expect based on that fact.

She just said it more diplomatically than you or I would have.

But Oliver wouldn’t let it go. He came back again with almost the same question:

“Are there opinions that you have on Wall Street, do you get the money because you already have those opinions, or do you need those opinions to get the money?”

If he was expecting Kirsten Gillibrand to break down and cry like a girl on live TV because he was accusing her of taking bribes, I figure he was disappointed. But you can watch the clip and decide for yourself.

Gillibrand is far from the only politician in the crosshairs this week as a result of campaign contributions.

Last week, the Kentuckians for Strong Leadership (KSL) were embarrassed by their own financial disclosure statement. The super PAC was formed to re-elect conservative Senator Mitch McConnell to represent the state of Kentucky.

However, 98 percent of the reported donations came from people outside of the state. Furthermore, a $100,000 donation came from a Houston man who was already dead on the date the PAC supposedly received the check.

A KSL treasurer said the date was wrong and that the PAC would refile the form.

But apparently there were a lot of questions out there this week about campaign contributions — and not just for Kirsten Gillibrand.

[Kirsten Gillibrand thumbnail photo credit: azipaybarah via photopin cc]