Michael Thurston Gave Money to Top Ohio Democrat Shortly After Obama Endorsement

Richard Cordray, who was called a “socialist” by Donald Trump, ran a controversial, Republican-detested Obama-created federal regulatory agency

Waukesha County District Attorney candidate Michael Thurston made two campaign donations to a prominent Ohio Democrat and former Barack Obama appointee – and one of the donations came just three weeks after Obama prominently endorsed the Democrat, Richard Cordray, in the Ohio governor’s race. Cordray eventually lost to Republican Mike DeWine.

The race drew national attention; in fact, then-President Donald Trump also weighed in, calling Thurston’s chosen candidate, Richard Cordray, a “socialist.” Thurston, who is running as a Republican for DA against Republican Lesli Boese, made his first donation to Cordray before Trump’s comment and his second one after it. This year, Cordray, the former Democratic attorney general of Ohio, stepped down as Joe Biden’s student loan chief amid the Fafsa mess.

Thurston’s five donations to Democratic Milwaukee County DA John Chisholm – from 2014 to 2020 – have become a focal point of controversy in the DA’s race, in which he is running as a Republican. However, his two donations in 2018 to Democrat Richard Cordray in a high-profile governor’s race there also raise questions. We wrote Thurston and asked him why he donated to Cordray and he did not respond. Boese has criticized the Chisholm donations, calling Thurston a “RINO” – or Republican In Name Only – in a debate. Both are prosecutors in the Waukesha County DA office. Thurston also worked as a prosecutor in Milwaukee and Georgia. It’s not clear why Thurston was interested in an Ohio race that drew major Democratic firepower into that key swing state.

The timeline:

On April 8, 2018: Thurston donated $1,000 to Cordray.

Trump called Cordray a “socialist” on May 9, 2018, and made his opposition known to the Democrat, who was running against Republican Mike DeWine for the Ohio governorship in a swing state that Trump wanted to stay red to boost his presidential hopes. Through the year before Thurston’s donations to him, Cordray ran Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Agency. “The CFPB, the brainchild of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has long been opposed by Republicans and their financial backers,” reports PBS.

Obama publicly endorsed Cordray on Aug. 1, 2018, according to the Columbus Dispatch.

That story states, “Democrats hope Obama will visit Ohio in coming months to help raise money for their statewide races and to boost the candidacy of Cordray and other candidates.”

On Aug. 22, 2018, already a prosecutor in Waukesha County for three years, Thurston donated $250 to Cordray of Ohio, per Open Secrets.org.

The former president also appeared in a campaign ad with Cordray.

This was not a low-profile endorsement.

Shortly after Thurston’s second donation to Cordray, Obama came to Ohio and “used a stump speech” to boost Cordray and bash Republicans, according to a September 2018 Politico.com article.

Cordray was the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in Obama’s administration, a position that was hotly criticized by Republicans.

That September of 2018, Politico reported that Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) was a “Cordray mentor” who had “stumped for him,” as did then Sen. Kamala Harris (D-California.)

“The campaign has become a focus for national Democrats intent on rebuilding their party,” Politico reported.

WKYC reported “Obama and Cordray have had a long relationship, with the former selecting the latter in 2012 as the first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (a position he resigned from last year in order to run for governor). The former president has also played a starring role in several Cordray campaign ads.”

According to Toledo Blade, Obama “appointed the former Ohio attorney general to be the first director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau created in the wake of the 2008 Wall Street meltdown.”

According to Politico, “Democrats had made Ohio’s gubernatorial race one of the party’s top priorities in 2018, seeking to prove they could compete in the state after President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory and reverse eight years of Republican control of all of the levers of state government under Gov. John Kasich, who was term-limited.”

“Obama and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who conceived of the CFPB and supported Cordray as its director, campaigned for the Democrat in Ohio this fall,” Politico noted.

The CFPB that Cordray headed was also controversial among Republicans.

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, born out of the Dodd-Frank financial law in 2010, has taken the opposite course. Congress granted it unusually broad authority — and autonomy from the White House and Congress — to both enforce existing federal rules and write new ones, including issuing fines against financial companies,” The New York Times reported, quoting a person who described Cordray as “definitely ideological.”

In May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against a conservative effort to declare the CFPB’s authority unconstitutional.

Thurston, who has described himself as a “moderate Republican,” initially said he did not recall four of the five donations he made to Chisholm. He said that, in the one case he did recall, he was donating to Chisholm because the other candidate was worse. However, she was the candidate backed by top conservatives upset about Chisholm’s crumbled John Doe probe into then-Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign finance network. Thurston later stated in a debate that he donated because he had hopes for Chisholm that have since been dashed.

In more recent years, especially once Waukesha County DA Sue Opper announced her intentions to retire, Thurston has started making donations to top Republicans instead, including Rebecca Kleefisch, the Waukesha County GOP, and Scott Fitzgerald. We have turned up no donations to Democrats by Boese.

Thurston has outspent Boese in the race due to loaning his campaign at least $150,000. Conservative Dick Uihlein’s group is running television ads to boost Boese and criticize Thurston, tying him to Chisholm.