Democrat presidential hopeful Kirsten Gillibrand may brand herself as a champion of gender equality and rights for women, but her platform was recently called into question when court documents surfaced showing that Gillibrand’s father, Doug Rutnik, worked as a lobbyist for the infamous, secretive New York sex cult NXIVM!
The records state that Rutnik worked for NXIVM for four months in 2004 and was paid $25K for his lobbying efforts.
Take a look at this telling news that is going viral on Twitter:
News of Gillbrand's dad's background is rather ironic, seeing as she went off on a rant accusing Joe Biden of not supporting gender equality last night during the second round of the Democrat debates for 2020.
In case you didn't see it, here's the clip for you to watch here:
As Educating Liberals on Twitter put it:
Fox News has more details on Gillibrand's father:
Court documents revealed this week confirmed that the father of 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand once worked as a lobbyist for a secretive sexcult, but left after the upstate New York group sued him, according to a report.
The documents backed up previous accounts that the New York Democrat's father, Doug Rutnik, worked for Albany-based Nxivm for four months in 2004 at a rate of $25,000 per month, Big League Politics reported.
Rutnik was sued when he attempted to distance himself from the group before reaching a settlement.
“Her father Doug Rutnik came to work as a consultant for NXIVM. ... He was fired, they sued him, and they had to pay him $100,000,” former NXIVM employee Frank Parlato told Big League Politics. “Her father’s wife, her stepmother, was also a member of NXIVM. ... Doug got her into the cult, Gillibrand’s father got Gillibrand’s future stepmother into the cult. Doug left the cult because he was sued. Clare Bronfman, after her father was sued, donated money to Gillibrand. Gillibrand accepted it.”
An unnamed witness described how Gillibrand once sat at a Nxivm table at a Hillary Clinton fundraiser, according to the political news site.
“Yeah the three front VIP tables were all brought by NXIVM and she was sitting with Nancy Salzman,” court documents said, referring to the former Nxivm co-founder who pleaded guilty in March to a single racketeering charge.
Gillibrand has sometimes been called a #MeToo champion for her advocacy on gender equality and women’s issues. She has denied having a connection to Nxivm and said she first heard of it through extensive media coverage.
Big League Politics also had the following to say:
Democrat senator and presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand’s family ties to the NXIVM sex cult are coming to light, raising serious questions about her relationship with the cult that she once denied knowing about.
Gillibrand’s father and stepmother, who are second cousins, were both heavily involved in the cult in the period shortly before they got married, according to eyewitness accounts from ex-NXIVM employees who spoke on the record to Big League Politics, and according to court documents proving that Gillibrand’s father Doug Rutnik was employed by NXIVM.
Gillibrand’s father served as a broker between NXIVM cult leader Keith Raniere — whose initials were branded on his female sex slaves — and the then-New York attorney general to resolve Raniere’s financial problems with the state, according to ex-employee whistleblower Joseph O’Hara, whose revelations are printed below.
Gillibrand’s stepmother Gwenn Belcourt got “hooked” on the cult as did Bill Clinton’s close friend Richard Mays, according to the whistleblower. Nancy Salzman, the NXIVM president, acted as a personal “guru” for Gillibrand’s stepmother.
Ex-cult employee Frank Parlato — who exposed the fact that Raniere was branding women — is working with Big League Politics to uncover the deep longstanding links between Gillibrand, the Clintons, and NXIVM.
“The very first time I ever met Gillibrand she was at an event for Hillary Clinton in the Hall of Springs in the State Park. This was in 2006. I was at a table with a Russian friend and Mike Roohan and his wife. I was on the Democratic committee at the time and was given two comp tickets. Gillibrand came up to me introduced herself and said she was running against John Sweeney. This was before all the stories of his drunken behavior came out. He was still congressman kickass at that time. I promised my support and wished her well. i than commented to Mike that with her baby voice and demeanor that she was a lightweight. Boy was I wrong. But the kicker was when the mixing was over and Clinton went to speak. Gillibrand sat with one of the front tables. Yeah the three front VIP tables were all brought by NXIVM and she was sitting with Nancy Salzman. You can quote me on that,” said witness John Tighe in a statement provided to Big League Politics.
Nancy Salzman has pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy while her daughter Lauren Salzman admitted to enslaving a woman, stating in court, “I knowingly and intentionally harbored Jane Doe 4, a woman whose identity is known to me, in a room in the home in the Northern District of New York” and “threatened to deport Jane Doe 4 back to Mexico if she did not complete labor requested by myself and others.”
JOSEPH O’HARA TELLS BIG LEAGUE POLITICS HIS NXIVM STORY
Joseph O’Hara was living in Saratoga Springs at the time, and a woman he met socially called him up out of the blue and asked for him to meet with the leaders of NXIVM.
“I agreed to meet with them. We met the very next day. We had coffee and that’s when I was introduced to Nancy Salzman, the president of NXIVM, and she described to me the various problems they were having,” O’Hara said, referring to lawsuits, public relations issues, and governmental issues stemming from trying to get a building permit for a NXIVM center.
“I said give me a day or two,” O’Hara said. “After I thought about it, I wrote back to them and said I don’t think there’s anything I can do personally but I can play centerfielder and pull in people you need. I think you need a bigger law firm on this. Yes I can get you a PR firm that can come in and help you. That’s what I proposed to them, that I would be a middle man.”
“They hired me in October of 2003 and I worked for them for 15 months. At the end of 2004 a variety of issues had come up and I resigned.”
O’Hara, whose official title was “consultant,” said he “met primarily with Keith” Raniere and with bookeeper Cathy Russell and legal liaison Kristin Keefe. O’Hara remembers Raniere vividly.
“I thought he was a little strange. He was an odd fellow. Before I met him I had been told a lot about him. I guess when I met him I was a little underwhelmed,” O’Hara said, referring to a tall tale about how Raniere supposedly tied a record in the hundred-yard dash. Raniere held volleyball games with the women in his cult, but O’Hara did not attend.
Kirsten Gillibrand’s Father Doug Rutnik Acted As A Broker Between NXIVM and the then-Attorney General in New York
“I had known Doug Rutnik for a number of years. He was one of the people I thought of immediately for a couple of the problems that he (Raniere) had,” O’Hara said, including the fact that Raniere agreed to pay a certain amount of money to New York State stemming from the bankruptcy of his previous venture Consumer’s Buyline. “Keith never made the payments. I think it was around 45 or 50 thousand dollars.”
“I contacted Doug, and explained to him the situation. Doug could be the broker between Keith and the attorney general” O’Hara said.
“Doug and I, Nancy and Keith had lunch at a little club. Keith came in and looked like a young middle-aged business exec. Doug said let’s check this out a little further,” O’Hara remembers. NXIVM was trying to get a license for a school.
The meeting occurred at the Fort Orange Club in Albany in 2004, according to O’Hara.
O’Hara hired a third party attorney in Albany to take a 5-day executive course at NXIVM, and the attorney expressed concerns about the group potentially not paying taxes and “living off the grid.”
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Will her father's past hurt her support?
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