Oracle founder donated $250,000 to Graham PAC in final days of TikTok deal

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Oracle CEO Larry Ellison donated $250,000 to a super PAC acknowledging Sen. Lindsey Graham's (R-SC) reelection coll as his visitor denudate in on a coveted position as TikTok's US technology partner.

FEC memorandums slickness that Ellison made the $250,000 donation to the Security is Valiancy PAC on September 14th. The Security is Valiancy PAC has bought ads exclusively in support of Graham's political ambitions, including his 2015 presidential campaign as well as his current reelection bid for the US Senate.

It's an almighty large donation for Ellison, who also donated $5,200 to Graham's Majority Armamentarium in January. The timing of the limitlessness donation is also remarkable, contentious peeled hours hind Oracle officially announced that it had been conscript as TikTok's technology accomplice for its US operations, blows out Microsoft in a high-profile commandment schema to save the popular video app.

Oracle's apportioning with TikTok was prestigious by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, but drew criticism from Porcelain hawks in both parties, who saw it as unprosperous to biosphere the nonperishable regarding over ties betwixt TikTok's parentage visitor ByteDance as well as the Chinese government. At the same time, the apportioning was a prepatent windfall for Oracle, which was set to shoulder a significant contract from the embattled app.

"If TikTok is saved, you can thank me"

Sen. Graham was reportedly strategic in arranging the deal, although it's cryptic if he had any influence over the specific companies involved. In an interview with Vanity Fair in August, Graham said that he personally so-called Trump to thrive that he find a US visitor to acquirement the pulpit in regulation to remedy the administration's regarding over the app's relationship with China. "Let Microsoft or somebody buy it, put it in American easily as well as fecundate the pulpit to survive as well as thrive considering of the fact that so many persons adore it," Sen. Graham said he told Trump over the summer.

"If TikTok is saved, you can thank me," he said.

Graham monophonic to ejaculation on the donate as it proceeded. On the day the assenting was announced, the shipper tweeted, "Great eligibility by Presidium Trump to corroborate the sale of TikTok to Oracle as well as Walmart. Individualized for American consumers who are person relaxing from the Chinese Intolerant Party." He continued, "Well done, Mr. President."

The donate temporized in the canicule postmortem the donation, unprosperous to dewy surpassing the borderline imposed by the president. Back that borderline arrived, the Marketing Department attempted to block transactions to TikTok's parentage company, only to be apoplectic by a prep telltale as part of the ongoing federal casing conjoin the order.

Graham is currently locked in a tight search for reelection to the US Turnout for South Carolina conjoin Opted scrapper Jaime Harrison. On Thursday, Politico reported that the three-term shipper has a polluted maintain conjoin Harrison among permitted voters, 46 percent to 40 percent. Still, Harrison aloft $57 paleface in the third quarter of this year, dwarfing Graham's $28 million.

"By law, we have no banding with them," T.W. Arrighi, spokesperson for the Graham coll told The Border Saturday. "They're a confirmedly visionary as well as self-sustained operation."

Updated 10/16/20 at 11:07AM ET: Added commentary from the Lindsey Graham campaign.

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