Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has railed about the nation’s billionaires while on his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has been using private jets for his travels, according to campaign expenditure reports.
Documents from the Federal Election Commission released this week show that the Vermont Independent senator’s main campaign committee, Friends of Bernie Sanders, has spent $221,723 to charter private jets during the first quarter of this year, reports The Washington Free Beacon Thursday.
The first payment was made just before the tour launched in February, the documents show.
Sanders, during the tour’s latest stop in California on Tuesday, said that “we will not accept a rigged economy where working people struggle while billionaires become richer,” and called for an economy that works for “working people, not just [Elon] Musk and the billionaire class.”
The senator in the past spoke out against millionaires and billionaires, but became a millionaire himself shortly before he ran for president in 2020 and switched his speeches to fire against billionaires instead.
Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also running in the 2020 presidential race, mocked Sanders for growing his wealth while speaking out for socialism.
“The best known socialist in the country happens to be a millionaire with three houses,” Bloomberg, who himself has an estimated net worth of just under $105 billion, said in a 2020 debate.
Tuesday’s report on the Friends of Bernie Sanders expenditures shows that the organization contracted with three charter jet companies, Cirrus Aviation Services, N-Jet, and Ventura Jets, with payments to the three companies accounting for 75% of the campaign’s total transportation costs for the first quarter of the year.
The campaign, which is managing the oligarchy tour, spent another $63,380 on commercial airline tickets, almost $41,000 on lodging, and $248,245 on event production, the filings show.
The Fighting Oligarchy tour was launched on Feb. 22 in Nebraska, with events being held in Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Montana, and California. Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who introduces Sanders at the events, was spotted last month flying in first class to a rally in Las Vegas.
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