Why Did Pete Buttigieg Fail To Disclose Wealthy Campaign Donors?

South Bend Mayor and Democratic presidential nominee contender Pete Buttigieg may be in some hot water. This week, it was revealed that his campaign failed to include a number of highly wealthy donors from its public financial disclosure list.

An internal campaign document, uncovered by Politico, shows a significant mismatch between internal reporting and the public donor list recently released by Buttigieg. This finding comes at a particularly inconvenient time after fellow nominee hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) accused Buttigieg of not being transparent about how his campaign is being funded.

The list tallies bundlers, a term used to describe individuals who made political donations collectively, typically during private fundraising events.

Among the bundlers not included in the public list are movie producer Jordan Horwitz, hedge fund investor John Petry and power broker Jack Connors Jr. Two former U.S. ambassadors, Nicole Avant and John Philips, were also omitted. At least 15 other wealthy donors were missing from the public disclosure.

Although campaign donor lists such as this are not legally required to be made public, doing so is meant to demonstrate a willingness to provide transparency to supporters. With the discovery of these crucial omissions, Buttigieg’s desire to demonstrate financial openness may be thrown into doubt for some.

To address these concerns, Buttigieg’s campaign said that these donors’ absence from the public list was an unintended mistake that would be quickly corrected. However, this explanation is unlikely to please all of Buttigieg’s critics. Jeff Hauser, the head of the Revolving Door Project, spoke with Politico: “Producing data four days after they were asked for it with obvious omissions, that is sketchy.”

Whether these bundler omissions will have an impact on Buttigieg’s supporters remains to be seen, though.

So far, Buttigieg is the only top contender in the Democratic nominee field to release a list of campaign donation bundlers, aside from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), who did so shortly before making the decision to drop out of the race. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have not done so because they do not hold private fundraising events. Former Vice President Joe Biden, however, has faced criticism for not publicly disclosing his bundlers.