Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) used campaign cash to live like Hollywood's elite during a California fundraiser late last year, according to new campaign filings.
The Minnesota Democrat's most recent filing reveals more than $5,000 in disbursements to the ritzy Beverly Hilton hotel and an additional $772 to a Los Angeles limousine company last November. The spending coincides with Klobuchar's attendance at a high-dollar fundraiser hosted at the Beverly Hills mansion of singer John Legend and Chrissy Teigen, a noted cyber bully. The liberal power couple reportedly raised more than $1 million for Democrats at the fundraiser.
The Beverly Hilton is a historic hotel known best for hosting the annual Golden Globe Awards. Its website, which invites you to "stay among the stars," offers a wide range of available accommodations with three separate hotels—the Wilshire Tower Rooms, Oasis Building, and Poolside Cabanas. Available rooms this month range from around $400 a night for a standard room to $4,700 a night for a suite.
The filings show Klobuchar made two disbursements to the Beverly Hilton, one for $1,057 on Nov. 5 and another for $4,099 on Nov. 8, the same date as a $772 disbursement to MG Limousine Inc., a Los Angeles company. Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the accommodations.
Klobuchar was joined by a star-studded cast of liberal celebrities at the Hollywood fundraiser, including megadonors Jeffrey Katzenberg and J.J. Abrams, and actresses Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Kerry Washington. Klobuchar has long been linked to Legend and Teigen—the three were pictured together at a Vanity Fair photoshoot in 2015, and she came to their defense during a spat with former president Donald Trump in 2019.
Klobuchar has over her political career cultivated an "approachable, folksy demeanor," and those who have long known her say she's worked hard to give off the impression.
"If you knew her 20 years ago you wouldn’t say, 'That’s a folksy person.’ She’s really worked at it," Larry Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota, said in 2014. Jacobs says. "It’s genuine, it’s not a put-on. But she’s also been very conscious of creating an aura around herself of, ‘oh, shucks.’"
In a 2018 New York Times profile on Klobuchar's presidential prospects, Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote that she had capitalized on an "aw-shucks-I’m-just-like-you persona" and "is known for her folksy style."