Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff said in a new fundraising email that Sen. David Perdue's (R., Ga.) acceptance of corporate PAC money "kills," even as Ossoff has taken thousands from leadership PACs funded by corporate money.
"The corruption is blatant," Ossoff wrote Tuesday to supporters about Perdue. "And corruption kills."
Ossoff, however, took $37,500 in the second quarter of 2020 from nine Democratic leadership PACs, all of which have received corporate PAC donations.
Ossoff also said "people die" when Perdue accepts pharmaceutical PAC cash and then votes to benefit drug companies. But some of the leadership PACs who donated to Ossoff have benefited from that industry too.
He took $20,000 from five Democratic leadership PACs that have hauled in more than $220,000 from pharmaceutical and health product PACs in the 2020 cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That includes Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto's (D., Nev.) All for Our Country leadership PAC, which gave Ossoff $5,000 and has received $70,500 from pharmaceutical PACs.
Ossoff has repeatedly insisted he would not accept corporate PAC money, even making it the cornerstone of a new televised ad.
"The corporate PACs can keep their money; I won’t be taking a dime of it," Ossoff told Teen Vogue last year.
While Ossoff has assailed Perdue as corrupt, Perdue has attacked him in turn as a tool of socialism and a threat to the American dream.
Polls show Perdue with a small advantage over Ossoff, who is trying to become the first Georgia Democrat to win a U.S. Senate seat since Zell Miller in 2000.
UPDATE: Thursday, 9:58 A.M.: This article initially stated Ossoff's campaign did not respond to a request for comment, but the request for comment never went through to the Ossoff campaign. This has been corrected.