Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) recommended President Joe Biden pick a since-confirmed federal judge after pocketing campaign cash from her father and his law firm colleagues, records show.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Casey were vocal supporters of then-Pennsylvania chief magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick to sit on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, a spot she assumed in February after scrutiny from Senate Republicans over what they perceived as her soft-on-crime record. But Casey’s ties to Mehalchick are nothing new. The senator received tens of thousands of dollars over the years from attorneys at the Scranton-based Lenahan & Dempsey P.C. law firm, in which her father George Mehalchick, who has also donated to Casey, has practiced since 1989, according to campaign finance disclosures.
The cash transfers dating back to 2005 could become a liability for Casey as he looks to hold on to his competitive Senate seat in 2024. They underscore how the Democrat “has spent his nearly 18 years in the Senate enriching his friends and rubber-stamping Joe Biden’s failed policies,” campaign spokeswoman Elizabeth Gregory for Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick told the Washington Examiner. Casey has increasingly sought to fend off hypocrisy charges from the GOP on campaign finance-related matters and, in some cases, alleged illegality.
“Pennsylvanians see these blatant conflicts of interest for what they are, and it’s exactly why Dave McCormick is fighting so hard to bring new leadership to Washington,” Gregory said.
After Biden nominated Karoline Mehalchick in June 2023, Casey said he looked “forward to voting to swiftly confirm her” and applauded the judge’s “deep sense of community, vast courtroom experience, and commitment to the rule of law.”
Casey later praised Karoline Mehalchick as a “judge’s judge” in a July hearing, which George Mehalchick attended, and which saw Republican senators pressing the nominee for having many of her prior rulings reversed by higher courts. The lawmakers hammered Karoline Mehalchick for vacating the conviction of disgraced former Penn State University President Graham Spanier in 2019 after a jury found him guilty in 2017 of covering up ex-assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of minors.
An appeals court overturned her Spanier ruling in 2020. Then-Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, now the Democratic governor in the Keystone State, said at the time that “Spanier turned a blind eye to child abuse by not reporting his knowledge of Jerry Sandusky’s assaults to law enforcement,” asserting, “No one is above the law, especially when it comes to the welfare of children.”
Casey, who Republicans say supports left-wing policies that are soft on crime, has taken more than $62,000 from employees at Lenahan & Dempsey, Federal Election Commission records show.
In May, less than two months before Karoline Mehalchick’s nomination, firm attorney John R. Lenahan Jr. cut a $3,000 check to Casey’s Senate campaign. George Mehalchick personally gave $350 combined in 2015 and 2017 to the Democrat, according to filings.
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Casey campaign spokeswoman Maddy McDaniel asserted that the senator “makes judicial decisions based on the candidate’s qualifications and record of service.”
“Meanwhile, David McCormick and his billionaire friends are trying to buy a Senate seat with the millions he made investing money for the Chinese Communist Party and selling out Pennsylvania workers,” McDaniel said. The Republican has faced hypocrisy accusations for slamming China despite Bridgewater Associates, the major hedge fund McCormick led from 2020 to 2022, investing in Chinese companies.
A February Emerson College Poll found Casey leading McCormick 49% to 39% in a general election matchup. That 10-point margin came after the release of a February survey by the Democratic firm Chism Strategies that placed Casey ahead of McCormick 38% to 37%. The nonpartisan CookPoliticalReport elections tracker lists the Pennsylvania Senate race as leaning Democratic in 2024.
Casey came under fire last week from Republicans for allegedly using taxpayer dollars unlawfully to pay for private flights in 2018, a revelation reported by the Washington Free Beacon. The senator hauled in $3.6 million in the fourth quarter of last year in connection to his 2024 campaign, whereas McCormick raised $6.4 million — with $1 million of that sum coming from his own pockets.
Fundraising attempts haven’t been all smooth sailing for the Casey campaign, either.
This week, Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster appeared to throw shade at Casey on social media by hiding the senator’s reply with a fundraising website link to a post the Muppet made reading, “Me hate shrinkflation! Me cookies are getting smaller.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“C is for consumers getting ripped off,” the White House wrote on X on Tuesday in reply to the Cookie Monster post. “President Biden is calling on companies to put a stop to shrinkflation.”
Lenahan & Dempsey and George Mehalchick did not return requests for comment.
