A Duke Energy official told the Charlotte Observer on Thursday that Democratic officials would not repay the $10 million they owe the company. Instead, Duke Energy will write off the loan as a business expense. Shareholders are expected to absorb $6 million of the cost of the loan.
In effect, Duke Energy’s “loan” has turned out to be a $10 million contribution to the Democratic convention.
The decision by Democratic organizers not to repay the loan smacks of hypocrisy. In the run-up to the convention, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the chair of the Democratic National Committee, vowed that convention organizers would not accept corporate money.
Yet even before the Duke loan became a straight-up donation, various convention committees revealed that they accepted corporate money. One committee took in at least $5 million in corporate money to rent Charlotte’s Time Warner Cable area and a million more in in-kind contributions from AT&T, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Costco.
A Duke company official said the company was claiming the money as a business expense for tax purposes