Hedge fund investor Dan Loeb openly mocked Hillary Clinton for being married to “a liar and a cheat,” but had an Ashley Madison account himself.
Loeb’s name features among the data released by the Impact Team hackers, who published information that they stole from the infidelity network Ashley Madison. Loeb founded hedge fund Third Point LLC and is an important contributor to the Romney campaign, and has since confirmed that the account was genuine, writes Sam Biddle for Gawker.
Loeb now a vocal opponent of Hillary Clinton
Although Loeb used to support Obama, he has recently diverted his generosity to Republican candidates and conservative Super PACs. He recently donated a million dollars to American Unity PAC, and $250,000 to the Ending Spending Action Fund, in addition to tens of thousands to the Republican Party itself.
This June he posted a derogatory joke about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton on his Facebook page, decrying her relationship with husband Bill Clinton. Loeb removed the post shortly after, telling Politico that it was an “old meme [that] ended up on my Facebook page inadvertently.”
[drizzle]A year before he made that post, Loeb created an account on Ashley Madison. He signed up using his private email account, and the zip code and birthday match Loeb’s own.
Dan Loeb says Ashley Madison account was for research purposes
When Gawker asked Loeb about the account, it received the following statement: “As my family, friends and business colleagues know, I am a prolific web surfer. Did I visit this site to see what it was all about? Absolutely – years ago, at the time I was invested in Yahoo and IAC and was endlessly curious about apps and websites. Did I ever engage or meet with anyone through this site? Never. That was never my intention — as evidenced by the fact that I never provided a credit card to set up an account.”
It all sounds plausible, but suspicions are raised by the fact that Loeb described himself as looking for “discreet fun with 9 or 10” on his profile. Loeb later said that the “field was part of going on the site and I gave a brief line that sounded plausible.”
He also does not explain why he would check his inbox on an account that he never intended to “engage” with anybody on. Ashley Madison data shows that Loeb checked his private messages in December 2013, 8 months after he joined the site.
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