CVS backs away from group it gave money

Pharmacy giant CVS Health distanced itself Friday from a pro-Trump dark-money group that it contributed to. CVS said it only learned after it made its $500,000 contribution that the group’s leaders and members have a history of racist and other kinds of hate speech.

CVS, the country’s seventh-largest corporation, said its goal in making the contribution was to advance last year’s Republican tax cut. CVS said the tax legislation would save the company $1.2 billion.

The nonprofit watchdog MapLight reported the contribution to America First Policies.

As a nonprofit, "darkmoney" group, America First Policies doesn’t have to report who its contributors are. But MapLight used corporate filings to show that CVS, Southern Co. and Dow Chemical contributed a total $1.6 million.

In recent months, the news media has been digging into the group’s disturbing associations.

CNN reported last month that policy director Carl Higbe has a history of racist, sexist, anti-Muslim, antiimmigrant and anti-poor speech. Policy adviser John Loudon has called former President Barack Obama the "Islamachurian candidate."

And liberal website Mediaite last month published a video of policy adviser Juan Pablo Andrade praising the Nazis but saying they didn’t go far enough, apparently in their atrocities. In a statement, Andrade tried to disavow the statement, saying it was incomplete and that he was trying to obtain the rest of it.

CVS, which has come under scrutiny over its business practices in Ohio, issued a statement saying that the hate speech of the staff of the Trump-aligned group don’t reflect its corporate values.