Scandal could add to outrage in U.S. race

AUSTIN — The revelations in the Panama Papers could add to the populist outrage in the U.S. presidential race by confirming many of the fears of Bernie Sanders supporters on the left and contributing to the distrust that drives people to Donald Trump on the right.

So far, the 11.5 million leaked documents have shed light mostly on foreign figures such as the prime minister of Iceland. The reaction in the U.S. has been relatively muted.

But voters and experts sug- gested that the papers could still validate the frustration of blue-collar Sanders supporters who feel that hard work is no longer enough to get ahead in America and the anger of Trump partisans who say it will take someone who knows the insider system to dismantle it.

Retired Wisconsin high school teacher Steve Nibbe, who was voting for Sanders on Tuesday in Wisconsin’s presidential primary, said word of the documents made him “sit up and take notice.” But he said he was not shocked.

“It just seems that those who have wealth — and sometimes that comes with privilege — are able to do things that other people are not,” said Nibbe, 60, from Verona.

Joe Brettell, a Republican strategist based in Houston, doubted whether the public’s fury could get much worse.

“The populist anger being fueled primarily by white working-class Americans didn’t need any more fuel,” Brettel l said. “They’ve already lived through the financial meltdown. They’ve already lived through the lack of middle class wage increases even as the stock market boomed.”

The papers illustrate how a small class of global elites amass staggering wealth and find elaborate ways to hide it from tax collectors, bank regulators and police.

The passports of at least 200 Americans are included in the documents, according to news organizations that have access to them.