Financial contributions made to Democratic political candidates including former President Barack Obama have drawn scrutiny after an executive's company recently complied with a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warrant.
Popular home and residential gun safe manufacturer Liberty Safe has received criticism for complying with an FBI warrant on August 30, providing access to a safe belonging to Nathan Hughes, 34, of Arkansas, who has been charged with felony civil disorder and several misdemeanors in the January 6 siege on the U.S. Capitol.
"Our company's protocol is to provide access codes to law enforcement if a warrant grants them access to a property," the company said, adding it was at the time unaware of the details pertaining to the warrant and that access was denied on multiple occasions to respect 2nd Amendment rights. "After receiving the request, we received proof of the valid warrant, and only then did we provide them with an access code."
In an additional X post published on Wednesday, Liberty Safe said the company "was founded on the belief that Americans should have the fundamental right to protect and safeguard their valuables and property."
They announced a new change, effective immediately, which allows their customers to fill out a form and have records of their access codes expunged. The option is expected to be reflected in the coming weeks.
The FBI declined to comment to Newsweek.
In September 2021, Liberty Safe was acquired by Monomoy Capital Partners, a private investment firm that has offices in New York and Connecticut and $2.7 billion in committed capital across five investment funds. Liberty Safe operates out of its Payson, Utah, facility.
The manufacturer's CEO, Justin Hillenbrand, made political contributions to Obama twice when the Democrat was a first-time presidential nominee in 2008, totaling $4,600, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records.
Monomoy founding partner Stephen Presser, who died in March, is listed by the FEC as making countless individual contributions to myriad Democrats, including current Senators Raphael Warnock, John Fetterman and Mark Kelly. The company's max donations over the last 10 election cycles have totaled almost $400,000.
"And we're supposed to be surprised they betrayed their customers to the FBI as quickly as humanly possible?" Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Boycott Liberty Safe."
Kirk previously expressed disdain for Liberty Safe's decision to comply with the FBI warrant, saying that instead of fighting it akin to companies like Apple, "they buckled and bent over."
Elon Musk, however, said that Liberty Safe should not be boycotted.
"I think we're going too far with these Jan 6th sentence lengths, especially given other crimes that aren't being prosecuted at all, but Liberty Safe had no choice here and are not to blame," Musk wrote on his platform.
Newsweek reached out to Hillenbrand, Liberty Safe and Monomoy for comment.
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Nick Mordowanec is a Newsweek reporter based in Michigan. His focus is reporting on Ukraine and Russia, along with social ... Read more
