by Mark Schwendau
An activist investor was arrested at a shareholder’s meeting of Berkshire Hathaway as he made his remarks as a speaker at the annual meeting. Peter Flaherty, 66, chairman of conservative the National Legal and Policy Center (https://nlpc.org), had his mic cut off by Warren Buffet speaking in favor of a proposal to have the business mogul removed as chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.
“I am Peter Flaherty, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center. If we had an independent chair, the company (Berkshire Hathaway) would be less identified with Mr. Buffett’s political activities.”
He’s donated tens of billions to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As Bill Gates explained when the couple was still together, ‘Although the foundation bears our names, basically half our resources have come from Warren Buffett.’
“If woke culture is a disease, then philanthropy is the virus.
“The Gates Foundation bankrolls the teaching of critical race theory around the country, including that math is inherently racist.
“The Gates Foundation offers a Gender Identity Toolbox which asserts that gender is the result of ‘socially and culturally constructed ideas.’
“This is a lie. Gender is not a cultural construct. It is a genetic and biological fact.”
(At this point, a Berkshire Hathaway employee interrupts.)
“You are not going to censor what I say, Ma’am. I’m very sorry. And I appeal to the chair that I be allowed to continue. Sir?
Buffett: You may continue but under the three-minute limitation.
“Of course.
“We know how much Bill Gates cares about children. He met and traveled with Jeffrey Epstein many times after Epstein was convicted of sex crimes.
“The Gates Foundation had a huge influence over the COVID response fiasco.
“Bill Gates defended China’s COVID policies and still discounts the possibility that the virus originated from a lab (in Wuhan, China), even though U.S. intelligence agencies disagree.
“The Gates Foundation may be the largest single donor to the dark money machine known as Arabella (Advisors.)”
(Buffett gestures from the stage and makes inaudible comments.)
“It funds causes like defunding the police that is making American cities unlivable. Money goes, too, to groups conducting—”
The video posted to the internet shows the audience erupting in boos and whistling when Flaherty brought up Epstein. Omaha police arrested him that Saturday, May 6, after his mic was cut, and he was escorted from the premises. Arrest documents show Flaherty was charged with trespassing and refusing to comply with a request to leave. He was released on a $250 bond and was expected back in court on May 22.
“The trespassing charge has been dropped, but I never should have been arrested. Nor should I have been handcuffed, fingerprinted, brought to jail, and detained for three hours.
“Berkshire Hathaway’s silencing of me is an ominous precedent for the rights of shareholders in public companies. It cannot be allowed to stand.
“I did not just wander into the Berkshire shareholders meeting, nor did the incident occur during a question-and-answer session. I was a scheduled speaker, whose name appeared on the agenda, to speak in support of Proposal #8 for an independent chair. The proposal appeared in the proxy, and for weeks shareholders had been voting on it. It was the subject of a detailed proxy memo we filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on April 21.
“As far as I know, the arrest of a shareholder during a proposal presentation has never before occurred at the annual meeting of a public company in the United States. Shareholder activists of the past such as Wilma Soss (the basis for the Carol Burnett ‘cleaning lady’ character) and Evelyn Y. Davis often challenged and certainly annoyed CEOs, but their microphones were never cut and they were certainly never arrested.
“I have spoken at the annual meetings of dozens of public companies over the past 19 years. My demeanor at the Berkshire meeting was no different from any other. There was no reason to throw me out except that I came too close to the truth.
“Additional revelations about Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein since the meeting confirm the importance of the issue I sought to raise, namely the reputational risk to Berkshire Hathaway by having one individual hold both the Chairman and CEO positions, especially if that person is so closely identified with particular causes and personalities.
“The whole point of the shareholder proposal process is to allow shareholders critical of management an avenue to change corporate policy. To simply silence and arrest a shareholder who disagrees with management stands the whole concept of having public shareholders on its head. If Warren Buffett thinks that since he owns 15% of Berkshire shares and is both Chairman and CEO, that he can act with impunity, he is mistaken.
“Shareholders have rights, and I intend to enforce NLPC’s.”
Had he been allowed to finish, he would have sponsored a proposal to have a separate chair and CEO. His logic was Berkshire ‘would be less identified with Mr. Buffet’s personal political activities.’
Copyright © 2023 by Mark S. Schwendau
Mark S. Schwendau is a retired technology professor who has always had a sideline in news-editorial writing where his byline has been, “Bringing little known news to people who simply want to know the truth.” He is a Christian conservative who God cast to be a realist. His website is www.IDrawIWrite.Tech.