Tag: dark money

Swiss Billionaire Bankrolls Biden Agenda With $63 Million in Dark Money

A Swiss billionaire is evading bans on foreign donations to political candidates and committees by giving tens of millions of dollars to a web of nonprofits to bankroll President Joe Biden’s agenda. 

Hansjörg Wyss, who made billions in the medical device industry, is positioning himself as a megadonor to Democrat-aligned groups despite being forbidden from making political donations as a foreign national. Wyss gave $72 million in 2021 to the Berger Action Fund, which directs money to nonprofits that don’t have to disclose their donors or expenditures. By donating to the fund, Wyss can bypass bans on foreign political financial involvement. 

Wyss created the fund in 2007, and it has donated $339 million to left-leaning groups since 2016, according to the Associated Press. Wyss’s representatives claim the tens of millions go to “issue advocacy,” addressing the environment, for example, and not partisan interests. 

Yet groups that received Wyss’s money have spent heavily backing Biden and Democrats, the AP reported: 

Of the $72.7 million donated in 2021 by Wyss’ Berger Action Fund, $62.7 million went to two groups that were focused on building public support for Biden’s agenda, according to tax documents and a statement from the group.

Since switching his focus to nonprofits, two closely related organizations that play a role in Democratic politics have been among the biggest recipients of Wyss’ money. 

The Sixteen Thirty Fund and the New Venture Fund — two organizations that share the same founder, address and management firm — collectively received $245 million donated by Wyss’ groups since 2016, tax records show… 

Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of Americans for Public Trust, said Wyss’s giving must come under “immediate scrutiny.”

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Dem-Linked Dark Money Group Is Masquerading As A Newspaper To Influence Pivotal Court Race

A Democrat-linked dark money group has used a website resembling a Wisconsin news outlet to attack the conservative candidate in the state’s current high-stakes Supreme Court election.

American Independent Media (AIM), a Washington, D.C.-registered 501(c)(4) nonprofit with ties to Democratic political operative David Brock, bought at least $90,000 in Facebook advertisements this month promoting two articles critical of former State Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly on The Wisconsin Independent, a media website labelled as an AIM “project.” Early voting is already underway in Kelly’s officially non-partisan April 4 Wisconsin State Supreme Court election contest against liberal Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz, which will determine whether Democrats take majority control of the court for the first time in 15 years, according to NBC News.

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A Dem-Linked Dark Money Network Is Quietly Funding The ‘Misinformation’ Research Industry

Several funds managed by Arabella Advisors, a Democrat-linked consultant firm, are quietly bankrolling research by universities and non-profits into how online “misinformation” and “disinformation” spreads, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation review of the networks’ grants.

Arabella Advisors, run by former Bill Clinton official Eric Kessler, manages certain administrative, legal and philanthropic functions of several non-profits including the Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, North Fund and New Venture Fund, which donate to a variety of left-leaning groups, causes and Democratic candidates, according to tax filings and statements on the funds’ and Arabella’s websites. Several funds within the network are also sponsoring research into the effects of, and how best to mitigate, misinformation and disinformation, according to a DCNF review of public grants.

Many of the Arabella-funded research projects cite conservatives predominantly as purveyors of misinformation, with several projects recommending solutions to mitigate the spread of misinformation, including censorship.

The New Venture Fund sponsored a project in March called “The True Costs of Misinformation” at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, led by the center’s research director Joan Donovan, that sought to study the impacts of online misinformation, particularly on “vulnerable communities,” according to the project’s description. The project included a workshop featuring several panels on different topics related to the alleged impacts of misinformation.

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Sam Bankman-Fried Reveals Massive ‘Dark Money’ Donations To Republicans

Former crypto billionaire and Democratic Party megadonor Sam Bankman-Fried revealed he gave large sums of “dark” money to Republicans in a Nov. 29 interview.

He told crypto YouTuber Tiffany Fong that “all my Republican donations were dark” because “reporters freak the fuck out if you donate to a Republican” and that he “didn’t want to have that fight” with “super liberal” journalists. He claimed he was the third largest Republican donor and gave “about the same” to both parties. He did not specify how much he donated to Republicans or which GOP politicians he supported.

Campaign finance watchdog group OpenSecrets reported that Bankman-Fried donated over $36 million to Democrats and over $39 million in total, making him the sixth largest donor of the 2022 midterm election cycle. He was Democrats’ second-largest donor behind George Soros, who contributed over $128 million to Democrats this cycle.

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GOP senators block bill requiring dark money groups to disclose donors

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a Democrat-led measure to require so-called dark money groups disclose the identities of donors who contribute more than $10,000 during an election cycle.

The vote in the 100-member chamber was 49-49 with every present Republican voting against the bill and every present Democrat voting for it.

The bill is not new, however. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) first introduced the legislation in 2010 and it has been reintroduced every Congress since.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Insider that he is concerned the donors would be harassed.

“I don’t want to see them doxxed, and hassled, and harried, and harmed, and that’s what this bill is about,” he said.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) cited a 1958 Supreme Court decision that determined that the state of Alabama, which at the time was largely controlled by segregationist Democrats, could not force the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to disclose its members.

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Leo DiCaprio Used Dark Money To Annoy People With Climate Lawsuits

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio reportedly used his non-profit to award funds to dark money groups, which then funneled the money to a law firm that files nuisance climate-related lawsuits.

Communications between philanthropist Dan Emmett and University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) climate professor Ann Carlson revealed that they worked with law firm Sher Edling to raise money to sue oil companies over alleged climate change deception, according to Fox News Digital. Emmett told Carlson in 2018 that she could tell prospective donors that the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation had become “serious supporters” of Sher Edling’s ongoing litigation, Fox continued.

The lawsuits filed by Sher Edling were said to be supported by the Collective Action Fund for Accountability, Resilience, and Adaptation at the time, Fox News reported noted. This fund was managed by the Resources Legacy Fund (RLF), a dark money group, according to Fox News.

Emmett and Carlson reportedly discussed how Sher Edling’s director of strategic client relationships, Chuck Savitt, had sought support from the philanthropist, noting that they had received such financial support from DiCaprio’s foundation CEO, Terry Tamminen, between 2016 and 2019, the outlet continued.

“Chuck Savitt who is heading this new organization behind the lawsuits has been seeking our support,” Emmett reportedly wrote in an email to Carlson on July 22, 2017. “Terry Tamminen in his new role with the DiCaprio Foundation has been a key supporter.”

The emails were sent roughly two months prior to the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation’s announcement of $20 million in grants for various climate and conservation efforts, Fox News reported. The announcement was subsequently deleted, but archives shared by Fox News show that the RLF received funding “to support precedent-setting legal actions to hold major corporations in the fossil fuel industry liable.”

Sher Edling received more than $5.2 million from RLF between 2017 and 2020, Fox News continued. The firm predominantly filed suits on behalf of cities and states, including California, Delaware, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York City, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Baltimore, and Honolulu against major oil companies.

“Wanted to let you know that we filed the first three lawsuits supported by the Collective Action Fund on Monday,” Savitt told Emmett in one of the emails reviewed by Fox News.

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Candidate who railed against ‘dark money’ shown to be funded by ‘dark money’

A Democratic Wisconsin Senate candidate who has railed against “dark money” in politics is being supported by a left-wing dark money network, Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show.

Mandela Barnes, whose top Senate primary opponents dropped out of the race in July, said in February “Dark money has no place in democracy” and pledges on his website “to stand up to the corrupting influence of dark money.” At the same time, Barnes was endorsed Monday by the Family Friendly Action PAC — which is dumping millions in his race to unseat Republican Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and is largely funded by the dark money groups Sixteen Thirty Fund and America Votes, according to FEC filings.

Nonprofits with 501(c)(4) IRS exempt status are often referred to as “dark money” groups because they are under no legal obligation to disclose donors and can funnel unlimited sums to super PACs, according to OpenSecrets. Super PACs have to disclose their donors but can be “effectively dark money groups when the bulk of their funding cannot be traced back to the original donor,” according to OpenSecrets.

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Dark money gets darker with less disclosure in the 2022 election

Dark money is pouring into U.S. elections, but the vast majority of it is not being disclosed to the Federal Election Commission. 

The 2022 election cycle has already attracted more than $115 million in contributions from and spending by 501(c) groups reported to the FEC, OpenSecrets’ new analysis found. 

Many of the top spenders on so-called “issue” ads that mention candidates are politically-active nonprofits that do not disclose their donors. Issue ads aired on TV or radio are only required to be disclosed in the weeks leading up to an election, and online ads that avoid expressly advocating for an election outcome are not required to be disclosed at all.

Nonprofits that do not disclose their donors reported less than $3 million of their independent spending to the FEC during the 2022 election cycle as of May 19.

Most of the spending on these issue ads has not been disclosed to the FEC because they do not explicitly advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate within the weeks leading up to an election.

One top dark money spender that has yet to disclose any spending to the FEC is American Action Network, a 501(c) nonprofit aligned with House Republican leadership. According to analyses by OpenSecrets and the Wesleyan Media Project, the group has spent more than $9.5 million on TV ads mentioning House candidates and about $800,000 on Facebook ads during the 2022 cycle – none of which have been disclosed to the FEC. 

In addition to its own spending this cycle, American Action Network has given more than $11.5 million to Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House Republicans that shares staff and resources with the dark money group.

Senate Republican leadership’s dark money group, One Nation, has also poured millions of dollars into 2022 elections but has yet to disclose any spending to the FEC. The dark money group has spent over $2.8 million this cycle on TV ads and hundreds of thousands of dollars on digital ads tracked by OpenSecrets.

Senate incumbents in swing states such as Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) are among One Nation’s prime targets in ads.

One Nation has avoided disclosing their spending to the FEC by framing the advertising as issue advocacy, as the ads attack Democratic incumbents without explicitly advocating for their election or defeat. One Nation has also given $14.4 million to Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that shares staff and resources with the dark money group. The dark money group makes up the majority of the super PAC’s funding, ultimately leaving the donors fueling Senate Leadership Fund undisclosed.

During the 2020 election cycle, One Nation did not disclose any spending to the FEC but poured about $125 million into political contributions and ads — more untraceable money than any other dark money group. 

Dark money groups aligned with Democratic party leadership have also poured millions of dollars into influencing 2022 elections. 

Congressional Democrats’ dark money group, House Majority Forward, has spent more than $2.3 million on TV ads, according to figures from the Wesleyan Media Project, and $453,000 on Facebook ads. 

House Majority Forward gave another $2.5 million in contributions to House Majority PAC, a super PAC aligned with House Democratic leadership that shares resources with House Majority Forward.  

Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC received $14.3 million from Majority Forward, a dark money group that shares the super PAC’s staff and resources. Majority Forward has spent more than $2.1 million on TV ads and about $250,000 on Facebook ads during the 2022 cycle. 

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The Shape-Shifting DC Dark Money Group Disguising Liberal Campaigns Across the Country

In May, a group called Accountable Tech, which calls itself a “small nonprofit taking on Big Tech companies,” organized a corporate boycott to protest Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter. In the midwest, a group called Opportunity Wisconsin, which bills itself as a “coalition of Wisconsin residents,” ran a deluge of TV ads slamming Republican senator Ron Johnson for his tax policies. And in Arizona, an organization of “grassroots racial justice” activists called Just Democracy released a video blasting Democratic senator Kyrsten Sinema for failing to support the Biden administration’s legislative agenda.

None of these groups actually exist. They are all registered trade names for the North Fund, a shape-shifting nonprofit group that uses aliases to push an array of left-wing causes from a shell office in Washington, D.C., according to corporate records.

Political watchdogs say the fund, which isn’t required to disclose the donors behind its $66 million budget, is gearing up to be one of the most consequential dark-money players of the midterm elections. And while “astroturf” groups are nothing new in politics, critics say the North Fund is part of a new breed—moving away from specific policy advocacy and delving into electoral politics.

“North Fund has said screw it,” said Hayden Ludwig, a senior investigator with the Capital Research Center. “They’ve just decided to be as partisan as they can.”

“Their money has been pretty much exclusively focused on Senate races, on ballot initiatives, and a few things kind of related to that,” Ludwig added. “The general theme there is cementing permanent Democratic majorities in Congress.”

The North Fund, which was founded in 2018, is helmed by a handful of Democratic operatives, including former Clinton aide Jim Gerstein. It operates under at least eight trade names, according to D.C. corporate records, including “51 for 51,” a group pushing for statehood for the heavily Democratic District of Columbia, and the “Voting Rights Lab Action,” which advocates for voting policy reforms favorable to Democrats.

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2024 hopefuls are already in a dark-money arms race

At least a dozen potential candidates for president in 2024 have active nonprofit groups aligned with them, according to a review of corporate filings, campaign disclosures and financial records obtained by POLITICO. Some of them, like the nonprofits affiliated with Pompeo or Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), have never been publicly revealed before. Others, like those supporting President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, have been operating in the open for years.

What they all have in common is the ability to pay staffers, fund polling and policy research, run ads and accept money from megadonors without divulging those funders’ names — or much information about any spending until many months after the fact. It’s the latest escalation in a fundraising arms race that has seen personal benefactors, super PACs and now secret money become common building blocks of presidential campaigns.

Every candidate who seeks the White House in 2024 will have to start disclosing their campaign fundraising and spending once they officially declare their campaigns. But in the meantime, and in the absence of new legislation or an enforcement crackdown from tax or campaign-finance regulators, prospective presidents can use nonprofits to shield their donors — and much about their preparations — from the public eye.

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