'Dark money' networks hold sway over U.S. policies

FPI / September 10, 2019

Leftists who often refer to dark money as the “enemy of democracy” apparently have no problem using it when it comes to attempting to subvert President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and judicial nominations, reports say.

George Soros has funneled tens of millions of dollars to open borders groups which file lawsuits against Trump’s immigration policies, Michelle Malkin charged in her new book “Open Borders, Inc: Who’s Funding America’s Destruction?”

Wikipedia defines dark money as: "political spending by nonprofit organizations . . . that are not required to disclose their donors. Such organizations can receive unlimited donations from corporations, individuals and unions. In this way, their donors can spend funds to influence elections, without voters knowing where the money came from."

Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF) has given millions to the ACLU, which has filed lawsuits attempting to stop nearly all of Trump’s immigration policies. The leftist ACLU is taking its fight against the president’s border wall to the Supreme Court.

According to Malkin, Open Society Foundations donated more than $50 million to the ACLU to end mass incarceration. In one particular instance, Soros’s group gave $100,000 to ACLU’s Idaho chapter to “conduct outreach, strengthen protections, and empower immigrant, refugee, Muslim, and indigenous communities in Idaho who are feeling threatened in a culture of rising hate.”

Malkin notes that OSF has donated more than $3 million between 2016 and 2017 to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a D.C.-based organization that has launched a slate of lawsuits and amicus briefs against the Trump White House. The group’s litigation work includes fighting Trump’s “immigration enforcement and screening measures, repeal of DACA, and termination of a temporary amnesty program called Deferred Enforced Departure for 4,000 Liberian immigrants fighting to stay here permanently.”

Meanwhile, Demand Justice, a dark money group which has received millions in funding from Soros, was formed in May 2018 to oppose Trump’s judicial picks.

The group, which is led by Brian Fallon, the press secretary for Hillary Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential campaign, “was at the forefront of the battle against Justice Brett Kavanaugh and continues to go after him to this day,” Joe Schoffstall wrote for the Washington Free Beacon on Sept. 9.

Between April 1 and June 30 of 2018, Demand Justice received $2.5 million from Soros’s Open Society Policy Center.

Demand Justice “does not disclose its donors and is a project of the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which falls under the umbrella of Arabella Advisors — an intricate dark money network containing dozens of liberal groups and projects. The network is used as a ‘pass through’ entity for Democratic donors and has facilitated $1.6 billion in funds to liberal entities in recent years,” Schoffstall noted in his Sept. 9 report.

“Due to Demand Justice's arrangement with the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which acts as its fiscal sponsor, it does not have to file annual tax forms to the Internal Revenue Service.”

This is the exact kind of dark money operation which Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez often rails against.

In February 2018, AOC tweeted: “Dark money is used to manipulate electorates. It is the enemy to democracy. Period. When politicians and corporations weaved their dark web of campaign finance, they created a ticking time bomb for foreign adversaries. To make our democracy safer, we need to get big money OUT.”

Soros's policy center sent $1.3 million more to the Sixteen Thirty Fund during the second quarter of 2017, Schoffstall reported. “Those funds are not marked toward any particular group, but instead are reported as supporting advocacy on executive nominations, policy advocacy on social safety net programs, and cross-sector policy advocacy and planning.”

In 2018, Soros's Open Society Policy Center made grants of $1 million to Planned Parenthood Action Fund, $350,000 to Color of Change (which also went toward voting rights), $150,000 to the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and $150,000 to the Committee for a Fair Judiciary, among others.

Demand Justice and other leftist groups say they will hold a protest on Oct. 6, the one-year anniversary of Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. The leftists called their fight against Kavanaugh "unfinished business."

Free Press International