Invested more than $1 billion powering liberal activist groups
By WND Staff Published December 1, 2019 at 4:25pm
Democrats have gone all in with dark-money funds, acknowledging it as a fact of political life that they once rejected, according to a new report.
A Washington Free Beacon investigation, citing tax forms, found that Democratic donors have built “a formidable dark money network to obscure the source of more than $600 million funneled to liberal groups and initiatives last year.”
Arabella Advisors, a Washington group that claims to provide “strategic guidance for effective philanthropy,” has funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in anonymous donations to some of the most influential advocacy groups on the left, the Free Beacon said.
Groups linked to Arabella have invested more than $1 billion in activists on the political left and far-left since President Trump was elected.
That’s even though the Democrats once derided dark money when it was used by Republicans
“Dark money” refers to refers to political spending by nonprofit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors.
New, the Free Beacon said, “liberal groups have fully embraced its usage and are now doing so at a much higher level than Republicans: More than $150 million in dark money was spent throughout the 2018 election cycle, 54 percent of which came from liberal groups and only 31 percent from conservative groups.”
The organization came about because of the work of Eric Kessler, formerly of the Clinton Global Initiative, who set up “a series of so-called fiscal sponsors, groups that offer their legal and tax-exempt status to other groups that are not yet recognized as nonprofits by the IRS, including the New Venture Fund and the Sixteen Thirty Fund.”
Politico reported the Sixteen Thirty Fund handed out $141 million in 2018, and tax forms show the New Venture Fund gave liberal groups $373 million.
Another $78 million was moved through the Hopewell Fund, also run by Arabella.
Liberal donors dumped $622 million into four Arabella groups last year, the report said.
Of that, more than $605 million went to social groups such as Demand Justice, which opposes President Trump.
The groups also show connections to George Soros.