In Feb 2020, we spotted a mysterious LLC that gave $150k to Collins’ super PAC just 5 weeks after forming. That timeline indicated that the money came from elsewhere.
The FBI investigation revealed that we were right: the LLC was not the true source of the $150K contribution to the Collins super PAC.
Instead, the money apparently came from Navatek. Navatek gave the LLC $150K one day, and the LLC gave the super PAC $150K the next day.
Navatek is a federal contractor, and contractors are prohibited from making political contributions.
So not only does it appear that Navatek violated the straw donor ban by funneling a super PAC contribution through an LLC, it also violated the contractor contribution ban. Bad!
Navatek's CEO, Martin Kao, appears to have TOLD super PAC officials that he and his company should get credit for the $150K donation made in the name of a sham LLC.
Super PACs are prohibited from accepting a contribution if they know the money came from another source, btw.
This is a reminder that dark money is only "dark" when it comes to the public's knowledge: the beneficiaries of dark money often know where the funds are coming from.
The public had no idea who "SYWSE LLC" was or where the $150K came from, but Collins' super PAC sure did.
This is also a reminder that dark money donors often have something to hide!
Here, Navatek could not lawfully donate to Collins' super PAC because it was a federal contractor. So it tried to keep its name off of the super PAC's FEC reports by laundering the money through an LLC.
The FBI is also probing how Kao and Navatek illegally reimbursed employees and family members for their contributions to Collins' campaign.
Taken together, the timeline and available evidence sure make it look like Kao & Navatek illegally poured money into Collins' race as gratitude for her help in landing an $8M taxpayer-funded contract...
In Aug 2019, Collins announced that she helped secure Navatek's contract.
In Sept 2019, Navatek’s CEO, Kao, emailed Collins’ campaign finance director and thanked COLLINS for her support.
Typically, a campaign thanks a donor for their help, rather than the other way around.
Also in Sept 2019, around the same time that Kao was offering Collins additional "help...financially or whatever," Navatek illegally laundered contributions to Collins’ campaign in the name of others.
Then, in Nov 2019, Kao sets up an LLC "pretty vaguely."
In Dec 2019, Kao emails super PAC officials (subject line "Navatek/Martin Kao") telling them to expect a contribution in the name of the LLC.
Within weeks, Navatek gave to the LLC, and the LLC then gave to the super PAC.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
First, most dark money is never reported to the FEC, because current law narrowly defines the types of ads that trigger reporting.
Second, when spending IS reported to the FEC, the donors who gave the funds are kept secret.
Dark money groups spent $330M on political ads in 2020. But just $88M was reported to the FEC.
That’s because dark money groups evaded current law's reporting requirements by running ads that were carefully worded, strategically timed, and/or run online.
Floor votes today and yesterday added several amendments to #HR1, a bill to crack down on political corruption in both parties and strengthen our democracy.
I want to highlight 3 of the amendments and the problems they aim to solve:
1) In 2018, @CampaignLegal and @lachlan documented how former candidates-turned-foreign agents used leftover campaign funds to donate to the same politicians they were lobbying on behalf of foreign interests... thedailybeast.com/ex-pols-took-y…
Today is the 11th anniversary of Citizens United, the SCOTUS decision that ushered in the era of super PACs, dark money, & megadonors.
But there are solutions. Here are some of the #HR1 reforms that address the impact of CU and protect the voices of voters in our democracy.
First, ending dark money. Citizens United opened the door to unlimited spending by corporations, including nonprofits that hide their donors. Thanks to CU, in the 2020 cycle, $750M was spent by secretly-funded “dark money” groups (most of it by Democrats). opensecrets.org/news/2020/10/d…
When donors remain secret, the public might never know whether politicians later take action to advance those donors’ interests.
Here’s Matt Oczkowski on a $3.5M+ Cambridge Analytica project for the US gun industry’s trade ass’n.
Gunmakers & sellers were to turn over data on millions of gun owners to CA.
“I can’t emphasize how big of a deal this is for us,” wrote Oczkowski (who now works for Trump 2020).
Oczkowski puts “voter education” in quotes, and describes the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) project as an obvious effort to help elect candidates while avoiding the tax and campaign finance implications of express electoral advocacy.
Gun owners might be surprised to learn that gun makers & sellers are using the personal info that they share on warranty cards to target them with thinly-veiled electoral messages. And that their personal data is being shared with firms like Cambridge Analytica.
NEW: newly-published internal Cambridge Analytica documents from 2016 show how the data firm operated as a tool for a billionaire family to unlawfully influence U.S. politics and help elect Trump.
What’s often overlooked is how Cambridge Analytica operated to unlawfully deepen the impact of its billionare owners’ political spending.
The new docs show that Cambridge Analytica facilitated illegal coordination between a Mercer-backed super PAC & the Trump campaign.
The materials show that Cambridge Analytica staff understood that the Mercers called the shots.
For example, an email from Alexander Nix showed that the Mercers installed Kellyanne Conway as the head of a Mercer super PAC, and that the PAC was expected to contract with CA.
The Trump campaign wants Omarosa to fund an $846K pro-Trump ad campaign as a “corrective” for her critiques of the president.
As I told @maggieNYT, if Omarosa were to give in to this demand, then both she and the Trump campaign would violate federal law. nytimes.com/2020/10/13/us/…
A person makes a “coordinated communication” by funding pre-election ads about a candidate at the request of the candidate’s campaign.
These rules apply even if the ads don't expressly advocate for the candidate’s election. fec.gov/help-candidate…
More specifically, a “coordinated communication” is made if a person other than the campaign (1) pays for communications (2) at the request or suggestion of the campaign, that (3) refer to a presidential candidate and are run within 120 days of an election.