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Brendan Fischer Profile picture
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11 Jun, 4 tweets, 2 min read
BIG: leaked Facebook docs show that "America Progress Now," which reached hundreds of thousands of swing state voters with ads promoting Green Party candidates in 2018, was run by a right-wing political consulting firm tied to Turning Point USA.

theguardian.com/technology/202…
We filed an FEC complaint against APN in 2019.

One FEC Commissioner accused us of “wild speculation” when we raised concerns that APN may have been “the work of a major party political operative promoting spoiler candidates in swing states.”

But it looks like we were right.
As I told the Guardian:
Read more about our 2019 complaint here:

campaignlegal.org/update/fake-po…

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More from @brendan_fischer

Brendan Fischer Profile picture
8 Jun
It is no surprise that the Koch network is trying to protect a broken status quo, where billionaires & corporations are free to secretly buy influence in order to rig the political system in their favor.

But why on earth should Joe Manchin listen to them?
cnbc.com/2021/06/08/joe…
The Koch network has poured millions into groups that push voter suppression, has long fought to end limits on money in politics, and is asking SCOTUS to make dark money darker.

The Koch network has no interest in creating “positive solutions” when it comes to democracy reform. Image
The Kochs don't reward bipartisanship, either.

Despite Manchin’s commitment to working across the aisle, Koch Industries poured $185K into a super PAC backing his opponent in 2018

And AFP spent countless sums on Manchin attack ads.

Again, why would Manchin listen to the Kochs? ImageImage
Read 4 tweets
Brendan Fischer Profile picture
18 May
NEW: following our 2020 complaint, FBI is investigating illegal contributions to Susan Collins & her super PAC from a federal contractor, Navatek.

Collins helped Navatek land an $8M contract, and in the months that followed, Navatek illegally laundered funds into Collins’ race.
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.

We filed an FEC complaint alleging the donation violated federal law’s straw donor ban. campaignlegal.org/update/clc-cal…
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.
Read 12 tweets
Brendan Fischer Profile picture
24 Mar
An astonishing $1 BILLION in dark money was spent on the 2020 election, @OpenSecretsDC reports, with more spent backing Dems than Republicans. opensecrets.org/news/2021/03/o…

We’ve got a new report that shows how #HR1/#S1 would do something about it. campaignlegal.org/sites/default/…
There are two layers to the dark money problem.

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.
Read 14 tweets
Brendan Fischer Profile picture
3 Mar
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…
...so @USRepKCastor added an #HR1 amendment to end this practice, by requiring former candidates to dispose of leftover campaign funds before registering as foreign agents under FARA. amendments-rules.house.gov/amendments/CAS…
Read 8 tweets
Brendan Fischer Profile picture
22 Jan
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.

As an example of the problems with dark money, take a look at Wisconsin: wiscontext.org/how-dark-money…
Read 25 tweets
Brendan Fischer Profile picture
17 Oct 20
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.
Read 5 tweets

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