Joe Biden’s $1.5B campaign haul reportedly helped by $145M in ‘dark money’

More On:

joe biden

EU urges US to draft joint rule book to rein in tech giants

Biden to present racial equity plan, sign more executive actions

Senators to be sworn in today for Trump’s impeachment trial

Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess urges Joe Biden to buy his electric cars

President Joe Biden’s record-breaking $1.5 billion campaign fundraising haul was boosted by millions in so-called “dark money” contributions from anonymous donors who will never be identified, according to a report.

The $145 million he received eclipsed the $113 million in dark funds GOP Sen. Mitt Romney took in for his failed 2012 presidential bid against former President Barack Obama and the $24 million former President Donald Trump received, Bloomberg News reported.

Democrats have long condemned such fundraising because it allows the candidate to dodge any scrutiny about the source of their backing.

Priorities USA Action Fund, a super PAC that Biden identified as his preferred group for outside spending, used $26 million originally donated to its nonprofit arm, Priorities USA, to back Biden, Bloomberg reported.

Donors of those funds do not have to be identified.

The chairman of Priorities USA, Guy Cecil, told Bloomberg in a statement that it wasn’t “going to unilaterally disarm against Trump and the right-wing forces that enabled him.”

A Biden spokesman did not respond to requests from Bloomberg for comment.

Future Forward PAC spent $104 million to back Biden and received $46.9 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and $2.6 million from Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of Alphabet, the parent company of Google.

But Future Forward PAC also got $61 million from its nonprofit, Future Forward USA Action, Bloomberg said.

The $1.5 billion Biden raised, a record for a challenger to a sitting president, included only $318.6 million from donors who gave less than $200 each.

The rest came from contributors with deep pockets who gave as much as $825,000 – funds that were split between the Democratic National Committee and 47 state parties. 

Contributors can write eight-figure checks to super PACs and joint-fundraising committees can bring in as much as $830,500, Larry Noble, a former Federal Elections Commission official, told Bloomberg.

Big donors can also keep their identities secret by giving to political non-profits that turn the funds over to super PACs like Priorities USA.

But under federal law, candidates and campaigns are prohibited from coordinating spending with such groups.

Reform groups point out the possibility of wealthy donors gaining discrete influence over decision makers without public knowledge of their actions through “dark money” contributions.

“The whole point of dark money is to avoid public disclosure while getting private credit,” Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, which advocates for reducing the influence of money on politics, told Bloomberg.

“It’s only dark money to the public.”

Share this article:

Source: Read Full Article

Previous post Viral Tweet About Sex And The City Reveals Hilarious Plot Flaw
Next post Mary Berry’s unusual idea for Celebrity Best Home Cook show shut down by BBC bosses