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    ‘Partisan politics’: how efforts to overturn the Johnson amendment could upend campaign finance

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    Donald Trump has long promised his evangelical base he will undo the Johnson amendment, allowing churches and other nonprofits to weigh in on and donate to political campaigns – and his path to doing so is now clearer than ever.A provision of the tax code since 1954, the Johnson amendment prohibits certain tax-exempt nonprofit organizations from making political endorsements in – or offering monetary support to – political campaigns. If the president-elect succeeds in overturning it through any of a few available methods, experts say it could have the profound effect of opening up a flow of dark money into politics.“I think it’ll have as big, or a bigger impact than Citizens United,” said Andrew Seidel, a constitutional attorney and expert on Christian nationalism. “I don’t think people are fully prepared for a country in which churches can accept tax deductible donations in the billions of dollars and then turn around and use that money for partisan politics.”With a likely narrow majority in the US House of Representatives and the Senate, Trump has multiple avenues to challenge the provision. He could try to push Congress to take legislative action. He could attempt to unwind parts of the provision through executive action, an approach that would likely be subject to litigation. Or, he could involve the Department of Justice – which he has vowed to mobilize politically – in a key, ongoing Texas lawsuit threatening the law.During Trump’s first term, he failed to deliver on his promise to destroy the amendment. Congress failed to roll back the regulatory measure and in an executive order gesturing at the issue, Trump only advised the treasury to take a lenient posture on the political speech of clergy – “to the extent permitted by law”.Now, with a lawsuit filed in Texas making its way slowly through the courts, Trump has yet another avenue to chip away at legal limits on churches’ political activity. The complaint, filed against the IRS by National Religious Broadcasters, two Texas churches and the group Intercessors for America – whose mission includes a “call for godly government” – seeks to find the Johnson amendment unconstitutional.It claims that churches are subject to “unique and discriminatory status” under the tax code and that the IRS “operates in a manner that disfavors conservative organizations and conservative, religious organizations” in enforcing the law.Named after its author Lyndon B Johnson, the Johnson amendment is inserted into section 501(c)(3) of the tax code to prevent certain nonprofits from “participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office”. The law also notes that “contributions to political campaign funds” would “clearly violate” the provision.Some churches already flaunt the law’s requirement to refrain from endorsing political candidates – a trend that the Texas Tribune has documented. Repealing the Johnson amendment would allow churches to go further, including potentially donating to partisan causes. Because churches, unlike other nonprofit organizations, are not required to file 990 forms disclosing key financial information to the IRS, such an arrangement would allow for little public oversight.Representing National Religious Broadcasters on the complaint is Michael Farris, the former CEO of the powerful rightwing legal outfit Alliance Defending Freedom and a driving force behind the “parental rights” movement, which seeks to limit schools’ ability to teach about race, gender and sexuality in the classroom. Like the conservative “parental rights” movement, the push to do away with the Johnson amendment could chip away legal barriers separating church and state.In the short run, overhauling the provision could, Seidel said, allow churches to function effectively as Super Pacs, accepting tax-deductible donations from politically-motivated donors and channeling them into political causes. Such a scenario could, Seidel cautions, force churches to subject themselves to the same financial disclosures that Super Pacs face.“The church could be the subject of litigation, but then again, who’s going to be running the IRS? Who’s going to be enforcing that?” said Seidel. “It’ll be the Trump administration.” More

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      The far-right megadonor pouring over $10m into the US election to defeat ‘the woke regime’

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      Thomas Klingenstein, chairperson of the rightwing Claremont Institute, has cemented his place in the pantheon of Republican megadonors with a more than $10m spending spree so far in the 2024 election cycle, according to campaign contributions recorded by the Federal Election Commission (FEC).Klingenstein has been one of Claremont’s largest donors for decades. As the institute has made its hard-right, pro-Trump drift in recent years, Klingenstein has continued to publicly describe US politics with extremist rhetoric, calling it a “cold civil war”, and has encouraged rightwingers to join the fight to defeat what he calls “the woke regime”.His spending puts him at the forefront of a class of donors who are explicitly supporting more extreme and polarizing politics in Trump’s Republican party.The largesse has already dwarfed his contributions in previous election seasons. The money has gone exclusively to Republicans, and has included seven-figure donations to at least four pro-Trump Pacs in recent months.The Guardian emailed Klingenstein for comment on this reporting but received no reply.Increased largesseFederal Election Comission (FEC) data is a lagging indicator: currently available data only reflects contributions made before early July, so it is possible that Klingenstein’s spend has increased since the last available filings.Nevetheless, Klingenstein’s almost $10.7m in contributions during this cycle is already more than his combined giving in the previous five cycles stretching back to 2013-2014.The amount fits with a pattern of increasing giving to political causes in recent years.Until 2017, Klingesntein was an intermittent and moderate donor: in the 2014 cycle Klingenstein made just 11 donations totaling $32,500, and in 2016 he scaled that back, contributing just $7,700 including $2,000 to Trump’s first campaign, according to records of his giving in previous cycles.In the 2018 cycle there was a sudden uptick to almost $350,000 in contributions. The next two cycles saw six-figure spends: $4.23m in 2019-2020, and just over $4m in 2021-2022. It remains to be seen how much Klingenstein will add to his unprecedented spend this cycle.Klingenstein’s contribution has also grown relative to other political donors.The transparency organization Open Secrets maintains a ranked list of the top 100 political donors in each cycle.Klingenstein first landed on the list at number 85 in 2020, according to Open Secrets. In 2022 he nudged up to 78. This year he is the 35th largest individual political donor in the country according to the rankings.His contributions this year put him in a similar league as Republican donors such as Walmart heiress Alice Walton – currently the world’s richest woman – who is the 32nd largest donor per Open Secrets, and Democratic donors such as James Murdoch and his wife Kathryn, the 28th largest political donors in the US.Funding Super PacsKlingenstein has donated to individual congressional campaigns, but the recipients of his largest donations in this and other recent cycles have been Pacs, including several favored by the biggest Republican donors.One favorite is Club for Growth Action (CFG Action), a Pac which is ostensibly committed to “small government”, and whose biggest funders are billionaire megadonors including Jeff Yass, Richard Uihlein and Virginia James.Klingenstein has contributed almost $9m to CFG Action over several cycles, including $3m in 2020, $1.45m in 2022, and $4.45m this cycle. That figure included a single donation of $2.5m last December.Other recipients of six-figure Klingenstein donations include the Sentinel Action Fund, a Pac launched in 2022 by Jessica Anderson, until then executive director of Heritage Action, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, which is the force behind Project 2025.This cycle, Sentinel has positioned itself as the sole conservative pro-cryptocurrency Pac, and has spent in support of Republicans in crucial senate races in states including Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada, according to FEC records and Facebook and Google advertising libraries.Sentinel president Anderson also served in the Trump administration. Klingenstein gave Sentinel $1m in May.Klingenstein has also been a rainmaker for prominent Maga-verse organizations this cycle, giving $1m to pro-Trump Super Pac Make America Great Again Inc in July, and $495,000 to Charlie Kirk-linked Turning Point Pac in February.Not all of Klingenstein’s bets pay off. Last September, he handed $1m to American Exceptionalism Pac, a Super Pac supportive of failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.Rightwing tiesThe Guardian has previously reported on Klingenstein’s role as a financier and influencer in far-right circles.Last March, it was revealed that he had funded Action Idaho, a far-right political website set up by Boise State political science professor and Claremont Institute fellow Scott Yenor.In documents pitching the idea of the site during late 2021, Yenor wrote that the site’s goal was to “translate anti-critical-race-theory (anti-CRT) movement and anti-lockdown movements into a durable political movement to radicalize political opinion in Idaho and shape the primaries to the advantage of conservatives”.Yenor used the now defunct website and an associated account on Twitter/X to make rightwing attacks on Idaho politicians and activists, including Republicans.Last August, the Guardian reported on Klingenstein’s growing largesse including his donations to his own Pac, American Firebrand, whose funds were spent in part on producing a series of videos that showcased Klingenstein’s apocalyptic vision of US politics.Those videos portrayed liberals and the left as implacable internal enemies, and as “woke communists”.In one, Klingenstein said: “We find ourselves in a cold civil war,” and defined the warring sides as “those who want to preserve the American way of life, and those who want to destroy is”, and adding: “These differences are too large to bridge. This is what makes it a war. In a war you must play to win.”Klingenstein’s recent rhetoric has continued in much the same vein.On X, he has portrayed disparate political developments as elements of “cold civil war” such as Trump’s New York felony convictions, the Colorado supreme court’s judgement that Trump was ineligible to be on the ballot due to the 14th amendment’s prohibition on elected officials who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same”, and former Republicans’ public support of that reading of the amendment.He has also opened up his personal website to a rotating cast of rightwing writers, whose articles have claimed that the US is subject to “woke totalitarianism”, advocated for a total freeze on immigration, and claimed that Kamala Harris’s nomination is an outcome of “group quota regime – the paradigm of racial outcome-engineering”.He has also been the leading financial supporter of the rightwing Claremont Institute, where he also serves as chair.Available tax filings for his foundation, the Thomas D Klingenstein fund, indicate that he has directed at least $22m to Claremont since 2004.That giving has stepped up significantly in the Trump era: in returns from 2004 to 2014, Klingenstein gifted an average of about $307,000 to Claremont, and even skipped a year in 2013. In returns from 2015 on he has given an average of $2.3m, and in 2021 his donation to Claremont was just shy of $3m.His heightened giving has coincided with Claremont’s embrace of Trumpism, which writers including Laura Field have argued has transformed it from a respected conservative thinktank into a propaganda juggernaut that envisions a radical remaking of the US along far-right lines.The Guardian has reported extensively on the Claremont Institute’s ties to radical far-right politics.Claremont’s president is one of the senior figures there who are members of the shadowy Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR), an exclusive, men-only fraternal order which aims to replace the US government with an authoritarian “aligned regime”. Claremont has also provided direct funding for SACR. In turn, one of SACR’s leading lights, shampoo tycoon and would be “warlord” Charles Haywood, has made five-figure donations to Claremont. More

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      Pro-Israel group pours millions into unseating New York progressive Jamaal Bowman

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      A Super Pac affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has revved up its campaign spending, pouring $2m into a New York congressional primary to oppose the progressive incumbent Jamaal Bowman.Campaign finance disclosures released this weekend showed the Super Pac, called United Democracy Project (UDP), spending about $1m in support of Bowman’s opponent, the moderate Democrat George Latimer and $1m in negative advertisements opposing Bowman. If the group succeeds in defeating Bowman, it will deliver a significant blow to the progressive wing of the House.“They don’t want Israel to be criticized, they don’t want Israel to be held accountable – they don’t want anyone to mention Palestine or speak up for Palestinian rights and lives,” said Bowman during an interview with MSNBC on Saturday.In comparison, progressive groups including Justice Democrats and Working Families Party have spent less than $300,000 in support of Bowman and opposing Latimer. Latimer’s campaign has similarly outpaced Bowman’s in fundraising, with Latimer garnering more than $3.6m and Bowman raising about $2.6m so far.In an email to the Guardian, an Aipac spokesperson previously described Latimer as “a strong advocate for the US-Israel relationship in clear contrast to his opponent who is aligned with the anti-Israel extremist fringe”. Bowman has sharply criticized Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and was among the first of his colleagues to call for a ceasefire.Notably, ads countering Bowman do not mention Israel at all. One ad from UDP accuses Bowman of having “his own agenda”, highlighting policy differences between the congressman and Joe Biden.The heavily Democratic contested district, with large numbers of Black, Jewish and Latino constituents, elected the progressive “Squad” member Bowman in 2020 in an upset primary election in 2020.Aipac’s forays into campaigns represent a new avenue of political activism for the pro-Israel lobbying group, which until the 2022 election cycle did not spend on campaigns. By forming a Super Pac, which can legally contribute unlimited amounts of money on advertisements and communications in races, Aipac has been able to ramp up its influence.Aipac planned to spend $100m on campaigns this year and has so far targeted a wide and at times unexpected range of races – with mixed results.In an Indiana congressional primary, UDP spent $1.6m in a successful bid to stop the former Republican congressman John Hostettler, an isolationist-leaning Republican who in the past made antisemitic remarks, from regaining a seat in the House. In a Maryland race, the Super Pac threw its support behind the Democratic candidate Sarah Elfreth, who beat the former US Capitol police officer Harry Dunn. Neither Dunn, whose book about the January 6 attack propelled him to national prominence, or Elfreth, a Maryland state senator, made comments about Israel-Gaza during the race.But candidates backed by pro-Israel groups have not succeeded in every race so far this year – UDP also dropped $4.6m in a failed bid to stop the Democratic congressional candidate Dave Min from advancing in his primary race against Democratic candidate Joanna Weiss. More

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      Ex-Capitol officer Harry Dunn loses congressional primary in Maryland

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      Former US Capitol police officer Harry Dunn has lost his congressional primary election in Maryland, after a pro-Israel group spent millions of dollars supporting another Democrat in the crowded race.Dunn, a first-time candidate who gained national attention after publishing a book about his experiences protecting lawmakers during the January 6 insurrection, lost to state senator Sarah Elfreth in Maryland’s third congressional district.When the Associated Press called the race at 10.27pm ET, about two and a half hours after polls closed in Maryland, Elfreth was leading Dunn by 11 points. Their 20 other primary opponents lagged far behind.With the primary over, Elfreth is heavily favored to replace the retiring Democratic congressman John Sarbanes in the House of Representatives. The Cook Political Report rates the district, which covers Annapolis and the suburbs of Washington and Baltimore, as “solid Democrat”.Dunn’s defeat concluded a contentious election that ultimately cost several million dollars. Dunn proved himself to be an impressive fundraiser, bringing in $4.6m across the election cycle. Small-dollar donors made up most of Dunn’s fundraising base, as the candidate often boasted, and his team told the Guardian that the average campaign contribution was $21.64.Elfreth raised roughly a third as much money as Dunn, bringing in $1.5m, but her candidacy received substantial outside financial help from the group United Democracy Project (UDP), a Super Pac affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). UDP spent at least $4.2m supporting Elfreth’s campaign, according to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission.Elfreth’s victory comes one week after UDP notched a major win in Indiana, with the primary loss of former Republican congressman John Hostettler. UDP spent $1.6m in its effort to prevent Hostettler, who was criticized for making comments that were deemed antisemitic, from returning to the House. In March, UDP suffered a defeat in California’s 47th congressional district, where Democrat Dave Min advanced to the general election despite the Super Pac spending $4.6m against him.UDP’s decision to invest in the Maryland primary came as somewhat of a surprise, given that neither Dunn or Elfreth had been especially outspoken about US-Israel relations or the war in Gaza. However, fellow candidate and labor lawyer John Morse, who received the endorsement of senator Bernie Sanders, made his support for a ceasefire in Gaza the focal point of his campaign. (When the primary race was called, Morse had captured just 1% of the vote.)Morse’s candidacy may have motived UDP to get involved in the race. In a statement to HuffPost last month, UDP’s spokesperson acknowledged Dunn’s “support for a strong US-Israel relationship” but suggested concern about other candidates in the primary.“There are some serious anti-Israel candidates in this race, who are not Harry Dunn, and we need to make sure that they don’t make it to Congress,” spokesperson Patrick Dorton said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFaced with an onslaught of UDP spending in support of his biggest rival, Dunn chose to turn the Super Pac’s involvement in the primary into a campaign issue. In a statement to the Guardian last week, Dunn framed the infusion of Super Pac money into the race as a threat to democracy and an insult to the legacy of Sarbanes, who made campaign finance reform one of his top priorities over his nine terms in Congress.“These groups, funded by Republican extremists, are coming after our movement to protect American democracy. Congressman John Sarbanes spent his career trying to get dark money out of politics; now those same dark money groups are trying to buy this seat,” Dunn said. “When I get to Congress, I know who I will work for and I will be accountable to – and it won’t be the dark money donors or the special interest groups.”But that argument was not enough to carry Dunn to victory, and Elfreth now appears poised to win a House seat in November. More

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      Pro-Israel Pac pours millions into surprise candidate in Maryland primary

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      A pro-Israel lobby group has dropped millions into a Maryland congressional race as tensions remain high over the war in Gaza.The primary race in the third congressional district, which will be held on Tuesday, has attracted national interest thanks to the candidacy of one Democrat in particular: Harry Dunn. A former US Capitol police officer, Dunn and his colleagues won praise for their actions defending lawmakers against a violent mob of Donald Trump’s supporters on January 6. In his New York Times bestselling memoir, Standing My Ground, Dunn recounted how the insurrectionists repeatedly used the N-word as they attacked him and other Black officers.Dunn announced his bid to replace retiring Democratic congressman John Sarbanes on the third anniversary of January 6, marking his first formal foray into electoral politics. Despite Dunn’s high name recognition, the group United Democracy Project, a Super Pac affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), has thrown its support behind another primary candidate.According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, UDP has spent over $4.2m supporting state senator Sarah Elfreth.UDP’s investment comes after the group spent $4.6m on its failed effort to block the Democratic congressional candidate Dave Min from advancing to the general election in California’s 47th district. But the group notched one of its biggest wins of the election cycle so far on Tuesday, when the former Republican representative John Hostettler lost his primary race in Indiana’s eighth district. UDP had devoted $1.6m to defeating Hostettler because of his voting record on Israel and some of his past comments that were criticized as antisemitic.View image in fullscreenUDP’s decision to wade into the crowded Maryland primary came as somewhat of a surprise, given that neither Dunn nor Elfreth has made a point to highlight their position on Israel in their campaign messaging. A UDP ad for Elfreth does not mention Israel at all and instead focuses on her legislative record, applauding her work in the state senate.“Sarah Elfreth gets things done,” the ad’s narrator says. “With so much at stake – abortion rights, the environment, our democracy – we need a congresswoman who will deliver.”UDP did not respond to a request for comment, but in a statement to HuffPost last month, the group’s spokesperson acknowledged Dunn’s “support for a strong US-Israel relationship” but suggested concern about other candidates in the primary.“There are some serious anti-Israel candidates in this race, who are not Harry Dunn, and we need to make sure that they don’t make it to Congress,” spokesperson Patrick Dorton said.That comment appeared to reference progressive candidate John Morse, a labor lawyer who has received the endorsement of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and has centered his campaign on his vocal support for a ceasefire in Gaza. In a recent interview with Fox45 Baltimore, Morse said: “I am the most outspoken on a permanent humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza because I think that’s the critical issue that’s going on right now.”Meanwhile, UDP’s investment has helped Elfreth compete against Dunn’s massive fundraising haul, as the first-time candidate has brought in nearly $4.6m since he entered the race. In comparison, Elfreth’s campaign has raised roughly a third as much money, $1.5m, and all 20 other candidates lag even further behind.UDP’s support for Elfreth is not part of this total; federal regulations prohibit Super Pacs from contributing directly to political candidates, but the groups can spend unlimited amounts of money to promote or criticize specific campaigns.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe financial contest could help decide what is widely expected to be a close race. A poll commissioned by Dunn’s campaign showed him leading Elfreth by four points, 22% to 18%, with state senator Clarence Lam trailing in third at 8%. The winner of the primary will almost certainly go on to win a seat in the House of Representatives, given the district’s liberal leanings. In 2022, Sarbanes won re-election by 20 points in the third district, which includes Annapolis and suburbs of Washington and Baltimore.Elfreth has said that she, like her opponents, was surprised by UDP’s support, although she has not rejected the group’s help.“I’m uncomfortable with dark money as well,” Elfreth told Maryland Matters last month. “I don’t like it. But I’m not in a position to say no to people who want to amplify my message.”Despite remaining mostly silent about the war in Gaza, Dunn has now found himself indirectly affected by UDP’s electoral strategy, and he has turned the group’s involvement in the race into a campaign issue. When news of UDP’s investment broke last month, Dunn responded by calling on all candidates to “condemn this dark-money spending bankrolled by Maga [Make America Great Again] Republicans”. In a statement to the Guardian, Dunn framed the Super Pac’s involvement as an insult to the legacy of Sarbanes, who made campaign finance reform one of his top priorities over his nine terms in Congress.“Our grassroots movement won’t be scared off by this dark money spending. I’ve made protecting and strengthening our democracy the center of our campaign,” Dunn said. “We’re going to win this race, and when I get to Congress, I know who I will work for and I will be accountable to – and it won’t be the dark money donors or the special interest groups.”That message seems to be resonating with voters, as Dunn’s team boasts that more than 100,000 people have donated to his campaign. FEC filings show that, of the $4.6m raised by Dunn, nearly $3.7m came in the form of unitemized contributions, meaning they derived from donors who gave less than $200 to the candidate across the election cycle. According to Dunn’s team, the average contribution to the campaign has been $21.64.In comparison, of Elfreth’s $1.5m raised, only $85,000 came from unitemized contributions, indicating that most of her donations came from supporters who gave more than $200. Her FEC filings show that some of her larger contributions came from some well-known Republican donors – including Robert Sarver, former owner of the Phoenix Suns, and Larry Mizel, one of Trump’s campaign finance chairs in 2016. Mizel has also served as a member of the board of directors of Aipac. More

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      The far-right financier giving millions to the Republican party to fight ‘woke communists’

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      Newly released tax and election records show that since 2020 controversial financier Thomas Klingenstein has become one of the largest individual donors to national Republicans, contributing more than $11.6m to candidates and Pac, after decades as the far-right Claremont Institute’s biggest donor and board chairman.The spending spree dwarfs the total $666,000 Klingenstein spent between 1992 and 2016, and in the last election cycle put Klingenstein in the top 40 contributors to national Republican candidates and committees.In turn the spending has allowed him to connect with a long-standing network of conservative mega-donors centered on the billionaire-founded Club for Growth, which advocates for the reduction of government.Klingenstein and the Claremont Institute push a harder-edged rightwing politics, and he appeared in a series of videos released in 2022 where he argued that American conservatives are in a “cold civil war” with “woke communists”, and that “education, corporate media, entertainment, big business, big tech… together with the government function as a totalitarian regime”.Heidi Beirich, co-founder and chief strategy officer at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told the Guardian in a telephone conversation that Klingenstein’s pivot may indicate an effort to “pull of Republican outfits and donors towards more extreme positions”.While the Claremont Institute has been called “the nerve center of the American Right” for its intellectual leadership and formation of hard right activists, Klingenstein appears to have a new appetite for directly impacting electoral politics.The Guardian attempted to contact Klingenstein for comment, including by contacting lawyers for his private foundation, but was unsuccessful in getting a response.Klingenstein is a partner in Wall Street investment firm Cohen Klingenstein, which administers a portfolio worth more than $2.3bn, according to its most recent Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings.Klingenstein’s grandfather was a successful investor, and other members of his family pursue more conventional avenues for their philanthropy, but beginning in the Donald Trump era, Klingenstein has increasingly used his resources to pursue a hard-edged version of rightwing politics.Klingenstein’s characterization of the political divide as a cold civil war – spelled out in a series of glossy YouTube videos – has been previously reported, as have some of his activities as chair of the rightwing Claremont Institute, a Claremont, California-based thinktank.That organization charted a radical, pro-Trump course from 2016, culminating in Senior Fellow John Eastman advising Trump in his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and delivering a fiery speech to the crowd of protesters in Washington DC on 6 January 2021.But newly available filings reveal how he has advanced these ideas in electoral and cultural battles.IRS filings show that Klingenstein has bankrolled Claremont and other rightwing nonprofits from a private foundation for decades. But Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign finance records show that Klingenstein’s political contributions prior to 2020 were modest and intermittent.More recently, however, he appears to have joined a network of big-money donors centered on the Club for Growth and an associated Pac, Club for Growth Action.A $2.5m donation in January made Klingenstein the fourth largest contributor to the Club for Growth Action Pac, by bringing his total contributions to the PAC to $7m since 2020.The Guardian previously reported that the Club for Growth Pac’s biggest donors are conservative billionaires Richard Uihlein, Jeff Yass, and that the Pac was one of the largest supporters of Republican candidates who wanted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The most recent FEC data indicates that this is still the case, with Yass’s contributions totaling over $51m and Uihlein’s at over $77m. Another conservative mega donor, Virginia James, has contributed almost $14.5m to the Pac. Klingenstein has now joined them as one of Club for Growth Pac’s foremost funders.Beirich said of the apparent collaboration between Klingenstein and these Club for Growth’s network of megadonors that “the Club for Growth has always prioritized taxes and economic issues and and dabbled in climate denial, but it’s interesting to see Maga types mixing with them”.She added that “it might be an attempt to bring the Club for Growth into the Maga universe”.There are indications that Klingenstein has succeeded in interesting Club for Growth donors in projects for which he is the principal funder.The American Leadership Pac was registered in September 2022, and by mid-October it had received $1.5m in two tranches from Klingenstein, $500,000 from Richard Uihlein, $250,000 from William Koch, and another $250,000 from Koch’s petroleum company, Oxbow Carbon LLC.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLast January, Klingenstein poured another $500,000 to the Pac, bringing his total to $2m.The Pac spent some $1.8m in the lead-up to the 2022 mid-term elections, mostly on text messages in support of a slate of Republicans and attacking their Democratic opponents nationwide, mostly in close districts around the country.In 2020 Klingenstein contributed $500,000 to the American Principles Project Pac, which was the largest single contribution by an individual to that committee in its decade-long history, although Sean Fieler, described by watchdog group Right Wing Watch as an “anti-LGBTQ megafunder” has donated over $1.7m to the Pac in 13 donations since 2013.Other individual donors include Robert Mercer, the rightwing hedge fund manager who achieved prominence after 2016 for his funding of both the Trump campaign and Breitbart News.While the likes of Mercer, Uihlein and Yass let their donations do the talking, and largely eschew public commentary, Klingenstein has sought prominence as a culture warrior and far-right thought leader.Another Pac where he is the leading donor sought not to promote election candidates, but Klingenstein’s own apocalyptic vision of a “cold civil war” in America.In 2021 and 2022, Klingenstein contributed $500,000 to Firebrand Pac. The committee spent almost all of that by the end of 2022, with its main output being five YouTube videos starring Klingenstein, in which he claims that a “a cold civil war… is not a time for too much stability, compromise, or for imputing good motives to the enemy”.Klingenstein’s role as the Claremont Institute’s board chairman and principal donor have been widely reported, but while he told the New York Times last year that Claremont had become “increasingly less reliant on me” for funding, figures released since indicate that he has significantly increased his level of financial support.IRS filings from one of his private foundations, the Thomas D Klingenstein Fund, indicate that he has given more than $19m to the Claremont Institute since 2005, with the most recent publicly available filing showing a $2.97m donation in 2021, his highest to date, and almost half a million dollars more than the $2.5m figure the Times reported for 2019.Klingenstein’s foundation also funds Claremont Institute offshoots like the American Strategy Group, whose website claims it is “dedicated to understanding the existential threats to the United States and western civilization presented by the Islamic world, Russia, China, and the loss of America’s founding principles”.That organization is headed by Brian T Kennedy, a former president of the Claremont Institute, who told an audience at Hillsdale College in April that he had appeared in front of a “grand jury in Washington DC” because “I was one of thirty people subpoenaed from Trumpworld” in the justice department’s ongoing pursuit of those responsible for the events of January 6 2021.Klingenstein’s foundation has also consistently funded the National Association of Scholars, and giving just over $100,000 in 2021 per its IRS filing. That organization is a rightwing nonprofit “that seeks to reform higher education” according to its website, and Klingenstein is a board member. He used the organization’s website to spell out an early version of his vision of “cold civil war” in 2021.There are indications, both in spending records and Klingenstein’s public commentary, that he believes rightwing Florida governor Ron DeSantis to be best placed to prosecute his side of the “war”.In an interview with conservative broadcaster Steve Deace in 2022, posted to Klingenstein’s personal YouTube channel, Klingenstein said that “DeSantis understands that we’re in a war, and that’s the most important thing”.“If you don’t understand we’re in a war, almost nothing else matters,” he added. More

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      ‘Morally bankrupt’: outrage after pro-Israel group backs insurrectionist Republicans

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      ‘Morally bankrupt’: outrage after pro-Israel group backs insurrectionist Republicans Aipac defends move by saying that support for the Jewish state overrides other issues as it faces a storm of criticismThe US’s most powerful pro-Israel lobby group has been accused of putting support for Israel before American democracy after it declared its backing for the election campaigns of three dozen Republican members of Congress who tried to block President Biden’s presidential victory.But the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) has defended the move by saying that support for the Jewish state overrides other issues and that it is “no moment for the pro-Israel movement to become selective about its friends”.In December, Aipac launched a political action committee that enables it for the first time to spend money directly supporting congressional candidates in this year’s midterm elections. Earlier this month the committee released a list of 120 political endorsements that includes 37 Republicans who voted against certifying Biden’s victory following the January 6 2021 storming of the Capitol.Among them are two members of Congress, Jim Jordan and Scott Perry, who plotted with Trump’s White House to overturn the election result. Perry has also publicly promoted racist “white replacement” conspiracy theories.The lobby group’s move has been met by a storm of criticism, including from other pro-Israel organizations.“Aipac’s support for these candidates endangers American democracy and undermines the true interests and values of millions of American Jews and pro-Israel Americans who they often claim to represent,” said the more moderate but less influential pro-Israel lobby group, J Street. “Whatever their views on Israel, elected officials who threaten the very future of our country should be completely beyond the pale.”Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, described the endorsement of politicians who “undermine democracy” as “morally bankrupt and short-sighted”.“What ties the 2 countries is a commitment to democracy. An undemocratic America could easily distance itself from the Jewish state,” he tweeted.The former head of the strongly pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League, Abe Foxman, described the endorsements as a “sad mistake”. The former US ambassador to Israel, Dan Kurtzer, called on Aipac to reconsider the move and “do the right thing for America”.Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America and a former national security adviser to then Senator Kamala Harris, said that Aipac’s endorsements suggest that, at times, “one must compromise support of America’s democracy to support Israel”.“This is a patently false dichotomy rejected by the overwhelming majority of American Jews,” she wrote in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.In the face of the growing criticism, Aipac’s leaders last week sent a letter to the group’s members defending the endorsements.“This is no moment for the pro-Israel movement to become selective about its friends,” said the letter, obtained by the Jewish Insider.“The one thing that guarantees Israel’s ability to defend itself is the enduring support of the United States. When we launched our political action committee last year, we decided that we would base decisions about political contributions on only one thing: whether a political candidate supports the US-Israel relationship.”Aipac broke with more than 70 years of standing back from individual political campaigns to launch the political action committee (Pac) that permits it to directly fund favoured candidates within limits. It also founded a second so-called “super Pac” that allows unlimited funding for advertising in support of campaigns but not direct donations. The super Pac is reported to have raised $10m already, including $8.5m from Aipac itself.The list of endorsements includes Democrats with a record of strong backing for Israel at a time when opinion polls show declining support among the party’s voters. A poll last year found found that half of Democrats want Washington to shift policy toward more support for the Palestinians.Although Aipac presents itself as bipartisan, that position has been increasingly tested. It openly opposed President Obama’s demand that Israel freeze expansion of settlements in the occupied territories, widely considered illegal under international law. The group also lobbied Congress on behalf of Israel against Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.In his memoir, A Promised Land, Obama wrote that “members of both parties worried about crossing” Aipac.“Those who criticized Israeli policy too loudly risked being tagged as ‘anti-Israel’ (and possibly antisemitic) and confronted with a well-funded opponent in the next election,” he wrote.Aipac’s move also comes amid stiffening criticism of Israel from human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, which have both recently accused the country of maintaining a form of apartheid over the Palestinians.The head of Amnesty International’s US office, Paul O’Brien, recently said that when the organisation met with members of congress to discuss its new report, Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians, it found that Aipac had got there first.“It was an interesting experience for us to introduce a report that was about to be launched in public a week later and to get in 80 different congressional offices a public statement dissociating themselves from the findings of the report in which none of those 80 statements actually disputed the findings of the report, except to say, in broad strokes, we do not believe that this report is motivated for the right reasons or reaches the right conclusions,” he said.TopicsRepublicansSuper PacsIsraelUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Democrats Decried Dark Money in Politics, but Used It to Defeat Trump

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      A New York Times analysis reveals how the left outdid the right at raising and spending millions from undisclosed donors to defeat Donald Trump and win power in Washington.For much of the last decade, Democrats complained — with a mix of indignation, frustration and envy — that Republicans and their allies were spending hundreds of millions of difficult-to-trace dollars to influence politics.“Dark money” became a dirty word, as the left warned of the threat of corruption posed by corporations and billionaires that were spending unlimited sums through loosely regulated nonprofits, which did not disclose their donors’ identities.Then came the 2020 election.Spurred by opposition to then-President Trump, donors and operatives allied with the Democratic Party embraced dark money with fresh zeal, pulling even with and, by some measures, surpassing Republicans in 2020 spending, according to a New York Times analysis of tax filings and other data.The analysis shows that 15 of the most politically active nonprofit organizations that generally align with the Democratic Party spent more than $1.5 billion in 2020 — compared to roughly $900 million spent by a comparable sample of 15 of the most politically active groups aligned with the G.O.P.The findings reveal the growth and ascendancy of a shadow political infrastructure that is reshaping American politics, as megadonors to these nonprofits take advantage of loose disclosure laws to make multimillion-dollar outlays in total secrecy. Some good-government activists worry that the exploding role of undisclosed cash threatens to accelerate the erosion of trust in the country’s political system.Democrats’ newfound success in harnessing this funding also exposes the stark tension between their efforts to win elections and their commitment to curtail secretive political spending by the superrich.Spurred by opposition to President Trump, donors and operatives allied with the Democratic Party embraced dark money with fresh zeal in 2020.Eve Edelheit for The New York TimesA single, cryptically named entity that has served as a clearinghouse of undisclosed cash for the left, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, received mystery donations as large as $50 million and disseminated grants to more than 200 groups, while spending a total of $410 million in 2020 — more than the Democratic National Committee itself.But nonprofits do not abide by the same transparency rules or donation limits as parties or campaigns — though they can underwrite many similar activities: advertising, polling, research, voter registration and mobilization and legal fights over voting rules.The scale of secret spending is such that, even as small donors have become a potent force in politics, undisclosed money dwarfed the 2020 campaign fund-raising of President Biden (who raised a record $1 billion) and Mr. Trump (who raised more than $810 million).Headed into the midterm elections, Democrats are warning major donors not to give in to the financial complacency that often afflicts the party in power, while Republicans are rushing to level the dark-money playing field to take advantage of what is expected to be a favorable political climate in 2022.At stake is not just control of Congress but also whether Republican donors will become more unified with Mr. Trump out of the White House. Two Republican secret-money groups focused on Congress said their combined fund-raising reached nearly $100 million in 2021 — far more than they raised in 2019. More