US political financing

Subterms

    More stories

    • 188 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump seems to have a large war chest – but is he struggling to raise money?

      by

      Trump seems to have a large war chest – but is he struggling to raise money? Some high-profile mega-donors have fled, small-dollar donor stream that fueled his past runs is drying up, and he is accused of violating ‘soft money’ lawsWith his 2024 presidential candidacy officially kicked into gear, Donald Trump would seem poised to enter the Republican nomination race a step ahead: his Pacs and committees boast a war chest of about $95m, enough to give pause to the Republican candidates jockeying against him.But a scratch beneath the surface reveals a different reality. About $78m of the $95m cannot be directly used for Trump’s campaign, according to a Guardian analysis of the Trump fundraising web.What’s more, there’s evidence the small-dollar donor stream that fueled his past runs is drying up. Some high-profile mega-donors have fled. And a campaign finance watchdog has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over Trump allegedly violating “soft money” laws as he appears to play a shell game with his cash.“There are a lot of moving parts, but there are a lot of reasons to believe that Trump is struggling more than he has in recent years to raise money,” said Robert Maguire, research director at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Trump’s fundraising in recent years has raked in eye-popping sums. During the 2020 cycle he raised $882m, and another $500m since then. But the savings have been depleted by Trump spending on his own legal defenses, on Melania Trump’s personal designer, and on helping the January 6 rioters.In recent years, the Trump team and its close allies have worked off an ever-expanding web of at least a dozen similarly named Pacs and committees. Typical examples: the “Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee” and the “Save America Joint Fundraising Committee”.The most prolific entity over the current cycle has been the Save America leadership Pac, which raised about $111m and has about $21m left over post-midterm. But federal rules prohibit Trump from using leadership Pac funds for his campaign because leadership Pacs exist to support other candidates. It can, however, be used to support the large rallies that are a central campaign strategy.Various Super Pacs hold another $57m, and though those can be used to support Trump’s campaign or attack his opponents, the Pacs legally cannot coordinate with the campaign.In total, that means about $78m of the $95m on hand as of 28 November cannot be directly used for Trump’s campaign.Still, that isn’t stopping the former president from trying to move money from leadership Pacs to Super Pacs via a legally questionable shell game. On 3 October, the Save America leadership Pac made a $20m contribution to Make America Great Again, Inc because the latter can spend more freely.But that caught the attention of legal observers who say the move clearly violated “soft money” provisions of the Federal Election Campaign Act. On 14 November, the campaign finance watchdog Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the FEC.It alleges that Trump, based on multiple statements and fundraising totals, was already a presidential candidate when he made the transfer from the leadership Pac to the Super Pac.“Therefore Trump violated federal law that prohibits that kind of soft money transfer,” said Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform for the CLC.Moreover, Trump seems to be circumventing the Super Pac rules that prohibit coordination with his campaign.“Super Pacs are nominally independent of the candidate, but with Trump it is heavy-quotes ‘independent’,” Ghosh said. “Clearly when you have a Super Pac like this, which is organized by allies and folks who worked on prior Trump campaigns, the independence is illusory.”Trump has expressed his disdain for these rules, telling Fox News in an August 2021 interview that “campaign finance laws are extremely complicated and unbelievably stupid”. He also used the interview to strongly hint at his candidacy.“The interview tells you all you need to know,” Ghosh said.The new committee that will act as Trump’s official fundraiser is “Donald J Trump for President 2024”. Filling it with funds from the usual sources, however, may prove more difficult than in the past.That’s because low-dollar donations that fueled previous campaigns – some of which were raised through questionable recurring payments plans – seem to be dwindling. The Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee has fused his Save America leadership Pac and official candidate committee.The joint committee boasted about its $24m haul from July to September, but it spent $22m to get there, records later showed. All told, his Pac network ran $13m in the red over the three-month period leading up to the midterms, fuelling speculation of small-donor fatigue.Moreover, the campaign showed $111m in receipts prior to the election, and is down to about $95m post election as its spending exceeds its fundraising.“He captivates a huge population of small-dollar donors willing to keep giving their money to him,” Maguire said. “He still has the capacity to raise money off the Maga crowd, but the question is ‘Is that going to cool off? Is there enough in the till?’, and that remains to be seen.”Among those defecting from Trump’s large-donor battalion are his top 2016 contributors, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, CNBC reported. The billionaires have instead donated to his likely primary rival, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.The hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who threw around $67m in the midterms, has also backed DeSantis: “I’d like to think that the Republican party is ready to move on from somebody who has been for this party a three-time loser,” Griffin told Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum in September.Meanwhile, Blackstone financier and CEO Stephen Schwarzman, who spent $34m in the midterms, expressed a similar sentiment.“America does better when its leaders are rooted in today and tomorrow, not today and yesterday,” Schwarzman said in a statement. “It is time for the Republican party to turn to a new generation of leaders and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.”But DeSantis faces a similar predicament as Trump. He has raised an enormous amount of money through his state-level Pac, but that can’t be transferred to a federal campaign. Ghosh said he suspects DeSantis will try to transfer the money to a Super Pac, as Trump did.That could prompt another complaint from the Campaign Legal Center, but it’s unlikely to go anywhere: with an equal number of Democratic and Republican commissioners, the agency has been stuck in partisan gridlock for years.“These are serious violations because the federal system is designed to be insulated from spending outside of limits,” he said. “But the FEC rarely enforces the laws, and in the case of Trump they have a particularly awful track record, so I don’t expect that they’re going to change here. Obviously I hope they do as this is a clear violation, but we recognize what we’re up against.”TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024US politicsUS political financingfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Conservative donors pour ‘dark money’ into case that could upend US voting law

      by

      Conservative donors pour ‘dark money’ into case that could upend US voting lawGroups submitting amicus briefs to supreme court case in support of Republican lawmakers received $90m in anonymous donations Conservative donors poured tens of millions of dollars of anonymous “dark money” into groups supporting Republican lawmakers in a supreme court case that could upend American election law.The donors backed several groups that have filed supreme court amicus briefs in support of North Carolina legislators in Moore v Harper, according to a recent analysis. They are pushing for a ruling that would take ultimate decisions about voting rights and congressional gerrymandering away from state courts and hand those powers to state legislatures, of which Republicans now control the majority.Could the US supreme court give state legislatures unchecked election powers? Read moreEight conservative groups that submitted amicus briefs in the supreme court case have received close to $90m from dark money donors since 2016, according to Accountable.US, a liberal leaning watchdog group that tracks government corruption.Several of these conservative bastions are also champions of restrictive voting laws.Conservatives want the supreme court to adopt the independent state legislature theory, a once fringe idea now promoted by a coterie of conservative groups that filed amicus briefs, including the Honest Elections Project, the Claremont Institute, and the Public Interest Legal Foundation. The groups boast strong ties to rightwing lawyers Leonard Leo, John Eastman and Cleta Mitchell respectively. Eastman and Mitchell were allies in Donald Trump’s baseless crusade to overturn the 2020 election.Sparked by a North Carolina gerrymandering fight, Moore v Harper has attracted strong opposition from many liberal and some conservative legal experts, who call it a partisan attack on voting rights by prominent conservative groups. Opponents of the case say they’re using a discredited legal theory to boost GOP political fortunes in coming elections.The leading dark money financier of the conservative groups that filed amicus briefs was DonorsTrust, which contributed a whopping $70.5m, Accountable data shows.Other top dark money donors to groups that filed amicus briefs include the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation and America First Works, which, respectively, gave $6.1m and $4.8m to outfits that supported the independent state legislature theory. The long time conservative Bradley Foundation boasts Mitchell on its board, while the non-profit America First Works has been allied with Trump since its founding in 2016 under another name.The dark money routed to some of these groups took circuitous routes. For instance, America First Works gave $4.8m to DonorsTrust that was earmarked for the Honest Elections Project, according to Accountable.The Honest Elections Project, which has been a leading advocate for tougher voting laws in recent years, was founded by Leo, a legendary fundraiser, lawyer and co-chairman of the powerful Federalist Society. Leo was instrumental in advising Trump on his three conservative supreme court nominees.DonorsTrust, known as the ATM of the right, has been very generous with other projects Leo has helped spearhead. In 2021, for example, Leo’s 85 Fund – a dark money conduit for conservative legal campaigns and other priorities – received its largest single grant of $17.1m from DonorsTrust, which doled out close to $190m that year.US supreme court hears case that could radically reshape electionsRead moreCritics of the right’s drive to push the independent state legislature theory note the strong influence of well-financed conservative groups along with several like-minded justices.“The ISLT [independent state legislature theory] has been fueled by several conservative justices’ dissents, and other statements, coupled with amicus briefs and public arguments supporting the theory from think tanks, litigation shops, and partisan political organizations,” Thomas Wolf, the deputy director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Guardian.Two key Democrats in Congress, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Representative Hank Johnson, submitted an amicus brief arguing forcefully against the independent state legislature theory, highlighting the role of conservative groups funded by dark money who have supported voter suppression efforts.“Many of the petitioners’ amici actually attempted to undermine the 2020 election by relying on this theory,” Whitehouse and Johnson wrote. “Other amici share connections with groups and individuals who played a role in those attempts. Still others are presently engaged in voter-suppression and election-subversion efforts.“Rarely has such a noxious assemblage of amici appeared before this court, and their secrecy about their funders and connections does this court a grave disservice,” they added.The high stakes for democracy behind Moore v Harper and other recent supreme court cases involving dark money funded groups trouble Whitehouse, he said.In tandem with Johnson, Whitehouse has introduced legislation that would require amicus filers to disclose funders who donated $100,000, or more than 3% of their gross revenues.In an interview, Whitehouse said his proposed bill coincides with other efforts he has made to have the supreme court change its reporting rules for amicus filers backed by dark money.“I’ve been pushing the supreme court to update their reporting requirements,” he said about the dark money behind several high-stakes cases, but to date the court has “shown no interest”.The independent state legislature theory played a key role in Trump’s failed crusade to get states to invalidate the 2020 election results and was the handiwork of Eastman, who filed the amicus brief for the Claremont Institute, a conservative California based thinktank, that made a similar argument.Eastman’s involvement with Trump’s baseless drive to overturn the 2020 election results, which included promoting an alternative elector scheme to block Congress certifying Joe Biden’s as president, could lead the January 6 panel investigating the Capitol insurrection to file a criminal referral to the justice department for him, as well as Trump and others, according to a recent CNN report.On a related legal front, Eastman’s refusal to turn over 101 documents to the House panel led federal judge David Carter to rule this year that there was substantial evidence Eastman had conspired with Trump to block Congress from certifying the 2020 election results. The “illegality of the plan was obvious”, Carter wrote.Just how much the amicus briefs from Claremont and other conservative outfits backed by dark money will influence the supreme court’s ruling on the independent state legislature theory is hard to discern.Oral arguments in Moore v Harper were heard by the supreme court on 7 December. The court’s three liberal-leaning justices expressed their strong opposition to North Carolina lawmakers’ position, and some conservative justices including Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh also indicated their skepticism about some maximalist versions of the theory.Billions in ‘dark money’ is influencing US politics. We need disclosure laws | David Sirota and Joel WarnerRead moreThe genesis of the Moore v Harper case was a ruling by the North Carolina state supreme court in early 2022 that invalidated districts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature on the grounds they were an “egregious and intentional partisan gerrymander”, unfairly favoring the GOP.North Carolina legislator Timothy Moore appealed the state supreme court ruling, and a voter named Rebecca Harper was a named plaintiff in a challenge to the state’s gerrymandered maps.Significantly, North Carolina is one of six states where state courts have ruled in recent years that partisan redistricting plans for Congress violated state constitutions.Moore v Harper has also sparked significant legal blowback from some prominent lawyers with conservative pedigrees including J Michael Luttig, a former appeals court judge who is a co-counsel for litigants opposing the independent state legislature theory.“This case swarms with amicus briefs supporting petitioners that elide a salient fact: the doctrine they encourage this Court to adopt – the ‘independent state legislature’ theory – is one of the fringe legal theories deployed in a failed legal plot to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election,” Whitehouse and Johnson wrote in their brief.TopicsUS supreme courtThe fight for democracyUS political financingUS politicsRepublicansLaw (US)North CarolinanewsReuse this content More

    • 125 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      The biggest losers in the US midterm elections? Republican mega-donors

      by

      The biggest losers in the US midterm elections? Republican mega-donorsDonors like Peter Thiel poured millions into candidates that no amount of money could sell to voters while Mehmet Oz self-funded a failed run With the power balance in Congress at stake in this year’s midterm elections, the GOP money machine kicked into high gear. Spending on advertisements and drumming up votes was fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars from the party’s mega-donors and Super Pacs. Many donors’ spending figures marked new records.Their return on investment, however, is probably not what they had hoped: some donors who spent eight figures notched zero wins in the Senate, while others spent far more money on losing candidates than winners. In the midterms, some of the biggest losers were Republican donors.‘Hatred has a great grip on the heart’: election denialism lives on in US battlegroundRead moreAmong the clearest of those losers is Mehmet Oz, who self-funded much of his own failed run for office – loaning his Pennsylvania US Senate campaign about $22m, or about 55% of the roughly $40m he raised.Meanwhile, candidates backed by Peter Thiel, the rightwing tech investor hyped pre-election as a new GOP “kingmaker”, lost in Arizona and Washington, calling into question his judgment and contributions’ value.Other mega-donors and Pacs came out behind despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars collectively on multiple candidates who lost, according to Open Secrets, a campaign finance watchdog, and federal campaign records. Among those is Mitch McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund Super Pac, which spent $239m; the billionaire financier Jeff Yass, who spent $47m; the hedge fund manager Ken Griffin, who spent $67m; the packaging giants Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, who spent $77m; and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, who spent $34m.By contrast, Democratic candidates in high-profile Senate races generally had a larger share of small donations. GOP mega-donor and Super Pac money couldn’t overcome weak candidates that many swing voters viewed as extreme.The results highlight that “candidate strength matters”, said Gunner Ramer, political director at Longwell Associates, a conservative communication firm. “Voters have real concerns over crime, inflation, gas prices and the economy … but all these really poor candidates – these crazy, extreme Republicans – got beat up hard.”In Pennsylvania, Oz’s self-funding functioned as a double-edged sword that benefited him in the primaries and made him attractive to GOP base voters “who still think that you can buy a race”, said Sam Chen, a political strategist in Allentown. But once in the general election, Chen said, it meant that Oz received relatively few small donors in part because he was viewed as a self-funder.Still, he wasn’t alone: McConnell’s Pac put up $47m. That combined with Oz’s personal spending accounted for nearly half of the stunning $140m Oz forces spent in the campaign. Two largely billionaire-funded single-candidate Pacs also went all in on Oz: Honor Pennsylvania spent about $15m, and its largest donor was Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, who gave it at least $8.8m; and American Leadership Action Pac, funded by Wall Street tycoons or mega-donors like Susquehanna International Group CEO Jeff Yass, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and Actua CEO Walter Buckley, dropped another $15m.Though the outside spending in Pennsylvania set a new record, Oz was a “uniquely weak candidate”, Chen noted, and his failure highlights how wealth and Super PAC money “is not the end all be all”.“Small dollar donations, the grandma who writes you a $5 check, they are locked in and voting for you … and they are probably the type of person who tells their neighborhood, their soccer mom group, their bible study that they gave you contributions,” Chen said. “Those contributions mean a lot more.”In Arizona, Thiel spent at least $17.5m backing Blake Masters’ failed US Senate bid, while Thiel’s Pac, Saving Arizona, which received significant funding from mega-donor Richard Uihlein, spent at least $21.5m.Thiel’s potential to become a powerbroker was the subject of intense media attention in part because he funded a breed of rightwing populist GOP candidate that broke with the party establishment. Voters, however, were “completely repelled” by Masters, Ramer said, and though Thiel had success in primary races across the country, his money couldn’t overcome swing voter skepticism in the Arizona general election.McConnell’s Senate Leadership Fund ended with a mixed record, but spent far more on losing races. Data released just ahead of the election by a marketing industry analyst found McConnell had shelled out $178m for advertising in five states – New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia and Ohio.Campaign finance records show the Senate Leadership Fund spent nearly $140m in four of those five states in which GOP candidates did not win, though Georgia is yet to be decided.The Club For Growth Super Pac, one of the nation’s most prolific outside spenders, also fared poorly. Its primary funders were Uihlein and Yass, who put at least $46m into the Pac. It backed Masters with over $7m and spent $15m in Nevada attempting to unseat Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto. It also spent $12m total on winning campaigns in Ohio and North Carolina.Meanwhile, the Sentinel Action Fund spent over $10m in Nevada and New Hampshire, and didn’t put any money in winning Senate races. Its primary funder is Tim Mellon, grandson of banking tycoon Andrew Mellon, who spent about $40m during the election cycle.Focus groups run by Longwell Associates found Pacs’ ads were probably ineffective because voters didn’t like the Trump-backed, extreme GOP candidates that the Pacs supported – such as Adam Laxalt in Nevada, Don Buldoc in New Hampshire or Masters.“You can hit Catherine Cortez Masto on gas prices and tie it to Joe Biden, but at least a meaningful slice of voters just were not buying it,” Ramer said. “At the end of the day, if they don’t like the Republican candidate, and it becomes a lesser-of-two-evils thing, then it may not move the votes the way that Club for Growth was hoping, and that is a reflection on Adam Laxalt.”Many of the mega-donors’ spending totals come with a caveat. They may not include all the donors’ contributions, and Pac records may omit spending by some individuals altogether. Pacs are required by law to disclose their donors, but more are shielding their contributors’ identities by exploiting a loophole that allows donors to give to a Pac’s affiliated dark money nonprofit, which does not have to disclose its donors. The nonprofit then gives those donations to the Pac, circumventing disclosure laws.Pacs only “have the facade of being transparent”, said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of Open Secrets, adding that the loophole adds another layer of uncertainty to the nation’s already murky campaign finance disclosure laws.Regardless, the money means little to the GOP if the party continues nominating extremist and Trump-backed candidates in swing states, Ramer said. “The gap between what it takes to win in a Republican primary and what it takes to win in November is continuing to grow, and that is a difficulty the party will be dealing with in future elections.”Whether the funders will have a change of heart is another matter. Republican mega-donors “clearly have money to burn and they may lose, and they may be dissatisfied with their return on investment, but they are also clearly risk takers – and it’s a low risk to them because of how much money they have”, said Krumholz. “It shows the limits of their money.”TopicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022US political financingUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US corporations gave more than $8m to election deniers’ midterm campaigns

      by

      US corporations gave more than $8m to election deniers’ midterm campaignsBrands such as the Home Depot and Boeing donated to candidates who falsely claimed that Trump won presidency in 2020 Some of the best-known corporations in the US, including AT&T, Boeing, Delta Air Lines and the Home Depot, collectively poured more than $8m into supporting election deniers running for US House and Senate seats in this month’s midterm elections.‘Extremists didn’t make it’: why Republicans flopped in once-red ArizonaRead moreA study by the non-partisan government watchdog organization Accountable.US, based on the latest filings to the Federal Election Commission, reveals the extent to which big corporations were prepared to back Republican nominees despite their open peddling of false claims undermining confidence in democracy. Though many were ultimately unsuccessful in their election bids, the candidates included several prominent advocates of Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him.At the top of the list of 20 corporations backing election deniers through their political action committees (Pacs) is a familiar name in the world of rightwing agitating – Koch Industries. According to the Accountable.US review, the Koch energy conglomerate spent $771,000 through its Pac on Republican candidates with a track record of casting doubt on elections.Koch Industries is the second-largest privately owned company in the US. It is notorious for using its largely oil-related profits to push conservative politics in an anti-government, anti-regulatory direction under its owner brothers, Charles Koch and David Koch, the latter of whom died in 2019.Close behind Koch is the American Crystal Sugar Company Pac, which spent $630,000 supporting election deniers running for federal office; the AT&T Inc Employee Federal Pac, which contributed $579,000; and the Home Depot Inc Pac, which gave $578,000. Lower down on the list comes the media giant Comcast Corporation & NBC Universal Pac, which contributed $365,000; and the Delta Air Lines Pac, which gave $278,000.The $8m contributed by the top 20 corporations was just a slice of overall corporate giving to election deniers in the 2022 cycle. An earlier analysis by Accountable.US found that, in total, election deniers benefited to the tune of $65m from corporate interests.The new study suggests that top corporations that chose to use their financial muscle to enhance the chances of election deniers waged a non-too-successful gamble. The Washington Post has chronicled how 244 Republican election deniers ran for congressional seats in the midterms, and, of those, at least 81 were defeated.Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, said that the fact that election deniers at both the federal and the state level struggled at the polls should make corporations reconsider their strategies. Backing candidates who advanced conspiracy theories harmful to democracy could damage their public reputations.“Voters’ rejection of numerous election objectors at the polls should send a clear message to corporations that prioritizing political influence over a healthy democracy could threaten their own bottom line,” Herrig said.The Guardian reached out to several of the top 20 corporate donors for their response. The Home Depot said that its associate-funded Pac supports candidates “on both sides of the aisle who champion pro-business, pro-retail positions that create jobs and economic growth”.AT&T and Delta did not immediately reply. The decision to support election-denier candidates stands in contrast with the strong public stance initially taken by several of the corporations in the wake of the 6 January 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol. Boeing released a statement days after the insurrection in which it said it “strongly condemns the violence, lawlessness and destruction that took place in the US Capitol”. In the 2022 cycle the Boeing Company Pac contributed $418,000 to support Republican candidates who had been vocal in forwarding lies questioning the validity of the 2020 presidential election.Boeing declined to comment.Among the individual candidates whose bid for federal office was supported by top corporations was Derrick Van Orden, who won a close race to represent a swing district in Wisconsin with backing from Koch Industries. Van Orden, a former Navy Seal, was inside the Capitol grounds on January 6.Scott Perry received support from the Kochs, AT&T, Boeing and other corporations in his successful campaign to hold onto his House seat in Pennsylvania. Perry was deeply involved in attempts to block Biden’s victory in 2020, and in the weeks after January 6 sought a presidential pardon from Trump.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022The fight for democracyUS political financingDonald TrumpRepublicansUS politicsKoch brothersAT&TnewsReuse this content More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The Envoy review: Gordon Sondland’s Trump tale fails to strike many sparks

      by

      The Envoy review: Gordon Sondland’s Trump tale fails to strike many sparks The ex-ambassador was caught up in the first impeachment, over approaches to Ukraine. He offers scattershot justificationGordon Sondland arrived late to Donald Trump’s party but still snagged an ambassador’s post.Maggie Haberman on Trump: ‘He’s become a Charles Foster Kane character’Read moreAccording to the Federal Elections Commission, Sondland, an Oregon hotelier, never donated to Trump’s candidacy. Rather, in 2015 he gave $25,000 to a political action committee aligned with Jeb Bush and $2,500 directly the former Florida governor’s campaign. After Bush dropped out of the Republican primary, Sondland cut checks to a host of candidates but stopped short of Trump.A spokesperson decried Trump’s beliefs and values but eventually ambition got the better of Sondland. With the 2016 election done, Sondland ponied up $1m to Trump’s inaugural committee via four limited-liability companies. Opacity mattered. Trump posted Sondland to Brussels, as US ambassador to the European Union.Fame found Sondland there – with a vengeance. He emerged as a key witness in Trump’s first impeachment, enmeshed with Rudy Giuliani and Hunter Biden in investigations of approaches to Ukraine for political dirt. After Trump’s Senate acquittal, the president and his secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, cut Sondland loose.Now comes Sondland’s attempt at image restoration. In his memoir, he criticises Trump and his family but tries to stay close to the fold. With the exception of Steve Bannon, no one has managed that. Then again, Bannon has continuously demonstrated his value to Trump.Sondland brands Trump as a “dick” and a narcissist and lashes into his psyche, calling him “a man with a fragile ego who wants more than anything to feed that ego the way an addict would feed a habit”.In the next breath, however, Sondland contends that Trump was “essentially right about many things, including how out of whack our relationship with Europe has become”.On matters diplomatic, Sondland also skips consideration of Trump’s abiding admiration for Vladimir Putin. Last February, the former president lavished praise on his Russian idol and derided Nato as “not so smart”. In September, Trump went full Tucker Carlson. At a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, he contrasted Putin and Xi Jinping of China with Joe Biden, the man who kicked Trump out of the White House.“I’ve got to know a lot of the foreign leaders, and let me tell you, unlike our leader, they’re at the top of their game,” Trump said.Authoritarianism makes him swoon. Xi “rules with an iron fist, 1.5 billion people, yeah I’d say he’s smart”. From Sondland? Crickets, except to say that while in office, Trump “hated” Ukraine but hoped he would like Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Sondland tries to lay part of the blame for the war in Ukraine on Biden. No doubt, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was ugly. But Sondland expresses his belief that “the practical, no-nonsense approach pursued by Trump, which I also pursued while ambassador in Europe, could have kept Putin in check”.Jared Kushner also receives ambivalent treatment. Early on, Sondland heaps praise: “Jared is very smart, highly effective, and highly criticized because of envy.” He “quietly but effectively used his leverage in the family across the interagency writ large.” Few would dispute Kushner’s clout in the Trump White House.Later, though, Sondland says his relationship with Kushner “cooled” over impeachment. He points fingers: “In retrospect, Kushner likely knew that Pompeo was going to can me … maybe Kushner was the one to tell the president to get rid of me.”Sondland dumps on the libs, trashes the “deep state” and sings the praises of Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary. Hardcore Trumpers despise Mnuchin, an ex-Goldman Sachs banker they deride as a “globalist”. Just ask Bannon or Peter Navarro. Then again, Bannon has been sentenced for contempt of Congress and is under indictment for fraud and Navarro goes to trial in weeks. Like Bannon, he defied the 6 January committee.Sondland lauds the Abraham Accords; calls David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, a “stud”; but stays mum over Charlottesville and Trump’s compliments for neo-Nazis. White supremacists and Kanye West have a home in the Republican party. The party of Lincoln is no more.At times, Sondland’s praise is unalloyed. He voices his respect and admiration for Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted US ambassador to Ukraine; William Taylor, her deputy; and Kurt Volker, the former ambassador to Nato who became Trump’s troubleshooter on Ukraine and Crimea.There is also unstinting criticism of Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley and Marjorie Taylor Greene.“They’re sycophants who built careers on dissembling and playing roles that aren’t authentic,” Sondland opines. Unmentioned is that those four reflect the Republican base and its anger far better than Sondland.He also has jabs for the Ukraine whistleblower, Alexander Vindman, and two former Trump advisers, Fiona Hill and John Bolton. In her impeachment testimony, Hill said Bolton, then national security adviser, described Sondland helping to “cook up” a “drug deal” on Ukraine. Sondland’s disdain is understandable.Pompeo also earns rebuke. According to Sondland, the secretary of state reneged on a promise to reimburse him for impeachment legal fees. In May 2021, Sondland commenced a lawsuit in US district court, seeking to recover $1.8m from Pompeo and the government. Pompeo was dropped as a defendant on jurisdictional grounds, the case transferred. Discovery will run into May next year, Pompeo a possible witness.In the here and now, Sondland could have used a sharper proofreader. He writes that Mitt Romney lost the 2011 presidential election and that Trump assumed office in January 2016. The dates are 2012 and 2017, respectively.The book concludes with this admission: “I’m a touch arrogant, a bit showy, and yes, I like attention.”
      The Envoy: Mastering the Art of Diplomacy with Trump and the World is published in the US by Post Hill Press
      TopicsBooksDonald TrumpTrump impeachment (2019)US politicsUS foreign policyTrump administrationUkrainereviewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Peter Thiel’s midterm bet: the billionaire seeking to disrupt America’s democracy

      by

      AnalysisPeter Thiel’s midterm bet: the billionaire seeking to disrupt America’s democracyAndrew Gumbel in Los AngelesRe-energized this election cycle, the tech entrepreneur joins other mega-donors apparently out to undercut the political system Peter Thiel is far from the first billionaire who has wielded his fortune to try to influence the course of American politics. But in an election year when democracy itself is said to be on the ballot, he stands out for assailing a longstanding governing system that he has described as “deranged” and in urgent need of “course correction”.The German-born investor and tech entrepreneur, a Silicon Valley “disrupter” who helped found PayPal alongside Elon Musk and made his fortune as one of the earliest investors in Facebook, has catapulted himself into the top ranks of the mega-donor class by pouring close to $30m into this year’s midterm elections.Democracy, poisoned: America’s elections are being attacked at every levelRead moreHe’s not merely favoring one party over another, but is supporting candidates who deny the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election as president and have, in their different ways, called for the pillars of the American establishment to be toppled entirely.Thiel’s priorities this midterm cycle have partly aligned with those of Donald Trump, with whom he has had an on-again, off-again relationship since writing him a $1.25m check during the 2016 presidential campaign.Thiel, like Trump, has made it his business to end the careers of what he calls “the traitorous 10”, Republican House members who voted to impeach Trump in the wake of the January 6 insurrection. Four of these members opted not to run for re-election at all, and four more, including Liz Cheney, the vice-chair of the House committee investigating January 6, went down in the primaries.But there are also signs that Thiel is thinking around and beyond the former president. The lion’s share of his largesse – $28m and counting – has been directed towards two business proteges who, with his help, have established themselves as gadfly rightwing darlings: JD Vance, the best-selling author of the blue-collar memoir Hillbilly Elegy, who is running for Senate in Ohio, and Blake Masters, a self-styled “anti-progressive” and anti-globalist who is running for Senate in Arizona.Over the past decade, ever since the supreme court dramatically loosened the rules of political campaign giving in its Citizens United decision, Thiel has placed sizable bets on candidates who are not only conservative but have sought to challenge longstanding institutional traditions and break the Republican party’s own norms: Senator Ted Cruz in Texas and Senator Josh Hawley in Missouri as well as Trump himself.Masters, who has campaigned on the notion that “psychopaths are running the country right now” and spoken approvingly of the anti-establishment philosophy of the 1990s Unabomber, and Vance, a frequent speaker on the university circuit during his book tour days who now says “universities are the enemy”, fit the same mould. They and Thiel all have ties to a branch of the New Right known as NatCon, whose adherents believe, broadly, that the establishment needs to be torn down, much as Thiel and his fellow Silicon Valley disrupters believed two decades ago that the future lay in destroying longstanding business models and practices.Thiel himself opined as far back as 2009 that he no longer believed democracy to be compatible with freedom and expressed “little hope that voting will make things better”. While a member of Trump’s presidential transition team in 2016, he flashed his institution-busting instincts by proposing that a leading climate change skeptic, William Happer, be appointed as White House science adviser. He also pushed for a libertarian bitcoin entrepreneur who did not believe in drug trials to head up the Food and Drug Administration.Conservatives could soon be swiping right on Peter Thiel-backed dating appRead moreSuch proposals were too much even by Trump’s iconoclastic standards. Steve Bannon, Trump’s ultra-right campaign manager and political strategist, told a Thiel biographer: “Peter’s idea of disrupting government is out there.”Thiel did not respond to a request for an interview, and his representatives did not respond to multiple invitations to comment.Masters and Vance also did not respond to inquiries.Democracy under attack: the mega-donorsThiel sat out the 2020 election but appears to have been re-energized by the Covid-19 pandemic, Trump’s claims of a stolen presidential election and the January 6 insurrection. Addressing a NatCon convention this time last year, he denounced the “incredible derangement of various forms of thought, political life, scientific life and the sense-making machinery generally in this country”.Liberal democracy, in his view, had turned the United States government into a dissent-squashing Ministry of Truth working toward a “homogenizing, brain-dead, one-world state” – a problem to which only rightwing nationalism could provide an “all-important corrective”.“We’re close to a Toto moment, a little dog pulling aside the curtain on the holy of holies only to find there’s nobody there,” he told the crowd. “We always think of democracy as a good thing. But … where do you shift from the wisdom of crowds to the madness of crowds? When does it become a mob, a racket, a totalitarian lie?”Such views might be easy to write off as the eccentricities of a wealthy man but for the money that Thiel has spent buying influence and supporting like-minded candidates – thanks in large part to a campaign financing system that, while still capping contributions to individual campaigns, allows unlimited funding of nominally outside groups and political action committees.Campaign finance experts see Thiel as a symptom of a much broader problem: a political environment in which a small group of mega-donors are growing ever bolder in the size of the checks they write and the erosion of any nominal firewall between the war chests run by candidates and the funds controlled by outside groups dedicated to their success.America’s billionaire class is funding anti-democratic forces | Robert ReichRead more“It does seem to be getting worse,” said Chisun Lee, an expert on campaign finance who directs the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government program at New York University. “Outside spending in this federal midterm cycle is more than double the last midterm cycle. Since Citizens United, just 12 mega-donors, eight of them billionaires, have paid one dollar out of every 13 spent in federal elections. And now we’re seeing a troubling new trend … that some mega-donors are sponsoring campaigns that attack the fundamentals of democracy itself.”Thiel’s spending has been dwarfed this year by at least three other mega-donors – Soros ($128m to the Democrats), shipping products tycoon Richard Uihlein ($53m to Republicans) and hedge fund manager Kenneth Griffin ($50m to Republicans). And Thiel has some way to go to match the consistent giving, cycle after cycle, of the Koch brothers or Sheldon Adelson, the late Las Vegas casino magnate.Many experts also believe the attack on democracy began long before it became as explicit as Thiel has made it, because the whole point of funneling large amounts of money into the political system is to sway policy away from the will of the majority to the narrow interests of the donors and their friends.This ability to control the policy agenda drives spending even more than the desire to see specific candidates win, says the Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig, whose 2011 book Republic, Lost offers an enduringly devastating analysis of the relationship between money and political influence. And the spending is likely only to increase.“You’re going to see much, much bigger individual contributions and an acceleration of contributions to Super Pacs [like the ones established to support Vance and Masters],” Lessig said. “The candidates and the Super Pacs can’t coordinate on spending, but that doesn’t mean they can’t coordinate on the fundraising. Since the Super Pacs are outspending candidates by orders of magnitude, it’s all a dance to flush money into Super Pacs … They basically call the shots, and politicians can’t get anything through that they oppose.”Less than a month from election day, both Vance and Masters are trailing their Democratic opponents in the polls (Vance by less than Masters). But, Lessig says, it would be wrong to conclude Thiel – or any of the other mega-donors – are wasting their money.“If you’re a candidate and you know $10m is going to come in against you on a particular issue,” he said, “you are going to bend to avoid the effect of that money, whether or not it’s going to decide the race … If you’re someone who would otherwise be a strong climate activist, but you know that if you mention a carbon tax, a million dollars will drop from some anti-carbon tax Super Pac, you won’t talk about it.”Thiel’s bid to overthrow the system, in other words, goes well beyond his ability to determine which party controls the Senate next year. The money will solidify the notion that the country is being run by psychopaths, at least among a hard core of Republican voters, analysts warn, and will further harden the ideological battle lines that have split the country in two and made common ground ever harder to find. It also brings the extreme opinions of NatCon further into the mainstream, making it easier for radical Republican candidates to run and win in future races, they say.“We are at a crisis point here, not so much because the ideas are hard to defeat but we don’t have a context in which to defeat them,” Lessig said. “The fact that the same number of people believe the election was stolen as believed it on 6 January is a profound indictment of the information ecology in America.”The Brennan Center believes there are ways of improving the system, at least at the state and local level, and points to efforts in both red and blue states to close certain loopholes and introduce public financing models to rein in the influence of the mega-donors. Lee said she would also like to see federal legislation to build a meaningful firewall between campaign funds and Super Pacs.“The legislation exists,” she said, “and it would be a constitutional improvement even under [the] Citizens United [ruling]. All we need is the political will to act.”TopicsPeter ThielUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDonald TrumpUS politicsUS political financinganalysisReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘We’re positively BEGGING you’: how Republicans and Democrats demand money differently

      by

      ‘We’re positively BEGGING you’: how Republicans and Democrats demand money differently Meticulously crafted campaign emails and text messages, with a heavy dose of guilt-tripping, reveal their parties’ worldviews“Is your phone off, Patriot?”“Are you still a Republican?”“This is getting SAD!”“HOW MANY TIMES ARE WE GOING TO HAVE TO ASK?”The midterm elections are approaching, and political messaging teams are hard at work overwhelming inboxes across America. And while Republicans and Democrats rely heavily on guilt trips to squeeze money out of voters, the language they employ is markedly different – and says a lot about what’s wrong with each of them.Princeton researchers reviewing more than 100,000 campaign emails from December 2019 to June 2020 found they rose from a peak of about 600 a day in December to twice that in June – and that didn’t include text messages.But, despite the annoying nature of the communications, they seem to work, perhaps because they are so meticulously crafted. Toby Fallsgraff, email director for the Obama 2012 campaign, explained to NPR how the campaign would test up to 18 versions of a message on certain subscribers before sending it out widely. Emails brought in roughly $500m for the campaign. A few years later, Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign asked for money 50 different ways in one month.So what does all this linguistic fiddling say about the parties behind it? With just a few weeks before voting begins, the Guardian sorted through some of the most memorable messages of the 2022 campaign to shed light on the question.RepublicansFor the GOP, it’s all about unswerving loyalty to the party – and to the great overlord, the chosen one, he who alone can fix it. He is not running for office this year, but his party seems unaware.Text messages from the Republican National Committee dangle a wide range of perks: donate and you can be a part of the Trump Gold Club, the Trump Advisory Board (he undoubtedly takes direct calls from members), the Trump Free Speech Committee (I was flattered to receive an “EXECUTIVE INVITE” to this one), the 1 Million Trump Social Club, or the America First 100 Club. Failing that, you can become a Trump Social Media Founding Supporter or get on the Trump Life Membership List (the messages do not specify what it would mean to be a lifetime member of Trump). Gifs of the ex-president often adorn the bottom of emails.And if none of these clubs are for you, beware the RNC’s wrath. “Don’t you care?” asked a message on 30 June. “Our records show your Trump Advisory Board membership status is STILL PENDING ACTIVATION!”This was just one of many similar messages that arrived after a failure to donate. In February, I was threatened with “possible suspension” – from what, I’m not sure – if I didn’t provide my “$45 payment”. Then in April: “Patriot! YOU NEVER ANSWERED!” (Capitals theirs.)Later, things got passive-aggressive. “Do we need to talk, friend?” the party wondered. A few weeks after that, in May: “We’re not mad, we’re just asking. Why haven’t you pledged to follow Pres. Trump on Truth Social [his social media platform]?”All of these, it should be noted, were positively gentle compared with an apparently genuine message that made the rounds on Twitter and in the media a year ago, in line with New York Times reporting in April 2021 describing a “defector” list supposedly maintained by the GOP:These NRCC fundraising texts are getting intense pic.twitter.com/2Smm3NXCYy— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) October 14, 2021
      But it’s not all accusatory – the party employs flattery as well. In June, I learned that I was the party’s “BEST PATRIOT”, despite the delinquent behavior that had so recently forced it to reprimand me. The party’s forgiving nature was on display again in August, when my “strong support” – I had never once donated – “earned … a spot on the 2022 Republican Advisory Board”.Clearly, the party’s marketing team believes donors are motivated by accusations of insufficient loyalty. In a March email describing the invasion of Ukraine, the party said a poll had found most Democrats would flee the country if the US found itself in a similar position. “So we must ask: Would you fight for your country if it was under attack? Researchers need your response by midnight tonight. If you do not respond in time, we will assume you side with the Democrats who wouldn’t fight for America.”Those Democrats, of course, are framed as not just opponents but enemies of the people, as in this February message, when Ketanji Brown Jackson made her way to the supreme court:“HELP US! Biden’s Radical Supreme Court pick wants to TOTALLY TRAMPLE your right to:-1st Amnd-2nd Amnd-RIGHT TO LIFE.”I’ll admit, this text did leave me a little concerned about my right to 1st Amnd and wondering what, exactly, the “right to RIGHT TO LIFE” was – was Jackson planning to legalize homicide? Another message was similarly poetic, simply stating:“T Y R A N TB I D E N”Demands for loyalty might seem to contradict the Republicans’ supposed mantra of liberty above all, but George Lakoff, distinguished professor emeritus in cognitive science and linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley, says it fits with the way he describes the conservative worldview.We operate according to the idea that the nation is a family, and on the right, that family is driven by a “strict father” who “knows right from wrong. What he says should be is always correct, and you should do what he says,” Lakoff says in a phone interview. “The Republican party is an authority-based system. It says, ‘This is how things should be and let’s make them that way.’”As for the clash between an authoritarian viewpoint and the party’s professed love of freedom, Lakoff says it’s simple: “There are two different views of freedom,” and on the right, freedom “means you are free to use whatever authority you have”.So perhaps it’s no surprise that so many Republican fundraising messages, short on nuance and written in simple language, sound like a parent chastising a wayward child, while others warn of encroaching enemies. The subtext: donate now – or you’re in deep trouble with Dad.DemocratsThe opposing party is equally inclined to hyperbole, though it often takes a very different tone – one of vulnerability and occasional self-flagellation. “We’re downright BEGGING you,” wailed the subject line from a late-September Democratic email. “Election day is 64 days away and we’re getting nervous,” warned a text early last month.It’s really upsetting to have to send multiple texts and emails every day: “This isn’t easy for me,” wrote Joe Biden in April. A few months later: “I hate to ask.” (If Republicans’ word choice was occasionally odd, Democrats made mistakes of their own – this particular message suggested I “take a moment to read this email, and then chip in $0 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee”, which I did.)Republicans’ emails weren’t entirely free from vulnerability in messages such as, “If we fall even a dollar short, we will lose the House to Pelosi FOREVER,” which would be pretty remarkable even for Pelosi, a known mortal. But such warnings were still underscored by a sense of menace, while Democrats seem content to appear pitiful: “we’re PLEADING”, “we might miss our goal”, “throwing in the towel”.When they’re not PLEADING, Democrats, in classic Democratic fashion, struggle to get their message out. While Republicans spit out brief, simple messages, Democrats offer subject lines like this from April: “I hope you’ll read this long email about how the DNC is bringing advanced data infrastructure to thousands of midterm campaigns this year, and then consider chipping in to support that work.” What red-blooded American could resist?Perhaps working more in the Democrats’ favor, the messages contain a sense of warmth: instead of “Patriot”, the recipient is “Friend”. The word “please” is abundant. And there’s a sense of community: “This is the time to fight for our country with everything we have”, “thinking of this team,” “You power the DNC [Democratic National Committee].”And in another feature that’s typical of the party more broadly, the Democrats have no trouble hauling out celebrities from Barbra Streisand to John Legend (all of whom seem to have a remarkably similar writing style). “Matthew, I’m sure that you weren’t expecting to hear from me today,” Martin Sheen texted me, accurately, a few days ago, along with a lovely picture of his own face.If Republican messaging aligns with Lakoff’s “strict father” worldview, Democrats’ touchy-feely messaging fits his description of the progressive mindset, which he calls “nurturant parent”. That’s the empathetic figure who “isn’t imposing on the child but rather wants to find out what you need”, Lakoff says. “For the Democratic party, democracy is based on empathy. Why would you have a democracy, you know? In order to help other people, to make sure everybody gets treated equally, that everybody gets what they need from the government.”The “begging” and “pleading”, then, seem to be based on the assumption recipients wish to do good; describing nervousness and sinking hearts appeals to empathy. And Barbra, John and Martin are all just part of the family.And what would a nurturing family be without guilt trips? Of course, Democratic guilting is more “have you forgotten the parents who worked so hard to raise you” than the Republicans’ “if you don’t cough up now, you’re dead to me”:Did I…date Nancy Pelosi and completely forget about it? pic.twitter.com/UVDSr7tCMq— Megan Collins (@ImMeganCollins) October 1, 2022
      As for the more complex language involved in Democratic messages, Lakoff says, “Democrats tend to assume what I call Cartesian rationality: that is that you should be able to reason things out. And they give you reasons for things and then it takes some reasoning to get there. The Republicans tend to just say, ‘This is how it is.’”Across the divideThough each party’s tone is very different, there’s plenty that looks just about the same – well beyond the red, white and blue formatting of each email.Along with weaponizing guilt, both parties make use of what might be described as trickery. The 2020 Princeton study found manipulative tactics in emails were widespread – including “devious” techniques such as formatting emails so they look like they’re part of actual conversations between you and a campaign. Many of the emails I received, seemingly from Democrats in particular, had subject lines that contained “re:”, even though I’d never written to them.Even more deceptively, I received Republican emails with subject lines such as “Your flight is CANCELED”, with no indication that they were political emails until you opened them – the sender was labeled as “urgent notice”. (In this case, it turned out the email was warning me that I was about to lose access to a proffered dinner with Donald Trump.)And while definitions of left and right can fluctuate, says Justin Gross, associate professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, there’s one thing that clearly unites each party: “a distaste for what the other side is doing”. As the pollster and political strategist John Zogby put it in an email: “They both need to hear from me because the sky is falling.”That fear, Gross says, is “enormously motivating”. “When we feel that anxiety that’s kind of accumulated from a bunch of sources” – the rolling ball of political worries that seems to get bigger every day – “we feel like we don’t know what to do about it”, Gross says. When parties ask for donations, “it’s kind of a channeling of: well, at least you can do this.”TopicsUS politicsUS political financingDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      TikTok tightens policies around political issues in run-up to US midterms

      by

      TikTok tightens policies around political issues in run-up to US midtermsPoliticians will be banned from using social media platform for campaign fundraising Politicians on TikTok will no longer be able to use the app tipping tools, nor access advertising features on the social network, as the company tightens its policies around political issues in the run-up to the US midterm elections in six weeks’ time.Political advertising is already banned on the platform, alongside “harmful misinformation”, but as TikTok has grown over the past two years, new features such as gifting, tipping and ecommerce have been embraced by some politicians on the site.Now, new rules will again limit political players’ ability to use the app for anything other than organic activity, to “help ensure TikTok remains a fun, positive and joyful experience”, the company said.“TikTok has long prohibited political advertising, including both paid ads on the platform and creators being paid directly to make branded content,” it added. “We currently do that by prohibiting political content in an ad, and we’re also now applying restrictions at an account level. “This means accounts belonging to politicians and political parties will automatically have their access to advertising features turned off, which will help us more consistently enforce our existing policy.”Political accounts will be blocked from other monetisation features, and will also be removed from eligibility for the company’s “creator fund”, which distributes cash to some of the most successful video producers on the site. They will also be banned from using the platform for campaign fundraising, “such as a video from a politician asking for donations, or a political party directing people to a donation page on their website,” the service has said.“TikTok is first and foremost an entertainment platform, and we’re proud to be a place that brings people together over creative and entertaining content. By prohibiting campaign fundraising and limiting access to our monetisation features, we’re aiming to strike a balance between enabling people to discuss the issues that are relevant to their lives while also protecting the creative, entertaining platform that our community wants.”The rules are in contrast to those of Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, both of which have long allowed political advertising and encouraged politicians to use their services for campaigning purposes. In August, Meta announced its own set of policy updates for the US midterm elections, and promised to devote “hundreds of people across more than 40 teams” to ensuring the safety and security of the elections.Meta will ban all new political, electoral and social issue adverts on both its platforms for the final weeks of the campaign, its head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said, and will remove adverts that encourage people not to vote, or call into question the legitimacy of the election. But the company won’t remove “organic” content that does the same.After years of being effectively unregulated, more and more countries are bringing online political advertising under the aegis of electoral authorities. On Monday, Google said it would begin a program that ensured that political emails never get sent to spam folders, after Republican congressional leaders accused it of partisan censorship and introduced legislation to try to ban the practice. “We expect to begin the pilot with a small number of campaigns from both parties and will test whether these changes improve the user experience, and provide more certainty for senders during this election period,” the company said in a statement.TopicsTikTokUS midterm elections 2022US politicsUS political financingnewsReuse this content More