Report: Biden Received Record-Shattering Amount in Dark-Money Donations to Aid 2020 Victory
President Joe Biden used millions in dark money donations to assist his 2020 election victory, which is considered a faux pas in some Democratic circles.
The Biden campaign was given roughly $145 million in these anonymous donations.
The obscene amount takes the record from failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who accrued $113 million in dark money donations in 2012, Bloomberg reported.
Dark money is money given by nonprofit organizations to political campaigns — a practice that became more common after the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision in 2010.
The reason why these donations are considered “dark” is that the nonprofits that provide them are not obligated to publicly disclose their donors.
By comparison, former President Donald Trump had a more modest $28.4 million in dark money, which is not a shock given his anti-establishment views.
Priorities spent big early on to hold Donald Trump accountable for his failed coronavirus response. He never recovered. https://t.co/9YIsriG2jy pic.twitter.com/l8vidAs2LI
— Priorities USA (@prioritiesUSA) November 10, 2020
The most notable dark money contribution to the Biden-Harris campaign was $26 million from the nonprofit arm of the Priorities USA Action Fund, a Democratic super PAC.
All the millions in dark money donations were part of building Biden’s $1.5 billion war chest, according to Bloomberg, which was the most raised by any presidential candidate challenging an incumbent in history.
We found four crucial inflection points in Biden’s fund-raising:
— President Trump’s call for Ukraine to investigate Biden’s son
— Biden’s primary win in South Carolina
— Protests after George Floyd’s killing
— Naming Kamala Harris as his running mate pic.twitter.com/0ojgA6LPrh— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 14, 2020
Populists like Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont used to be vehemently opposed to the use of dark money, but the issue seemed to go to the back burner when a Republican won the presidential election in 2016.
Sanders’ organization, known as “Our Revolution,” was accused of spending dark money to help progressive candidates win in 2020.
Our Revolution has raised millions of dollars since Sen. Bernie Sanders formed it in 2016, mostly from individuals giving less than $5,000 per year. A majority of board members must approve donations of $5,000 or more. This has happened just a handful of times, tax returns show pic.twitter.com/DY0J7wueWX
— Michael Beckel (@mjbeckel) April 8, 2019
The group claims to publicly report donations over $250, but it does not file documents at any public agency or specify the names of donors, USA Today reported in February.
Advocates of campaign finance reforms have taken issue with the practice of dark money because people will have no clue who is influencing American politics if these donors are not public.
Plenty of millionaires and billionaires can ultimately alter the outcome of an election by providing funds to outside groups, but Americans might never know who these donors are.
The practice is just one facet of the complicated world of campaign finance that the public is told they don’t need to know anything about.
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