Dark Money Also Means Foreign Money Seeping Into American Political Campaigns— Are Guilty As Hell

Nader and Trump, 2 sex offenders and convicted felons

It’s bad enough that the Supreme Court basically shredded campaign finance regulations and that it’s almost a free-for-all, especially for the ultra-wealthy. But it’s an open secret that foreign money is also making its way into a completely dysfunctional, broken system. Yesterday, CBS News reported that the system of funding federal election is increasing opaque and forcing advocates of reform to tap dance around the question. “Democrats,” wrote Daniel Klaidman, “have long decried the lack of transparency in the campaign finance system and have advocated to close the dark money loophole that currently exists in the law. But some critics say it smacks of hypocrisy. ‘For too long the left has been playing a game of decrying dark money while at the same time being fully dependent on it, even supercharging Biden's reelection campaign,’ says Caitlin Sutherland, executive director of the right-leaning government watchdog group Americans for Public Trust. Others say that it's unrealistic to expect Democrats to unilaterally disarm. ‘That would be a big ask of Biden not to set up a super PAC and not to accept dark money,’ Holman of Public Citizen said. Biden and his campaign have at various times voiced both sides of this argument. In September 2022, the president appeared in the White House briefing room to advocate for the Disclose Act, which would require political groups and nonprofits to disclose donations above $10,000. ‘There's much too much money that flows in the shadows to influence our elections,’ Biden said. ‘Dark money erodes public trust.’ But when asked directly about the proliferation of dark money the Biden effort is benefitting from, his aides had a different take: ‘The stakes of this election are sky high,’ one Biden adviser told CBS News. ‘We will protect our democracy with every tool that is legally available.’ Or as one Democratic strategist said, ‘You don't show up at a gun fight with a knife.’”

Who remembers George Nader? Phto above. He was one of the shysters, along with Elliott Broidy, to suck Middle Eastern money into the 2016 Trump campaign. Nader is a Lebanese-American crooked businessman, Erik Prince consultant, serial child sex offender and advisor to the United Arab Emirates, who was illegally funneling substantial amounts of foreign money into GOP politics. He was indicted for conspiring to conceal the source of over $3.5 million in illegal campaign contributions, contributions meant to give the UAE emirs influence in the Trump administration. I believe he’s still in prison on a 10 year sentence. Meanwhile the UAE was funneling  money into the Clinton campaign— and the Ron DeSantis campaign— through Ahmad "Andy" Khawaja, CEO of Allied Wallet. 

As for Broidy, a former finance chairman of the RNC, he was charged in connection with a scheme to lobby the Trump administration on behalf of foreign interests without disclosing the foreign funding, millions of dollars, particularly from the UAE, China, Malaysia (at least $6 million) and Saudi Arabia, violating lobbying laws. In October 2020, he pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of Malaysian and Chinese interests without disclosing that he was being paid to do so. The sweet plea deal included an admission that he received funds funneled through intermediaries to hide the true source and purpose of the money. Trump pardoned Broidy on his last day in office.

The Mueller Report also touched on financial connections and the use of shell companies and intermediaries by the Kremlin to obscure the sources of funds aimed at influencing the election in Trump’s favor. China is also funneling money into campaigns through dark money superPACs as are other malefactors like Iran, Taiwan, Hungary and, most blatantly, Israel. You might be interested in the documentary, The Lobby- USA. Episode one is below and you can watch episode 2 here, episode 3 here and episode 4 here.

Tuesday, Joe Biden told Time Magazine that China is illegally funneling money into elections and that “Everybody, all the bad guys are rooting for Trump, man. Not a joke.”

On a completely other matter, a day or two ago, Jonathan Pie exploded, “There was a thing called the Global Financial Crash. Global financial crash. And that was caused by greedy bankers, disaster capitalists and hedge fund managers. Hedge fund managers like Rishi Sunak… [who] made millions of pounds out of the very chaos he helped create. Rishi Sunak is personally more culpable for that banking crash than anyone who was in government at the time… Fuck it! 45 billion pounds of unfunded tax cuts for the most wealthy! That’ll help the country to level up!”