One of the largest donors to the so-called dark money groups supporting Joe Biden is a non-profit organization run by an artificial intelligence investor, according to the British newspaper The Guardian. CNN (“Dark money” refers to election expenses in which the source of the funds is not disclosed).
The second-largest donation in 2022 was to Future Forward, the nonprofit arm of the core super PAC supporting Biden, by a group led by James McClough and Emily Berger. The couple works at a trading firm in Manhattan, and McClave was an early investor in the artificial intelligence company Anthropic.
Previously undisclosed tax filings reviewed by CNN show that BEMC 4, a nonprofit led by McClave and Berger, gave $7.2 million to Future Forward USA Action in 2022, its most recent year.
That's more than any other group except the Open Society Policy Center, which gave $15.2 million that year.
While Future Forward USA Action does not disclose its donors, other nonprofits it donates to do. Besides BEMC, among the group's biggest supporters in 2022 were the League of Conservation Voters and the Better Futures Fund, each giving $2.5 million, and the Hopewell Fund, which gave about $1.55 million.
The millions flowing through Future Forward exemplify how wealthy donors use dark money groups to shape American policy while remaining under the radar.
If donors aren't disclosed, voters will feel dark when they go to the polls, said Anna Massoglia, director of investigations at campaign finance watchdog group OpenSecrets.
Mysterious sources of money – which Joe Biden has previously criticized
Tax records do not confirm whether the $7.2 million came from McClave and Berger personally or from other donors to the group they control, but the only donation BEMC reportedly received came in other forms. According to Massoglia, it is not uncommon for major donors to create new nonprofits to distribute their own money.
Although McClough and Berger do not receive much media coverage, they have given a total of more than $1 million to various Democratic groups and candidates in federal and state elections in recent years.
Like some other prominent political organizations, Future Forward operates as two related groups: one a group that is required to disclose its donors, the other a nonprofit that is not.
After Future Forward endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 and 2022 campaigns, the Biden campaign publicly indicated it had become their preferred political action committee.
Future Forward said it raised a total of $208 million in 2023, and most of that appears to have been raised by the dark money nonprofit, with the political action committee reporting just $25 million for the year, with more than $8 million of that coming according to Federal Election Commission. Records, the nonprofit made the transfer.
Joe Biden himself has previously criticized the influence of dark money,
She supported legislation requiring organizations that spend money on elections to more quickly disclose major donors.
In a 2022 speech, Joe Biden also said that dark money undermines public trust.
Currently, advocacy groups can run ads attacking or supporting a candidate until Election Day without revealing who is paying for the ad.
Biden said.
In addition to supporting Future Forward, McClave and Berger's nonprofit organization provided an additional $7 million in 2022 to the Voter Information Center, a group that works to encourage youth, women and minorities to vote.
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