{"id":14613,"date":"2020-05-14T11:09:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T18:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=14613"},"modified":"2020-05-14T11:09:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T18:09:11","slug":"we-believe-this-dark-money-group-illegally-spent-nearly-5-million-to-destroy-sanders-2020-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2020\/05\/14\/we-believe-this-dark-money-group-illegally-spent-nearly-5-million-to-destroy-sanders-2020-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"We Believe This “Dark Money” Group Illegally Spent Nearly $5 Million to Destroy Sanders 2020 Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

May 07, 2020 by Common Dreams<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And because voters have a right to know the truth, the Campaign Legal Center where I work has filed an official FEC complaint against the secretive Big Tent Project.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

by Brendan Fischer<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 16 Comments<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The FEC complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center on Thursday alleges that Big Tent Project should have registered as a political committee, since it was created to oppose Sen. Bernie Sanders’ election, and all its known activities were focused on opposing Sanders.\u00a0(Image: via Campaign Legal Center)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Voters from across the political spectrum are concerned about the rise of secret spending in our elections and rightly so. Political transparency is a means to advance the principles of the First Amendment by encouraging the exchange of ideas needed for voters to make informed decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against \u201cThe Big Tent Project\u201d for illegally hiding the identity of the donors who bankrolled over $4.8 million on ads in the Democratic presidential primary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Tent Project, a nonprofit, spent more<\/a> than any other \u201cdark money\u201d group in the presidential primary. In fact, its independent expenditure spending ranks ninth<\/a> among all<\/em> outside groups in the 2020 cycle so far, even surpassing spending by some established party-aligned super political action committees (PACs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet it hasn\u2019t disclosed the wealthy special interests who bankrolled that spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under federal law, an organization must register as a political committee\u2014and file regular reports disclosing its contributors and spending\u2014if it has the major purpose of electing or defeating a federal candidate. CLC\u2019s complaint alleges that Big Tent Project should have registered as a political committee, since it was created to oppose Sen. Bernie Sanders\u2019 election, and all its known activities were focused on opposing Sanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Tent Project formed the day after Sanders won the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, and one week after Sanders finished in a virtual tie in the Iowa caucuses. Its executive director, Jonathan Kott, said<\/a> he created the group after being approached<\/a> by wealthy donors concerned about Sanders\u2019 rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group raised $1 million within days of its formation, which it \u201cpoured<\/a>\u201d into anti-Sanders ads. At the time, Kott said<\/a> that \u201cad buys could expand as the group continues to raise funds\u201d and that \u201cany future ads will continue to target Sanders\u201d; as the Democratic primary proceeded, Big Tent Project raised<\/a> millions more, and then bought millions more in anti-Sanders ads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the month after forming, Big Tent Project spent over $4.8 million on anti-Sanders ads targeting primary voters in places like South Carolina and in Super Tuesday states. It filed reports of its ad spending with the FEC but did not disclose its donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Not only did Big Tent Project leave voters in the dark about its funding, it also placed many of its digital ads<\/a> in a manner that left voters in the dark about the content of most ads that it ran online as CLC recently documented<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even the spending<\/a> that Big Tent Project was not required to report to the FEC\u2014thanks to  gaps<\/a> in campaign finance law that only require reporting of digital ads that expressly advocate for or against candidates\u2014nonetheless was focused on opposing Sanders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Sanders\u2019 path to the presidential nomination became a near-impossibility, Big Tent Project\u2019s activity dropped precipitously\u2014further evidence that its major purpose was defeating a federal candidate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big Tent Project has not run ads under its own name since Sanders lost the Michigan primary, and has not run ads under pseudonyms since Sanders lost the Arizona primary. Its executive director has halted his media blitz, and the group has not updated its social media pages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Big Tent Project has the major purpose of influencing federal elections but has failed to register as a political committee and to publicly disclose its contributors in violation of federal law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The public should not be left in the dark about the money behind a multi-million dollar effort to influence presidential primaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full complaint.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Brendan Fischer is associate counsel at\u00a0The Campaign Legal Center<\/a>. Formerly with PR Watch, he graduated with honors from the University of Wisconsin Law School. Prior to law school, Brendan served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a rural community in Northeastern El Salvador. Twitter:\u00a0@brendan_fischer<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License. Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

May 07, 2020 by Common Dreams And because voters have a right to know the truth, the Campaign Legal Center where I work has filed an official FEC complaint against the secretive Big Tent Project. by Brendan Fischer  16 Comments The FEC complaint filed by the Campaign Legal Center on Thursday… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14613"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14614,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14613\/revisions\/14614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}