This story was produced in partnership with the National Catholic Reporter.

Millions of dollars in last-minute money is pouring into the battle over a pair of abortion-related ballot measures in Nebraska, and it is coming through an unusual and circuitous route.

Much of that cash is being spent by a new group called Common Sense Nebraska, which has shelled out a remarkable $4.9 million in the three weeks since it was formed—largely on ads opposing an initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and supporting a separate initiative that would ban abortion.

As of the most recent campaign finance filings, the organization still had another $500,000 in the bank.

Nebraska is one of 10 states with abortion-related measures on the ballot. Last week, the National Catholic Reporter and Mother Jones reported that Catholic organizations around the country had contributed more than $1.9 million to the fight, with millions more flowing in from wealthy individuals with close ties to the church.

But what’s especially notable about the Common Sense Nebraska spending is the labyrinthine path that the money has taken. Most of the funds appear to have originated with the conservative, billionaire Ricketts family and with the conservative group CatholicVote, both of which have made the bulk of their donations since mid-October, according to state campaign finance records.

Common Sense Nebraska then routed the Ricketts and CatholicVote money to the campaigns of three local political candidates, including two incumbents running for reelection to the University of Nebraska’s board of regents. 

These local candidates, in turn, purchased massive amounts of television air time, which they then donated to the anti-abortion-rights PAC Protect Women & Children for ads about the ballot initiatives.

Elements of this arrangement were first reported last week by local news outlets, including the Lincoln Journal Star. Gavin Geis, the executive director of Common Cause Nebraska—a watchdog group unrelated to Common Sense Nebraska—told the Journal Star that shuffling money this way is not illegal but obscures the true source of donations and provides significant benefits for the political committees involved.

“By contributing airtime to ballot initiatives, candidates can shield donors from disclosing their support for the proposal and give them a financial advantage over their opponents due to federal rules that give candidates discounted airtime,” Geis said.

None of the candidates participating in this funding arrangement—University of Nebraska Regents Jim Scheer and Robert Schafer, and state legislative candidate Tanya Storer—responded to requests for comment for this story.

The sudden spending by Common Sense Nebraska has greatly increased the amount of money available to abortion rights opponents in the state. Through early October, Protect Women & Children, the PAC leading the anti-abortion ballot push, had raised and spent just over $4 million on the two initiatives. Almost all that money came from the Ricketts and another wealthy family, the Peeds; both families are well-known donors to Nebraska’s Catholic dioceses. But since Common Sense Nebraska was established on Oct. 14, it has raised an additional $5.4 million, almost all of which ended up going to Protect Women & Children in one form or another.

Of that $5.4 million, Common Sense Nebraska has donated $3.2 million to Scheer. Scheer, in turn, purchased $3.2 million worth of commercial airtime, which he then donated to Protect Women & Children for anti-abortion ads.

Another $687,000 of Common Sense Nebraska funds went to Schafer, who donated $667,000 worth of advertising time to Protect Women & Children. And Common Sense Nebraska contributed $283,000 to Storer’s campaign, which has made $231,000 worth of in-kind advertising donations to the Protect Women & Children.

Common Sense Nebraska has also donated $781,000 directly to Protect Women & Children, including donations as recently as Nov. 1. More donations may have occurred that have yet to be filed with the state campaign finance system. 

The majority of the money moving through Common Sense Nebraska’s coffers—$3.9 million—was donated by Marlene Ricketts, the wife of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts. Another $830,000 was donated by the group CatholicVote on Oct. 21 and 23.

The Ricketts family are prominent Catholics, and Joe Ricketts has given millions to the Catholic Church in Nebraska, including an estimated $34 million on the creation of a Catholic religious retreat center. The Ricketts family is also well known for their ownership of the Chicago Cubs baseball team and their involvement in Nebraska state politics. Joe Ricketts’ eldest son, Pete Ricketts, a Republican, previously served as the governor and is currently Nebraska’s junior senator.  

Under the leadership of its president, Brian Burch, CatholicVote has become a major player in conservative Catholic political circles. Like much of the MAGA-aligned right, the Wisconsin-based organization was initially reluctant to embrace Donald Trump. In 2016, it refused to endorse him, saying he was “problematic in too many ways.”

More recently, CatholicVote has touted Trump’s praise for the organization. In 2020, the group drew national media attention for using geofencing to capture Catholics’ cell phone data while they were attending Mass. The $10 million project then sent targeted political ads to Catholics in battleground states. In this cycle’s Republican primary, CatholicVote hosted a rally for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis but eventually endorsed Trump.

Initially a project of the Catholic branch of the Christian Coalition, CatholicVote later became part of the Fidelis Center for Law and Policy, founded by Burch in 2005. Fidelis’ most recent tax documents, from 2022, indicate revenue of $9.4 million—up from $4.8 million the previous year.

This story was produced in partnership with the National Catholic Reporter.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, every state-level campaign to limit abortion has failed. But that hasn’t stopped Catholic organizations from stepping into the fight again this election year.

Catholic organizations are bankrolling campaigns against abortion-rights measures, spending more than $1.9 million so far in five of the 10 states where such measures are on the ballot, according to a joint investigation by National Catholic Reporter and Mother Jones.

In Florida alone, dioceses and bishops have spent more than $1.1 million, and church entities in South Dakota have recently ramped up spending as the election nears. In other states, the church’s hierarchy may be sitting out financially, but wealthy individuals with well-established associations with the Catholic Church, or church-affiliated groups—like local parishes and Knights of Columbus chapters—have stepped into the fray. 

The fight in Florida over Amendment 4—a ballot initiative to add the right to an abortion in the state constitution—has become a political lightning rod, so it may not be surprising that the high-profile battle has attracted heavyweight donors from across the country. Florida requires 60 percent voter approval to amend the state constitution.

Abortion-rights groups have raised at least $60.7 million, swamping the $9 million raised by anti-abortion groups—both sides flooding the airwaves with ads. The majority of the money pouring in on the abortion-rights side is from major national groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood. Catholics for Choice has contributed just $10,378 to the fight in Florida. (Searches in other states turned up no other donations from Catholics for Choice.)

With the appearance of a showdown between the powers on each side of the national debate, it may be fitting that the Miami Archdiocese has given the most money of any church organization in the country this year—three donations totaling $384,000 to a political action committee called Florida Voters Against Extremism.

The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops has donated another $271,000, and the Catholic dioceses of Venice, Palm Beach, and St. Petersburg gave $100,000 each. Dioceses in Orlando, St. Augustine, and Pensacola also donated.

Various Florida Catholic dioceses and the state’s bishops’ conference have stepped in, financially, during previous ballot initiative fights, but never on this scale— prior to 2024, they had given just $198,000.

The church in Florida has made these donations, a representative from the bishops’ conference said, because “it would be unconscionable not to defend against this threat to the sanctity of unborn life and the dignity of pregnant women.”

The money comes from diocesan and individual contributions to the conference’s general operating funds, said Michele Taylor, associate director for communications. “Dioceses and the conference observe Florida election and campaign finance laws and so there have been no special collections for the defeat of Amendment 4,” she said.

Diocesan donations in other states were substantially smaller, but so is the overall size of the ballot initiative fights. In South Dakota, for instance, the Sioux Falls Diocese has donated $340,000 to two separate anti-abortion PACs fighting to block a ballot initiative to create a similar protection for abortion rights in the state constitution. 

The one abortion-rights group raising money to support the ballot initiative’s passage had only raised $298,000 in September and October. The Sioux Falls Diocese’s donation included an in-kind donation of $40,000 for polling work. All of the diocese’s donations have been made since September 25.

Similarly, in Colorado, despite a heavily funded abortion-rights PAC filling the airwaves with ads in support of Amendment 79, another effort to install a right to abortion in the state constitution, the Catholic Church had seemed to be uninterested—at least in terms of financial donations—in the fight until very recently. 

But on September 11, the Denver Archdiocese sent a $50,000 check to the Pro-Life Colorado Fund, and it sent a second much larger check for $175,000 to the same group on October 22.

In Missouri, by contrast, the St. Louis Archdiocese, four other dioceses around the state, and the state bishops’ conference all donated $5,000, but earlier in the year and only to the effort to block an abortion ballot initiative from ever getting on the ballot. Since the initiative was approved for the ballot, the dioceses haven’t donated again.

Some Missouri pro-life groups had hoped the fight against the constitutional amendment for abortion rights would attract more national money, said Jamie Morris, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, the church’s public policy agency in the state. He believes the focus on the presidential race, and ones in the Senate or House, put the financial focus elsewhere.

Losses in previous amendment battles, as in Ohio and Kansas, also may have dissuaded funders, Morris said. “I do think ours is tighter than Ohio’s ended up,” he said. “It would seem ripe for someone to come in and at least get some messaging and funding out there to push it over the top.”

Polling shows more than half of Missourians favoring the amendment, with 34 percent opposed. The Ohio abortion-rights measure was approved 57 percent to 43 percent in 2023.

In some states, spending from groups or individuals closely associated with the church has dramatically augmented or, arguably, eliminated the need for church spending.

In South Dakota, for example, where diocesan spending has been heavy, the national Knights of Columbus organization, based in New Haven, Connecticut, contributed $200,000 to a group opposing that state’s constitutional amendment on abortion. In Missouri, where the dioceses have spent only $25,000, the state Knights of Columbus chapter has chipped in $75,000.

In Nebraska, two ballot initiatives—one seeking to block abortion rights, the other to add it as a constitutional right—have attracted millions in spending, but none from that state’s dioceses. But two families of prominent Nebraska Catholics have contributed more than $6.6 million of the total $7 million donated to anti-abortion committees in the ballot initiative fight. 

Marlene Ricketts, the wife of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, and her son, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R), Nebraska’s junior senator, have contributed $5.1 million. The Ricketts family are prominent Catholics, and Joe Ricketts has given millions to the Catholic Church in Nebraska, including spending an estimated $34 million on the creation of a Catholic religious retreat. 

Two members of another family, the Peeds, who have recently become prominent donors in conservative political and Catholic circles, chipped in another $2 million. Family matriarch Rhonda Peed has said faith drives the family’s charitable giving, including some $1.8 million to the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, in the past two decades.

In Missouri, prominent conservative and anti-abortion attorney John Sauer has contributed roughly $757,000 to the fight over abortion. Sauer, a former solicitor general of Missouri, has represented anti-abortion groups in the past and successfully defended a Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse.

In January, Sauer represented former President Donald Trump in his successful claim before the US Supreme Court claiming broad presidential immunity. Missouri state campaign finance records show that this year Sauer gave $500,000 to Missouri Right to Life, which was spent to oppose an abortion-rights ballot initiative, and $257,000 to a political committee set up specifically to oppose the initiative as well.

Representatives from the Sioux Falls Diocese and the Denver Archdiocese did not respond to interview requests.

In all 10 states with abortion ballot measures, Catholic groups and dioceses are working to oppose abortion-rights amendments with mailings, bishops’ statements, videos, prayers and other resources in English and Spanish. Says Morris of Missouri: “It’s kind of an all-of-the-above approach.”

Yet, the effectiveness of church attempts at persuasion are questionable. A recent poll of Catholic voters in seven battleground states found that the hierarchy’s influence on voters in their flock is extremely limited. Only 32 percent said bishops were very or somewhat influential in voting decisions, and 37 percent said priests were, according to the poll, which was conducted by the National Catholic Reporter.

Political strategies, like funding statewide anti-abortion initiatives, is only a part of conservative Catholics’ “long game,” according to Mary Jo McConahay, author of Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far Right. 

Legal activist Leonard Leo, for example, has turned his attention from the US Supreme Court to a web of Catholic organizations aimed at instilling traditionalist values in the broader culture.

“I think ultraconservative Catholic intellectuals are leaning now in the direction of changing culture itself to achieve their various goals, including demonizing—or criminalizing—abortion, homosexuality, transgender people, etc., which also would move the country closer toward Christian nationalism,” McConahay said. “As long as the majority of the voting population is pro-abortion, Catholic money may start to go to this kind of longer-term effort, rather than fighting ballot measures.”

This story has been updated to reflect additional donations.

This story was produced in partnership with the National Catholic Reporter.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, every state-level campaign to limit abortion has failed. But that hasn’t stopped Catholic organizations from stepping into the fight again this election year.

Catholic organizations are bankrolling campaigns against abortion-rights measures, spending more than $1.9 million so far in five of the 10 states where such measures are on the ballot, according to a joint investigation by National Catholic Reporter and Mother Jones.

In Florida alone, dioceses and bishops have spent more than $1.1 million, and church entities in South Dakota have recently ramped up spending as the election nears. In other states, the church’s hierarchy may be sitting out financially, but wealthy individuals with well-established associations with the Catholic Church, or church-affiliated groups—like local parishes and Knights of Columbus chapters—have stepped into the fray. 

The fight in Florida over Amendment 4—a ballot initiative to add the right to an abortion in the state constitution—has become a political lightning rod, so it may not be surprising that the high-profile battle has attracted heavyweight donors from across the country. Florida requires 60 percent voter approval to amend the state constitution.

Abortion-rights groups have raised at least $60.7 million, swamping the $9 million raised by anti-abortion groups—both sides flooding the airwaves with ads. The majority of the money pouring in on the abortion-rights side is from major national groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Planned Parenthood. Catholics for Choice has contributed just $10,378 to the fight in Florida. (Searches in other states turned up no other donations from Catholics for Choice.)

With the appearance of a showdown between the powers on each side of the national debate, it may be fitting that the Miami Archdiocese has given the most money of any church organization in the country this year—three donations totaling $384,000 to a political action committee called Florida Voters Against Extremism.

The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops has donated another $271,000, and the Catholic dioceses of Venice, Palm Beach, and St. Petersburg gave $100,000 each. Dioceses in Orlando, St. Augustine, and Pensacola also donated.

Various Florida Catholic dioceses and the state’s bishops’ conference have stepped in, financially, during previous ballot initiative fights, but never on this scale— prior to 2024, they had given just $198,000.

The church in Florida has made these donations, a representative from the bishops’ conference said, because “it would be unconscionable not to defend against this threat to the sanctity of unborn life and the dignity of pregnant women.”

The money comes from diocesan and individual contributions to the conference’s general operating funds, said Michele Taylor, associate director for communications. “Dioceses and the conference observe Florida election and campaign finance laws and so there have been no special collections for the defeat of Amendment 4,” she said.

Diocesan donations in other states were substantially smaller, but so is the overall size of the ballot initiative fights. In South Dakota, for instance, the Sioux Falls Diocese has donated $340,000 to two separate anti-abortion PACs fighting to block a ballot initiative to create a similar protection for abortion rights in the state constitution. 

The one abortion-rights group raising money to support the ballot initiative’s passage had only raised $298,000 in September and October. The Sioux Falls Diocese’s donation included an in-kind donation of $40,000 for polling work. All of the diocese’s donations have been made since September 25.

Similarly, in Colorado, despite a heavily funded abortion-rights PAC filling the airwaves with ads in support of Amendment 79, another effort to install a right to abortion in the state constitution, the Catholic Church had seemed to be uninterested—at least in terms of financial donations—in the fight until very recently. 

But on September 11, the Denver Archdiocese sent a $50,000 check to the Pro-Life Colorado Fund, and it sent a second much larger check for $175,000 to the same group on October 22.

In Missouri, by contrast, the St. Louis Archdiocese, four other dioceses around the state, and the state bishops’ conference all donated $5,000, but earlier in the year and only to the effort to block an abortion ballot initiative from ever getting on the ballot. Since the initiative was approved for the ballot, the dioceses haven’t donated again.

Some Missouri pro-life groups had hoped the fight against the constitutional amendment for abortion rights would attract more national money, said Jamie Morris, executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, the church’s public policy agency in the state. He believes the focus on the presidential race, and ones in the Senate or House, put the financial focus elsewhere.

Losses in previous amendment battles, as in Ohio and Kansas, also may have dissuaded funders, Morris said. “I do think ours is tighter than Ohio’s ended up,” he said. “It would seem ripe for someone to come in and at least get some messaging and funding out there to push it over the top.”

Polling shows more than half of Missourians favoring the amendment, with 34 percent opposed. The Ohio abortion-rights measure was approved 57 percent to 43 percent in 2023.

In some states, spending from groups or individuals closely associated with the church has dramatically augmented or, arguably, eliminated the need for church spending.

In South Dakota, for example, where diocesan spending has been heavy, the national Knights of Columbus organization, based in New Haven, Connecticut, contributed $200,000 to a group opposing that state’s constitutional amendment on abortion. In Missouri, where the dioceses have spent only $25,000, the state Knights of Columbus chapter has chipped in $75,000.

In Nebraska, two ballot initiatives—one seeking to block abortion rights, the other to add it as a constitutional right—have attracted millions in spending, but none from that state’s dioceses. But two families of prominent Nebraska Catholics have contributed more than $6.6 million of the total $7 million donated to anti-abortion committees in the ballot initiative fight. 

Marlene Ricketts, the wife of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, and her son, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R), Nebraska’s junior senator, have contributed $5.1 million. The Ricketts family are prominent Catholics, and Joe Ricketts has given millions to the Catholic Church in Nebraska, including spending an estimated $34 million on the creation of a Catholic religious retreat. 

Two members of another family, the Peeds, who have recently become prominent donors in conservative political and Catholic circles, chipped in another $2 million. Family matriarch Rhonda Peed has said faith drives the family’s charitable giving, including some $1.8 million to the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, in the past two decades.

In Missouri, prominent conservative and anti-abortion attorney John Sauer has contributed roughly $757,000 to the fight over abortion. Sauer, a former solicitor general of Missouri, has represented anti-abortion groups in the past and successfully defended a Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse.

In January, Sauer represented former President Donald Trump in his successful claim before the US Supreme Court claiming broad presidential immunity. Missouri state campaign finance records show that this year Sauer gave $500,000 to Missouri Right to Life, which was spent to oppose an abortion-rights ballot initiative, and $257,000 to a political committee set up specifically to oppose the initiative as well.

Representatives from the Sioux Falls Diocese and the Denver Archdiocese did not respond to interview requests.

In all 10 states with abortion ballot measures, Catholic groups and dioceses are working to oppose abortion-rights amendments with mailings, bishops’ statements, videos, prayers and other resources in English and Spanish. Says Morris of Missouri: “It’s kind of an all-of-the-above approach.”

Yet, the effectiveness of church attempts at persuasion are questionable. A recent poll of Catholic voters in seven battleground states found that the hierarchy’s influence on voters in their flock is extremely limited. Only 32 percent said bishops were very or somewhat influential in voting decisions, and 37 percent said priests were, according to the poll, which was conducted by the National Catholic Reporter.

Political strategies, like funding statewide anti-abortion initiatives, is only a part of conservative Catholics’ “long game,” according to Mary Jo McConahay, author of Playing God: American Catholic Bishops and the Far Right. 

Legal activist Leonard Leo, for example, has turned his attention from the US Supreme Court to a web of Catholic organizations aimed at instilling traditionalist values in the broader culture.

“I think ultraconservative Catholic intellectuals are leaning now in the direction of changing culture itself to achieve their various goals, including demonizing—or criminalizing—abortion, homosexuality, transgender people, etc., which also would move the country closer toward Christian nationalism,” McConahay said. “As long as the majority of the voting population is pro-abortion, Catholic money may start to go to this kind of longer-term effort, rather than fighting ballot measures.”

This story has been updated to reflect additional donations.

On August 1, people who had given money to the Democratic presidential ticket began getting ominous messages suggesting their identities may have been stolen. Some received texts from an unknown sender asking them to confirm recent donations. Others told Mother Jones that they received emails warning that their donations had been “flagged” and asking them to click a box to “verify” that they had really contributed the money—or to click “no” if they did not recall doing so.

One donor described the email he received as “mysterious, vague, and somewhat threatening.” That email, similar to the one pictured below, requested that he respond within “the next 24 hours.”

The recipients of these messages have something in common: they’re listed in federal campaign filings as having donated to Joe Biden or Kamala Harris using ActBlue, a ubiquitous online platform that makes it simple to contribute to a vast array of Democratic candidates and liberal causes. ActBlue, a non-profit, has become central to Democrats’ grassroots fundraising efforts. For years, Republicans struggled to emulate its success.

The mysterious emails were sent by the equally mysterious “Fair Election Fund”—a newly formed dark money group that says it is working to uncover supposed electoral malfeasance. When the organization released an initial advertisement in May, it touted a $5 million fund that it said would be used to pay whistleblowers who “expose cheating in our elections.” More recently, it launched a media blitz full of baseless and implausible claims that Kamala Harris’ eye-popping fundraising numbers might somehow be the result of a massive identity theft and money-laundering scheme carried out by ActBlue.

The goal of the Fair Election Fund’s messages to ActBlue users became clear on August 13, when the Washington Examiner reported the conservative group had “identified 60,000 people who were named as small-dollar donors in the Biden-Harris campaign’s July [FEC] report but did not recall making the contribution when contacted by the Fair Election Fund.” The Examiner said the organization had spent $250,000 to compile these initial findings.

“If the Democrats’ fundraising numbers sound outrageous, unbelievable, it’s because they might be,” the Fair Election Fund charged in a recent video, which displayed a headline about the $310 million Harris raised in July. “The Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue has been accused of stealing our identities to conceal donations from bad actors.” The group says it spent $50,000 to run this ad online.

This line of criticism piggybacks on long-running GOP attacks on ActBlue. Last year, James O’Keefe, a conservative activist previously ousted from the far-right video sting outfit Project Veritas, accused ActBlue of assigning large numbers of donations to the names and addresses of people who did not remember donating so often. Though O’Keefe’s claims of a “potential massive money laundering” scheme went unconfirmed, various GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), have faulted ActBlue for accepting some donations without requiring card verification values—the 3- or 4-digit codes on credit cards used to confirm their validity.

Contrary to the right-wing allegations, there is no public evidence that ActBlue has stolen anyone’s identity or has been involved in money laundering. ActBlue denies engaging in any wrongdoing. “We are aware of recent attempts to spread misinformation about our platform,” an ActBlue spokesperson told Mother Jones, while citing “robust and effective protocols in place to ensure our platform is secure.” The platform says that it now requires all new donors to provide CVV codes, though many longtime users can still make donations without them.

The Fair Election Fund’s recent claims about ActBlue coincided with Harris receiving an outpouring of support from first-time and small-dollar donors in the wake of Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 race. In just the first week of her campaign, she raked in more than $200 million dollars, two-thirds of which came from people who hadn’t donated yet this cycle, the campaign announced.

After learning of the messages the Fair Election Fund was sending to contributors, ActBlue published an August 2 tweet warning they appeared to be part of “a dangerous disinformation campaign” targeting “Democratic donors.” ActBlue advised users to avoid replying to the messages and to instead report them as spam.

Donor safety and security are our top priority. We will continue to monitor bad-faith attempts to undermine grassroots power. These attacks pale in comparison to the historic enthusiasm small-dollar donors are bringing to the 2024 elections. pic.twitter.com/hIVISJRDzb

— ActBlue (@actblue) August 2, 2024

The August 13 Examiner story didn’t make clear how the Fair Election Fund conducted its research or how it arrived at the 60,000 figure, and the group didn’t answer questions from Mother Jones about its methodology. But it appears that the Fair Election Fund used FEC reports to identify small donors and then purchased commercially available data that allowed the group to contact them. Recipients told Mother Jones they received messages at phone numbers and email addresses that they had not provided to ActBlue or to the Biden or Harris campaigns.

Such a method could easily generate inaccurate results. Clicking a box telling an unsolicited emailer you don’t recall making a donation is not a sworn statement that you got scammed. It’s unclear how the Fair Election Fund ensured that the donor contact information it obtained was correct, or whether it accounted for the possibility that some donors may have simply forgotten signing up to make recurring contributions.

One ActBlue user who contacted Mother Jones, and who asked not to be identified, said she had replied “no” to a text message asking if she recalled donating to Biden in June. That drew a quick follow-up call from a woman who said she worked for the Fair Election Fund and asked for confirmation the user did not recall giving the money. The donor told the caller she did not recall the donation, but later realized she may have been mistaken. She told Mother Jones in an email that she suspected she had inadvertently signed up for recurring monthly contributions when she made an earlier donation.

More significantly, the Fair Election Fund and other ActBlue critics have offered zero evidence of the broader conspiracy they’re insinuating, in which fraudsters are supposedly stealing thousands of identities and using them to make hundreds of millions of dollars worth of illegal donations to Democratic candidates in small increments.

Anyone who wants to secretly bankroll a campaign, after all, has much better options. Super-PACs can accept unlimited amounts of money to spend on a candidate’s behalf with far less transparency. And other dark money groups spending big on the 2024 election, including the Fair Election Fund itself, likewise face significantly less public scrutiny.

Ironically, ActBlue—like its GOP counterpart, WinRed—is actually more transparent than even traditional forms of small-dollar fundraising. Under federal election law, if a person makes a donation of less than $200 directly to a campaign, their identity is never disclosed publicly. But all donations made through conduits like ActBlue must be publicly reported, which creates a detailed paper trail that otherwise would not exist.

Nonetheless, the Fair Election Fund’s claims have had impact. The Examiner story noted that the group had shared its findings with the offices of five Republican state attorneys general, two of whom quickly said in statements they would look into the allegations. “We are grateful to Fair Election Fund for sharing these concerning findings with us, as we explore whether any of our constituents have been defrauded by ActBlue,” Alabama AG Steve Marshall said.

Two of the attorneys general, Ken Paxton of Texas and Jason Miyares of Virginia, have said they were already investigating ActBlue, as has House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican. “Certain features of campaign finance law may incentivize bad actors to use platforms like ActBlue to covertly move money to political campaigns to evade legal requirements,” Paxton said in an August 8 statement.

The Fair Election Fund is working on other initiatives, as well. The group in May announced it would give people who claimed to have evidence of election fraud “payment from our $5 million dollar fund.” It has not explained what criteria it will use to determine payouts. But the effort, four years after Donald Trump used lies and debunked stories of ballot-stuffing to try to steal the 2020 election, appears squarely aimed at generating new election fraud claims that could turn out to be just as unreliable.

The Fair Election Fund used what it said was a “six-figure” ad buy in swing states during the Olympics to tell people who report voter fraud that they “could be eligible for compensation.” The Raleigh News & Observer reported the group also spent $375,000 on ads and billboards attacking North Carolina’s Democratic-controlled Board of Elections for denying ballot access to third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West. The group similarly said it spent “six figures” faulting efforts to keep West off the ballot in Michigan. It also recently touted an online ad that claims that efforts to keep West off Pennsylvania ballots would disenfranchise Black voters and represent “the real Jim Crow 2.0.”

Where all the money for these campaigns comes from is not clear. A spokesperson for the Fair Election Fund declined to comment on the group’s funding or to answer specific questions, including where the group is incorporated. Former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), who has been identified in press reports as a co-founder as a well as senior adviser to the group, did not respond to repeated inquiries by Mother Jones. He appears to be the only individual publicly declaring an affiliation with the group.

The group claims on its website to be a nonprofit but provides no information about its incorporation or tax status, as most nonprofits do. It also does not appear in a national database of tax-exempt organizations that have registered with the IRS. The group’s spokesperson did not respond to questions about its nonprofit status. In reports it was required to file to the Federal Communications Commission, the group listed the address of a small building in Pittsburgh.

Google’s online Transparency Center for ads indicates that some of the digital ads the Fair Election Fund has run were paid for by another organization, a corporation registered last year in Delaware called “For Which it Stands Fund, Inc.” That group has no evident online presence.

Brett Kappel, a campaign finance lawyer, said Fair Election Fund looks to be following a playbook favored by dark money recipients in recent election cycles. They can start operating without applying to the IRS for nonprofit status, as long as they plan to apply within the year. This delays the need to disclose any information publicly, including the filing of a so-called 990 tax form, until after the election. Some avoid even that belated disclosure by terminating their state registration before having to file a 990, Kappel said.

“Fair Election Fund appears to be a dark money group with very little known about how it’s funded or how it operates,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal-leaning watchdog group. “It seems to be trying to build out a conspiracy theory to use against Democratic candidates in the 2024 election. When groups like this pop up, it’s not out of the ordinary for them to hit quick and then disband before anything can be found out about them—or done about them.”

Campaign finance researchers contacted by Mother Jones said it was notable that the Fair Election Fund claimed to have $5 million when it launched but does not appear to be raising money online. That suggests the likelihood of a large preexisting source of money.

FCC filings list a woman named Tori Sachs as an official with the group. That is the name of a political consultant in Michigan who has helped spearhead several dark money efforts in support of Republican candidates in that state. Sachs has worked for multiple organizations funded by the billionaire DeVos family, including by Betsy DeVos, who was Trump’s Education secretary and previously chaired the Michigan GOP.

Sachs did not respond to inquires. A spokesperson for the DeVos family did not respond when asked if the family is providing funding for the Fair Election Fund.

Meanwhile, the Fair Election Fund is charging ahead, dangling cash for election fraud claims. And according to the Examiner, the group plans to “continue vetting Biden-Harris donors in the coming weeks.”

Additional reporting by Julia Lurie.

Vice President Kamala Harris raised $361 million in August—a stunning number on its own, but particularly impressive as it nearly tripled the mere $130 million that Donald Trump raised for the month.

Trump has long been a prolific and successful fundraiser, with a knack for taking advantage of his legal troubles to rile up a base of small donors. Earlier this year, the Trump campaign raised more than $52 million in the 24 hours after he was convicted by a New York City jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. But his more recent troubles, including a lackluster convention and JD Vance’s various stumbles since his debut as Trump’s VP pick, have apparently left his donors cold. Or at least, tapped out.

Either way, Harris appears to be riding a surge of fundraising enthusiasm, with her August fundraising haul following a $250 million for the last weeks of July after she became the Democratic nominee. In fact, Harris has raised so much, that even after transferring $25 million to help down-ballot campaigns, she still has more money in the bank than Trump. According to each campaign’s account, Harris and her allies are sitting on $404 million and Trump just $300 million.

All of this is a dramatic turnaround from Biden’s fundraising, which was strong—he raised $127 million in June, which was more than Trump—but showing serious signs of trouble following his disastrous debate performance.

The numbers for both campaigns are self-reported at this point; they will file official reports with the Federal Election Commission later this month with a more detailed analysis of what kind of donors are giving. But the August haul comes on the heels of largely small donors (those giving less than $200) and first-time donors contributing to Harris’ July fundraising. In the first week of her campaign, roughly two-thirds of donations came from first-time donors—a coveted demographic because, unlike many of Trump’s donors, many of whom have been targeted by his campaign for years, they may still have plenty of money to give.

The judge in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial ruled on Friday that he won’t sentence the former president until November 26. Juan Merchan, who Trump has relentlessly accused of bias against him, wrote in his decision that the delay was “to avoid any appearance—however unwarranted—that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching Presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate.”

Merchan went on to add that he hopes the decision ends any concern about the impartiality of the court—Trump has repeatedly insisted that the entire prosecution, judge, and jury were rigged by the Biden administration, despite the case being heard in a New York court, not under federal jurisdiction.

“The Court is a fair, impartial and apolitical institution,” Merchan wrote.

The sentencing is for 34 felony convictions of falsifying business records for Trump’s hush money scandal involving adult film star Stormy Daniels, and was led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Each charge carries up to a four-year prison sentence, but it was highly unlikely that Trump would receive a significant sentence—as a first time non-violent offender, probation was far likelier. However, any chance of a major presidential candidate—or president-elect—being required to serve jail time is completely unprecedented.

Trump has yet to respond to Merchan’s ruling, but the delay was at his own request. He has also submitted filings asking for the conviction to be tossed based on July’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity—according to Trump’s attorneys, testimony that was used against him that referred to events that occurred while he was president shouldn’t have been used. Merchan has yet to rule on that.

Prosecutors did not oppose Trump’s request to delay the sentencing, but throughout the trial—and the years-long legal process running up to it—Bragg’s attorneys argued that Trump was improperly trying to delay legal consequences against him.

Correction, September 6: This post has been updated to accurately reflect the number of Donald Trump’s felony convictions. There are 34.

Vice President Kamala Harris raised $361 million in August—a stunning number on its own, but particularly impressive as it nearly tripled the mere $130 million that Donald Trump raised for the month.

Trump has long been a prolific and successful fundraiser, with a knack for taking advantage of his legal troubles to rile up a base of small donors. Earlier this year, the Trump campaign raised more than $52 million in the 24 hours after he was convicted by a New York City jury on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. But his more recent troubles, including a lackluster convention and JD Vance’s various stumbles since his debut as Trump’s VP pick, have apparently left his donors cold. Or at least, tapped out.

Either way, Harris appears to be riding a surge of fundraising enthusiasm, with her August fundraising haul following a $250 million for the last weeks of July after she became the Democratic nominee. In fact, Harris has raised so much, that even after transferring $25 million to help down-ballot campaigns, she still has more money in the bank than Trump. According to each campaign’s account, Harris and her allies are sitting on $404 million and Trump just $300 million.

All of this is a dramatic turnaround from Biden’s fundraising, which was strong—he raised $127 million in June, which was more than Trump—but showing serious signs of trouble following his disastrous debate performance.

The numbers for both campaigns are self-reported at this point; they will file official reports with the Federal Election Commission later this month with a more detailed analysis of what kind of donors are giving. But the August haul comes on the heels of largely small donors (those giving less than $200) and first-time donors contributing to Harris’ July fundraising. In the first week of her campaign, roughly two-thirds of donations came from first-time donors—a coveted demographic because, unlike many of Trump’s donors, many of whom have been targeted by his campaign for years, they may still have plenty of money to give.

The judge in Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial ruled on Friday that he won’t sentence the former president until November 26. Juan Merchan, who Trump has relentlessly accused of bias against him, wrote in his decision that the delay was “to avoid any appearance—however unwarranted—that the proceeding has been affected by or seeks to affect the approaching Presidential election in which the Defendant is a candidate.”

Merchan went on to add that he hopes the decision ends any concern about the impartiality of the court—Trump has repeatedly insisted that the entire prosecution, judge, and jury were rigged by the Biden administration, despite the case being heard in a New York court, not under federal jurisdiction.

“The Court is a fair, impartial and apolitical institution,” Merchan wrote.

The sentencing is for 34 felony convictions of falsifying business records for Trump’s hush money scandal involving adult film star Stormy Daniels, and was led by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Each charge carries up to a four-year prison sentence, but it was highly unlikely that Trump would receive a significant sentence—as a first time non-violent offender, probation was far likelier. However, any chance of a major presidential candidate—or president-elect—being required to serve jail time is completely unprecedented.

Trump has yet to respond to Merchan’s ruling, but the delay was at his own request. He has also submitted filings asking for the conviction to be tossed based on July’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity—according to Trump’s attorneys, testimony that was used against him that referred to events that occurred while he was president shouldn’t have been used. Merchan has yet to rule on that.

Prosecutors did not oppose Trump’s request to delay the sentencing, but throughout the trial—and the years-long legal process running up to it—Bragg’s attorneys argued that Trump was improperly trying to delay legal consequences against him.

Correction, September 6: This post has been updated to accurately reflect the number of Donald Trump’s felony convictions. There are 34.

Last week, Donald Trump sat down with former-MTV-reality-star-turned-comedian-turned-podcaster Theo Von. The interview was surreal. Von repeatedly called Trump “homie” and explained how much he had previously enjoyed/hated cocaine—“You think it’s going to be easy, and then you’re go-kart racing with hookers and stuff, and it gets bad,” Von explained.

The interview and its implications are complicated to unwind—Trump himself looked befuddled for large parts of it—and Von is not without his own issues. But Von did at one point ask Trump a series of quite probing, and accurate, questions about the way lobbying works in Washington. Following a discussion of the opioid epidemic, Von began querying Trump about just why there are so many pharmaceutical lobbyists in the nation’s capital.

“One of the things I wanted to ask you about, like, the Big Pharma lobbyists— there’s, like, 1,800 Big Pharma lobbyists in Washington, DC. There’s only 535 total representatives or senators, total, so, just the fact that there’s this whole other almost drug government,” Von said. “They’re kind of pushing agendas and influencing things, like, how do we stop that, man? It just seems like it’s obviously killing people, like people are dying, you know, it’s like, what do we have to do that our own government won’t help us?”

Von was expressing what most voters feel. A recent Pew report found that 73 percent of Americans think that lobbyists have too much influence and that the majority of lawmakers are focused on their own financial success rather than the concerns of their constituents.

So it’s a good question.

According to OpenSecrets.org, the nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks money-in-politics and lobbying, in 2023 there were 1,871 registered lobbyists representing the pharmaceutical industry in Washington in some capacity or other. Von was right about that. The industry reported spending $383.6 million on those lobbyists, and that’s likely a fraction of what it really spent trying to influence lawmakers and regulators—it only counts the expenses on specific, legally defined lobbying activities.

Trump never directly responded to Von’s question—what can be done?—and while he sometimes did a pretty good job of reinforcing Von’s concerns over the role of lobbyists, he was also pretty dishonest about his own record.

“Well, you have to stop listening to lobbyists,” Trump said. “You know, I was not a big person for lobbyists, and if they have even a little access to a president or a senator or a congressman or woman…”

Trump trailed off as Von interjected, “They’re snakes!”

In fact, Trump has long had very close relationships with lobbyists. And lobbyists have loved him. The very idea that access to Trump can be sold has long been prevalent within Trump’s inner circle. From the first days of his administration, some of his closest associates were hanging out the shingle as Trump-access-experts. His long-time fixer (later turned enemy) Michael Cohen registered as a lobbyist and his original campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, quickly followed suit, opening a lobbying shop. (Notably, Lewandowski has recently returned to the fold, as a senior campaign adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign).

And just two years into his administration, a review by ProPublica of Trump’s political appointees found that one out of every 14 appointments Trump had made went to a formerly registered lobbyist. In total, by 2019, Trump had recruited 281 lobbyists into his administration. (By comparison, a similar review of Barack Obama’s administration found 65 former lobbyists working in the administration.) Thirty of those former registered lobbyists were appointed by Trump to positions at the Department of Health and Human Services. That’s the agency that includes the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates pharmaceuticals.

Instead of talking about that, however, Trump pointed out that many lobbyists actually just rip off their clients. Also, he noted, some lobbyists work for the alcohol industry.

“They get a lot of money, in some cases they just take the money, they don’t do anything,” Trump mused. “But you have a lot of lobbyists in Washington pushing, and certainly a lot for all the things that we’re talking about , including alcohol.”

(The alcohol industry, for the record, spent about $29 million on lobbying last year.)

Trump then repeatedly tried to steer Von in a curious direction—a discussion of how the most effective way to limit the influence of lobbyists on an administration would be a rule banning people who had served in government from going to work as lobbyists, or vice versa.

“You could say that if you’re an elected official or if you work in government, you can never be a lobbyist,” Trump suggested, before going on to repeatedly talk about how people who work in agencies that hand out large military contracts often go work in the defense industry after they leave the government. Von attempted to tie Trump’s comments back to the opioid crisis, noting that the Sackler family, which ran Purdue Pharma, often hired former regulators. Undeterred, Trump went back to talking about military contracts.

The reason this was such a weird direction for Trump to take the conversation is that he had such a ban in place when he took office. It was, more or less, a watered-down copy of the ban that his predecessor, Obama, had implemented.

And then, Trump canceled it. One of his last acts before he left office, in fact, was to toss out the very ban that he now wistfully told Von might solve the problem, if only it could be enacted. Thanks to Trump’s own decision, the method he describes as the best way to combat the swamp’s “snakes” was dismantled.

Trump was not the first president to cancel a ban on lobbyists on his way out the door. Bill Clinton had done precisely that. Obama, on the other hand, had left his ban in place when his term ended. In 2017, when Trump implementing his own version of the ban, he excoriated Clinton for having previously axed it, claiming, “He rigged the system on his way out.”

Apparently unaware of the role that his interview subject played in encouraging the lobbying industry, Von lamented the whole concept of the lobbying revolving door: “It’s like you’re playing both sides of the net.”

As if he was helpless to do anything about it, Trump told Von that he wished he could’ve done something more to curtail the influence of lobbyists.

“It’s obviously a probelm, and it’s a big problem, and we were doing things about it, but then we had to get down to other business, we had to solve a lot of other problems in this country,” Trump said.

The interview then moved on.

Probably not coincidentally, Von had another recent conversation on his podcast—with a very different politician—that had touched on related subjects. In a similarly goofy interview with Bernie Sanders released earlier that week, Von homed in on the lobbying issue. Sanders had a lot to say, and to Von’s credit, he seemed to have been listening.

“You know how many lobbyists there are in Washington, representing the pharmaceutical industry?” Sanders asked Von. “Take a wild and crazy guess!’

Decked out in a tie-dyed Grateful Dead shirt and backwards hat, Von thoughtfully rubbed his chin.

“Um, 2,000?” he asked.

“You got it! That’s a pretty good guess, about 1,800!” Bernie crowed.

“Wow!” Von said, looking stunned.

Bernie’s whole eye-opening lesson on influence in Washington can be seen below.

Donald Trump filed his latest financial disclosure on Thursday, revealing how parts of his business empire have benefitted from his time in politics—and how other parts have frayed. Trump reported high revenues at many of his American properties, but his commercial real estate sales, which helped rebuild his wealth in the early 2000s, have all but disappeared. One standby for Trump has been revenue from partnering with foreign investors to build properties in far-flung locations—last year, he reported having earned $8 million from partners in Dubai, Oman, and Turkey.

Those overseas deals do not include an announced deal to build a Trump-branded tower in Saudi Arabia. In the past, Trump has maintained close relationships with his foreign business partners, even while in office. Some received VIP treatment at his first inauguration or even vacationed with his adult children. Trump already has a pre-existing business relationship with the Saudis through his golf courses’ participation in the Saudi-owned LIV Golf tour, which has brought several events to Trump properties, despite protests from 9/11 families over the kingdom’s alleged connections to the attack.

The former president reported income from merchandise sales, adding up to somewhere in the single-digit millions. His other attempts to cash in on his political fame have shown some success—he reported having earned $7.1 million from the sale of Trump-themed NFTs.

By far Trump’s most valuable asset, on paper at least, is his ownership of 114 million shares in the company behind his Truth Social app. But in an example of how precarious his finances might be, those shares were worth just $2.5 billion on Monday morning, down dramatically from a peak of $7.5 billion in late March, shortly after the stock went public. That’s also a roughly $2 billion decline from a jump in the share price after Trump was wounded in mid-July in an assassination attempt.

Under the rules of the public offering, Trump can’t sell any of those shares until next month, meaning their value to him remains entirely theoretical. But even after Trump is able to sell them, he faces challenges in turning the shares into real money. As the owner of 65 percent of the company—and by far the platform’s most significant user—any attempt by Trump to sell large quantities of stock will likely trigger a further slide in the price.

The financial disclosure documents, required of all presidential candidates, are an inexact way to measure Trump’s wealth for several reasons. While this year’s filing, which appears to cover the 2023 calendar year, shows high revenues at some of Trump’s properties—for example, revenues at his Mar-a-Lago club topped $56 million—it’s had to compare the numbers to previous reports that Trump filed, because they didn’t necessarily cover full calendar years. Regardless, his resort revenue does seem to be up; his golf courses in the US alone brought in nearly $200 million last year. And his resorts in Ireland and Scotland had more than $62 million in revenues.

But these filings don’t show the expenses the properties incurred, so it’s impossible to know whether they are actually profitable. In past years, his Scottish golf courses, for example, were spectacularly unprofitable, despite some years of decent revenue.

The filings also give an inexact measure of how much Trump’s various properties are worth—asset values are given only in broad ranges, with the highest range encompassing anything worth more than $50 million. What’s more, Trump has a history of making inaccurate claims about what his properties are worth. Last fall, he lost a massive civil fraud case in which the New York attorney general’s office successfully argued that he’d misled banks and insurance companies about his property values. Trump is currently appealing the $450 million judgment in that case.

Trump’s latest filing includes a relatively new property—a house abutting Mar-a-Lago that he bought from his sister in 2018. Trump claims this house is worth a whopping $50 million or more, which would represent a remarkable increase from the $18.2 million he paid for it just six years ago. On the Palm Beach County property appraisers website, the house was valued at just $23 million last year. Even on commercial real estate websites, which tend to use more generous formulas, the estimated value is significantly less than $50 million.

Some hint of why Trump may think the property is worth so much comes from a deposition he gave last year in the New York fraud case. Trump bragged to prosecutors that he had received lucrative offers from potential buyers he refused to name for various properties—including the house he’d bought from his sister. In that case, Trump said that someone had offered him $50 million, more than two-and-a-half times what he paid for it, but that he had turned it down. Trump said he wouldn’t name the person. Last year, I wrote about Trump’s claim and the mysterious potential buyer:

Trump said he was not willing to tell [Attorney General Letitia] James’ office who the potential buyer was because he didn’t want “to have this man deposed.” James’ attorney, Kevin Wallace, pressed for more details, and Trump’s attorneys stepped in to offer several reasons not to name this person, including that there possibly was a confidentiality clause involved. One of Trump’s attorneys said he believed that the offer had come from an LLC. When Wallace turned to Trump and asked if he was aware of who the person behind the LLC was, Trump was much more confident than in his recollections of potential buyers for his other properties.

“I am,” Trump told Wallace.

The personal financial disclosure also lists Trump’s debts—and he still has quite a few longstanding ones, such as mortgages on Trump Tower and the 40 Wall Street commercial building in New York City. At least two loans—including the mortgage on 40 Wall Street, which at the end of 2023 had Trump on the hook for about $122 million—are slated to come due during the next’s presidential term.

Trump also lists new debts stemming from his voluminous legal problems. He is appealing the fraud case, and in the meantime has posted a bond of $175 million. He is similarly appealing two jury decisions that found he owes writer E. Jean Carroll $88.5 million for defaming her by calling her a liar and denying he had sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.