A liberal advocacy group that doesn't disclose its donors and has been "ordained" by Joe Biden to support his 2024 reelection bid raked in more than $15 million from a lobbying shop in the George Soros philanthropy network despite the president pushing to outlaw "dark money," records show.
"Dark money erodes public trust," Biden famously asserted last year in backing Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse's (D-RI) DISCLOSE Act, a bill aiming to force super PACs and 501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations that spend money on political ads to report the identities of donors giving them more than $10,000 in an election cycle. Still, as it looks all but certain that the president is headed for a rematch against Donald Trump to take control of the White House, Biden's anti-dark money sentiment hasn't deterred Future Forward USA Action, which is shelling out millions of dollars to bolster his agenda, from also taking heaps of dark money in 2022 — including from the Soros-funded Open Society Policy Center.
WHAT TO KNOW AS OPEC+ WEIGHS EXTENDING OR DEEPENING SUPPLY CUTS THROUGH 2024
The cash transfers, which recently became public due to the November deadline for many nonprofit groups to file their latest financial disclosures, underscore how Bidenworld is deeply entwined with behemoth liberal dark money groups, all while the president has dubbed that political practice a "serious problem facing our democracy." OSPC's $15.18 million to Future Forward USA Action was "to support nonpartisan research and content testing on critical policy issues," according to records.
"If we're talking about political influence in elections, it should be the will of the people that matters, not donations," David O'Brien, policy director for RepresentUs, a watchdog group that says it mobilizes "conservatives, progressives, and everyone in between to pass powerful anti-corruption laws," told the Washington Examiner. "We should know where that money is coming from. It's a systemic problem that requires a systemic solution."
Future Forward USA Action, which tapped ex-Biden White House officials to assist with ad campaign operations framing Biden as an "active and vibrant leader," is affiliated with Future Forward, an entity that senior Biden adviser Anita Dunn praised in July as "the preeminent super PAC supporting the Biden-Harris agenda and 2024 efforts." Meanwhile, the super PAC was accused in an August campaign finance complaint by the conservative National Legal and Policy Center of unlawfully failing to publicize the donors behind $3.4 million it took from Future Forward USA Action, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
News of the more than $15 million in OSPC grants to Future Forward USA Action comes as Alex Soros, the 38-year-old son of George Soros, continues to score White House visits and post on social media about his meetings with top Democratic lawmakers. Alex Soros was elected last December as board president of the Open Society Foundations. Future Forward USA Action also pocketed $5.5 million in 2021 from OSPC "to support policy advocacy on the Build Back Together legislative package and a global vaccine campaign," records show.
In 2022, Future Forward USA Action received $1.54 million from Hopewell Fund, a liberal group managed by Arabella Advisors, the largest Democratic-allied dark money network in the United States, according to documents. Arabella Advisors and its offshoots are under investigation by Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb, who issued subpoenas to the network in September for information on financial mismanagement allegations.
League of Conservation Voters, a top dark money environmental group, poured $2.5 million into Future Forward USA Action in 2022, tax forms obtained by the Washington Examiner show. LCV "advocates for a left-of-center agenda in a number of policy areas" and "advocates for tougher environmental standards," according to Capital Research Center, a conservative think tank.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
"Dark money, for the Left, means speech they don’t agree with funded by people they don’t like, but when money is moved around in the same way from George Soros to 'dark money' groups affiliated with the sitting president the Left’s watchdogs have nothing to say," Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher for the think tank, told the Washington Examiner.
Future Forward USA Action, Building Back Together, and the Biden campaign did not reply to requests for comment.