Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, the giving of whom conservatives have increasingly scrutinized over concerns about foreign influence in U.S. elections, is set to be a key focus of a congressional hearing this week held by the GOP-led House Administration Committee.
Wyss, who routes his fortune through a Washington, D.C.-based private foundation with an affiliated advocacy and lobbying arm funding left-of-center causes, is under the spotlight as Republican lawmakers back proposals aiming to thwart what they say are “loopholes” allowing foreign nationals to exert influence over elections. The House Administration Committee, which oversees elections, will hold a hearing Thursday titled “American Confidence in Elections: Preventing Noncitizen Voting and Other Foreign Interference.”
The hearing will serve as a platform for Republicans to air their frustrations about, in their telling, a lack of current laws stopping foreign nationals such as Wyss from using “dark money” to prop up state ballot initiatives and for “ballot harvesting,” get-out-the-vote activity, and public communications promoting a political party. Wyss, who lives in Wyoming, was found by the Federal Election Commission in 2022 to have made $119,000 in unlawful political contributions from 1990 to 2006 — though the regulator declined to take action against him because the statute of limitations had passed.
“American elections must be free from foreign influence,” House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI) told the Washington Examiner. “Tomorrow’s hearing will uncover the truth about how wealthy foreign nationals are wrongfully influencing American elections.”
Wyss, 88, has earned the ire of the conservative watchdog Americans for Public Trust, the director of which, Caitlin Sutherland, will testify Thursday before the House Administration Committee. APT released a report last year pointing out that Wyss’s groups shipped hundreds of millions of dollars to groups tied to Arabella Advisors, a left-wing consulting firm managing nonprofit organizations that obscure their “dark money” giving through a complex fiscal sponsorship arrangement.
Among other topics, Sutherland will zero in on how Wyss has helped bankroll Sixteen Thirty Fund, a group in the Arabella Advisors network that, in turn, spends money to boost Democrats, according to a nonpublic copy of her written testimony.
APT, which is linked to a network of groups shaped by conservative activist Leonard A. Leo, accused Wyss-tied groups in a 2021 FEC complaint of violating campaign finance rules barring foreign nationals from making donations. While the complaint was dismissed, the FEC’s general counsel said the Wyss-tied groups failed to provide evidence of certain grant agreements.
“It is alarming that groups that are receiving funding from a foreign national turn around and spend money on issue advocacy campaigns, voter registration, get-out-the-vote efforts, Super PACs, and state ballot issue campaigns,” Sutherland wrote in testimony that has been turned over to the House Administration Committee. “These foreign influence loopholes must be closed.”
“Foreign nationals are already barred from donating to candidates directly, so why should all these vehicles that influence elections be any different?” she wrote. “American elections should be for American citizens. Stopping foreign nationals — whether they be a reclusive Swiss billionaire or a communist dictator — from funding U.S. policy fights is a simple step to take.”
Since 2016, the Wyss Foundation has doled out more than $807 million in the United States, primarily for environmental causes, Bloomberg reported. Its affiliate, Berger Action Fund, dished out more than $343 million to left-wing groups over that same period.
The two nonprofit groups deny they have acted unlawfully.
“The Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Fund do not support or oppose political candidates or engage in electoral activities, and complies with the rules, laws, and disclosure requirements governing their activities,” Marneé Banks, a spokeswoman for the two groups, told the Washington Examiner. “Any allegations to the contrary are patently false.”
She pointed to their grantmaking “to expand access to public lands, lower the cost of healthcare, and address income equality” and said the groups support the DISCLOSE Act, a bill long proposed by Democrats aiming to thwart so-called dark money in elections.
But Sutherland and Scott Walter, president of the conservative Capital Research Center think tank, among others on the Right, have continued to raise concerns over Wyss backing groups that are shelling out large sums to support Democrats through a purported loophole.
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The loophole, conservatives say, has also manifested in states such as Ohio. In the Buckeye State, lawmakers are debating legislation supported by APT and other right-leaning groups that aims to bar foreign money from backing ballot measures.
Sutherland testified earlier this year to the Ohio Senate that the “pipeline of foreign cash into Ohio politics should be stopped,” noting that despite Wyss having a “disinterest in becoming an American citizen, he made it a personal goal to influence American politics.”