This article is from Rolling Stone by Andy Kroll:
Dark money, that torrent of anonymous cash unleashed by groups with mind-numbingly generic names such as Americans for Prosperity or Patriot Majority, is an ugly fixture of American politics, a weapon used to win elections, confirm (or defeat) judges, and pass (or defeat) legislation. Once dominated by ultra-wealthy conservatives like the Koch brothers, the dark-money racket is now embraced by Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives alike. President Joe Biden benefitted from an estimated $145 million in untraceable cash spent to help elect him in 2020, a sum more than ten times greater than the amount of dark money spent to reelect Donald Trump.
Now, two of dark-money biggest foes, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), want newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to take on the issue of what they call “the corrosive effect of dark money on American elections.”
In a letter first obtained by Rolling Stone, Whitehouse and Warren wrote to Yellen urging her to reverse a years-long trend of pathetic oversight of thinly veiled political groups that use their tax-exempt status to shield the donors from the public. That oversight work falls to the IRS, which is part of the Department of the Treasury and which has seen its budget dramatically slashed in recent years by Congress. At the same time, dark money spending has surged, from roughly $5 million in 2006 to more than $300 million in the 2012 election cycle and nearly $128 million in the 2020 election, according to OpenSecrets.org.
Read the full article here.
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