America First Policies, the Nonprofit Run by Trump Strategists, Spends Millions from Secret Donors Promoting Kavanaugh and Other Priorities

Brett Kavanaugh stars in one heavily-promoted digital ad calling on senators to confirm President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee. We don’t know who donated the $791,160 for nonprofit America First Policies’ Kavanaugh ad campaign, nor the $30 million the group reportedly collected last year. But it’s a safe bet that the White House knows.

America First Policies, having registered with the government as a 501(c)(4) social welfare nonprofit, does not disclose its donors even as it maintains a revolving door between it, the Trump campaign, and the White House. The group has spent millions of dollars on campaign-style ads touting President Trump and his policies on taxes, healthcare, and more. Its proximity to the nation’s most powerful elected office makes AFP the most urgent example of a growing practice and problem: elected officials who use nonprofits to raise unlimited advertising funds from secret donors.

The president’s top political advisers created AFP in January 2017 and have led its fundraising and strategy ever since. Its founders included the Trump campaign’s digital director, Brad Parscale, manager Rick Gates, and campaign advisers to Vice President Mike Pence. Other former Trump campaign aides have held leadership positions, including Curtis Ellis as senior policy adviser and Carl Higbie as director of advocacy. In March 2017, following the first failed attempt to reform healthcare, the White House dispatched senior staffer Katie Walsh to make AFP more effective. Corey Lewandowski, who kickstarted the Trump 2016 campaign as its first manager, raised money for AFP until this past May.

To raise unlimited funds while shielding its donors, the group is supposed to avoid coordinating with candidates and not focus primarily on politics. That bar serves to stop donors from giving lavishly to what are essentially shadow campaigns and circumventing direct contribution limits that prevent corruption of candidates. Yet earlier this year, CNBC reported extensive cooperative efforts between AFP and three top pollsters for the 2016 Trump campaign. And early last year, President Trump named Brad Parscale, who serves as an adviser to AFP, manager of his 2020 campaign. Watchdog group Common Cause filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission, demanding an investigation into illegal coordination. But the federal agency faces seemingly insurmountable partisan gridlock on controversial issues.

Staffed by some of the president’s closest aides, AFP has been able to raise and spend millions for political ads from anonymous donors:

To be sure, President Trump isn’t the first president whose advisers helped promote his policy agenda via a lightly regulated nonprofit. In his second term, President Obama enjoyed the powerful support of Organizing for Action, a group created by his top campaign aides. Responding to critics, however, OFA elected to publicly disclose its donors even if it had no legal duty to do so. So far, AFP has not done the same.

We reported this year about the risks of corruption that arise when elected officials are able to raise unlimited advertising dollars through secretive nonprofits, especially from donors with business interests those officials can affect. In the absence of strong transparency laws, officials at other levels of government have exploited the nonprofit strategy. But America First Policies is the most prominent example of how close to power secret donors can get and why we need concrete reforms that bring accountability to these dark money groups.

 

 

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Purchasing Power: The Conversation This post is part of the special series designed to provide well-informed commentary, fresh questions, and new answers about the facts of money in politics. Dive in to 'Purchasing Power: The Conversation’ here.  The views expressed by blog contributors are the authors’ own and not necessarily the views of the Brennan Center.