Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly backed far-left candidates with “dark money” over the past few years, and the Capital Research Center said he went to great lengths to hide his donations from the public.
Zuckerberg appeared to have taken notes from liberal megadonor George Soros and reportedly used his money to influence elections: “With the $2 million dollar contribution to Law and Justice PAC, passed first through a daisy chain of ‘dark money’ groups to hide the source, Mark Zuckerberg turned the Washington County district attorney race into a tremendous blowout,” Capital Research Center (CRC) reported. “Unfortunately for Zuckerberg, it was not a blowout in Max Wall’s favor.”
While Zuckerberg’s efforts appeared to fail spectacularly, his efforts still have grim implications for America’s political future.
CRC summarized that Prosecutor Kevin Barton appeared destined for a slide to quiet victory until, “Almost overnight, the race became the most expensive district attorney election in state history” after a “‘dark money’ group with $10 million from Mark Zuckerberg and zero connection to Washington County decided that this was unacceptable.” Zuckerberg’s money allegedly was wired to Prosecuting Attorney Max Wall, who even the Associated Press has referred to as “a Soros-backed candidate.”
CRC then made damning claims that Zuckerberg was directly behind millions of dollars in donations:
“Capital Research Center has discovered that the roughly $17 million dollars that [Accountable Justice Action Fund] reported receiving in 2018 came from just two large donors. The Open Philanthropy Action Fund contributed $6.3 million, and Chan Zuckerberg Advocacy, the 501(c)(4) wing of Zuckerberg’s philanthropic empire, contributed the remaining $10 million. With Dustin Moskovitz and Soros ruled out, Max Wall’s mystery donor must be Mark Zuckerberg.”
The Media Research Center asked Facebook for a response, and a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative spokesperson suggested that Zuckerberg had not made an effort to hide his financial contributions: it’s all merely in the fine print. “There’s nothing quiet about the grant – information about it is public on CZI’s website and via our 990 filings.”
CRC reportedly suggested, however, that it was the secretive nature of the donations that hurt Wall’s candidacy, a subject that became a focal point in the election."[T]hey kept it secret the entire time, even despite the fact that his opponent was running ads saying secret billionaires are funding his campaign and he won't tell us who the billionaires are,” Capital Research Center researcher Parker Thayer reportedly told Fox News.
Wall’s bid against Barton was not Zuckerberg’s first foray into weaponized political donations.
“The Law and Justice PAC was also active in Nevada during 2018,” CRC reported. “The PAC spent over $400,000 supporting the campaign of Rob Langford for Clark County District Attorney against Democratic incumbent Steve Wolfson, and the results were identical.” CRC also observed: “Just as in Washington County, Zuckerberg’s involvement in the Clark County race was not discovered until now.”
Zuckerberg also faced a great deal of heat for donating $400 million to election offices during the coronavirus pandemic.
Conservative organizations alleged that the donated funds went disproportionately to Democratic-leaning counties in Florida and Pennsylvania.
“‘People saw that, and looked around, and they were increasingly concerned about why would you have a billionaire funding our elections through the backdoor,’ said Jessica Anderson, executive director of the conservative group Heritage Action, according to AP News.”
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