Federal records show that two hate-Trump political groups paid millions of dollars to their executive director’s communications consultancy.
Citing data from the Federal Election Commission, The Daily Caller News Foundation disclosed that Defend Democracy Together and its sister hate-Trump political action committee, Republican Accountability, paid the two groups nearly $14 million.
The executive director of both groups is Sarah Longwell, president and CEO of Longwell Partners.
The two outfits are a Who’s Who of Trump-deranged neoconservatives. Their obsessions include “election deniers,” the mostly peaceful protest of January 6, 2021, and “nativists” who have supposedly taken over the GOP.
“Conflict of Interest”
DDT has “has paid over $10.6 million to the communications firm Longwell Partners since 2020 for services ranging for management to research, according to tax documents and Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings,” DCNF reported:
Longwell owned at least 35% of Longwell Partners as of 2022, according to DDT tax filings.
DDT delegated its management duties to Longwell’s firm in 2020, 2021 and 2022, according to tax forms. It is unknown if this arrangement persisted in 2023 as DDT has not yet released its tax forms for that year.…
Payments to Longwell’s firm took up 12.7% of DDT’s revenue in 2020, or about $4.8 million, tax documents show. In 2021, 19.5% of DDT’s revenue, or about $2.6 million, went to Longwell Partners with that figure rising to over $2.9 million in 2022, or 32.1% of DDT’s revenue.
As for the RA PAC, it paid Longwell more than“ $2.9 million to Longwell Partners between July 2022 and December 2023, according to FEC records.”
Two experts on foundation funding and spending explained why the massive payments are problematic.
Parker Thayer of the Capital Research Center told DCNF that using an “in-house for-profit management” company is “an expeditious way to handle complex inter-organization management fees for groups that collaborate and have overlapping staff.” Then again, he said, it’s “a very convenient way for groups to avoid disclosing payments to personnel and firms that would otherwise need to be reported individually.”
Another nonprofit expert was more blunt. Longwell “benefits as part owner of the for-profit that is paid by the nonprofit and super PAC she runs,” Doug White said. “It’s a conflict of interest.”
Even if the payments are legal, he told DCNF, “she should be forthright and transparent about the conflict, and explain, without being asked, why another communications firm can’t be used.”
And just to keep things cozy, DDT and RA PAC are shacked up in the same offices as Longwell. Address for all three: the 10th floor of 1100 Vermont Ave NW, Washington, D.C.
Trump Derangement
Neocons who landed in Washington, D.C., during the Reagan administration run DDT and RA PAC.
The three directors of DDT are Bill Kristol, Mona Charen, and Linda Chavez. The DDT website claims that the GOP “finds itself entertaining some of the same unsettling nativist and authoritarian impulses that characterized Europe throughout the 20th century. These ideals are antithetical to what it means to be a Republican, and what it means to be American.”
A globalist, open-borders lobby group, DDT runs projects such as “Republicans for Ukraine,” which supports U.S. involvement in Ukraine. it also created the “Becoming American Initiative,” which wants citizenship for “DREAMers,” illegal aliens who jumped the border as children with their irresponsible parents.
Kristol is chairman of RA PAC.
Under the “election denier” section of its website, RA PAC features photos and quotes from so-called Republicans and conservatives fed up with Donald Trump.
“These Republicans, former Republicans, and conservatives are tired of hearing lies that the 2020 election was stolen,” the website says:
The lies and conspiracy theories promoted by Donald Trump and his allies caused the January 6 attack on the Capitol, and they continue to destabilize our democracy. Casting doubt on the legitimacy of election results undermines our institutions. That’s why these lies must be rejected by all Americans who value the rule of law.
The site also features a “GOP Democracy Report Card” that uses six criteria to rate Republican legislators. The criteria relate to the 2020 election and mostly peaceful protest on January 6.
Unsurprisingly, 369 rated “poor” or “very poor” because they had and shared opinions RA PAC didn’t like.
One who rated “excellent” was, naturally, TDS-afflicted former Representative Liz Cheney.
Kristol and Charen voted for President Joe Biden.
As DCNF observed, the DDT-RA PAC-Longwell Partners payment scheme sounds similar to that conceived by the hate-Trump Lincoln Project. At the time of an Associated Press report about the group, the fundraising scam paid $50 million of the $90 million it had raised to companies owned by the group’s leaders.
Disgraced project co-founder Steve Schmidt called the outfit his way to create “generational wealth.”
Another project principal, Rick Wilson, pocketed enough loot from the scam to pay off a $200,000 mortgage 16 years early.
