Campaign operatives and donors have long deployed creative accounting to mask the flow of money into politics.
But in the decade and a half since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision paved the way for unlimited spending on political advertising,
it has become particularly difficult to follow the big-money flow in the weeks before Election Day,
despite the majority opinion’s assertions that “prompt disclosure” of political spending would enable voters “to make informed decisions.”

“Now it’s sort of undeniable that the court was wrong with those predictions,” said Ian Vandewalker, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive nonprofit that works to reduce the influence of big money in politics.

Mr. Vandewalker published an analysis this week of the increase in difficult-to-trace funding to super PACs.
“The ability to hide funding for those types of things is attractive for people who want to engage in dirty tricks,” he said in an interview.
If done effectively, operatives can hide the provenance of this money until after the election is called
— or perhaps forever.

Here is how:
Major donors give to so-called dark-money organizations, usually nonprofit groups that are not obligated to disclose their donors.
Those groups then give the money to super PACs, which are technically required to disclose their donors.
But the trail goes cold when those super PACs list dark-money organizations, instead of individual donors.
#darkmoney #MoneyIsNotSpeech
#overturncitizensunited
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/30/us/politics/dark-money-presidential-campaign.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare