John,

On behalf of two Georgia voters, CREW is suing the Federal Election Commission over its decision to dismiss the voters' complaint identifying a scheme to launder $5 million in dark money to influence the 2020 Senate elections in Georgia.

Despite the recommendation of the FEC’s expert staff to investigate the scheme, the FEC deadlocked along partisan lines, preventing the agency from proceeding.

That means that Republican FEC commissioners blocked the agency from investigating a scheme that aimed to help Republicans win a Senate race in Georgia.

The complaint from the voters we’re representing alleges that in 2020, an unknown donor or donors gave over $5 million to a recently created nonprofit called American Coalition for Conservative Policies.

ACCP, in turn, split the funds between two more supposed nonprofits – one that even shared a treasurer with ACCP and was also created shortly before the transfers.

Soon after, about $2.7 million was deposited to three super PACs. The three super PACs, and one of the nonprofits, then spent money with the intention to influence the 2020 Senate elections in Georgia.

The groups never revealed the source of the $5 million that they spent to influence the election.

As part of the larger scheme to evade disclosing the source of the dark money, the transactions were structured so that no single entity would appear to devote more than half of its spending to reportable political activities.

CREW’s lawsuit challenges the FEC’s dismissal on several grounds, including that Republican FEC commissioners failed to explain their reasoning to their Democratic colleagues until after dismissal. That’s illegal.

The FEC commissioners' dismissal also misinterprets the law by imposing a high bar for voters to bring complaints, resulting in few investigations. The Republican commissioners’ justification also gutted the Federal Election Campaign Act’s ban on conduit contributions and overlooked common schemes used by dark money groups to evade disclosure.

They ignored compelling evidence that should have prompted an investigation — and that’s why CREW is suing the FEC over its dismissal of the complaint.

CREW is fighting back against dark money schemes across the country, because our elections should not be influenced by shadowy, secretive interests. If you agree, please donate to CREW to support our work →

Thank you,

Adam Rappaport
General Counsel
CREW