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The Money Behind January 6 Is Flowing into the 2022 Elections [1]

['Ian Vandewalker', 'Daniel I. Weiner', 'Martha Kinsella', 'Katherine Scotnicki', 'Lawrence Norden', 'Michael Waldman', 'Lauren Miller', 'Wendy R. Weiser']

Date: 2022-07

As the Janu­ary 6 commit­tee hear­ings continue, many see the panel’s work as an invest­ig­a­tion of an event that happened on a single day. To be sure, recon­struct­ing the attack on the Capitol is crucial to the commit­tee’s efforts. But it’s import­ant to under­stand that the story of the attempt to over­turn the will of the voters is still unfold­ing.

The narrat­ive that the 2020 elec­tion was stolen from Trump, which fueled the viol­ence on that day, is play­ing a cent­ral role in key elec­tions this year, includ­ing some that will decide who runs the 2024 elec­tions. And some of those behind the rally that preceded the Capitol attack are spend­ing tens of millions of dollars to influ­ence 2022 federal, state, and local elec­tions.

Several nonprofits organ­ized the rally on Janu­ary 6 where Trump’s speech culmin­ated in him claim­ing the elec­tions were “corrupt,” saying “we fight like hell,” and call­ing on people to march to the Capitol. The fund­ing behind these groups has not been publicly disclosed, so it’s unknown how much the people who paid for it are spend­ing on this year’s elec­tions. There is, however, some limited inform­a­tion avail­able.

Pack­aging supplies magnate Richard Uihlein was reportedly one of the biggest finan­cial support­ers of the rally. He contrib­uted $4 million in recent years to the Tea Party Patri­ots, one of the part­ners in organ­iz­ing the rally. Uihlein’s found­a­tion has also suppor­ted Turn­ing Point Action, whose leader, Charlie Kirk, claimed to have sent “80+ buses” to the rally.

The found­a­tion has also given $1.8 million since 2018 to the Conser­vat­ive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute, which has promoted the Big Lie. The insti­tute holds “elec­tion integ­rity” summits to recruit poll work­ers with “false alleg­a­tions of fraud in 2020 as a call to action to rally support for vigil­ant engage­ment this year in the elec­tion process.”

Uihlein is one of the biggest elec­tion donors in the coun­try. He has donated $38 million to federal polit­ical commit­tees — candid­ates, parties, and super PACs — since Janu­ary 2021. He has also given tens of thou­sands of dollars to candid­ates for statewide and legis­lat­ive offices across several states. Uihlein’s dona­tions have suppor­ted elec­tion denial candid­ates for governor or secret­ary of state in Geor­gia, Nevada, and Texas. Dona­tions from Uihlein comprise virtu­ally all the fund­ing for Restor­a­tion PAC, a super PAC that has been active in state races this year in Geor­gia and Virginia, in addi­tion to spread­ing elec­tion denial with attack ads target­ing local elec­tions in Wiscon­sin.

Others have shown support for the “stop the steal” move­ment’s attempt to discredit the 2020 result and gone on to plow millions into the 2022 elec­tion.

Tech billion­aire Peter Thiel, while host­ing a polit­ical fundraiser earlier this year, reportedly commen­ted that he wants to replace “the trait­or­ous 10” — the 10 Repub­lic­ans who voted to impeach Trump over his role in Janu­ary 6. Thiel has donated more than $20 million to polit­ical commit­tees this cycle.

Larry Ellison, founder and chair­man of Oracle, reportedly joined a Novem­ber 2020 call to discuss strategies for contest­ing the elec­tion result with Trump attor­ney Jay Seku­low, Sen. Lind­say Graham (R-SC), and others who promoted elec­tion fraud narrat­ives. Ellison has donated $20 million to a super PAC called the Oppor­tun­ity Matters Fund, making him one of the most prolific elec­tion donors this cycle.

Trump’s own role in the insur­rec­tion has of course been a key focus of the inquiry. In this elec­tion cycle, Trump’s lead­er­ship PAC, Save Amer­ica, has spent more than $9 million on federal and state candid­ates and other polit­ical groups. This includes $1 million to Conser­vat­ive Part­ner­ship Insti­tute, the group recruit­ing poll work­ers with elec­tion denial, which employs Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer involved in Trump’s elec­tion chal­lenges, and Mark Mead­ows, Trump’s White House chief of staff. The millions Save Amer­ica has expen­ded so far are only a small frac­tion of the group’s repor­ted $107 million in cash on hand at the begin­ning of May.

The Janu­ary 6 commit­tee is also invest­ig­at­ing the Repub­lican National Commit­tee, which last month had a judge reject its attempt to block the panel from acquir­ing email fundrais­ing records from the RNC’s vendor, Sales­force. The court said, “Claims that the 2020 pres­id­en­tial elec­tion was fraud­u­lent or stolen motiv­ated some who parti­cip­ated in the attack, and emails sent by the RNC and the Trump campaign using Sales­for­ce’s plat­form spread those claims.” This year, the RNC is recruit­ing and train­ing “an army” of poll work­ers in Demo­cratic-lean­ing communit­ies who would be in contact with party attor­neys and look­ing for ways to chal­lenge voters.

The false narrat­ive that the 2020 elec­tion was stolen was a rally­ing cry for those who attacked the Capitol on Janu­ary 6. Unfor­tu­nately, it has not faded away since then. The wealthy interests spend­ing big on upcom­ing elec­tions either still believe it or are cynic­ally manip­u­lat­ing it for polit­ical ends. With the support of megadonors, the Big Lie behind the insur­rec­tion contin­ues to threaten to wreak havoc on our elec­tions.

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[1] Url: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/money-behind-january-6-flowing-2022-elections

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