Well, here is a fun little Friday surprise for the Democratic Party as midterm season heats up. A watchdog organization called Americans for Public Trust just dropped a shiny new database that tracks overseas dollars pouring into American political groups, and wouldn't you know it, the receipts are not looking great for the left side of the aisle. As Conservative Brief reported, the tool has already flagged over $5 billion in foreign connected spending, and apparently they are just getting warmed up.
The database, cleverly named Follow Foreign Money, has so far cataloged more than 520 organizations and unearthed over 12,000 records. Among the top recipients of all this international generosity are the Sixteen Thirty Fund, ClimateWorks Foundation, and the Gates Medical Research Institute. All of which, according to APT, happen to align with Democratic causes and priorities. What a coincidence!
APT Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland basically said the quiet part loud, explaining that foreign cash is shaping American politics through ballot initiatives, issue advocacy, and voter registration. She called the database a "first of its kind" tool designed to help people untangle the complicated web of international money bankrolling left leaning nonprofits. Think of it as Ancestry dot com, but instead of finding out your great grandmother was from Ireland, you find out who is funding your local ballot measure.
Now here is where it gets spicy. Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss is reportedly one of the most prominent foreign donors in the database, having contributed north of $300 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund among other groups. That same fund reportedly helped financially back Amendment 3 in Missouri back in 2024, which enshrined abortion protections into the state constitution. Missouri Republican Sen. Ben Brown argued at the time that foreign donors could basically purchase amendments to a state constitution by writing fat enough checks. Missouri has since joined other states in banning foreign money from financing ballot initiative campaigns.
But wait, there is more! The database also identified several international organizations funneling money into U.S. nonprofits, including the London based Arcadia Fund, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation, and yes, the IKEA Foundation. That is right, the same people responsible for your impossible to assemble bookshelf may also be involved in funding American advocacy groups. Some assembly required, apparently.
APT also flagged nearly $12 billion from China and Qatar flowing into American higher education over the decades, noting those are countries that are, shall we say, not exactly on our Christmas card list. And on the climate front, a collection of foreign charities has reportedly spent almost $2 billion supporting U.S. policy fights and pushing what APT describes as an extreme climate agenda.
Federal law already prohibits foreign nationals from donating directly to U.S. candidates and campaigns, but APT says there are plenty of loopholes at both the state and federal level that allow overseas cash to pour into lobbying, protests, ballot campaigns, and ballot harvesting operations. So technically it is legal, which somehow makes it even more annoying.
Whether this database changes anything remains to be seen, but at minimum, it gives everyone a front row seat to the international money circus that apparently never stops performing.
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