The Money Machine Behind Progressive Election Efforts
By Austin Alonzo | The Epoch Times
Arabella Advisors is the biggest name in politics you’ve never heard.
The firm is deeply involved with some of the most prominent financiers of progressive policies and Democratic Party candidates. It manages a complex network of tax-exempt, nonprofit organizations that quietly funnels money to progressive organizations, political action committees, and the campaigns of Democratic Party candidates.
CEO of Koch Industries Charles Koch (3rd-R) and Fontainebleau officials take part in a ribbon cutting in Las Vegas on Dec. 13, 2023. (Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Fontainebleau Las Vegas)
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In 2020 and 2022, according to federal election finance filings and nonprofit tax forms, groups linked to Arabella were active in financing Democrats and left-leaning get-out-the-vote efforts. A leader of one of the funds connected to Arabella has already promised to keep up their efforts in 2024.
Arabella Advisors is a private, Washington-based for-profit corporation. In its 2020 report, it says it provides “administrative services to nonprofits working to build a better world and [help] philanthropists on their journeys from idea to impact.”
Arabella didn’t respond to requests for comment by The Epoch Times.
Its website says its clients include families and individuals, foundations, nonprofits, and corporations. It doesn’t disclose financial records or details of its activities outside of so-called annual impact reports.
The latest such report, reflecting its activities in 2021 and 2022, said it worked to “deploy more than half a billion dollars in grants to more than 2,800 grantees working in more than 100 countries and almost every state in the United States.”
The report also shows evidence of Arabella’s political leanings. It lists defending democracy and elevating equity as part of “how it helps.”
In a December 2023 hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee, Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) described Arabella as “a key part of the Democrat Party’s political infrastructure in recent years.”
Mr. Smith asked about the amount of money allegedly flowing into Arabella from foreign sources. In his testimony, Capital Research Center President Scott Walter said one donor in particular, Swiss medical device billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, is sending millions of dollars to Arabella-linked groups through his nonprofit organizations the Wyss Foundation and the Berger Action Fund.
“Our country is increasingly polarized in many ways, but we possess near-universal agreement that foreigners and foreign money should not meddle in our politics,” Mr. Walter said.
In November 2023, Arabella named Himesh Bhise, formerly a telecom executive, as its CEO. He replaced Sampriti Ganguli, who, according to her LinkedIn page, left the organization in December 2022 after she moved from CEO to become a part-time senior adviser.
In November 2021, Ms. Ganguli said in an interview with The Atlantic that Arabella is the American left’s equivalent to the conservative mega-donor Charles Koch. She is now an independent consultant in Arlington, Virginia.
Mr. Bhise, according to political donor records maintained by watchdog organization OpenSecrets, made small donations to Democrat candidates between 2008 and 2018.
The Nonprofit Funds
According to nonprofit tax forms reviewed by The Epoch Times, Arabella is paid to provide the administrative, operations, and management services for six politically active tax-exempt funds: New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Hopewell Fund, Windward Fund, North Fund, and Impetus Fund.
In 2020, in the run-up to the general election between now-President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump, those groups funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations that were intimately involved in a myriad of activities, including efforts to get out the vote, facilitate mail-in voting, explicitly oppose President Trump’s campaign, or support President Biden’s campaign.
The nonprofit organizations are required to file a Form 990 return with the IRS at the end of their fiscal year or the calendar year. However, it reflects the activities of the prior year. Americans, therefore, won’t know what the Arabella-linked funds were up to in 2024 until the end of 2025 at the earliest.
Influencing the 2020 Election
Collectively, the Arabella-linked funds spent about $1.4 billion in fiscal 2020. The groups sent more than $48 million back to Arabella for their services.
The Epoch Times reviewed dozens of 990s and Federal Election Commission filings associated with groups that admitted they were involved in a so-called “shadow campaign” in 2020.
In February 2021, Time published an article, “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election,” that detailed how a group of powerful people “across industries and ideologies” worked behind the scenes to “influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage, and control the flow of information.”
Time called the so-called shadow campaign a mission to fortify the 2020 election. Those who were quoted in the story said they worked to send hundreds of millions of dollars to poll workers and operatives aiming to get people to vote by mail for the first time. An Epoch Times analysis published in January showed that the campaign was focused on promoting Democratic candidates.
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In 2020, the Arabella-linked funds sent about $218 million toward groups that were directly involved in the efforts against President Trump and other Republican candidates, according to IRS records.
The organizations said they were, and are still, working to protect democracy. A financial analysis shows that when they received money from an Arabella-linked fund in 2020, it almost always went toward efforts to stop either President Trump or another Republican candidate.
Read more here…
(TLB) published this article by Austin Alonzo as posted at The Epoch Times and ZH
Header featured image (edited) credit: Money flow into funnel/Illustration by The Epoch Times, Shutterstock
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