Screenshot from an America First Action ad (via YouTube)

President Donald Trump’s official super PAC, America First Action, recently unveiled its first independent expenditures in the 2020 presidential election attacking presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden on his response to the coronavirus pandemic.

But critical information about financial dealings of Trump’s re-election campaign remains hidden by shell companies, obscuring details critical to determine if Trump’s campaign is coordinating with his official super PAC.

Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited sums supporting a candidate so long as they do not coordinate with the candidate’s campaign on spending. The Federal Election Commission considers shared vendors when determining if communications constitute illegal coordination between a campaign and an outside group supporting it. The Trump campaign’s disclosure of payments through shell companies keeps the identities of sub-vendors it might share with its super PAC hidden.

The America First Action super PAC’s $36.6 million ad blitz attacking Biden is slated to include TV political advertising, digital ads and mailers in key battleground states, including $18.5 million in Florida and $8 million in North Carolina. The super PAC plans to spend at least $10 million on “Bejing Biden” ads devoted to branding the former vice president as soft on China amid the coronavirus pandemic. “America must stop China and to stop China you have to stop Joe Biden,” one of the super PAC’s ads concludes.

America First Action and its sister “dark money” nonprofit, America First Policies, received Trump’s stamp of approval as his official outside support network, distinguishing them from other purportedly pro-Trump groups. Trump himself is present at fundraisers hosted by the super PAC.

Trump’s official super PAC explicitly weighing in on the presidential race triggers campaign finance rules prohibiting coordination with the Trump campaign. It also raises new questions about the Trump campaign funneling money through layers of shell companies, hiding crucial information and leaving the public in the dark about vendors it may share with the super PAC supporting it.

New FEC disclosures filed Wednesday show in the weeks leading up to America First Action’s first 2020 presidential election independent expenditure, the super PAC started shelling out more than $100,000 to OnMessage, a vendor affiliated with National Media that came under scrutiny for allegedly facilitating illegal Trump campaign coordination with the NRA.

Trump’s 2020 campaign quietly began funneling money through a mysterious firm called Harris Sikes LLC as it stopped reporting payments to ad buyers at affiliates of National Media after the 2016 election following allegations the firm’s ad buyers facilitated illegal campaign coordination. Political ad records analyzed by OpenSecrets found Harris Sikes LLC listed as the buyer of Trump campaign ads into April 2020.

Harris Sikes LLC has no public-facing facade and all of the individual ad buyers listed on Federal Communications Commission political ad records are employees of National Media or its affiliates. A representative of National Media confirmed to OpenSecrets that Harris Sikes is a “firewall entity” affiliated with the firm and used as a way to distance teams of buyers from campaigns so there is no appearance of coordination.

The same individual media strategists purchasing ads for the America First operation through National Media affiliates also bought ads for Trump’s re-election campaign through Harris Sikes LLC.

But up until this week, America First Action and its sister dark money group have only paid for ads boosting Trump with messaging couched as issue advocacy. Trump is prominently featured in many of America First’s issue ads and FCC political ad disclosures list the issue of national importance as “pro-Trump agenda.” But the ads stop short of using terms such as “vote for” and “vote against,” so they’re exempt from FEC disclosure.

Unlike the operation’s issue ads, America First Action’s new independent expenditures are subject to campaign finance rules barring coordination with Trump’s campaign since it explicitly weighs in on the 2020 presidential election.

“Despite Trump having collaborated with America First Action to an unprecedented degree for a sitting president, the coordination rules really only apply once the super PAC begins making expenditures in support of Trump’s reelection,” said Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the Campaign Legal Center.

“Both the Trump campaign and America First Action should tread more carefully now that the 2020 campaign is fully underway and the super PAC is beginning to spend big money in support of Trump,” Fischer warned.

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The Trump campaign has not reported any transactions with Harris Sikes to the FEC in more than two years despite multiple FCC records showing political ads purchased for Trump’s campaign through Harris Sikes.

The vast majority of the Trump campaign’s media spending is instead reported to the FEC as payments to American Made Media Consultants. It’s a Delaware incorporated limited-liability company created by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale to act as a clearinghouse for media spending that would otherwise be done by outside vendors that typically take commissions on media or ad buys. That switch came after media scrutiny of Parscale’s firm being paid to handle the campaign’s media buying.

The Trump campaign’s opaque structure hides information about what sub-vendors are working for the campaign and the specific amounts paid to those sub-vendors. While this type of financial arrangement is not new, it further obscures the money trail of Trump campaign spending.

FCC records show initial ads in America First Action’s push against Biden were purchased by a different “firewall entity” called Del Ray Media, an alias adopted by a firm called Smart Media Group.

America First’s earlier issue ads were purchased through Del Cielo Media LLC, another alias used by Smart Media that most recently made news for allegedly helping facilitate coordination between a Republican Senate candidate and a closely-tied dark money group supporting him.

Del Cielo has a history of ad buys for dark money groups, including Doctor Patient Unity and the National Rifle Association. The NRA, America First and a now-defunct pro-Trump super PAC called Rebuilding America Now have all faced allegations of improper spending and illegal coordination with the Trump campaign using firewall entities. They face separate investigations into whether they laundered illegal foreign money into U.S. elections in support of Trump’s election. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) have also pushed for more information on the NRA’s communications with Harris Sikes and other appendages of the firm implicated in allegations of illegal coordination.

Most recently, America First’s super PAC was implicated in charges against Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. The Soviet-born associates of former New York City mayor and Trump personal attorney Rudy Giuliani are facing federal prosecution over an illegal “straw donor” scheme allegedly funneling $325,000 in foreign money from a mystery Russian national through shell companies to the super PAC.

America First has hosted events catering to big donors attended by President Trump himself, including one where Parnas’ photo was taken with Trump at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The super PAC arm alone has spent more than $570,000 at Trump businesses, according to OpenSecrets analysis of its most recent campaign finance disclosure filed April 15. The super PAC has shelled out another half million to firms involved in a series of opaque financial transactions enabling the super PAC to gain access to the Trump campaign’s email list despite coordination prohibitions, its most recent FEC filing shows.

Harris Sikes has only been listed in FCC filings for a small circle of political campaigns and groups supporting Republican candidates.

The RNC paid Harris Sikes for a $10 million advertising blitz pushing back against impeachment inquiries in October 2019. The ad campaign launched days after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced a formal impeachment inquiry into Trump. An RNC spokesperson told ABC News that this ad is its first television ad in eight years.

Shortly after the RNC and Trump campaign ad buys, America First Policies launched ads “designed to echo” the RNC’s advertising campaign, according to Reuters. The ads were reportedly intended to make it difficult for Democratic incumbents up for re-election in congressional districts carried by Trump in 2016 to support impeachment.

Closely timed ads purchased through other appendages of the shell company have raised questions about potential coordination between the Trump campaign, the RNC and outside groups supporting Trump.





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