A secretive political group that is little more than a mailbox full of money in a Des Moines UPS Store raised more than $29.4 million in 2016, most of which was funneled into ads aimed at electing Republicans.

Tax documents obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics show that American Future Fund (AFF), a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization that doesn’t have to disclose its donors, had a banner year in 2016.

The $29.4 million haul marks the group’s highest revenues since it was cut from the constellation of political organizations linked to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch amidst a campaign money laundering scandal in 2012. In 2015, the dark money group raised just a little over $350,000.

Bringing in such a considerable sum is no small feat for an organization that boasts no employees nor any measurable social welfare beyond its robust political spending. But in the world of secretive political groups, it’s not an anomaly.

A combination of unclear rules and lax oversight from both the IRS and the FEC has made it easy for nominally apolitical groups like AFF to become vehicles for secret political money, allowing wealthy corporate and individual donors to spend in elections without any public fingerprints.

Nearly 90 percent of American Future Fund’s revenue in 2016 came from donors giving between $1 million and $8 million. But because groups like AFF are not technically political organizations, and therefore not subject to the same disclosure requirements as political action committees (PACs), the entities fueling AFF with seven-figure checks will remain far from the public eye.

Stealth Rubio Group

AFF reported more than $12.7 million in spending on political advocacy in 2016. During the Republican presidential primaries, observers noted a trend wherein the group would go after Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) opponents, one by one, without ever actually mentioning Rubio.

AFF started by spending $1.5 million against John Kasich (R-Ohio) in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses. It spent another $1.5 million against Ted Cruz (R-Texas) before the New Hampshire primaries.

Then, after AFF hit Donald Trump with a sustained $6.8 million in attack ads over two months, criticizing his involvement in the Trump University fraud lawsuits, Trump hit back, calling it a “Phony Rubio commercial.”

Phony Rubio commercial. I could have settled, but won’t out of principle! See student surveys. https://t.co/KKHiBH554d — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 29, 2016

Trump ultimately agreed to pay a $25 million settlement in the Trump University cases, so it wasn’t “phony.” But Trump appears to have been right about the Rubio ties.

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Tax documents for a group called Conservative Solutions Project obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics show the group — which was set up by Rubio allies to boost his campaign with money raised from anonymous donors — gave $1 million to AFF.

The CSP grant came after Rubio had dropped out of the presidential race. In the final weeks of the election, however, when Rubio was fighting to keep his Senate seat, AFF spent $2.8 million against his opponent, Patrick Murphy (D-Fla), and Rubio clenched the victory.

AFF’s largest outlays — beyond its direct political spending — came in the form of more than $4.7 million in grants, the largest of which went to other dark money groups active in the 2016 elections.

Groups like AFF often disperse grants as a way to get around IRS limits on political spending because they can count the grants to other 501(c) organizations as “social welfare” spending, even when the recipient groups are also spending the money on politics.

AFF gave $3 million to the National Rifle Association, boosting the gun rights group’s historic spending in support of Donald Trump’s successful campaign.

It gave another $750,000 to Ending Spending and $708,500 to The Progress Project, it’s sister organization. Both groups were active in helping Republicans keep their majorities in the House and Senate in 2016.

Nonprofit For Hire

American Future Fund was founded in 2007 as one of the first politically active nonprofit groups to be funded by the Koch donor network. Years before Citizens United, AFF and other groups sprung up during the 2008 election cycle to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s Wisconsin Right to Life v FEC decision, which freed social welfare organizations like AFF and others to run politically charged issue ads close to an election.

Then, during the 2012 elections, AFF was embroiled in a campaign money laundering scandal in California, and the attention caused it to be exiled from the constellation of groups funded by the Koch donor network. Ever since, AFF has become something of roving dark money group in search of donors with a purpose.

In 2014, for example, it was a conduit for GOP establishment money, flowing through other dark money groups close to Kentucky Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and into races, such as the Senate election in North Carolina, where it made pro-marijuana ads for the libertarian in the race in an attempt to pull votes from Democratic incumbent Senator Kay Hagan (D-N.C.).

At the same time, AFF was buying ads in Politico and the The Wall Street Journal referring to Puerto Rico’s ongoing debt crisis and accusing the then-Governor of Puerto Rico, Alejandro Garcia Padilla, as being part of a “Culture of Corruption.”

As the Center for Responsive Politics reported at the time, the ads were timed to run right as a lawsuit brought by the Doral Financial Group was to go to court — a suit the bank ultimately won, receiving a $230 million tax refund from the Puerto Rican government.

In early January 2018, AFF spent $250,000 on digital and cable ads calling on President Trump and Congress “to act on a bipartsian solution to improving our immigration system.”



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