During his second run at the U.S. Senate this year, Michigan businessman John James has enjoyed the support of a deep-pocketed dark-money group that appears to be effectively operating as an extension of the James campaign itself.

The group, Better Future Michigan (BFM), is ostensibly independent from James’ political team. But it’s run by James’ former campaign manager, who was drawing checks from the campaign just a few months before BFM ran its first broadcast ad attacking Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the Democratic incumbent that James, a Republican, is trying to unseat.

That overlap, first reported by the Center for Responsive Politics, has drawn allegations of illegal coordination. But the ties between BFM and the James campaign go even deeper than revealed in that report.