Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-GA) campaign said it got $3.5 million in small-dollar contributions this year, so minuscule that the campaign doesn't have to divulge its sources.
The Federal Election Commission, on the other hand, is dubious.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) requested the Greene campaign to review its books last week to make sure those numbers were correct did it really raise over 80% of its money from small-dollar contributions this year? If history is any indication, all the campaign will have to do is say yes and that will be the end of it.
A regulation safeguarding the anonymity of small-dollar donors is at risk, as small-dollar donors have been giving to Republican campaigns in historic numbers—often unintentionally. The campaign is not required to publish any details, including the donor's identifying information, until a donor provides a total of $200 for an election (the "itemization threshold"). Their name, location, and employer's name can all be kept confidential, known only to the campaign.
If Greene's figures are true, she received gifts from almost 17,700 anonymous individual contributors in the first six months of the year, a significant sum for a freshman congressman.
The Federal Election Commission has been questioning Republican campaigns more and more as they increasingly rely on low-cost fundraising methods. According to data analyzed by The Daily Beast, the FEC has delivered 14 such notifications to candidates since June, claiming millions in suspicious unitemized donations. Only three of them were given to Republicans.
When asked about the increase, former FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel told The Daily Beast that while the itemization regulation was not a big deal in the past, it now has an "element of potential for fraud" and needs to be looked into more.
“It was never brought to our attention while I was there, so I didn't consider it a problem at the time. And I believe it is a cause for concern,” added Ravel, who left the agency in March 2017.
Some of the targeted promotions include well-known brands. In August, letters were sent to the campaigns of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), all of whom collected more than $1 million in unattributed contributions. (Pelosi is one of the country's top Democratic fundraisers, and Ocasio-Cortez has historically relied on small-dollar grassroots donors.)
Last month, the feds requested House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to explain why he declared over $800,000 in anonymous donations in a 2020 filing. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a rookie to the Republican House leadership, was also accused of stealing about $300,000.
In August, the FEC issued a warning to Missouri senatorial candidate Mark McCloskey, a Republican who, along with his wife, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor firearms charges in June after pointing guns at Black Lives Matter demonstrators outside their home in St. Louis. The FEC wants to know if the McCloskey campaign recorded over $400,000 in anonymous small-dollar contributions correctly in its first FEC filing in July.
On the one hand, any significant anonymous contributions can be viewed as deserving of inquiry. Experts also think that the disclosure regulations could allow for unlawful contributions and other financial deception. However, they also believe that the dangers are low in general. They argue that the rise in small-donation donations is a positive indicator for democracy.
Despite the lack of transparency, Paul S. Ryan, vice president of policy and litigation at Common Cause, told The Daily Beast that he welcomed the surge of unitemized contributions.
“I am a money in politics watchdog, but my perspective on this may not be what one might expect,” Ryan remarked. He considers the rise of small-dollar contributions to be "a really fantastic thing for democracy" and "in some ways the antidote to the special interest donor."
Another government watchdog, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, has a communications director, Jordan Libowitz. “I would much prefer have three million individuals paying $1 than one guy giving $3 million to fund my politicians,” he remarked. And unitemized donations have recently surged among Republicans, a group famous for courting megadonors.
For example, over the last four years, ex-President Donald Trump's campaign has seen a large increase in small-dollar contributors. According to FEC records, the campaign raised $86.7 million in 2016 from individuals who gave him less than $200 altogether. Trump, on the other hand, received $210 million in 2020, a 260 percent gain. While then-candidate Joe Biden's 2020 campaign raised more low-dollar money, around $319 million, Trump's haul accounted for over 45 percent of his total, compared to 38 percent for Biden.
The GOP's unification behind the WinRed internet fundraising platform is to blame for the trend. However, some of WinRed's activities may have fooled small-dollar donors, bilking them for more than they realize. And, according to Libowitz, WinRed may be to blame for the reporting issues.
“People have wondered if these were actually unitemized donations, or if some donors paid more than $200 and the campaigns wanted to keep their names off the list, or if something else was going on,” he said. “However, news reports have revealed that Republicans are having difficulty understanding low-dollar fundraising, as they now use WinRed, which has its own reporting concerns. Now that there are a lot of individuals paying $20 to politicians, they might not be able to keep up.”
WinRed, like its Democratic counterpart ActBlue, itemizes small-dollar contributions automatically, even if the donor hasn't reached the threshold. In Greene's data, this is reflected. However, she only claimed to have raised $1.2 million through WinRed, which is less than half of the $3.5 million claimed by the FEC.
However, because campaigns aren't obligated to furnish proof right away, their responses to the FEC's requests are typically brief. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), for example, were both identified for unitemized reporting earlier this year and simply assured the Federal Election Commission that their numbers were correct. They haven't been asked to prove it in front of the public.
Adav Noti, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, called the unitemized process a “mixed blessing.”
“There are numerous ways in which having a large number of modest donors benefits the system. Buying an officeholder is quite difficult for many small donations. Large donors can call in favors, but little donors can't, so there's an advantage from an anti-corruption standpoint,” Noti added.
While the FEC "does a pretty good job of staying on top of" unitemized reporting, he noted that "there were undoubtedly rumors" regarding the Trump campaign's figures "and whether they were in fact under $200 or from authorized sources."
Some of the rumors alluded to illegal foreign influence, particularly from Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, which has been accused of illegally funneling tens of millions of dollars to Trump's 2016 campaign through unitemized microdonations, despite a lack of evidence.
Former FEC Commissioner Ravel cited the same findings, noting that the FEC "may have had considerably less information about that scenario in terms of how that money could be transmitted" prior.
Noti, on the other hand, believes that checking bank records would be quite simple if law enforcement suspected major criminality, such as straw contributors or fraudulent debit cards. “It has some built-in precautions that lessen some of the danger,” he said, adding that it is a potential source of abuse.
The Biden campaign was never questioned about its uniform reporting. The Trump campaign was only questioned once about the $19.4 million in small-dollar contributions it received in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election.
The campaign’s explanation was brief: “To the best of the Committee’s knowledge, none of the unitemized contributors exceeded $200 in aggregate for the election cycle.” The FEC let it go at that.
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