{"id":1743598,"date":"2022-11-18T06:07:02","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T11:07:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1743598"},"modified":"2022-11-18T09:33:05","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T14:33:05","slug":"meet-the-lefts-grifters-who-profited-off-the-2022-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/meet-the-lefts-grifters-who-profited-off-the-2022-midterms\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Left&#8217;s Grifters Who Profited Off the 2022 Midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmeet-the-lefts-grifters-who-profited-off-the-2022-midterms%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1743598&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Screen-Shot-2022-11-16-at-1.33.43-PM-1024x544-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>The balance of power in Washington is still up for grabs after a contentious midterm election, but one group can celebrate regardless of which party comes out on top: the anti-Trump political action committees whose leaders pocketed the money they ostensibly raised to attack the former president.<\/p>\n<p>These groups raised millions from progressive donors, pledging that their funds would help elect Democrats across the country. The Democratic Coalition, which senator-elect John Fetterman\u2019s (D., Pa.) campaign <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2022\/10\/14\/fetterman-camp-goes-after-dem-super-pac-accuses-them-of-grifting-00061931\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">slammed<\/a> as a &#8220;scam PAC,&#8221; spent just $2,840 of the $375,000 it&#8217;s raised on campaign advertisements, but doled out $65,000 to executive director Scott Dworkin\u2019s consulting firm. Dworkin was one of several Democratic grifters who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2022\/10\/21\/white-house-operative-fetterman-grifters-00063005\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">came together<\/a> at an Oct. 21 White House social media summit.<\/p>\n<p>This was the latest election cycle where anti-Trump PACs profited without making a real impact. The Lincoln Project, whose cofounder once <a href=\"https:\/\/19thnews.org\/2021\/02\/lincoln-project-toxic-workplace\/\">touted<\/a> the organization as a vehicle for its leaders to attain &#8220;generational wealth,&#8221; raked in $90 million during the 2020 election cycle, over half of which went to its founders\u2019 consulting firms, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxbusiness.com\/politics\/millions-raised-by-lincoln-project-goes-to-companies-run-by-groups-founders-records-show\">according<\/a> to Fox Business. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) in 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/aoc\/status\/1324885624881606657\">dismissed<\/a> the group as a &#8220;scam.&#8221; Wary of its reputation, Ohio Democratic Senate candidate Tim Ryan\u2019s campaign <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/lincoln-project-sucks\/\">begged<\/a> the Lincoln Project to stay away from the race in May.<\/p>\n<p>Dworkin, whose Democratic Coalition doled out $128,000 to its top employees and consultants, was in good company at the White House\u2019s October summit. Also in attendance was the executive editor of Occupy Democrats, whose Election Fund <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fec.gov\/data\/committee\/C00718510\/\">raised<\/a> $1.3 million in the midterm cycle and paid $250,000 to a consulting firm owned by cofounder Omar Rivero, all while spending just $120,590 on political advertisements, according to Federal Election Commission <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fec.gov\/data\/independent-expenditures\/?q_spender=C00718510&#038;two_year_transaction_period=2022&#038;cycle=2022&#038;is_notice=false&#038;data_type=processed\">records<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In a since-deleted tweet, Rivero <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/occupy-democrats-super-pac-defends-lack-donations-candidates-1746799\">defended<\/a> the quarter-million-dollar payout, saying &#8220;If you understood the time and effort that goes into making viral memes\u2014and the impact that they have\u2014you might respect our work more.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rivero told <em>Newsweek<\/em> in September that there was nothing wrong with the Occupy Democrats Election Fund paying employees for their work. He touted that his group delivered &#8220;over 12.3 million meme impressions, over 1.2 million engagements, and over 100,000 shares&#8221; with its $50,000 investment in the failed 2021 effort to recall California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D.).<\/p>\n<p>The founders of the anti-Trump group MeidasTouch also rubbed shoulders at the White House social media summit. Founded by three brothers in March 2020, the progressive super PAC claims to have racked up more than a billion views for viral videos it creates for &#8220;fractions of pennies on the dollar.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The super PAC <a href=\"https:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/political-action-committees-pacs\/meidastouch\/C00746073\/summary\/2022\">raised <\/a>$2.4 million in the 2022 cycle, $1.1 million of which was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fec.gov\/data\/disbursements\/?data_type=processed&#038;committee_id=C00746073&#038;recipient_name=prestige+ww&#038;two_year_transaction_period=2022\">paid<\/a> to a consulting firm called Prestige WW that, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/politics\/politics-features\/meidastouch-2020-campaign-finance-trump-1152482\/\">according<\/a> to <em>Rolling Stone<\/em>, shares an &#8220;unusual financial relationship&#8221; with MeidasTouch cofounder Brett Meiselas. MeidasTouch spent just $240,000 on political advertisements during the midterms, FEC records show.<\/p>\n<p>Prestige WW, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ciS914MaDl8\">draws its name<\/a> from the 2008 Will Ferrell comedy <em>Step Brothers, <\/em>pays Meiselas consulting fees for his services as the super PAC\u2019s treasurer. Adav Noti, a former Federal Election Commission lawyer, told <em>Rolling Stone<\/em> in April 2021 that MeidasTouch\u2019s lack of transparency surrounding its arrangement with the consulting firm likely ran afoul of campaign finance laws.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That\u2019s not OK,&#8221; said Noti, who now serves as the legal director for the Campaign Legal Center watchdog group. &#8220;If the PAC is paying the company just as a pass-through for the money to get to its treasurer or to some fundraising company or whatever, what they need to be disclosing are the ultimate payments to those recipients.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Democratic Coalition, Occupy Democrats, and MeidasTouch did not return requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The balance of power in Washington is still up for grabs after a contentious midterm election, but one group can celebrate regardless of which party comes out on top: the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1741727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1743598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1743598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1743598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1741727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1743598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1743598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1743598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}