Domestic Dark Money Dwarfs Foreign Influence on U.S. Elections

March 21 , 2021 (EIRNS)—News reporting on the March 10 report from the U.S. National Intelligence Council on “Foreign Threats to the 2020 U.S. Federal Elections” has amplified, often uncritically, its claims of interference perpetrated by the usual cast of supposed U.S. enemies—Russia, Iran, Venezuela, etc. Apparently this report has been issued long enough after the Most Secure Election in History for people to forget that they were jubilantly informed that the election of Biden took place under the most pristine of circumstances.

According to the always-trustworthy intelligence agencies, fearsome troll farms and wicked foreign adversaries have created in Americans a perception that Biden engaged in corruption in Ukraine, and that Trump’s killing of Soleimani was not a good thing—conclusions that good, patriotic Americans could never have reached without the illicit coaxing of Vladimir Putin. The report, served with plenty of instances of “probably” and “likely” along with a heaping helping of “we judge,” admits on its last page that “Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof that shows something to be a fact.”

Meanwhile, social media monopolies, pushed by Congress and cheered on by representatives of the failing legacy media, are censoring viewpoints and acting out true interference in the election decision-making process.

And a March 17 report from the Center for Responsive Politics (which runs OpenSecrets.org) reveals a much greater source of undercover activity in elections—dark money, which reached $1 billion in the 2020 election. Following the Citizens United case, Super PACs, nonprofits, and other corporate entities have been engaged in increasing levels of largely unregulated (and unreported) political speech.

According to the report, “Biden’s presidential bid attracted around $174 million in support from anonymous donors, more than six times the $25.2 million in dark money contributions and spending boosting President Donald Trump.”

Reflecting on the coverage of the two reports, released within a week of each other, Alan Macleod concludes his MintPress article, “This disparity in coverage between the two reports suggests that, while unapproved foreign interference is a major scandal, corporations and the ultra-wealthy essentially buying elections is simply (big) business as usual.”