The mutiny took hold on Mackinac Island. The Michigan Republican Party’s revered two-day policy and politics gathering, the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference, was an utter mess. Attendance had plummeted. Top-tier presidential candidates skipped the September event, and some speakers didn’t show. Guests were baffled by a scoring system that rated their ideology on a scale, […]
Read MoreTag: Campaign Finance
Michael Cohen Used Fake Cases Cited by A.I. to Seek an End to Court Supervision
Michael D. Cohen, the onetime fixer for former President Donald J. Trump, said in newly unsealed court papers that he had mistakenly given his lawyer bogus legal citations after the artificial intelligence program Google Bard cooked them up for him. The fictitious citations were then used in a motion provided to a Manhattan federal judge. […]
Read MoreDeSantis Super PAC Cancels Television Ads in Early Nominating States
An influential super PAC supporting the presidential campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is canceling its planned television advertisements for 2024 in the early nominating states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Never Back Down, the deep-pocketed but embattled organization allied with Mr. DeSantis, has canceled $2.5 million worth of ads, according to Ad Impact, […]
Read MoreHow DeSantis’s Ambitious, Costly Ground Game Has Sputtered
Ron DeSantis’s battle plan against Donald J. Trump was always ambitious. This spring, the main super PAC backing Mr. DeSantis laid out a costly organizing operation, including an enormous voter-outreach push with an army of trained, paid door-knockers, that would try to reach every potential DeSantis voter multiple times in early-nominating states. Seven months later, […]
Read MoreNew Group Backing DeSantis Has a George Santos Connection
A veteran political operative who played a mysterious role in the George Santos scandal now appears to be spearheading a newly formed super PAC that is supporting Ron DeSantis in Iowa. The new super PAC, set up amid turmoil in the network of outside organizations supporting Mr. DeSantis’s presidential campaign, lists Thomas Datwyler as its […]
Read MoreQAnon Supporter Pours Cash Into a Legal-Defense Fund for Trump Allies
A supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory whom the Trump campaign distanced itself from in 2020. A real-estate developer and Trump megadonor. A funeral home company. Those were among the top contributors to a legal-defense fund established by allies of Donald J. Trump to help pay the mounting legal bills of people connected to the […]
Read MoreDid Bob Menendez’s Donors Know They Were Paying for $64 Steaks?
Menendez has charged his leadership PAC enormous sums for steakhouse meals, including about $200,000 of his historic Morton’s tab of $374,000. The senator’s single-day spending record at Morton’s was $3,387.95 back in 2010, but he’s enjoyed dozens of $1,000-and-up meals there, including a gathering that cost $1,525 on October 5, 2020, two days after his […]
Read MoreBiden Steps Out in Tinsel Town and the Big Donors Show Up
The events also drew a wide array of politicians and others, who congregated to demonstrate their support for him — and their distaste for Mr. Biden’s likely opponent. Two of the state’s best-known elected officials, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Representative Nancy Pelosi, attended Friday’s event, and a third, Senator Alex Padilla, was present at the […]
Read MoreTop Democratic Donor Gave $250,000 to a Nikki Haley Super PAC
When Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, urged Democratic donors last week to rally behind Nikki Haley to provide Republican voters an alternative to former President Donald J. Trump, it seemed a far-fetched plea. But at least one of the Democratic Party’s biggest financiers has already done exactly that. Reid Hoffman, the billionaire […]
Read MoreR.F.K. Jr. Allies Say They’ll Spend Over $10 Million on Ballot Access
A super PAC backing the independent presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to spend $10 million to $15 million to get Mr. Kennedy on the ballot in 10 states, a substantial effort that, even if partly successful, could heighten Democratic concerns about his potential to play the role of spoiler in 2024. […]
Read MoreGeorge Santos Reveals One Truth: It’s Easy to Abuse Campaign Finance Laws
In an April statement to The New York Times regarding a different matter, the F.E.C.’s chairwoman, Dara Lindenbaum, a Democrat, and its vice chairman, Sean J. Cooksey, a Republican, said: “We take this agency’s enforcement and transparency mission seriously, as do all of our colleagues. Without commenting on any specific case, Commissioners assess each enforcement […]
Read MoreThe Undoing of George Santos
White collar crime is often abstract and confusing. Tax evasion is not sexy. (Nothing about taxes is sexy.) It may get prosecutors excited, but the general public finds it boring. To be sure, the House Ethics Committee report, all 55 pages of it, went far beyond the juicy details of designer goods (not to mention […]
Read MoreMoveOn Carries Out Layoffs as Liberal Groups Struggle to Raise Money
The liberal activist organization MoveOn laid off at least 18 employees this week, in the latest sign of a slowdown in donations from small donors to left-leaning causes and candidates. “We are retooling our team to meet the urgent needs of this moment and to have the resources necessary to do so,” Rahna Epting, MoveOn’s […]
Read MoreTaking on Trump, a Super PAC Backing Haley Aims at Independent Voters
A group of entrepreneurs is forming a super PAC to try to draw independent voters to Nikki Haley, in the latest sign that many opponents of former President Donald J. Trump in the business world are coalescing around Ms. Haley as their favored alternative. The super PAC, called Independents Moving the Needle, will initially focus […]
Read MoreBrianna Suggs, Eric Adams’s Top Fund-Raiser, Is Out After F.B.I. Raid
Mayor Eric Adams of New York said on Tuesday that the 25-year-old woman he had chosen to manage his political fund-raising was no longer working in that role, weeks after a search of her home by the F.B.I. revealed a federal investigation into his campaign and plunged his administration into turmoil. The announcement by Mr. […]
Read MoreKoch Network Endorses Nikki Haley in Bid to Push GOP Past Trump
The political network founded by the Koch brothers is endorsing Nikki Haley in the Republican presidential primary race, giving her organizational muscle and financial heft as she battles Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida for second place in Iowa. The group announced its plans in a memo on Tuesday. The commitment by the network, Americans for […]
Read MoreBotox, Hermès and OnlyFans: Why This May Be George Santos’s Last Week in Congress
Grace Ashford contributed reporting. The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle […]
Read MoreCould Nikki Haley Really Beat Trump? Big Donors Are Daring to Dream.
Mr. Bush, a Republican who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 and for Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate, in 2016, said he had been struck by her knowledge and poise. “The topic that everyone is on is, ‘How do you beat Donald Trump?’” Mr. Bush said, “and she was careful to say, ‘Look, people will […]
Read MoreA New Group Linked to DeSantis Allies Pops Up in Iowa
A new political group with ties to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida began reserving airtime in Iowa on Monday, a surprising new player in the 2024 Republican primary that has emerged with less than two months until the Iowa caucuses. The reservations — more than $500,000 as of early Monday afternoon — were being made […]
Read MoreF.B.I. Raided Homes of Second Adams Aide and Ex-Turkish Airline Official
As F.B.I. agents searched the home of Mayor Eric Adams’s chief fund-raiser earlier this month for evidence his campaign conspired with Turkey, separate teams executed warrants at the residences of two others with ties to the mayor and that country, several people with knowledge of the matter said. In addition to the home of the […]
Read MoreFerragamo, OnlyFans and Botox: How Santos Spent Donors’ Money
George Santos was utterly triumphant. He had just flipped a Long Island congressional seat, improbably helping deliver Republicans a House majority. It was time for a post-election shopping spree. Over just a few days last November, Mr. Santos dropped $6,000 at Ferragamo, perhaps partly on the red designer sneakers he later wore to walk the […]
Read MoreEric Adams’s Turkey Ties: Travel, Donations and a Meeting With Erdogan
A major federal corruption investigation into Mayor Eric Adams’s fund-raising is examining whether his campaign conspired with members of the Turkish government to receive illegal donations. Mr. Adams, a Democrat in his second year in office, has longstanding ties to Turkey. The mayor has said that he met the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, when […]
Read MoreGeorge Santos’s Campaign Aide Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud
A second person connected to the campaign of Representative George Santos of New York has pleaded guilty to federal charges, an ominous sign as the embattled congressman’s own case moves closer to trial. Appearing before a federal judge in Central Islip, N.Y., on Tuesday, Samuel Miele pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in […]
Read MoreF.B.I. Seizes Eric Adams’s Phones as Campaign Investigation Intensifies
F.B.I. agents seized Mayor Eric Adams’s electronic devices early this week in what appeared to be a dramatic escalation of a criminal inquiry into whether his 2021 campaign conspired with the Turkish government and others to funnel money into its coffers. The agents approached the mayor after an event in Manhattan on Monday evening and […]
Read MoreWill Joe Manchin Run for President? He Keeps Fueling 2024 Rumors.
Almost since he arrived in Washington, Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia has complained about the partisan nature of the Capitol and insisted that Americans aren’t as politically divided as the people they send to Congress. With his announcement on Thursday that he will not seek re-election next year, Mr. Manchin again floated the […]
Read MoreDemocrats Spent Heavily on Abortion Ads, Leaning Into Searing Details
In the days before Tuesday’s election, voters across Ohio heard a stark warning in an ad that blanketed the airwaves. “She could be your neighbor, or niece, your sister or daughter,” the ad said, “But if she is raped and gets pregnant, a law in Ohio would force her to have the child.” In Kentucky, […]
Read MoreWho is Brianna Suggs, Eric Adams’s 25-Year-Old Chief Fund-Raiser?
The choice was unconventional: Eric Adams, the candidate who would go on to win the 2021 election for mayor of the nation’s financial capital, had picked an inexperienced 23-year-old to run his campaign’s fund-raising operation. Ostensibly, the fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs, did her job. Thanks in part to her work, the campaign would spend more than […]
Read MorePoor Josh Hawley Can’t Help Himself
Fortunately, in some quarters, wage theft is being treated with the seriousness it deserves. Just this week, ProPublica produced a blockbuster report on wage theft in New York City, finding that from 2017 to 2021, “more than $203 million in wages had been stolen from about 127,000 workers in New York.” And Documented, which partnered […]
Read MoreDid Fake Donors Give the Mayor Real Money? The F.B.I. Wants to Know.
It is a type of scheme that took down New York’s lieutenant governor last year, and sank the 2013 mayoral campaign of a top Democratic contender: the use of so-called straw donors to funnel illegal contributions to candidates from secret sources. Now, for the second time, the campaign of Mayor Eric Adams is being scrutinized […]
Read MoreF.B.I. Raids Home of Eric Adams’s Fund-Raising Chief
Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Thursday searched the Brooklyn home of Mayor Eric Adams’s chief fund-raiser, Brianna Suggs, a campaign consultant who is deeply entwined with efforts to advance the mayor’s agenda, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The raid apparently prompted Mr. Adams to abruptly cancel several meetings […]
Read MoreWhy Doug Burgum Is Staying in a Race He Can Afford to Lose
Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota knows that many people, including powerful voices in his own party, think he should quit the Republican presidential primary, abandoning his quixotic bid so that momentum can gather behind a challenger to Donald J. Trump, and ultimately President Biden. “This seems like they’re trying to do the job of […]
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