Andrew Kerr of the Washington Free Beacon reports problems for a major Democratic super PAC.
President Joe Biden’s favorite super PAC has a $12 million gap in its financial disclosures, a Washington Free Beacon investigation found, prompting legal experts to call for immediate investigations into the “troubling” discrepancy.
Future Forward, which the Biden White House has endorsed as the “pre-eminent super PAC” supporting the president’s reelection bid, in 2021 claimed it received just $3.4 million in cash from its affiliated dark money group. But that group, nonprofit Future Forward USA Action, reported in its 2021 IRS tax return that it provided $15.3 million to the super PAC that year. The missing $12 million is one of several errors in the group’s finances, errors that experts say are egregious enough to warrant a federal probe.
“The apparent numerous and blatant discrepancies in the recent filings by both the nonprofit and the super PAC are beyond troubling,” said Kendra Arnold, executive director of watchdog group Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust. “This situation calls for an investigation,” Arnold said, adding that the radical divergence in the figures reported in the groups’ financial disclosures “is a telltale sign of inaccuracies and a deeper problem.” Nonprofit attorney Jason Torchinsky echoed that call, saying an apparent failure to report millions in contributions “would be a serious matter that the Federal Election Commission would investigate.”
An investigation into Future Forward could prove to be a thorn in Biden’s side heading into the 2024 elections. The group, which is led by former Obama campaign officials, has quietly raised nearly $400 million in the past five years to run ads supporting Biden and Democrats in battleground states. Much of Future Forward’s funds came from Future Forward USA Action, which as a nonprofit is not required to publicly disclose its donors. While Biden in September said dark money “erodes public trust” and poses a “serious problem facing our democracy,” White House deputy chief of staff Jennifer O’Malley Dillon months later said Future Forward would “play a key role” in supporting Biden’s reelection bid.
