A group of senators wants to pass a law to stop the flow of undisclosed money from rich foreigners, who mostly back liberal causes, into American elections.
The Preventing Foreign Interference in American Elections Act (PFAEA) was introduced by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) in a Breitbart op-ed article where he criticized Democrats for obsessing over Russiagate and alleged foreign interference in U.S. elections, despite allegedly benefiting the most from the financial support of foreign billionaires.
Hagerty stated that his bill would shut down a loophole that wealthy foreigners have been using to get around a law that forbids them from contributing to American political campaigns or parties.
The senator referred to a report published by The New York Times that outlined a money funneling scheme involving two organizations, the Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Fund, describing the process as a “chain of secretive organizations that hide the ultimate recipients of [the] money.”
Hagerty pointed out that the two organizations donated over $135 million in four years to a Washington, D.C. nonprofit called the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which distributed millions in 2018 and 2020 to super PACs backing liberal causes and political campaigns, including those of President Joe Biden.
An investigation conducted by Americans for Public Trust (APT) revealed that the Sixteen Thirty Fund has spent nearly $100 million on ballot issues in 25 states over a 10-year period. According to APT, key donors to the Sixteen Thirty Fund include dual citizen billionaires Pierre Omidyar and George Soros and their 501(c)(3) New Venture Fund. However, another prominent figure on that list, Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, is responsible for channeling over $243 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund.
Even though Wyss has been actively using his millions to influence American politics, he told telling a Swiss newspaper that he “never felt the need to become an American” because the process was “too complicated,” as per APT.
Hagerty stated that his bill would break the chain of organizations by making it illegal for foreign nationals to use instructions, intermediaries, or conduits to engage in prohibited U.S. election-related activity. It would also purportedly close loopholes that currently allow foreign nationals to fund activities like “ballot harvesting, get-out-the-vote activity, promoting a particular political party, or election administration activity to prevent a repeat of the ‘Zuckerbucks’ of 2020.”
Zuckerbucks was how critics referred to the millions of dollars spent by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for “safe” election administration amid the COVID-19 lockdowns, which some argue was a get-out-the-vote operation in support of Democrats.
Hagerty also mentioned that the bill contains protections for free speech and Americans’ privacy rights.
The Dallas Express reached out to the Sixteen Thirty Fund and the Wyss Foundation for a comment on the bill and Hagerty’s statements but did not receive a response by publication.
