Carrie Levine for CPI:
A nonprofit closely tied to former President Donald Trump and his administration gave millions of dollars in 2020 to an array of conservative groups, a new tax filing from the nonprofit, now called America First Works, shows.
The largest grant to an outside group, nearly $4.8 million, went to Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund often used by conservative megadonors as a conduit for contributions to other nonprofits. The filing notes the money is “fbo [for the benefit of] Honest Ele,” but cuts off the rest of the description, rendering the ultimate recipient unclear.
The information in the disclosure suggests the money could have been for the Honest Elections Project, a conservative group embedded in an opaque network of conservative nonprofits that receives money via Donors Trust. Honest Elections Project advocated against the expansion of access to mail ballots in multiple states last year.
Ashley Hayek, the president of America First Works, provided a copy of the tax filing in response to a request from the Center for Public Integrity, but did not respond to requests for comment. Representatives of the Honest Elections Project did not respond to requests for comment.
Heritage Action for America, whose leader earlier this year privately bragged of helping to craft restrictive state voting laws, got nearly $1 million. The group did not respond to a request for comment.
“The new tax record shines light on how a dark money group with Trump’s imprimatur quietly steered millions of dollars from secret donors to help build up conservative groups in the leadup to the 2020 election,” said Anna Massoglia, an investigative researcher at the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics.
America First Works was previously called America First Policies and changed its name earlier this year, according to a corporate filing in Virginia. The money it gave to Donors Trust and Heritage Action were two of more than $18 million in grants to 17 separate groups the nonprofit reported giving to in 2020, including more than $3.7 million to groups doing voter registration work in the swing states of Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The Center for Public Integrity last year reported America First had disclosed giving to those same groups in 2019 and that state authorities had investigated some of the Florida and North Carolina groups’ contacts with voters, but without ultimately concluding they had engaged in any wrongdoing.