Corporations Are Still Funding Election Deniers
3 years after Trump’s supporters attacked the Capitol to illegally try and keep him in power, corporations have given election deniers in Congress over $108 million in donations despite pledging not to.
In the aftermath of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 (J6), after a violent mob of former twice-impeached president* Donald J. Trump supporters — also known as Trump terrorists — tried to violently overthrow certification of election results in which President Joe Biden beat Trump by more than seven million votes, many businesses and trade groups reportedly vowed publicly to stop donating to Republicans (GOP) that supported the rioters’ cause.
But that hasn’t happened.
A new report from nonpartisan campaign finance research group Open Secrets revealed that corporations have donated more than $108 million to these GOP co-conspiring insurrectionists since J6 occurred, despite their vows to stop. Open Secrets investigations manager Anna Massoglia told the New York Times that “Companies pledged to pull back, but we have not seen that play out.”
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Open Secrets was able to arrive at that amount by tracking the campaigns of the 147 House and Senate GOP members (aka the ‘Sedition Caucus’) who voted to overturn the 2020 election results for Trump on the day his terrorists ransacked the Capitol, which ended up killing five police officers and injuring hundreds more in the process. Those donations came from approximately 1,400 business political action committees and trade associations. With one exception, the Sedition Caucus ringleaders are still in office actively trying to destroy Democracy for Trump, their treasonous ringleader.
Per Open Secrets report, PACs and trade groups donated roughly $91.4 million to the Sedition Caucus in the three years since J6, and funded leadership PACs affiliated with Sedition Caucus members roughly $16.7 million more. Larger corporate donors include the National Association of Realtors, the American Bankers Association and United Parcel Service (UPS). Other major corporate donors include military contractors like Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and General Atomics.
Being Impartial Doesn’t Mean Supporting Insurrectionists
Airbnb, Amazon, AT&T, Boeing and Pfizer, and the aforementioned companies among others, all pledged to stop supporting the treasonous members of the Sedition Caucus. All these companies lied, and quietly resumed donations, as well as other companies like Comcast, Deloitte, General Motors, Home Depot, Marathon Petroleum, Raytheon, Toyota, Union Pacific, Verizon, Walmart and SpaceX all pledged to stop supporting 2020 election conspiracy theorists. Unsurprisingly, all these companies also lied. Indeed, the list of companies that played us is quite extensive.
It’s important to note that not all these PACs are donating funds exclusively to election deniers and conspiracy theorists. Many of these same companies also donate to Democrats. As noted by Truthout, as companies often strive to appear politically impartial, several of the top contributors to election objectors have given about evenly to politicians on both sides of the aisle. For example, about 70 percent of contributions from the American Bankers Association, who gave over $430,000 in the first three quarters of 2023, benefited Republicans in recent elections.
That doesn’t justify supporting terrorists, especially when you notice that the majority of companies donating to both Democrats and Republicans all gave more to Republicans, so it’s kind of hard for any of them to justify. Some of the election deniers supported by the business PACs have since retired or were voted out of office during the 2022 midterms, but many of them are running for reelection in 2024. A breakdown of the expenditures and a searchable database of the recipients is available from Open Secrets.
Accountable.us also has a database with 672 entries of companies that pledged to stop donating to Trump’s terrorists but reneged on that pledge. These companies might be able to overlook or forgive politicians for committing treason in order to receive political favors or influence, but it’s unforgivable to anyone that was paying attention on J6 that cares about Democracy. As noted by Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW), these companies need to put their money where their mouths are and stop giving political power to those seeking to undermine elections. Our democracy depends on it. And we need to start holding them accountable.
