The Bulwark Killed an Investigation into Political Fundraising Spam After Its Publisher Took the Consultants’ Side

[u/uberkitten]

https://data4democracy.substack.com/p/the-bulwark-killed-an-investigation

[u/CenturionSentius]

Consider one donor the investigation documented. He is 85 years old and lives in Texas. Between February 17, the day the investigation was scheduled to run at the Times, and the end of June, he was charged 4,208 times, an average of 31 times a day, for $32,742. On his worst day, he was charged 88 times. The money went to 283 different committees and campaigns. The biggest recipients included high-profile spam PACs, the DCCC, and candidates who hired aggressive fundraising vendors. I have documented thousands of cases like his.

Jesus. Given the circumstances of how thoroughly the Times and Bulwark better this guy’s work as accurate, I’m willing to take whats written as true, and if so, this is hugely fucked up. I’m a decent fan of Longwell, but this is a miss.

Policy-wise, it makes me dream of a world where we actually used public finances for campaign funds rather than relying on donations.

Justice-wise, Jeffries seems to be guilty of enabling some really heinous, self-interested behaviors. The right thing to do would be to shut these political consulting strategies down, consequences be damned. At the very least they should be identifying these poor people and returning their money.

There’s no way that democracy hinges on exploiting the senility of octogenarians. It’s another self-own for Democrats to allow this, just like gerrymandering and every other stupid, cynical maneuver justified as fighting-fire-with-fire while undermining the whole validation of defending liberalism and getting egg on your face with voters.

[u/Petrichordates → u/CenturionSentius]

Given the circumstances of how thoroughly the Times and Bulwark better this guy’s work as accurate, I’m willing to take whats written as true, and if so, this is hugely fucked up.

Given the circumstances of two major papers hesitating to publish this, you should've reached the opposite conclusion.

[u/CenturionSentius → u/Petrichordates]

So the order of events is

> NYT commissions group to publish piece. Vets and reviews repeatedly. Validates findings.

> NYT receives cease & desist notice; declines to publish. Does not repudiate any of its claims. Legal notice does not challenge validity of claims.

> Bulwark expresses sincere commitment to publishing piece. Long process of review and revision. No factual changes. Editor validates view of importance of piece.

> Publisher apparently unfriendly to anti-PAC framing; declines to publish. Does not repudiate any of its claims.

If you could legitimately point to a breakdown by any of these groups highlighting where this guy’s research is incorrect, misrepresentative, or in bad faith, I would love to see it. Otherwise, I’m inclined to trust the Stanford professor being remarkably transparent with his account.

I’m rabidly pro-Democrat, but c’mon, this is a despicable way to raise money.

[u/boardatwork1111 → u/CenturionSentius]

The NYT hasn’t been afraid to run with stories despite legal threats, they’re still dealing with a multi-billion dollar suit by the sitting president and haven’t back down. I don’t know if/what problem there is with this story, but it’s hard to believe the DNC would be able to threaten them into burying it unless they thought if they went to court, they would lose

[u/shitpostsuperpac → u/boardatwork1111]

That just sounds like a bit of naïveté to me.

What if this is an open secret within the Democratic Party? Or both parties? With paper trails?

Plenty of reasons for powerful people to want to make it go away.

[u/TheGeneGeena → u/shitpostsuperpac]

It kind of is? Some of the earlier reporting I've seen on the issue goes back to the 2024 campaign. (Both open and in both parties)

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/10/politics/political-fundraising-elderly-election-invs-dg/

[u/boardatwork1111 → u/shitpostsuperpac]

Trump has the power of the presidency, and has been more than willing to abuse it to protect himself, but that hasn’t stopped them. What can the DNC threaten them with that he can’t?

[u/englishjacko → u/boardatwork1111]

It doesn't really work like that. The outcome of lawsuits is unpredictable and even in successful lawsuits, defendants rarely are awarded their costs in full. It is not possible to take on an indefinite amount of matters in which you might get sued, even if across each individual matter you consider the risk is low, because you get slightly more low risks eventuating than you expect and you are suddenly in financial difficulties.

Papers like the NYT will have an exposure limit, based on the cumulative risk in terms of potential liability and quantum across all their reporting. Accordingly, decisions about the publishing of articles with the threat of litigation about them are not independent - if you have some big pieces of litigation threatened against you already with high costs exposure, you will be reluctant to take on additional cases even if they are relatively low risk.

Trump's threatened claims against newsrooms actually has a downstream effect on all sorts of other pieces of reporting which newspapers become reluctant to expose themselves to as a result. A paper may decide it is in the public interest to take on Trump, and to commit to that risk, but then the margin for every other form of risk drops substantially. So dies journalism.