Democratic Primaries

Not only family members, but close associates of Bernie, since nearly $12 million has gone to Bernie's former Director of Fundraising who founded Aisle 518 strategies.

Bernie's funneling of money to close associates who are running newly created businesses is not first time Bernie did this. Back in 2016, most of Bernie's millions went to Old Towne Media, a company that did not exist, accept to funnel money from contributors to buy ads as noted in Slate:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/07/how-bernie-spent-his-millions-was-anything-but-revolutionary.html

The top-billing vendor among all candidates during this campaign cycle is Old Towne Media. Located in a residential home on a leafy suburban street in Alexandria, Virginia, Old Towne Media is, from all outward appearances, a black box. Incorporated as an LLC in 2014, it lists no employees, and its only clients this cycle have been the Sanders campaign and a small PAC supporting an Ohio gubernatorial candidate. A close examination of the Sanders campaign’s ad buys suggests that Old Towne Media is a front company for Canal Partners Media, a well-known media firm aligned with the Democratic Party. According to Federal Election Commission data compiled by Open Secrets, Canal Partners Media billed $45 million during the 2014 midterms, half of which came from the Senate campaigns of Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, Michelle Nunn in Georgia, and Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, the only winner of the three. During this cycle, however, the company has taken in only $515,000 as of May 23. It appears most of its business was shifted into Old Towne, which billed the Sanders campaign $82,773,463 by the end of May.


Buying ad time doesn’t take rarified skills, but it’s a major source of revenue for political consultants—who typically receive a 15 percent commission on ad expenditures for scheduling commercials, negotiating with broadcasters, and settling accounts on behalf of a campaign. Ad buyers are one of a number of businesses that saw a huge surge in revenues during the $2.6 billion 2012 presidential campaign. A study published in May by researchers at Emory University found that in the three most recent election cycles, “less than 1% of total expenditures by federal candidates for the purpose of purchasing television advertising are paid directly from the campaign committee to a provider.”

An examination of 5,800 Sanders ad buy contracts and supporting documentation found that one Canal Partners Media employee, Jeff Scattergood, and two partners, Barbara Abar Bougie and Shelli Hutton-Hartig—all three working as representatives of Old Towne Media—are listed on over 1,000 documents related to air-time purchases for the Sanders campaign. Keeping the different companies’ names straight appears to have been difficult, even for the people filling out paperwork for the ad buys. In one document submitted in February, Canal Partners Media was listed as the agent of the Sanders campaign requesting rates for television time from stations in Columbus, Ohio.

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Why create a front company at all? One possible explanation relates to another Canal Partners client: Friends of the Earth Action Fund, which made ad buys supporting Sanders in early primary states. Friends of the Earth Action Fund is a 501(c)4 organization, meaning it’s a “dark money” group that isn’t required to disclose its donors. FEC rules prohibit such groups from coordinating with the campaigns they support, but Canal Partners received $20,971 from Friends of the Earth Action; documents acquired by Slate confirm that Canal Partners Media staff made ad buys on behalf of Old Towne Media for the Sanders campaign. Campaigns and independent expenditure groups can use a common vendor, but they can’t coordinate in any way and the vendor cannot be a conduit for nonpublic strategic information.