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Recent Filings Reveal Leo’s DonorsTrust Bankrolled Known Hate Groups
A new Accountable.US analysis of DonorsTrust’s 2022 990 tax filing reveals that the right-wing “dark money ATM” closely tied to conservative kingpin Leonard Leo bankrolled a number of Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate groups. The filing shows that DonorsTrust funneled over $250,000 to six hate groups in 2022, including the Family Research Council, David Horowitz Freedom Center, and Thomas More Law Center.
As the right-wing 'dark money ATM,' it’s no surprise DonorsTrust dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into known radical hate groups. DonorsTrust has become infamous as a massive war chest for the far-right’s most extreme causes."
Accountable.US President Caroline Ciccone
Accountable.US’s review of DonorsTrust’s 2022 tax filing revealed that it funneled $257,600 to six organizations designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center:
- $142,000 to the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which has run “a network of projects giving anti-Muslim voices and radical ideologies a platform to project hate and misinformation.”
- $34,500 to the VDARE Foundation, a white nationalist hate group that provides “a pseudo-intellectual veneer to classic racism” and whose founder Peter Brimelow “believes that diversity has weakened the United States.”
- $30,000 to the Thomas More Law Center, an extremist group which has worked to overturn federal hate crimes law.
- $20,000 to No Left Turn in Education, an anti-government hate group that helped lead the new, increasingly coordinated movement against critical race theory in schools.
- $20,000 to the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigrant hate group which “has a decades-long history of circulating racist writers, while also associating with white nationalists.”
- $11,100 to the Family Research Council, an anti-LGBTQ hate group which has used “junk science” to fight against LGBTQ equality.
DonorsTrust is closely tied to Leonard Leo’s dark money network. The group’s 2022 filing revealed a nearly 30% increase in total giving — with millions more directed to key far-right groups in Leo’s network.
View the 2022 form HERE.
Accountable.US’s Monitoring Influence database connects the dots between DonorsTrust and other groups making up the far-right’s extensive dark money network. Learn more at MonitoringInfluence.org.
