Marco Rubio, ‘dark money’, and attacks on politicians

According to Francisco Alvarado, of the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, “the clip shown above — snippets of Rubio’s interviews and speeches spliced together — was produced by Brave New Films Action Fund, based in Culver City, Calif., and founded by Robert Greenwald, a former Hollywood filmmaker who’s found a second career by releasing left-leaning exposes about the Iraq war, Fox News and Wal-Mart, among other subjects. The group also paid for a 30-second, anti-Rubio TV commercial airing in several states with large Latino populations, Greenwald said in a prepared statement.”

Alvarado add that other “presidential candidates are also supported by 501(c)4 organizations [like Greenwald’s] as well. For example, Conservative Solutions Project is a nonprofit that plans on spending more than $1 million airing ads that tout Rubio’s opposition to the Obama administration’s Iran nuclear deal. The nonprofit was established by South Carolina political consultant J. Warren Tompkins, who also started a pro-Rubio super PAC with a similar name that has raised nearly $16 million.”

This demonstrates, says Alvarado, the growing problem of “dark money,” the term used to describe political spending by tax-exempt 501(c)4 social welfare organizations, in our political system.