New Legislation Would Expose the Financiers of the Capitol Siege

“Thanks to a lattice of financial secrecy vehicles — all of which are perfectly legal — we may never have a complete financial picture of those who provided the money to organize a rally that descended into chaos and that shook the underpinnings of American democracy.”

We do know, thanks to OpenSecrets, that the Trump 2020 campaign and its joint fundraising committees made more than $3.5 million in direct payments to people and firms involved in the demonstration. But as the transparency group pointed out, “the campaign used an opaque payment scheme that concealed details of hundreds of millions of dollars in spending by routing payments through shell companies where the ultimate payee is hidden.”

In December 2020, Congress passed a landmark bipartisan bill, the Corporate Transparency Act, which will take a meaningful step toward eliminating such anonymous shell corporations.

Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies, heralded that passage as a victory for transparency activists who have “spent years documenting the ways that rogue nations, terrorists, dictators, and kleptocrats have deployed anonymous companies to launder illicit funds, dodge taxes, avoid sanctions, and game the U.S. financial system.” Collins might’ve added finance insurrection to that list.

Because the Corporate Transparency Act won’t take effect for two years, Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) has introduced the Insurrection Financing Transparency Act, which would give U.S. authorities immediate access to the identities of those who financed the Capitol assault.

Another proposed bill, the For the People Act, would also curb dangerous financial secrecy by requiring super PACs and other “dark money” political campaign organizations to disclose their donors.

The events of January 6 have also prompted pro-democracy advocates to step up their demands on corporations to end their political spending. More than 50 organizations, investment firms, and religious organizations called on large U.S. corporations to take a number of steps to signal their support for democracy. These included ending all super PAC and dark money contributions and pledging to never again provide financial backing for the 147 members of Congress who refused to certify the presidential election.

The groups pointed out that these members have received more than $170 million from corporate and trade group PACs and nearly $2 million from Big Tech companies. In the wake of the insurrection, a number of corporate PACs have pulled back their corporate donations to these officials.

The full impact of the January 6 insurrection and the impeachment trial on our democracy will not be known for many years, if not centuries. We can only hope that this national trauma will lead to greater accountability for future political leaders — and their wealthy financial enablers.