Free Republic

A bombshell report from the America First Policy Institute has exposed a staggering $100 million in foreign dark money laundered through the Sixteen Thirty Fund to bankroll radical ballot initiatives across 25 states. The Sixteen Thirty Fund, a notorious hub for progressive causes, has been caught funneling foreign cash into state ballot measures targeting divisive issues like abortion, election law, and drug policy. According to the America First Policy Institute: Non-citizens can influence U.S. elections and domestic policy through donations to ballot initiatives. Instead of the ballot initiative process being decided by state residents who are affected by the result,...

A top financial backer of left-wing causes in the US has been accused of sexually harassing a female employee, pushing for “threesomes” with her and her future husband while they worked at his California winery — and then retaliating against them for calling out his “lewd” conduct. Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss exposed himself, “brazenly groped,” and made other unwanted sexual advances toward Madison Busby before forcing her to resign her job, according to a jaw-dropping lawsuit filed April 25 in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court. ... Wyss, a resident of Teton County, Wyo., purchased the property in 2000 and...

Over the past two decades, a reclusive Swiss billionaire has poured more than $800 million into left-wing causes across America, and now states are fighting back. Hansjörg Wyss, 89, a Swiss national with an estimated net worth of roughly five billion dollars, has quietly become one of the most influential donors on the American left. He has spent more than $800 million bankrolling hundreds of left-wing causes across the United States, donating millions to climate change groups, abortion activists, and the Clinton Foundation. Information about him is sparse, but his sister once wrote that Wyss seeks to “(re)interpret the American...

The COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev says "time is not on our side" as the UN's climate summit is on the verge of collapse A bitter fallout erupted between richer and poorer countries over money to help tackle climate change and several countries walked out of negotiations Developing countries have dismissed an offer of $250bn (£199bn) per year to help them tackle climate change – some want a figure closer to $500bn One agreement has been made, on carbon markets, which has been "nine years in the making" The anger here from developing countries is palpable, our environment correspondent Matt McGrath...

“Shame” shouted some climate campaigners, “pay up!” shouted others. The object of their venom was John Podesta, who is the US climate envoy, and was being escorted from a meeting room in chaotic scenes here in Baku. COP29 has taken a dramatic turn here this afternoon, with walkouts from developing countries from meetings with the Azerbaijani presidency over climate finance. There was palpable anger among the least developed countries and island states that they were being messed around by richer nations. They say that the financial offer being negotiated is insulting, they feel excluded and ignored. In this atmosphere, campaigners...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reacted to former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney‘s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming 2024 presidential election by retweeting a 2020 post highlighting her hypocrisy. During a speaking engagement at Duke University in North Carolina on Wednesday, Cheney sparked a backlash from Conservatives over he decision to endorse a candidate with such “radical and dangerous” views.

𝐁𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆: @actblue is matching donations for the@KamalaHQ campaign by up to 900 PERCENT! The Harris campaign has revealed that donations have topped $100M since Biden's exit from the race… They also announced that in this record 24-hour period of fundraising, $81M… https://t.co/Ipq0F1Qaod pic.twitter.com/tzCHXf8Cwt— legislation (@legislationpage) July 23, 2024

Harris campaign is already using ActBlue money laundering scheme, $20 million from Johann Georg Wyss known as Hansjörg Wyss, born 19 September 1935, a Swiss billionaire, and was broken down into over 1,600,000 donations across 400,000 donors. Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!

It’s a story that goes to the very heart of the Left’s mountain of shadowy funding and professional activism: a foreign billionaire infamous for illegally funding Democrats, enriched by selling ghoulish medical treatments that resulted in multiple deaths, and bankrolling a multimillion-dollar “dark money” campaign to transform America. Meet Swiss-born Hansjörg Wyss (pronounced “Hans-yurg Veese”), perhaps the most important mega-donor you’ve never heard of. His Wyss Foundation, founded in 1998, quietly commands a stunning $2.7 billion in assets (as of 2021) and annually pours out tens of millions of dollars to activist groups—around a billion dollars between 2002 and 2021—so...

The Berger Action Fund, one arm of liberal Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss’ philanthropic empire, gave tens of millions to one of America’s most prolific Democrat-aligned dark money groups. The Berger Action Fund, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, gave $35 million to the liberal dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2022, tax documents show. Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2022 poured tens of millions into Democrat-aligned PACs, groups supporting left-wing ballot measures and voter mobilization operations designed to increase turnout among Democrat-friendly demographics, according to tax forms. Wyss, a Swiss billionaire who made his fortune selling medical devices, had not disclosed publicly...

A green nonprofit that is indirectly funded by a foreign billionaire is pressuring broadcasters to drop advertisements that criticize the Biden administration’s massive electric vehicle (EV) agenda. Climate Power wrote to numerous broadcasters this week demanding that they stop airing American Fuel and Petrochemicals Manufacturers (AFPM)-funded advertisements in swing state markets that rail against President Joe Biden’s plans to impose widespread EV adoption in the coming years. The charitable organization affiliated with Hansjorg Wyss, a Swiss health care mogul and billionaire philanthropist, donates millions of dollars to the Fund for a Better Future, which was the fiscal sponsor for Climate...

Podesta’s net worth has skyrocketed since his time in the Obama administration, financial disclosures show ... John Podesta, the powerful Democrat consultant who Joe Biden tapped to oversee a multibillion-dollar climate investment fund, discussed those investments with an environmental group that had him on the payroll just months before, according to a new financial disclosure. Galvanize Climate Solutions, a green energy investment firm founded by billionaire Tom Steyer, participated in an Oct. 31 meeting with Podesta and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to discuss how to best use the $369 billion in federal funds. Galvanize paid Podesta $84,000 in advisory fees...

Billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss national who lives in Wyoming, has become a “Democrat-aligned mega-donor,” according to the Associated Press (AP), thanks to his funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to left-wing groups. “Newly available tax documents show that his giving through the Berger Action Fund, which describes itself as advocating for ‘solutions to some of our world’s biggest problems,’ swelled in 2021 to $72 million, cementing Wyss’ status as a Democratic-aligned megadonor,” the AP reports. Wyss, who built his fortune creating the medical device company Synthes USA, which was sold in 2012 to Johnson & Johnson for $20 billion,...

The Berger Action Fund is a nondescript name for a group with a rather specific purpose: steering the wealth of Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire, into the world of American politics and policy. As a foreign national, Wyss is prohibited from donating to candidates or political committees. But his influence is still broadly felt through millions of dollars routed through a network of nonprofit groups that invest heavily in the Democratic ecosystem. Such groups don’t have to disclose the source of their funding — or many details about how they spend it. Newly available tax documents show that his giving...

A dark money group tied to Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss poured tens of millions of dollars into organizations leading major left-wing campaigns...Fund for a Better Future (FBF), which has received a majority of its funding from two nonprofit foundations overseen by Wyss in recent years, pushed large sums of cash last year to groups dedicated to overhauling the Supreme Court, supporting President Biden's "Build Back Better" initiative, addressing alleged voter suppression, and advocating for aggressive climate change policies.

Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss citizen, has contributed millions to nonprofits that have benefited Democratic causes. Insiders say he will ramp it up leading to the November midterm elections.. A Swiss octogenarian billionaire has donated tens of millions of dollars to Democratic politicians and progressive causes in “dark money” contributions — and Hansjörg Wyss is likely funneling millions more to influence midterm elections in November, One Virginia-based think tank estimates that, since 2016, nonprofits linked to Wyss have funneled more than $253 million to Democratic candidates and related causes, such as voter registration initiatives that benefit the party and ... through...

Executive Summary The political Left often criticizes—and the mainstream media frequently report on—the network of center-right nonprofits funded by billionaire entrepreneurs Charles and David Koch. But few politicos know of a left-wing leviathan in Washington, D.C., with a reach rivaling that of the Koch network. This study by the Capital Research Center documents a shadowy web into which nearly $600 million flowed in 2017, the most recent year for which data are available. Operating under the aegis of “philanthropy,” this network is housed in and staffed by a for-profit, privately held consultancy called Arabella Advisors, LLC. Arabella manages four nonprofit...

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) formally launched her reelection bid on Thursday, seeking the Republican nomination for her seat for the fourth time amid rebukes from her own party. “Some things have to matter,” Cheney said in her announcement video. “American freedom, the rule of law, our founding principles, the foundations of our republic matter. What we do in this election in Wyoming matters.”

A George Soros-linked dark money behemoth has a peculiar partner in its bid to sink voter ID expansion in Michigan—a group of Republican operatives led by a sitting Republican senator's son. Over the past year, liberal dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund has spent $2.5 million opposing a Republican-led petition drive to expand Michigan's voter ID requirements. Nearly $400,000 of that money has gone to Groundgame Political Solutions, a shadowy consulting firm that a trio of Republican operatives—including Sen. Roy Blunt's (R., Mo.) son, Andy Blunt—privately launched in May 2021, corporate filings show. The firm, which Blunt first registered in...

Hansjorg Wyss, who has an estimated net worth of $5.1 billion and in lives in Wyoming, has become a major donor to liberal groups in recent years, but remains tight-lipped about his citizenship status. Foreign nationals who don't hold US green cards are barred from making direct donations to candidates for office or political action committees, but they are are allowed to contribute to advocacy groups that seek to sway public policy. In recently filed lawsuit, watchdog group Americans for Public Trust challenged that distinction, accusing the Federal Election Commission of acting too slowly on a complaint it filed against...