The gripping documentary Dark Money exposes our new political environment, with unlimited secret money unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. Writer-director Kimberly Reed takes us to her native Montana as conservative (but independent) Republican legislators find themselves deluged by massive and monstrous attacks from some even more conservative out-of-state sources. Intrepid small-town reporter John S. Adams and the understaffed state regulators follow the money and try to hunt down who is pulling the strings.
As the mystery unfolds, Dark Money also takes us to Wisconsin, where dark money has assaulted an unexpected branch of government. And we go to Washington, DC, to the Federal Elections Commission, where Ann Ravel, the Obama-appointed chair of the FEC, has resigned in disgust after Republican commissioners have blocked all enforcement of federal campaign finance regulation. (Disclosure: I have worked with Silicon Valley native Ravel in my day job.)
Here are some of Dark Money’s most disturbing revelations:
- While it’s bad enough that we don’t know the extent of wealthy Americans like the Koch Brothers trying to buy elections, neither do we know about the secret election participation of FOREIGN players.
- Dark Money sources are not stopping at trying to buy legislators and governors, but are also trying to take over state supreme courts!
And just when we need MORE scrutiny of the attempts to buy the legislative and judicial branches of state governments, we are witnessing the death of statehouse journalism.
In one particularly nasty nugget, we witness GOP FEC Commissioner Don McGahn unashamedly grinding the FEC’s gears of enforcement to a stop. Today, McGahn is the Trump White House Counsel, with major responsibility for the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanagh.
Dark Money keeps us on the edges of our seats throughout and culminates in a real-life courtroom drama.
I attended the sold-out Bay Area premiere of Dark Money, co-sponsored by Silicon Valley’s Cinema Club and by Santa Clara County. Both Ann Ravel and John S. Adams appeared at the post-screening Q&A.