WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th January, 2021) US Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen at a Senate hearing on Tuesday vowed to seriously scrutinize dark money in politics.
"I would be very glad to work with you on that," Yellen told Senator Sheldon Whitehouse who raised the matter at a hearing held to confirm her appointment as treasury secretary. "You're pointing to a very disturbing situation and I'll need to get up to speed on where things are with that. But I would be glad to initiate a serious review of this matter."
Whitehouse said funding in the US political system had become a "tsunami of slime" and needed to be overhauled by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The political system, he added, is "rotten with dark money," which refers to spending where the source of the money is not disclosed.
He also complained that anonymous donors provide huge contributions with inconsistencies between what they report to the IRS and what they report to election officials.
Whitehouse was among lawmakers who spoke out ahead of the November 2020 US election on how so-called dark money organizations paid for seven-figure tv advertising to target key battleground races and pressure politically vulnerable senators into confirming right-wing special interest nominees for them. He said such groups also regularly attempted to influence Supreme Court appointments to get favorable rulings from the highest court in the United States.
Liberal and democratic candidates have also benefited from dark money. A CNN analysis, based on data from an election watchdog, showed that in 2020 $132 million in anonymous money backed Joe Biden compared to $22 million for President Donald Trump.
