Today, Americans for Tax Fairness Action Fund (ATFAF) released a new report finding that 40 billionaires with credible ties to Jeffrey Epstein have spent more than $1.56B this cycle and in prior election cycles. Although individual billionaires are roughly split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, ATFAF estimates that their political spending heavily favors Republicans: $1.3B (84%) to Republicans/conservative causes vs. about $105M (7%) to Democrats/liberal causes. Most of the remainder went to PACs backing candidates across both parties, often focused on pro-AI, pro-crypto, To access the full report, please use this link.
“Our tax and political system is badly broken, and nothing illustrates this more than billionaires with credible ties to Jeffrey Epstein continuing to spend millions to exert their influence on American democracy,” said David Kass, ATFAF’s executive director. “Since Citizens United, our political system has worked in the interests of the billionaires and corporate interests that buy our elections. Our report also raises major concerns about what billionaires may be using their tax breaks to fund beyond relentless election engineering. We can’t allow billionaires to keep undermining our economy and democracy. Congress should continue its investigations into individuals and entities with ties to Epstein, and if any tax cuts passed by Congress were valuable to them in their nefarious schemes.”