that guy who is creating that pipeline now has 1. 6 billion dollars at his disposal to use however he likes. a reporter from new york times, one of the reporters who broke that story. he joins me lowe. can i read this story 2 to 3 times when it was published this morning. because i just never encountered anything like it. so just describe to us who donated this money. and how? yeah, it was a very unusual transaction, chris. the likes of which i had never seen in my years of covering money in politics. where in this donor, his name is barry side. he was the owner, complete owner, of a electrical device manufacturing company. he donated 100% of the shares of that company to a new nonprofit a dark money nonprofit that he set up to custody of the company,
democracy remains in danger, the conspiracy to thwart the will of the people is not over. as anti-democratic forces win elections and take power in state houses, tonight new evidence that america is waking up to the reality. we are facing a moment where our democracy is really under attack and under threat. then, donald trump files a new lawsuit as he literally threatens the fbi in court documents and his supporters work up new excuses. every former president has access to other documents that s how they write their memoirs. plus new reporting on the most powerful man in american politics you ve never heard of. he has planned to spend 1. 6 billion dollars from a single conservative donor, and 78 days into the midterms, what mitch mcconnell s concerns about
of money as we see on this transaction that further enhance his power. well i would just say, from a democratic perspective, 1. 6 billion dollars should by a tremendous amount of scrutiny, thank you very much. a pleasure. still to come, in the year with plenty of questionable candidates, how one man can undermine republican party s ability to retake the senate. that is next.
country. leonard leo has now an unprecedented amount of cash to spend on whatever political projects he likes. while the donation was meant to be kept secret, name and address withheld on the irs form souness from the sources mind in year 90 year old businessman philanthropist we donated the stock of his entire company, the aaa company of chicago to marvel freedom trust which turned around and sold for 1. 6 billion dollars. cnn has attempted to reach him without response. his donation will leave behind a dark money political legacy that could last decades. already marvel freedom thrust has given more than 200 billion dollars to other causes, including 40 million to donor stress which to conservative causes. in a statement to cnn, leonard leo said it s high time for the conservative movement to be among the ranks of george sorrows and other left-wing philanthropists going toe to toe in the fight to defend our
that it received 100 percent of the shares of a company, it didn t identify with the company was. that it reaped 1. 6 billion dollars from selling the shares of the company. so through our reporting, we were able to determine with that company was and who the owner was, when a little bit more about leonard leo s relationship with this donor, the owner of the company. and just to be clear, again, now this money is sitting there, presumably, and can be used again thanks to basically the jurisprudence that came from out of citizen united and subsequent holdings by this court, to do whatever you want in any kind of political campaign or, essentially entirely unregulated fashion? yeah, i mean, there are some rules that say that these nonprofit groups have to be engaged primarily in social welfare activities. but what that means, what s social welfare activities means and what primarily means are very much open to