The liberal non-profit New Venture Fund, the largest subsidiary of the leftist dark-money organization Arabella Advisors, will be forced to open its books following a lawsuit from a former executive.
The anticipated look into Arabella’s inner workings stems from a lawsuit filed by New Venture Fund Vice President Sarah Walker, who alleges that she was wrongfully fired after she became concerned that the organizations activities were violating federal laws.
“We look forward to getting discovery to better expose the wrongdoing at New Venture Fund and further substantiate Sarah’s claims that she was wrongfully terminated for bringing forward her concerns,” said Mark Lanier, the attorney representing Walker, in comments provided to the Washington Free Beacon.
In 2022, Walker brought a lawsuit against her former employer after she lost her job. According to Walker, she was following procedure when she warned her superiors that she believed the New Venture Fund was violating federal laws limiting the political activities of 501(c)3 and, to a lesser extent, 501(c)4 nonprofits.
The lawsuit could have significant implications for Maine politics, as the Arabella network is among the top, if not the top, dark money backer of Democratic candidates and left-wing non-profits in the state.
In 2021, the New York Times reported that Arabella’s groups spent more than $63 million boosting Democratic candidates and attacking Republicans in the 2020 elections.
Although identifying the sources of Arabella’s donations is difficult, tax filings and leaked documents occasionally reveal where the money is flowing.
In addition to the New Venture Fund, Arabella also operates the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Hopewell Fund, the Windward Fund, and the North Fund.
According to tax documents, the Arabella-funded constellation has given significant donations to left-wing advocacy groups that are ever-present in the State House and work closely with Democratic officials, including the Maine Center for Economic Policy (MECEP), the Maine People’s Alliance, and Maine Equal Justice.
Billionaire donors with ties to Arabella are also thought to be behind the national nonprofit which recently acquired Maine’s largest newspaper conglomerate, as well as a recently-created left-wing blog.
[RELATED: George Soros to Become Largest Shareholder in Nationwide Chain of Radio Networks…]
While both 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 nonprofits can receive anonymous donations, only donations to the former are tax deductible. Because of that, 501(c)3s are limited in how much of their total budget they can spend directly on influencing political campaigns and policy making. On the other hand, 501(c)4s face fewer restrictions.
Walker discovered that in 2020 and 2021, the company had secretly directed its 501c(4) affiliate, Secure Democracy, to promote mail-in voting, and to run ads against Republican candidates.
Although 501c(4) organizations are legally permitted to engage in this kind of political activism, a 501c(3), such as the New Venture Fund, faces stricter limits on its political activism. According to Walker, New Venture Fund was violating the terms of its tax-exempt status by blurring the lines between the two nonprofits.
Walker informed her employer that she believed it was violating its 501c(3) status by secretly ordering Secure Democracy, with which it shared multiple employees, to further New Venture Fund’s political ends.
Walker’s attorneys have claimed that the New Venture Fund was subsidizing Secure Democracy’s political activities with roughly $10 million.
One day after informing her superiors of the violations, Walker was placed on administrative leave.
New Venture Fund abruptly shut down Secure Democracy following the allegation, but replaced it with the new Secure Democracy USA organization.
As of 2022, the New Venture Fund also cut ties with the new organization, citing the incident involving Walker as the reason.
Any ruling against the New Venture Fund could have dire consequences for its parent company Arabella Advisors, which is a for-profit company which uses its non-profit subsidiaries to collect funds from Democrat mega-donors such as George Soros.
Earlier this month, Washington, D.C. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled against the New Venture Fund’s motion to dismiss the case, and allowed the case to proceed to discovery, meaning that Walker’s attorneys can gather evidence from the internal documents of the liberal non-profit.
