A dark money group founded and led by Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams hauled in nearly $62 million in the first two years following her 2018 gubernatorial loss, according to tax documents obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Fair Fight Action, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group that has been accused of abusing its nonprofit status to prop up `Abrams’s political career, was funded almost exclusively by undisclosed large-dollar contributions, according to the group’s 2019 and 2020 federal form 990 tax returns. Over 96% of the combined $61.9 million the group raised in those two years came from just 252 unidentified donors, the records showed. That’s an average donation of about $235,000.
501(c)(4) nonprofit organizations are often referred to as “dark money” groups because they can raise unlimited amounts of money to influence public policy without having to disclose the identities of their donors.
Fair Fight Action was founded in 2014 as the Voter Access Institute to promote nonpartisan voter engagement. But just weeks after Abrams’s 2018 election defeat, the dark money group changed its name and removed language from its bylaws that had prohibited it from participating or interfering in “any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.”
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After the change, Fair Fight Action purchased a Super Bowl ad that promoted Abrams, hosted watch parties to promote her speaking engagements, and accepted donations from a “Stacey Abrams Fundraiser.” Fair Fight Action also pursued litigation against Georgia in a lawsuit that alleged that voting machines in the 2018 gubernatorial election had “switched” votes from Abrams to her opponent, Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
Fair Fight Action’s conduct prompted the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, to demand the IRS investigate the dark money group for allegedly violating its nonprofit status to support Abrams’s political career.
“Fair Fight’s activities in 2019 were alarming, and FACT filed a complaint with the IRS that identified evidence the organization was not functioning as a social welfare organization to benefit the public as a whole but rather was being used for a political purpose and for the benefit of a single candidate,” FACT Director Kendra Arnold told the Washington Examiner.
Fair Fight Action called the complaint “baseless” and rejected the allegation the group was promoting Abrams.
Arnold said the IRS has not provided an update on her group’s complaint since it was filed in March 2019.
Abrams refused to concede her 2018 election loss to Kemp, saying that to do so “means to say the process was fair.”
“But when I run an organization that in 10 days, between election night and the night I refused to concede, we received more than 50,000 phone calls of people who were denied the right to vote, I am complicit if I say that system is fair,” she told CBS News in August 2019.
Abrams changed her tune after she announced her second campaign for governor in December, telling MSNBC she “did not challenge the outcome” of the 2018 election.
Fair Fight Action reported in its 2020 form 990 that it contributed $60,000 to the Coalition for Good Governance, a charity group that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger accused of propagating election fraud conspiracy theories on behalf of Abrams.
“Many people think that President Trump’s onslaught on Georgia’s election integrity was new, but outside groups, apparently heavily supported by Stacey Abrams, have been pushing these conspiracy theories for years,” Raffensperger said in February 2021. “In light of the devastation election disinformation caused on Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C., Abrams needs to finally accept her 2018 election loss and stop funding attacks on Georgia’s election integrity.”
Fair Fight Action’s $61.9 million dark money fundraising haul came on top of the more than $95 million its affiliated political action committee, Fair Fight PAC, raised in 2019 and 2020. Fair Fight PAC also helped raised more than $12 million each during the 2020 campaigns for Georgia Democratic Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
Abrams served as chairwoman of Fair Fight Action from 2018 through late 2021. She resigned from her position with the group around the time she launched her second Georgia gubernatorial campaign in December. Three months later, in February, Fair Fight Action announced it would focus its efforts on Georgia for the 2022 elections.
The dark money group has close ties to Abrams’s gubernatorial campaign.
Abrams’s 2018 and 2022 campaign manager, Lauren Groh-Wargo, served as CEO of Fair Fight Action during the interim period between Abrams’s two gubernatorial bids.
Fair Fight Action reported to the IRS paying Groh-Wargo $0 for her services in both 2019 and 2020, but the group also disclosed that it had delegated management services to Groh-Wargo’s consulting firm, Swing State Consulting, which received $180,000 and $225,250 from the dark money group in 2019 and 2020, respectively.
Abrams’s gubernatorial campaign reported paying $20,000 to Swing State Consulting for “Management Consulting Services” on Dec. 28.
Her campaign also doled out $173,257 to Fair Fight Action on Dec. 9 for an email list purchase and another $1,800 for equipment purchases on Jan. 21, campaign finance reports showed.
Fair Fight Action also received a significant amount of funding from Fair Fight PAC. The PAC contributed $3.6 million to the dark money group in 2019 and $13.8 million in 2020, according to Fair Fight Action’s form 990 filings.
As a 501(c)(4) group, Fair Fight Action is not required to disclose the identities of its donors. But other major Democratic dark money groups have reported providing significant contributions to Fair Fight Action.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund, a liberal dark money juggernaut that funneled $410 million to liberal groups in 2020, contributed $2,229,000 to Fair Fight Action that year.
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The Hopewell Fund, a charity group with close ties to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, also contributed $980,000 to Fair Fight Action in 2020.
Fair Fight Action did not return a request for comment.
