The confirmation hearings of Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court brought many strange statements and questions by Democratic senators, such as Sen. Mazie Hirono asking Barrett if she’d ever sexually assaulted someone. However, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse’s remarks stand out as the most conspiratorial.

On Tuesday, the Rhode Island Democrat seemed to make a Glenn Beck impression of yesteryear by pushing a narrative that the judge’s confirmation and the Supreme Court’s supposed rightward lurch are the results of years of conservative “dark money” efforts to influence the courts. This paranoid assault on political speech needs to be put to rest. The United States’s philanthropic culture is one of the hallmarks of our democracy and has been used to advance policy for the better on both the Left and Right.