While American Crossroads as a 527 group is mandated by law to disclose its donors, its sister 501c4 “social welfare” group, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies (GPS), is allowed to keep its sources of funding a secret to the public. In October Politico reported that “most of the GOP corporate money is believed to be moving through the Crossroad Grassroots group, so that it isn’t disclosed publicly,” even as American Crossroads was publicly listing the millions of dollars it received from corporations. Now, NBC News has uncovered how Wall Street played a major role in funding the shadowy Crossroads GPS organization:
A tightly coordinated effort by outside Republican groups, spearheaded by Karl Rove and fueled by tens of millions of dollars in contributions from Wall Street hedge fund moguls and other wealthy donors, helped secure big GOP midterm victories Tuesday, according to campaign spending figures and Republican fundraising insiders.
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A substantial portion of Crossroads GPS’ money came from a small circle of extremely wealthy Wall Street hedge fund and private equity moguls, according to GOP fundraising sources who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity. These donors have been bitterly opposed to a proposal by congressional Democrats — and endorsed by the Obama administration — to increase the tax rates on compensation that hedge funds pay their partners, the sources said.
Clearly, “extremely wealthy Wall Street hedge fund and private equity moguls” wanted to keep their influence a secret as Crossroads GPS engineered a massive television and direct mail ad campaign.
Some of the ads by the Crossroads groups, however, bashed the government bailouts of Wall Street which many-believed saved the financial industry. Even though the bailouts were signed by President Bush and had support from members of both parties, including the Republican leadership, Crossroads attempted to link the Wall Street bailouts into its anti-government ads criticizing Obama and Democrats. Here are just a few examples:
In Nevada, Crossroads GPS’ ad says that “instead of fixing these problems Harry Reid’s made it worse,” and includes in the “Wall Street bailout” in the list of Reid’s supposed wrongdoings.
When criticizing Pennsylvania’s Joe Sestak, this Crossroad GPS ad says that Sestak is a “reckless” spender by supporting “bailouts for banks” as part of the “$700 Billion Wall Street Bailout,” saying that it was part of “trillions of dollars wasted.”
In this ad against Indiana Democrat Joe Donnelly, who barely edged out his Republican opponent, American Crossroads slams the “Joe Donnelly Wall St. Bailout” and slams “their bailouts, raising our debt.”