A group of conservative operatives using robocalls raised millions of dollars from donors using pro-police and pro-veteran messages. Instead of using the money to promote issues and candidates, an analysis by The New York Times shows, nearly all the money went to pay the firms making the calls and the operatives themselves, highlighting a flaw in the regulation of political nonprofits. It worked this way: The phone rings. The caller knows your name and opens with a dad joke. It is not a police officer or even a human but a computer, making thousands of robocalls with the same folksy voice. The American Police Officers Alliance is not what it seems.
In theory, it is a political nonprofit called a 527, after a section of the tax code, that can raise unlimited donations to help or oppose candidates, promote issues or encourage voting. In reality, it is part of a group of five linked nonprofits that have exploited thousands of donors in ways that have been hidden until now amid lax oversight and a blind spot in the campaign finance system. Since 2014, the five groups have pulled in $89 million from small-dollar donors who were pitched on building political support for police officers, veterans and firefighters. But just 1 percent of the money they raised was used to help candidates via donations, ads or targeted get-out-the-vote messages. About 90 percent of the money the groups raised was sent back to their fund-raising contractors. They had no significant operations other than fund-raising.
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