Was the Lincoln Project the Beltway’s Biggest Grift?

NeverTrump world’s top PAC raked in over $14 million to elect Kamala Harris in 2024, thanks to hefty checks from some of the Left’s top mega-donors. Missing among the “principled conservative” group’s contributors: Any prominent conservatives. Or results.

Analysis by Restoration News found that the viciously anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project spent most of its cash on consultants and hefty salaries—including payments to at least 3 consultancies owned by the group’s leadership.

Over 60 percent of the Lincoln Project’s funding in the 2023–24 election cycle came from contributors who gave $5,000 or more, according to the most recent FEC filings. A little over half—52 percent—came from $10,000+ contributions, while nearly a quarter (23 percent) came from a handful of ultrawealthy donors who cut checks of $50,000 or more, a few as big as $500,000.

All of the Lincoln Project’s biggest contributors are also major donors to Democrat PACs, including Google, which gave the group $195,000.

Michael Moritz, the project’s top donor, is a venture capitalist with Sequoia Capital (net worth: $7.1 billion). In 2024, Moritz gave another $7.8 million to American Bridge PAC, a radical group founded by Republican-turned-Democrat operative David Brock. Moritz has given at least $13.8 million to Brock’s group since 2020, possibly making him the PAC’s biggest single funder.  

Christy Walton became the richest woman on earth after her husband, John—heir to the Walmart family fortune and a prominent Republican donor—died in a plane crash and left her $18.2 billion. Since then, Christy Walton has poured millions of dollars into liberal PACs—notably a NeverTrump PAC that spent $53 million promoting Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP primary and $28 million opposing Trump and Ron DeSantis in that same race. Walton is a major funder to the Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC and the Harris Victory Fund.

Louise Gund is a Berkeley, California, theater producer who inherited her wealth from her father, banker and real estate investor George Gund II, whose family ranked America’s 80th-richest in a 2015 survey. Louise is reportedly a member of the Democracy Alliance, the Left’s strategy hub for coordinating election spending by donors like George Soros. She’s also a cabinet member for Biden’s White House Historical Association. In 2024, Gund cut big checks to the Harris Victory Fund, Senate Majority PAC, House Majority PAC, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Bill Harris is the founding chairman of Evergreen Money, a financial services firm. Before that Harris was the CEO of Intuit and the founding executive of PayPal. In 2024, he funded a super PAC to reelect Montana Sen. Jon Tester (D), the Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

J.W. “Joey” Kaempfer chairs the British McArthurGlen Group, one of Europe’s largest mall developers. Kaempfer gave 6-figure sums to the Harris Victory Fund, Senate Majority PAC, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, American Bridge PAC, and a PAC that spent $9 million opposing California Republican Senate nominee Steve Garvey.

David Cornfield is the executive producer of Far Star Ventures, which produced documentaries (some left-leaning) such as Dark Money (2018) and The Social Dilemma (2020). Cornfield contributed checks to the Harris Victory Fund, DNC, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

(READ MORE: Top 10 Woke Leaders of the Military to Fire on Day One)

Spend Big, Lose Big

For its part, the Lincoln Project spent $3.3 million opposing Trump and $536,000 boosting Biden/Harris. It spent $29,500 more opposing Kari Lake’s Arizona Senate bid.

But that’s out of nearly $24 million spent in the 2024 election cycle. Where’d the other $19 million go? Ask the consultants.

FEC filings show the group spent $12 million—nearly 3 times as much as it spent on anti-Trump expenditures—on things like strategic consulting ($2.9 million) “organizational consulting” ($51,000), legal services ($1.1 million), communications consulting ($911,000), social media consulting ($189,000), media services ($200,000), campaign merchandise ($401,000), compliance services ($462,000), podcast services and production ($585,000), fundraising consulting ($499,000), donor acquisition ($70,000), merchant fees ($681,000), and salaries ($3.5 million).

At least 2 of those recipients—Lever Communications and Third Act Media—are owned by Lincoln Project advisors Joe Trippi and Ben Howe, respectively. A third, Intrepid Media, is owned by the Lincoln Project’s infamous founder: Rick Wilson, mocked as a “grifter” by Stephen Colbert in mid-2020. George Conway, who helped found the group in 2019, said two years later the Lincoln Project should be shut down for alleged financial mismanagement.

“The Lincoln Project was a giant grift,” declared far-left Jacobin after the 2020 election. “The Lincoln Project said it would win over Republican voters from Donald Trump,” the magazine continued. “Instead, Trump consolidated his base as the group burned $67 million that could’ve been spent better on real political organizing.”

“There have been plenty of grifters in the political world. But what made the Lincoln Project grift unique was that much of it played out on television,” added National Review—hardly a Trump-friendly outlet—in early 2021.

“The Never Trumpers are the most useless people in America,” concluded Esquire after the 2024 election.

One wonders if the project’s donors would agree.

(READ MORE: Despite Spending Millions, Gun Control Groups Lost Big in 2024)