This article originally appeared on ZeroHedge and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Tyler Durden
For months, the Democratic Party’s financial struggles have been widely acknowledged. About six months ago, Federal Election Commission filings filings indicated the Democratic National Committee entered the crucial final phase of the previous year with just $12 million on hand and nearly $16 million in debt. This deficit was largely due to a loan taken the previous month. Alarmingly, donor contributions waned at a critical moment for the party.
In the months since, the political climate seemed particularly advantageous for the Democrats, as events like President Donald Trump’s low approval ratings, escalating tensions with Iran, and surging gas prices unfolded. Any of these factors could have reversed their financial woes. However, instead of improving their monetary situation, the DNC is reportedly taking an unexpected step: concealing it.
Axios reports that senior DNC officials were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements prior to a confidential meeting on party finances, a significant shift from standard procedures. Sources with knowledge of the situation revealed the DNC required these NDAs before a recent financial discussion. Officers and prominent members of Chairman Ken Martin’s team, typically exempt from such confidentiality agreements, were compelled to sign this time.
The senior officers’ meeting took place on June 25, five days before the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that upended the rules governing how parties fund their candidates. The timing alone tells its own story about how the DNC is managing its message heading into a midterm cycle it can’t afford to fumble.
Martin has spent months fending off a quiet but persistent crisis of confidence among Democratic donors, operatives, and even members of his own committee, all of them watching the Republican National Committee build a fundraising advantage heading into the Nov. 3 midterms that keeps getting harder to explain away. The numbers through the end of May make the gap plain. The DNC held just under $15 million on hand against $18 million in debt, while the RNC sat on $125 million with no debt at all.
The DNC declined to comment on why it required only its officers to sign confidentiality agreements before the finance meeting, and they’re trying to pass it off as inconsequential. Chris Lowe, the committee’s national finance co-chair, claimed that requiring officers and board-meeting attendees to sign NDAs is standard practice in the corporate world. Lowe added that senior DNC staff already operate under confidentiality agreements and argued it would be poor practice to discuss finance and political strategy at the highest levels without them in place.
A DNC official claimed that Martin’s committee has raised more money this cycle than the DNC did in 2017 and 2018, the last time Democrats headed into a midterm without the White House; however, it’s not clear whether that accounts for inflation.
Ultimately, the NDA strategy will not keep the party’s finances hidden, since those numbers will become public through Federal Election Commission filings. The agreements clearly exist for other reasons, such as protecting the internal deliberations, party infighting, donor threats, doubts about Martin’s leadership, and any strategic response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in NRSC v. FEC. The financial numbers clearly aren’t good, but what the party plans to do about them is likely what they’re really trying to hide.
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