People really need to understand what a PAC is -- "Presidential candidates" can only accept a few thousand dollars from an individual. Large donors don't give t

People really need to understand what a PAC is -- "Presidential candidates" can only accept a few thousand dollars from an individual. Large donors don't give to candidates, they give to PACs. Of SBF's $40ish million in donations, over $25M went to a specific PAC "Protect our Future PAC"[1]. Of that PAC's spending - over $10M went to support a single cypto-friendly Oregon house candidate in his primary where he lost to a different Democrat. In fact nearly all of SBF's support went to primary campaigns so when people say "he spent $40M supporting Democrats" the vast majority of that funding was in races against other Democrats. The other thing to know about PACs, is that by law, they are not affiliated with the campaign. The campaigns can't vet the donations to PACs because they aren't donations to the candidate and it would be illegal for them to coordinate with the PAC. This is the 3-card monte allowed by our insane campaign finance regime, but within those bounds, SBFs donations weren't to actual candidates who would vet these donors. The PAC has its own compliance, but there basically are no restrictions on donors as long as they're from the US. That's how random Russian billionaires donated to Trump's PACs in 2016, and the only reason that was frowned upon is because the funds came from a foreign national.[2] [1] - https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/detail?cmte=C00801514&cycle=2022 https://www.opensecrets.org/outside-spending/detail?cmte=C00... [2] - https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/lev-parnas-and-igor-fruman-charged-conspiring-violate-straw-and-foreign-donor-bans https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/lev-parnas-and-igor-fru...