# Coolidge Reagan Foundation A conservative [[501(c)(3)]] nonprofit that functions as a campaign-finance "lawfare" shop — using tax-deductible charitable donations to file a steady stream of FEC, congressional ethics, and DOJ complaints against Democratic candidates and organizations. Because it operates as a 501(c)(3), its donors are not disclosed, leading critics to describe it as a [[Dark Money]] group that converts anonymous money into politically targeted legal pressure. ## Leadership - **President:** [[Dan Backer]] — conservative campaign-finance attorney (DB Capitol Strategies) and serial PAC treasurer. - **Chairman:** Shaun McCutcheon — the Alabama Republican donor whose suit produced [[McCutcheon v. FEC]] (2014), the Supreme Court decision striking down aggregate limits on federal campaign contributions. The overlap of leadership is itself telling: the people who fought to remove limits on money in politics also run an organization that weaponizes campaign-finance *enforcement* selectively against the other side. ## Method: complaints as a political weapon The foundation's signature tactic is the asymmetric complaint — filing formal accusations that generate headlines and force targets into legal defense, regardless of whether the complaints ultimately succeed. Notable filings include: - **Clinton campaign / DNC / [[Perkins Coie]] / [[Christopher Steele]]** — an FEC complaint alleging these parties illegally concealed payments routed through the law firm Perkins Coie to the research firm [[Fusion GPS]] for the [[Steele Dossier]]. This is the complaint that prompted the original "who are they?" question logged in the source material. - **[[Bernie Sanders]]** — campaign-finance complaints. - **Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez** — ethics complaints (including one over a staffer/boyfriend's email account). - **Rep. [[Jasmine Crockett]]** (April 2025) — an FEC complaint over ActBlue donations. - **[[Zohran Mamdani]]** (October 2025) — an accusation of illegally accepting foreign contributions during the NYC mayoral race. ## Why it's in this KB The Coolidge Reagan Foundation is a compact case study in two intertwined right-wing infrastructure patterns: (1) **[[Dark Money]] laundering** — a 501(c)(3) shielding donors while producing partisan output, and (2) **lawfare** — the use of regulatory and ethics complaints as offensive political tools, the mirror image of the deregulatory campaign-finance project ([[McCutcheon v. FEC]]) its own leadership advanced. It illustrates how the same operatives can simultaneously argue for fewer limits on political money and for aggressive, selective enforcement against opponents. ## See Also - [[Dan Backer]] - [[Dark Money]] - [[McCutcheon v. FEC]]