The Dark Money Game project draws inspiration from Jane Mayer’s book, “Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right.” It includes interviews with various journalists, such as Mayer, alongside lawmakers, judges, FBI agents, whistleblowers, and other insiders involved on both sides of the issue. Through two separate stories, the films reveal how an untraceable flow of funds from affluent individuals and corporations, often motivated by business or religious interests, travels through non-profits and super PACs (political action committees) to back certain candidates and political movements.
In a system where the candidate with the highest spending wins 90% of elections, Gibney explores the legal and ethical implications of unregulated financing, tracing the money to uncover the partisan groups, corporations, and individuals from both within and outside government who gain from this funding influence.
OHIO CONFIDENTIAL
Debut date: TUESDAY, APRIL 15 (9:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT)
When a powerful political lobbyist is found shot to death, his apparent suicide highlights a bizarre turn in Ohio’s largest public corruption case accidentally uncovered by federal investigators that was nearly concealed by loose super PAC campaign financing rules.
FBI wiretap recordings ultimately unravel a conspiracy involving a secret $61 million slush fund for Ohio’s Speaker of the House to secure power in order to pay back corporate donors with a billion-dollar corporate bailout at the expense of the state’s taxpayers.
WEALTH OF THE WICKED
Debut date: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16 (9:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT)
The film traces the tangled history of campaign finance back to the creation of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in 1975, the 2002 McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill, and the Citizens United decision of 2010 that has molded the shape and opacity of present-day super PACs which now flood the system with money. The film looks at the stealth influence of religious groups and explores the fine line between a bribe and a political “gratuity” or donation and the reciprocity between well-funded special-interest groups and the political process, as well as attempts to influence the judiciary at the highest levels.
