Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders sent his wife’s nonprofit $75,000 worth of campaign funds in the most recent fundraising quarter, Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings show.
Friends of Bernie Sanders, the socialist senator’s campaign committee, sent $75,000 to the Sanders Institute as a charitable donation on Aug. 8, according to the committee’s quarterly FEC report. The filings cover the fundraising period from July 1 to Sept. 30, during which the 82-year-old’s 2024 Senate campaign raised more than $500,000 from individual donors. (RELATED: Rep Cori Bush Continues Paying Husband’s Salary Despite Campaign Finance Complaints, Records Show)
Bernie Sanders funnels $75,000 more from campaign coffers to his wife, stepson’s nonprofit https://t.co/QeB8b1ukFj
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) October 23, 2023
Earlier in 2023, Sanders’ campaign sent the Sanders Institute $200,000, Fox News reported.
The nonprofit raised nearly $717,000 in 2021 and spent $257,000 on wages, according to its most recent publicly available tax forms.
Sanders’ wife Jane O’Meara Sanders and his stepson David Driscoll co-founded the organization in 2016 to advocate for left-wing policy goals. Driscoll is the Sanders Institute’s executive director and Jane Sanders is one of its fellows.
The Sanders Institute paid Driscoll $152,653 and spent nearly $160,000 on its Timeline Project, the 2021 filings show. In addition, the group spent about $89,000 on a news website and social media content. Over the past year, its YouTube page has been largely inactive and its blog consists primarily of opinion columns published in left-wing media outlets.
Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Democratic Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal are among the organization’s fellows. The Sanders Institute temporarily shut down when Sanders ran in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary and re-opened in 2021.
Sanders’ Senate campaign did not respond to a request for comment.