‘We're on a knife edge': Alex Gibney warns about the dangers of dark money

The Guardian

15-04-2025

When the Rev Robert Schenck saw Donald Trump secure the Republican presidential nomination in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2016, he turned to a fellow evangelical and asked: 'Are we really going to do this? We're going to choose this man who's inimical to everything we believe?' The Christian leader looked at Schenck and replied: 'I don't care how bad he is. He's going to get us the court we need.''
This anecdote about the devil's bargain struck between Trump and the religious right is told in The Dark Money Game, director Alex Gibney's new diptych of documentaries investigating how untraceable political spending has corrupted America's highest court, corroded its democracy and put oligarchs in charge.
Inspired by Jane Mayer's book Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right, the two films examine how a supreme court decision in 2010 known as Citizens United enabled corporations and unions to inject unlimited funds into elections, fostering a 'pay-to-play' system.
One film, Ohio Confidential, examines a vast bribery scandal in Ohio involving the lobbyist Neil Clark and the alleged manipulation of political outcomes through secret funds. Another, Wealth of the Wicked, analyses the supreme court's role in opening the floodgates to corporate influence in politics and the subsequent weakening of democratic institutions.
Together they tell a devastating tale of how financial manipulation and legally ambiguous bribery have eroded the foundations of US democracy, empowering Trump and a class of oligarchs in ways that echo dictatorships around the world.
Speaking via Zoom from his home in New Harbor, Maine, Gibney warns: 'We're on a knife edge now, teetering toward authoritarian rule. What it really is is crony capitalism and that's what unites this administration with [Russia's Vladimir] Putin, [Hungary's Viktor] Orbán, [India's Narendra] Modi and others.
'It's a sense that government is nothing more than a bunch of traded favours among rich people and that's the terrifying part because, when you're only loyal to the capo di tutti capi as opposed to the constitution, suddenly the Department of Justice just becomes the Department of Vigilante Justice.
'The FBI becomes an instrument of revenge, not law and order, and you can see that the regulatory state is being dismantled brick by brick. They're trying to destroy government, which is what the Powell memo effectively was trying to say way back in the day.'
The 'Powell memo' was the work of Lewis Powell, a corporate lawyer from Virginia in the 1950s and 1960s commissioned by the US Chamber of Commerce to devise a strategic plan for reasserting corporate power and a conservative agenda over a political domain perceived as too liberal. One section of his secret blueprint described 'exploiting judicial action' as an 'area of vast opportunity'.
This vision was realised with the help of the Federalist Society, which cultivated and promoted conservative legal thinkers who adhere to principles such as originalism and textualism. Led by Leonard Leo, the group became a 'pipeline' for placing conservative judges on the bench at all levels, including the supreme court.
Its influence was felt in 2010 with the supreme court's 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v Federal Elec­tion Commis­sion, which decided that corporations and unions have the same first amendment rights as individuals when it comes to political speech.
The ruling means that wealthy donors, corpor­a­tions and special interest groups can spend unlim­ited cash on any candidate or cause as long as they do not give money directly to the candidate but rather set up so-called independent entities known as super political action committees, or Super Pacs. As The Dark Money Game puts it: 'Fifteen years later, fringe groups could bundle billions in secret slush funds to frustrate popular rule.'
Gibney elaborates: 'It's the most bullshit kind of rationale. Anybody with common sense would know that this is a vehicle for corruption because it basically means that you're giving permission for people to have those kind of wink-and-nod conversations where you know how to convey the meaning, which is: 'If you give me this money, I'll do this for you,' but you don't have it directly, just have it in a roundabout way.
'It's like Japanese bunraku theatre, which has nearly life-size puppets, and behind the puppets are these men in black who move the puppets. You actually see them but they sort of disappear into the background.'
Gibney, whose past films include Wise Guy: David Chase and the Sopranos, The Crime of the Century and The Forever Prisoner, also highlights the alliance that formed between big business interests seeking deregulation and social and religious conservatives, particularly on issues such abortion.
He explains: 'Big business was like, how do we play the long game so that we can get what we want, which is unfettered, unregulated capitalism? Along the way they realised it's not very popular to say, 'We want the right to pollute in your community because it'll make us more money.' That's not a good political campaign slogan.
'They needed a very powerful emotional issue and that was abortion and so they join forces, in a way, with anti-abortion activists and over time engineer a takeover of the supreme court by utilising both money and that religious fervour.'
Gibney's star witness is Schenck, an evangelical minister and former anti-abortion lobbyist who used to denounce 'baby killers', bring dead foetuses to demonstrations and put his body down in front of abortion clinics. He later had a crisis of conscience, changed his mind and came to support Roe v Wade, the 1973 supreme court ruling that enshrined reproductive rights.
Gibney says: 'He talks about how there was this unholy alliance between big business and religious conservatives such as he and they cut a deal, which is you guys need money in order to carry on your crusade and we need your help so that we can make more money and pass some of it on to you by dismantling economic regulations.'
In the film, Schenck explains: 'Whenever you talked about government regulation the argument was eventually these same characters who control my business are going to start trying to control your church. So it's in your best interests that we defang this monster, and that brought a lot of religious conservatives over.
'We have a little aphorism built on a Bible verse: 'The wealth of the wicked is laid up for the righteous.' So, yeah, let's baptise the billionaires' money. We can do that and it eventually brought together this alliance.'
Schenck describes a carefully orchestrated 'Operation Higher Court' to influence supreme court justices. This involved building relationships through social events, the use of 'stealth missionaries' (wealthy donors), and catering to their personal and ideological leanings. Religious connections, particularly conservative Catholicism and groups such as Opus Dei, appeared to play a role.
Schenck says the most successful couple he 'deployed' were Don and Gayle Wright of Ohio, who built strong relationships with Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. 'I don't know all the details. To be candid, I didn't want to know what they were up to. Whatever it was, our donors were quite pleased. They saw the justices become bolder, more brazen, more confident and they rewarded us and the justices with whom they developed relationships for it.'
The biggest beneficiary has been Thomas, who received donations, luxury gifts and holidays from the Republican mega-donor Harlan Crow. In 2019 Thomas and his wife flew on Crow's jet to Indonesia for nine days island-hopping on Crow's yacht, raising concerns about a potential quid pro quo.
Gibney says of the justices: 'Over time these are the friends they have. They begin to absorb the point of view of billionaires: we don't want rules or regulations when it comes to deploying our capital. We want to be able to do whatever it is that we want to do. Then you get to a point where, over time, the supreme court seems to be saying that there should be no rules or regulations when it comes to big money.'
Wealth of the Wicked depicts the scheme to fill supreme court vacancies with conservative justices who would be willing to overturn Roe v Wade. Opponents of abortion rights had paced their faith in past Republicans such as Ronald Reagan only to be constantly disappointed.
However, Leo provided a list of pre-vetted candidates to Trump, who made it public during his election campaign to successfully woo conservative Christian voters who might otherwise have recoiled from his sexual affairs, verbal insults and casual cruelty. The overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022 was the ultimate victory for this decades-long effort. All the justices in the majority had been promoted by Leo and raised Catholic.
Meanwhile Ohio Confidential paints a picture of deep-seated corruption within Ohio's state government, involving $1bn worth of bribes allegedly funneled through dark money groups that appears to have influenced legislation.
Gibney's film begins with Neil Clark, a powerful lobbyist known by various nicknames like 'Godfather' and 'Prince of Darkness'. He was under FBI investigation and found dead in Florida in 2021 with a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide, and wearing a [Ohio governor] Mike DeWine campaign T-shirt.
Clark had been creating video diaries before his death, seemingly intending to reveal the secrets he had kept. He said: 'Now I no longer feel the need to keep people's secrets. Relieved from this career-long burden, it's time for me to share. And share I will. A Sicilian never forgets.'
The FBI launched an investigation into Clark and others, using undercover agents posing as corrupt businessmen. Wiretaps and body wires captured conversations revealing potentially illegal activities and connections to powerful figures such as the Ohio house speaker, Larry Householder, now serving 20 years in prison for racketeering.
The influx of dark money is shown to have enabled the Republican party's takeover of state legislatures, including Ohio's, in 2010. This led to aggressive gerrymandering, redrawing districts that made it almost impossible for Republicans to lose and incentivising politicians to cater to extremes rather than the broad public interest.
As goes Ohio, so goes the nation, Gibney argues. 'Ohio is a story of where people actually got caught doing what they do every day in every state, so my presumption would be that this goes on in every state all the time. But because the Feds didn't happen to stumble into it, we don't hear about it. As the FBI admitted themselves, it was a case that they stumbled into by accident.'
With a convicted criminal now occupying the Oval Office, and embracing lawlessness daily, such forces can feel overwhelming. As the political consultant David Axelrod told the New York Times newspaper last week, 'We're living in a bizarro world where heroes are being targeted and scoundrels are in a position to target them.'
But a common thread running through both Gibney's films is bribery. He hopes that will be enough to offend a basic sense of morality. 'In a very essential way, most of us think bribery is a deeply immoral act where one person, by crossing somebody's palms with silver, can get an advantage that the rest of us don't have. We feel that's wrong and it is wrong and so now it's up to us to shout loudly enough so that the rule of law is restored.'
The Dark Money Game films air on HBO on 15 and 16 April in the US with a UK date to be announced