Battle erupts over donations from Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss
The law firm of Marc Elias, the Democratic campaign lawyer who played a key role in the Russiagate conspiracy theory, is suing the state of Kansas to allow wealthy foreign nationals to fund state ballot initiatives and constitutional referendums.
Elias Law Group is one of the firms representing Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, a pro-abortion group behind a 2022 Kansas ballot initiative that reaffirmed the state’s constitutional protections for abortion.
Kansans for Constitutional Freedom filed a federal lawsuit last week against Kansas officials to block HB 2106, which limits the campaign activities of organizations that take money from foreign donors or foreign corporations. The bill prohibits groups involved in ballot initiatives and constitutional referendums from taking large donations from foreign nationals and foreign corporations.
Democratic groups have a significant financial stake in maintaining access to wealthy foreign donors—the most prominent of which is Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss.
Wyss, who was sued for sexual battery by a former employee last month, has given more than $650 million to liberal causes since 2002, according to Americans for Public Trust, a conservative watchdog group. And he has backed many of the groups that support Kansans for Constitutional Freedom, led by the director of the Kansas ACLU. Wyss has given nearly $9 million to the ACLU and $6 million to Planned Parenthood through his two main charities, the Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Group. Those organizations have donated nearly $280 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a dark money group that gave $1.5 million to Kansans for Constitutional Freedom in 2021 and 2022.
Wyss has also funded Elias Law Group, which Elias formed in 2021. The Wyss Foundation paid the law firm $61,251 in 2022 for “consulting services,” according to tax documents.
Elias’s involvement in the lawsuit could open him up to allegations of hypocrisy given his claims to oppose foreign influence in the American political process. As an attorney for the Hillary Clinton campaign, Elias commissioned a dossier from former British spy Christopher Steele that falsely accused the Trump campaign of conspiring with Russia to influence the election.
Several federal investigations have debunked the dossier. Elias’s former law partner, Michael Sussmann, was charged with lying to the FBI about his investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
In the lawsuit, Kansans for Constitutional Freedom asserts that the Kansas law is overly broad and would chill the free speech rights of political advocacy groups. The measures in the bill “constitute unconstitutional attacks on core First Amendment rights,” the lawsuit says, and would “broadly dampen public discussion on Kansas constitutional ballot measures.”
The group also opposes requirements that it and other advocacy groups disclose the national origins of its donors. “There is no reason why a donor should have to provide detailed and confidential information about its own funding sources,” the lawsuit states.
Elias Law Group filed a lawsuit in Ohio last year to block a similar bill that prohibits foreign involvement in ballot measures.
“Truth is, foreign nationals shouldn’t have a say in shaping our laws or policies through large-scale financial influence,” Americans for Public Trust said in response to the Kansas lawsuit.
Elias has been at the center of several other high-profile campaign controversies.
In 2021, Elias sued election officials in New York on behalf of then-Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D., N.Y.), alleging that voting machines stole votes from his client. During the same period, Elias condemned Republicans who alleged that voting machine errors took votes from Donald Trump during the 2020 presidential election.
Elias unsuccessfully pressured House Democrats in 2021 to overturn the results of Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks’s (R., Iowa) election victory over his client, Rita Hart.
Elias, who worked for the Kamala Harris campaign last year, embraced other controversial campaign tactics during the election. His firm formed an organization last year called Evidence for Impact, which in turn spent millions of dollars in support of Libertarian presidential candidate Chase Oliver as part of a bid to pull votes from Donald Trump.
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