AIPAC’s Money Laundry: Millions Funneled Through Front Groups to Buy a Minnesota Primary

By Buck Buckhorn · August 16, 2026

Opinion

Here is how the swamp works when it really wants somebody elected. It doesn’t write a check with its own name on it. It runs the money through three or four shell PACs with warm and fuzzy names until the trail is cold enough that nobody can prove a thing. And then it calls you a conspiracy theorist for noticing.

Minnesota’s Second Congressional District has an open seat. Rep. Angie Craig is off running for Senate, and three Democrats want her job. Matt Little is a progressive state senator who won the party endorsement. Kaela Berg is a union flight attendant and state representative. Matt Klein is a state senator who co-founded the Blue Dog caucus and is unapologetically pro-Israel. Little was leading in every poll, even Klein’s own internal numbers. So the fix needed fixing.

Enter the money. AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, shoveled $1.55 million to BOLD America, a group that supports Hispanic candidates. UDP also dumped $850,000 into EDW Action Fund, which backs Democratic women. Democratic Majority for Israel slid $500,000 to Women Vote, the independent expenditure arm of EMILY’s List. Then, like clockwork, Women Vote turned around and spent $584,448 on ads for Berg. EDW Action kicked in another $395,000 for her. Total spent on Berg’s behalf by PACs that have served as pro-Israel pass-throughs: $979,448 since June 11.

Rep. Angie Craig, former incumbent running for Senate.

Ask yourself who benefits from splitting the progressive vote between Little and Berg while Klein sails through the middle. You don’t need a flowchart. You need a bar napkin.

3.14 Action, a PAC supposedly built to support scientists and doctors, dropped nearly $2.5 million on Klein. Their president swears none of it came from AIPAC. Maybe that’s true. But when Drop Site News asked Klein’s campaign about 3.14’s involvement, the campaign CC’d 3.14 Action on the email response. Campaigns and outside groups are not supposed to coordinate. That’s not a technicality. That’s the whole point of the firewall. But funny how nobody ever gets prosecuted for these little oops moments when the right people are spending the right money.

DMFI, for its part, says it endorsed Klein and wants nothing to do with Berg. A spokesperson told Drop Site that “Kaela Berg’s views are equally as anti-Israel as Matt Little’s.” So the pro-Israel lobby’s own affiliate says Berg is no friend of theirs. And yet the money still flowed through the same pipes that always carry pro-Israel cash. The groups insist the DMFI money was earmarked for a different race. Women Vote says the $500,000 from DMFI had “nothing to do with Kaela Berg or this race.” They just won’t tell you which race it was for. Trust them.

Berg posted a video insisting she doesn’t take AIPAC money, never has, never will. And technically she’s right. She didn’t take a dime from AIPAC. AIPAC gave money to a PAC that gave money to another PAC that spent money on her. That’s the whole racket. The candidate’s hands stay clean while the money does the work. Little’s campaign manager, Bob Groven, put it plainly: if Berg truly believes Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, why hasn’t she told the PACs taking AIPAC cash to stop running ads for her?

Kaela Berg, Union flight attendant and state representative running for Congress.

That’s the question nobody in the establishment wants asked. Because the answer is obvious. You don’t bite the hand that’s buying your airtime.

The strategy here is not new. Boost the weaker progressive to fracture the progressive vote. Clear the lane for the establishment pick. Flood the zone with cash from groups whose names sound like they care about women or Hispanics or scientists, not foreign policy. Then dare anyone to trace the wiring. AIPAC even accuses reporters of antisemitism for following their own money through FEC filings. You read that right. Following public campaign finance records is now, apparently, a hate crime.

Little was the frontrunner before $3 million in outside spending crashed into this race. Now nobody knows what happens. That’s not democracy. That’s a leveraged buyout with a ballot attached.

And the little guy in Minnesota’s Second District is supposed to believe his vote still counts. Funny how that works.

Sources

Editor’s note. Walt: In a world where the only people who can follow the paper trail are the ones who actually do the paper trail, I find it amusing how everyone agrees to ignore the obvious mechanics of the swamp, as if the source of the water doesn't matter if you're just happy it's flowing through your favorite (W.K.)