Hillary Clinton is back, and she brought friends.
The two-time presidential loser is teaming up with Hollywood to raise cash for left-wing groups right before November.
And the platform running the whole operation is the same one currently under investigation across multiple states for allegedly funneling fraudulent donations through the names of elderly Americans who never agreed to give a dime.
Sing a Song, Fund the Machine
Clinton, actor Paul Rudd, and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda will host a celebrity karaoke night in New York City on October 19, less than three weeks before the November 3 midterm elections.
The event will benefit two left-wing 501(c)(4) organizations: the Latino Victory Project and Onward Together.
Fans can enter a sweepstakes through ActBlue for a chance at round-trip airfare, hotel accommodations, and a meet-and-greet with Miranda and Clinton, with entries accepted through October 2.
Clinton promoted the event on social media, offering a self-deprecating note about her own vocal abilities. “I promise that you don’t want to hear me sing at this karaoke night,” she said. “But some friends will — including @Lin_Manuel, Paul Rudd, and special guests.”
The event has been dubbed “Raise Your Voice for Democracy” by organizers — which tells you everything you need to know about how these groups see themselves. They’re not raising money. They’re saving the republic. Or so they’d have voters believe.
Who’s Actually Behind These Groups
The Latino Victory Project was co-founded in 2014 by actress Eva Longoria and Henry Munoz III, the former national finance chairman for the Democrat National Committee. According to InfluenceWatch, the group was built from a pre-existing donor network that had supported Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, including billionaire George Soros.
The group runs a nationwide candidate training program called Path to Victory, which recruits and trains left-of-center Latino candidates to run for office and work on political campaigns. Miranda has his own fingerprints on the organization — he worked with the Latino Victory Project to launch the Miranda Family Rising Stars Fund, which raises money for Latino candidates.
So Miranda isn’t just a celebrity host at this event. He’s an active participant in the group’s political operation.
And then there’s Onward Together — which is, at its core, a Clinton political vehicle dressed up in nonprofit clothing. Clinton launched the group in 2017 after losing the presidency to Donald Trump, co-founding it with former Vermont Governor Howard Dean. The stated mission was “to lend support to leaders — particularly young leaders — kicking off projects and founding new organizations to fight for our shared progressive values.”
But according to InfluenceWatch, during the 2018 midterms, more than half of the individuals who received over $5,000 from the nonprofit already had personal ties to Clinton or her presidential campaign. The group operates as a 501(c)(4), meaning it accepts anonymous donations and is not required to disclose its donor list — a remarkable arrangement for a politician who spent years campaigning against dark money in politics.
Rudd has kept a lower political profile than his co-hosts, though he has lent his celebrity to civic causes in the past, including handing out water to voters waiting in line in Philadelphia in 2024.
ActBlue’s Fraud Cloud Hangs Over the Whole Thing
Both groups’ sweepstakes are being run through ActBlue, the Democrat Party’s dominant small-dollar fundraising platform. And ActBlue is not exactly operating from a position of clean hands right now.
The platform is currently facing multiple state investigations. Private investigators at Brightline Investigations, led by Kyle Corrigan, produced reports documenting a practice called “smurfing” — where donations are allegedly inflated and attributed to individual donors, including elderly Americans, far beyond what those donors actually gave. Corrigan’s findings indicated the practice could qualify as identity theft and money laundering under Wisconsin law.
One Wisconsin senior citizen, Mark Jennerjohn, was reportedly shocked when investigators showed up at his door asking whether he had donated over $90,000 to ActBlue over seven years. He had not.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued ActBlue in April, alleging it enabled fraudulent donations. US District Judge Richard Stearns blocked that lawsuit in June, ruling Paxton had brought the case in retaliation for ActBlue’s fundraising on behalf of his Senate opponent, state Representative James Talarico. Paxton has appealed that ruling to the First Circuit.
The questions surrounding ActBlue’s practices don’t disappear because a federal judge sided with the platform on procedural grounds. Multiple state investigations remain active. Investigators have turned up patterns of donations made through prepaid cards, foreign IP addresses appearing on contributions, and elderly donors who say they never authorized the gifts attributed to their names.
But the left-wing voter machine rolls on, and now it has a karaoke soundtrack.
What This Is Really About
Strip away the celebrity glitter and the feel-good “democracy” branding, and what remains is a straightforward operation to move left-wing voters to the polls in November.
Democrats are trying to flip the House or Senate, and groups like the Latino Victory Project and Onward Together exist specifically to build the infrastructure that makes that happen — registering voters, training candidates, and getting bodies to polling places. That’s not a secret. The organizations say so openly.
What’s worth noting is the company this operation keeps. Clinton’s Onward Together operates as a dark money vehicle, shielding its donor list from public view, even as its founder spent years demanding campaign finance transparency from others. The Latino Victory Project draws from the same donor network that powered Obama’s 2012 operation, including Soros money. And the sweepstakes running through ActBlue is tied to a platform that faces serious, documented questions about whether donations attributed to real Americans actually came from them.
Miranda has been deeply embedded in the Latino Victory Project’s political work for years. This isn’t a one-night celebrity appearance. It’s an extension of a sustained, coordinated push to reshape the electorate heading into November.
Clinton’s return to political fundraising is notable in itself. She had largely stepped back from public political activity since appearing as a keynote speaker at the McIntyre-Shaheen Dinner in Nashua, New Hampshire, in April. The karaoke event marks her re-entry into the midterm cycle.
And that re-entry is happening through an operation that runs dark money, trains Democrat candidates, and processes donations through a platform under active scrutiny from state investigators.
But sure. Sing a song. Save democracy.
The November 3 midterms are less than three weeks after the October 19 event. The timing is not accidental. Neither is anything else about this.
Sources: Breitbart, Washington Times, Washington Examiner, Denver Gazette, InfluenceWatch, Playbill