Tulsi Gabbard keeps starting up PACs. Where is the money going?

In March 2024, Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congresswoman and failed presidential candidate whom Donald Trump has tapped to be director of national intelligence, created a political action committee called Defend Freedom, Inc. The group posted a bare-bones website featuring photos of Gabbard and declared it “was organized to elect patriots who will fight to defend America’s Peace, Security, Prosperity, and Freedom.” It asked for donations of up to $5,000 to “make an impact across America.” Tens of thousands of people contributed to Gabbard’s PAC. Through mid-October it raised $1.9 million, including a $16,552 transfer from another Gabbard PAC called Team Tulsi.

Of all the money it pulled in, Defend Freedom, Inc. devoted only $20,000 to contributions for a small number of candidates, all far-right MAGA-ish Republicans: US Senate candidates Kari Lake and Tim Sheehy, and US House contenders Joe Kent, Brian Jack, and Mayra Flores. (Before running for a congressional seat in 2022, Flores published social media posts promoting QAnon.) Where did all the money go? Gabbard’s outfit spent $1.3 million on operating expenses—at least $1 million on fundraising and direct mail, according to its filings with the Federal Election Commission. Like many PACs, it acted mainly as a money-churning machine that generated donations that mostly profited vendors and consultants.

Defend Freedom, Inc. is one of a network of organizations Gabbard has assembled in recent years, and they warrant a thorough review as part of her Senate confirmation process.

Gabbard is a highly unconventional candidate for the DNI job, which entails overseeing all 18 agencies in the US intelligence community (including the CIA and the NSA). She has espoused fringe views often in sync with Moscow talking points. She provided a preemptive defense of Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and afterward boosted the conspiracy theory advanced by Russia that the United States had been collaborating with Ukraine to develop biological weapons to deploy against Russia. Her fondness for Putin has earned her favorable coverage from Russia’s propaganda outlets, and her appointment, if she is confirmed, will likely spook intelligence services throughout the world and make them hesitant to collaborate with US intelligence. She also has no experience managing or holding a senior position within a large organization, let alone an agency with the task of safeguarding the nation. Consequently, an extensive vetting of Gabbard ought to focus on her own political operation.

In February, Gabbard established a Super PAC called For Love of Country, Inc. Its name echoed the title of a book she would release in April with the subtitle “Leave the Democrat Party Behind.” Gabbard had quit the Democratic Party in 2022, proclaiming herself an independent, and she went on to become a highly partisan commentator, hurling harsh rhetoric at her former party. The promotional material for this book claimed that the Democrats were now “controlled by an elitist cabal of warmongers driven by woke ideology and racializing everything.” It slammed the Democratic Party as “a clear and present threat to the God‑given freedoms enshrined in the Constitution.”

Around the time of the book’s publication—at a point when Gabbard’s bizarre political journey had taken her from a Democratic presidential bid to appearing on the short list of Trump’s potential running-mates—her For Love of Country, Inc. PAC banked hefty checks from several big-money Republican funders. The biggest amount came from a donor named David Flory, who sent Gabbard’s PAC a whopping $100,000. On the PAC’s FEC filing, it neglected to note—as it is compelled to do—Flory’s occupation and employer.

There was something odd about this contribution. The name David Flory matches that of a Miami investor and former Washington, DC, lobbyist who in recent years has donated millions to Republican candidates and committees, including the Trump campaign, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the PAC run by John Bolton, a GOP hawk. But the David Flory recorded on the PAC’s filing listed a different address than the one used by the David Flory who made all those other contributions. The address on the For Love of Country, Inc. PAC filing was for a modest-looking apartment building on the western edge of Miami—a residence unlikely to be the home of a $100,000 donor. The Flory with the record of big-bucks donations lives in a Miami Beach apartment worth an estimated $4.1 million.

According to public records, there is no David Flory who resides at that apartment building in western Miami. But a fellow named David Flor once lived there. He died in 2013.

Looking to talk to the David Flory of Miami Beach, a Mother Jones reporter reached his wife, Julie Flory on her cell phone, and asked if she was familiar with the Miami address associated with the $100,000 donation to the For Love of Country, Inc. PAC. She said did not know it. She then conferenced her husband David into the call. Asked about the $100,000 contribution to Gabbard’s PAC and the address tied to it, he said, “Doesn’t sound familiar,” and he tried to end the conversation. Pressed as to whether he had made a donation to Gabbard, he said, “I’m not interested in talking to you about it.” Sounding irritated, he addressed his wife, “Julie, don’t take these calls. Just hang up on them.” He then left the call.

Another early major donor to the For Love of Country, Inc. PAC was John Calnan, the head of a Massachusetts construction company, who kicked in $25,000. He gave $200,000 to the Trump campaign this year. A few months later—shortly after Gabbard endorsed Trump—disgraced Las Vegas mogul, Steve Wynn, a close pal of Trump, cut this PAC a $60,000 check.

All told, from February through mid-October, For Love of Country, Inc. raised $280,000. It only spent $49,000. Ten thousand dollars of those expenditures paid for an event in Las Vegas. Almost all the rest covered payments to Gabbard’s political staff and advisers.

The PAC described itself as “Tulsi’s vehicle for messaging in the 2024 election, including a national ad campaign to communicate with middle-of-the-road voters, disenfranchised Democrats, and undecided Independents.” It claimed, “For Love of Country PAC will use traditional and disruptive methods to blend the tried-and-true approach with innovation to reach otherwise unlikely voting demographics.” Its expenditures through mid-October do not indicate there was much of an effort of that sort made by Gabbard’s PAC. It looks as if this PAC funded by pro-Trump Republican money-bags mostly existed to cover the costs of Gabbard’s political team.

Gabbard controls yet another PAC, Our Freedom, Our Future, which was launched in 2023. Its mission, according to its website, is “to protect our freedoms and support leaders who share her commitment to uphold and protect our God-given rights enshrined in the Constitution.” It declared, “Our founders envisioned a government that is of, by, and for the people—not of, by, and for the powerful elite. We need to elect leaders who are committed to the same.” From mid-2023 until October, it raised only $45,000, with the lion’s share of that money going to pay Gabbard’s spokesperson and another adviser. It made a $1,000 contribution to a Republican candidate in Ohio who lost a congressional primary contest.

“It’s uncommon for a politician to have three or four separate PACs, though they can be used for different purposes,” says Sarah Bryner, a political scientist and campaign finance expert. “The most common number is one. Generally the more you have is because of obfuscation. It confuses people.”

Gabbard also created a nonprofit called We Must Protect. In its tax filing, the group stated its mission was to “engage in research and public education for the benefit of those vulnerable populations in our community that deserve to be honored and cared for.” It drew only $2,500 in funding in 2022. After the horrendous wildfires on Maui last year, We Must Protect tried to raise money to aid the victims and promised “every dollar” contributed will “help people affected by the devastating fires.” The nonprofit’s 2023 tax filing is not yet available. So its fundraising and relief efforts related to the fires cannot be publicly evaluated. Nor are its donors publicly disclosed. In October, Gabbard said that We Must Protect had raised $331,000 to aid survivors of Hurricane Helene.

Last week, Mother Jones sent Tulsi Gabbard a long list of questions regarding her PACs and We Must Protect, which shares a phone number with Gabbard’s office and her Defend Freedom, Inc. PAC. We requested We Must Protect’s 2023 tax filing and information about its donors and its work regarding the Maui fires. The list included queries about the PACs’ spending and whether they did the work they claimed to do, about their high spending on fundraising, and about the $100,000 contribution attributed to David Flory.

Gabbard declined to respond to any of the questions or provide any information on We Must Protect’s donors and activities. Erika Tsuji, her spokeswoman, forwarded the list to the Trump transition office. Alexa Henning, a spokeswoman for the transition, replied with a statement that did not address any of the queries. She only offered praise for We Must Protect and claimed Gabbard’s Defend Freedom PAC and For Love of Country PAC “enabled her to engage millions of Americans…encouraging them back pragmatic GOP candidates nationwide, including electing Donald. J. Trump.”

One Gabbard PAC did recently encounter trouble with the FEC. On November 4, the commission sent a letter to Thomas Datwyler, the treasurer of the For Love of Country, Inc. PAC, notifying the outfit that it had apparently placed $151,000 of its donations into the wrong account and setting a December 9 deadline for a response.

Datwyler, a longtime financial consultant for GOP candidates, is also the treasurer for Defend Freedom, Inc.; Our Freedom, Our Future; and Team Tulsi. Last year, he was caught up in the George Santos scandal. In the midst of the controversy over the then-GOP congressman’s false claims about his campaign finances—among his many lies about his background and career—paperwork filed with the FEC indicated that Datwyler had replaced the original treasurer for several of Santos’ campaign committees. But Datwyler’s attorney quickly informed the FEC that Datwyler had not agreed to become treasurer for the Santos entities. This added yet another level of mystery to the Santos scandal.

Months later, there was another twist to this story: Datwyler’s attorney wrote the FEC to withdraw his previous statement that denied Datwyler had become the treasurer for those Santos committees. He noted that “public reporting has caused me to lose confidence in the accuracy and veracity of the information provided by Mr. Datwyler at the time I submitted those communications on his behalf.” The Daily Beast had reported that that “Datwyler had in reality operated as a shadow treasurer for Santos—despite disavowing that role to the public, to the FEC, and apparently even his own lawyer.”

Datwyler did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the Santos episode and Gabbard’s PACs. Gabbard, too, did not respond to questions about Datwyler.

If Gabbard reaches a Senate confirmation hearing, there will be much for the senators to grill her on, especially her sympathetic views regarding Putin and Russia and her support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, as well as her efforts to help Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, who each exposed top-secret information that caused damage for the intelligence community. A key question will be whether someone as excessively partisan as Gabbard can be a fair-minded and even-handed overseer of the intelligence agencies, the intelligence they produce, and the covert actions they mount. Senate Intelligence Committee investigators should be sure to examine the network of organizations she has built and the flow of money in and out of her nonprofit. There are few jobs in the federal government as important as managing the sprawling US intelligence community. With no direct intelligence experience, Gabbard deserves scrutiny of all matters that can shed light on her fitness for this post.

Additional reporting by Russ Choma.