Right-wing megadonor Dick Uihlein has been funneling tens of millions of dollars to election deniers, but a previously unreported IRS filing shows he has also teamed up with one.
According to its 2021 annual IRS filing, the Uihlein-backed dark money nonprofit Restoration Action Inc. hired Arizona Republican Gina Swoboda as an executive director last year, paying her $108,750 in salary.
Swoboda, a former Trump campaign official and the vice chair of the Arizona Republican Party, is now leading a misguided charge against the ballot count in that state on behalf of GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.
Swoboda currently serves as “election integrity” coordinator for Lake, whose repeated false claims of voter fraud have ingratiated her to former President Donald Trump and who still refuses to acknowledge her election loss to Katie Hobbs. After the election, Lake promoted Swoboda’s appearance on a right-wing podcast.
In addition to hiring Swoboda, the filing shows Restoration Action’s accounts swelling for the second year in a row.
According to the filing, in the 12 months following the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Restoration Action’s revenue topped $20.5 million—double what the group raised in 2020, and light years beyond its $64,000 haul in 2019.
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Restoration Action doesn’t have to disclose the names of its donors, though it is tied to the larger Restoration of America network, funded almost exclusively by the Uihleins. And the document shows that...
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