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The Bipartisan Mask
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Drive it with the arrow keys, space, or autoplay. Nothing is cut from the piece — long runs are split across frames. Read the full investigation or open the The Manufactured Center hub.
The Bipartisan Mask
No Labels sells itself as the neutral center and won't say who funds it. What leaked points one way: Harlan Crow — Clarence Thomas's benefactor — as a 'whale' donor, a Mother Jones list of 36 corporate backers, and a 2024 'unity ticket' widely assessed as a Trump spoiler. Every figure is anchored to The New Republic, Sludge, Mother Jones, and the mainstream coverage of the 2024 effort.
A group selling itself as neutral centrism is funded substantially by undisclosed corporate and Republican money — and it ran a 2024 project that, by common assessment, served the right.
The structure and the money are FACT: a 501(c)(4) that refuses to name its donors, Harlan Crow's $130,000+, the Mother Jones roster of 36 corporate backers, the corporate-money denial the record contradicts, and the ~$70M 2024 spoiler effort. The 'bipartisan mask' reading is graded PROBABLY TRUE — strongly supported, but the full donor base is undisclosed by design. We do NOT claim a secret GOP front: the founder (Nancy Jacobson) and chair (Joe Lieberman) were Democrats. And a spoiler EFFECT is not proven partisan INTENT; No Labels denies both a spoiler motive and taking corporate money.
What Republican billionaire Harlan Crow — Clarence Thomas's benefactor — gave No Labels between 2019 and 2021, reaching the group's internal 'whale' tier (above 'dolphins' and 'minnows'), while recruiting some two dozen more donors. For a group marketing itself as the antidote to partisan money, the top of its own disclosed donor pyramid was one of the country's most prominent Republican megadonors. The one big name the secrecy failed to keep in.
The New Republic (2023); Sludge (David Moore)
No Labels is a 501(c)(4) 'dark money' group that refuses to disclose its donors.
No Labels is organized as a 501(c)(4) social-welfare nonprofit — a structure that, unlike parties, PACs, and candidates, is not required to reveal its funders. No Labels declines to, saying it will 'never share the names' of its donors and citing fear of intimidation. Good-government groups including the League of Women Voters have publicly pressed it to open its books. The secrecy is the starting fact: a group asking the public to trust its neutrality will not say who pays for it.
Harlan Crow — Clarence Thomas's benefactor — was a 'whale'-tier donor who recruited two dozen more.
Between 2019 and 2021, Republican billionaire Harlan Crow — best known for lavishing undisclosed gifts on Justice Clarence Thomas — gave No Labels more than $130,000, reaching the group's internal 'whale' tier, and had steered nearly two dozen additional donors to No Labels by 2021. For a group that markets itself as the antidote to partisan money, its own donor hierarchy was topped by one of the most prominent Republican megadonors in the country.
Mother Jones obtained a list of 36 corporate donors — even as No Labels claimed it doesn't take corporate money.
Mother Jones obtained a list of 36 wealthy contributors and corporate high-rollers bankrolling No Labels' 2024 ballot-access drive — including executives tied to Loews Corporation (Andrew Tisch), Fortress Investment Group (Drew McKnight), Fluor, Abry Partners, and SailPoint. Separately, Sludge reported that although No Labels publicly says it does not accept corporate money, company disclosures show corporate contributions — a direct contradiction between the group's claim and the paper record. The group's own denial is the thing the documents disprove.
Founded and chaired by Democrats — but the disclosed money skews Republican and corporate.
The bipartisan branding is real at the leadership level: No Labels was founded by Democratic fundraiser Nancy Jacobson and long chaired by former Democratic senator Joe Lieberman, who died March 27, 2024. But the funding that has surfaced — Harlan Crow, Texas Republican donors, the Mother Jones corporate roster, donors who have given millions to Republican causes — skews right and corporate. The tension between a bipartisan front and a right-leaning donor base is the story, and it is documented, not inferred. This is why we do not claim a hidden GOP command structure — only that the disclosed money leans one way.
In 2024, No Labels ran a dark-money-funded third-party 'unity ticket' widely assessed as a Trump spoiler — then abandoned it.
No Labels spent heavily — toward a stated goal of roughly $70 million — to win 2024 ballot access for a third-party presidential 'unity ticket.' Democrats and many independent analysts warned it would function as a spoiler, pulling votes from Joe Biden and helping return Donald Trump to the White House. After being rebuffed by prospects including Chris Christie and Nikki Haley (and distanced by Joe Manchin and Larry Hogan), No Labels announced on April 4, 2024 that it would 'stand down' because no candidate with a credible path had emerged. No Labels rejected the spoiler characterization throughout — the denial we carry alongside the effect.
No Labels is a corporate/right-leaning operation wearing a bipartisan mask.
This is the synthesis, graded conservatively. The documented facts converge: a group that will not disclose its donors, whose surfaced funding runs to a top Republican megadonor and a roster of corporate executives, that publicly denied taking corporate money the record shows it took, and that spent millions on a project widely assessed as helping the Republican nominee. Against that sits genuine bipartisan leadership and the group's own denials. PROBABLY TRUE: strongly supported by the money and the 2024 effect — while noting we cannot see the full (undisclosed) donor base, and that a spoiler effect is not the same as proven partisan intent.
The full No Labels donor list — and how much of its money traces to the same insurers, corporates, and Republican megadonors that fund the rest of the 'manufactured center' — is unknown.
A complete accounting of who funds No Labels. As a 501(c)(4) it need not disclose, and it refuses to; everything known is what leaked or was pried from company disclosures. The surfaced picture — Harlan Crow, the Mother Jones 36, Texas Republican donors — is a floor, not the full ledger, by the group's own design.
Help us fill it →Where we draw the line — documented, not a front.
- A 501(c)(4) that refuses to name donors; Harlan Crow's $130,000+ and his recruiting; the Mother Jones list of 36 corporate backers; the corporate-money denial the disclosures contradict; the ~$70M 2024 unity-ticket effort and its April 4, 2024 stand-down.
- Bipartisan leadership was real — Jacobson and Lieberman were Democrats, and the group courted both parties. A 501(c)(4) may legally keep donors private; the issue is a public role sold as neutral over secret funding.
- That No Labels is a secret Republican front — we claim no hidden GOP command structure, only that the disclosed money leans right and corporate.
- That the spoiler effect proves partisan intent — the effect is documented and widely shared; No Labels denies the motive, and we grade effect and intent separately.
Why it matters now.
This is the money-side companion to The Rented Center — one rung up. Where Third Way at least files the tax forms that reveal an insurer front among its donors, No Labels declines to reveal its funders at all, then asks to be trusted as the neutral middle. The 'center' is presented as the absence of an agenda; an agenda funded by undisclosed corporate and Republican money is still an agenda — it has simply purchased the right not to be named. The 2024 stand-down was about not finding a candidate, not about disclosure: the secrecy remains and the template is reusable. The task, for this thread and the outlets that platform these groups, is the one rarely done — name the donors before you print 'centrist.'
Help us fill these lines.
- OpenWill the full No Labels donor list ever be forced into the open — and how much of its money traces to the same insurers, corporates, and Republican megadonors that fund the rest of the 'manufactured center'?