Month: February 2025

Some election integrity researchers are expanding their investigation of politicians who benefitted from questionable “Smurfing” campaign contributions, and discovered that Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) received many of them. Smurfing refers to the practice of using straw donors to make campaign contributions, usually elderly and unemployed people who are unaware their identities are being used for money laundering. There are many contributions made under one name, sometimes thousands of them, and they are usually small amounts, often around $10 each, in order to escape detection. 

Peter Bernegger, one of the key researchers who discovered the Smurfing phenomenon, posted on X on Tuesday, “Arizona @SenRubenGallego caught Smurfing, i.e. criminally laundering money into his campaign! Note that this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a ‘quick’ data run of the top Smurfs found to have had their identities stolen by Gallego’s campaign. Smurfing found by Chris Gleason @immutablechrist Phillip Allison @TheTVConsPiracy , myself and others exposing Smurfing. This is another form of election fraud. We are running all 100 US Senators, Tom Cotton and Jon Ossoff already ran – see the tweets below.”