An article published last week accused six Democrat senators and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) of benefitting from a type of illegal campaign funding called Smurfing. Since Alaska’s senior senator is a Democrat at heart, I took a little peak at her campaign finances to see if she might also be involved in the Smurf scandal. Here is what I discovered.
First, let me explain what smurfing is. All contributions to political candidates must be reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and there are limits on the amount an individual may contribute. Smurfing refers to a money laundering scheme which gets around those limits. It occurs when an unscrupulous third party makes political contributions in the name of another person, making the innocent person an unwitting “straw donor.” These straw donors are often unaware that this has occurred. The practice is a form of identity theft that often targets senior citizens whose personal information is available online and used without their consent.
To be clear, and so I don’t get sued, these are only allegations. The six Democrat senators and Gov. Whitmer have not been charged or convicted of any crime, and even if Smurfing did occur, they may have unwittingly benefitted from the illegal activity of others. If you want to read more details about the accusations, you can read about it here.
To see if U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s reelection campaign had similarly benefited, I went to the Federal Election Commission website to examine her campaign finance records. The FEC maintains a database on all federal politicians and the contributions they receive. You can find a link to their database here.
The large amount of campaign donations from every year made it difficult to evaluate, so I restricted my search to just the contributions that Murkowski received in 2025.
Note that Murkowski is not up for re-election as a senator until 2028, and contributions to political campaigns are typically cyclic. This year is midway in her election cycle, comparable to 2017 in the last election cycle, and you would expect a relatively quiet period for contributions.
Murkowski Historical Campaign Contributions – Chart Credit: Open Secrets
However, examining Murkowski’s 2025 contributions and comparing it to 2017, we see something unexpected. In 2017, the Murkowski reelection campaign raised $2,192,724. Not bad a bad number in an off-cycle year, but something has really changed in 2025. This year according to the FEC database, Murkowski has raised $6,842,138, over three times as much money as you would expect, that is if she is planning to defend her senate seat in three years. Of course, if she were to be planning a run for the open Alaska Governor seat next year this large fundraising in 2025 makes a lot more sense.
Whatever her next campaign is, you might think the large number is a sign that Alaskans really approve of the job our dear Lisa is doing, but you would be wrong. It isn’t Alaskans that are donating to her re-election. In 2025, only a paltry $225,893 came directly from Alaskans. The remaining $6.6 million came from donors living outside the state.
To determine if smurfing was responsible for the large fundraising number, I needed to do a deeper dive, and honestly, after looking at spreadsheets for three days straight, I almost decided it was impossible to comprehend all of the information, so I refined my search a bit.
First a note about contribution limits. The FEC limits contributions to political campaigns to $3,500 per election cycle, but there is a way around this limit, known only to very savvy individuals. The FEC considers primary elections and general elections to be two different political campaigns, so it is permissible to donate $3,500 to each campaign, effectively doubling the amount of contributions made. Not many people do this, and it demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of campaign laws. As you might expect, there were some individuals that took advantage of this loophole to contribute. Most of these double contributions were from lobbyists, however, there were 31 individual donors who were also in this category. To simplify my Smurf search, I focused my attention on those individuals.
A portion of the people in this group are retired, and since that is the group typically targeted for the Smurfing scam, I examined the contributions these individuals made, not just to Lisa Murkowski, but also to other political campaigns to see if they were prolific donators. This information is also available on the FEC website. After looking at the data, I did find what has the appearance of smurfing. Out of the 31 super donors, 10 of them stood out. A summary of the data can be found in Table 1.
The average age of the 10 individuals was 80 years old. They each averaged almost 800 contributions in a four-year period to various candidates, which works out to about 200 political donations per year. The amount they spent averaged just over 12 million dollars per person. These are what Smurfing activities would look like if they were taking place, but it is impossible to prove this allegation with the level of investigation that I have done. Some might argue that these 10 people are simply a bunch of rich 80-year-olds with nothing better to do than sit around all day writing checks to political campaigns and PACs. Maybe.
What conclusions can we draw from this brief examination of Lisa Murkowski’s re-election finances? First, she gets the vast majority of her donations from people living outside the state. The Bible tells us, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Campaign contributions are probably an indicator of who Lisa listens to, and that certainly isn’t Alaskans. It is the outside interests that support her reelection.
What about the question that started this investigation? Did Lisa Murkowski receive campaign contributions that were Smurfed? It is impossible to say definitively, but if I were a Republican planning to run against her in her next election campaign, I would have my campaign staff digging into this question a little deeper. It sure looks suspicious.
The views expressed here are those of Greg Sarber. Read more Sarber posts at his Seward’s Folly substack.
28 Comments
Thank you for your deligence, Greg. I do remember that last year, there abouts, dear Lisa made a surprising visit to a very, very wealthy democrat politician individual “back east” whose family is listed in the top ten wealthiest. hmmmm????
Good job Greg. No suprise
ActBlue, a money laundering scheme for Soros, et al was caught by undercover journalist O’Keefe for the very same thing. O’Keefe, if you remember, on sting video captured Murkowski staffers confirming she brought RCV to Alaska.
There’s now a report circulating linking Murky to Ghislaine Maxwell via Alice Rogoff.
Oh yes, I read about that Maxwell connection about a year ago. Evidentally, in much earlier years, they were in the habit of having “tea” together.
Unsubstantiated on both counts. wait until it’s proven or not. There are substantiated reports that Donald J Trump lied about his times on Epstein’s plane and young girls have accused him (but withdrawn, perhaps because he threatened them)
Great sleuthing. I had read about the undercover work done by O’Keefe revealing the ActBlue shenanigans. Seems we find there is nothing new. No consequences hence why would the left stop their corrupt activities? Power and control and the end justifies the means. Zero moral barometer.
Thanks to the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision, campaign contributions are sacrosanct, no matter where they come from.
According to the Fec, that is not 100% correct: https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/who-can-and-cant-contribute/ . This is as of 1025-2026.
My comment is awaiting approval, but, I want to make a correction of a typo regarding the date; It refers to “1025 – 2026” The correct date should read: “2025 – 2026”.
Thanks for you work sir. Unfortunately, many Alaskans won’t give a damn. They’ve swallowed the liberal cool aid.
DUMP THE COW..
LEFTY LISA NEEDS TO GO!
DUmp the idiot in the White House.
Lisa needs to go! Her next Re-election will be a presidential election and so many more people will show up to vote. She plays the Native vote, they mostly vote democrat and yes for Lisa too.
We true patriots-conservatives need to get out the vote. Again Lisa has to go.
Plus this next election is still RCV, which is on the ballot to cancel this cheating system.
One vote with ID on Election Day.
The reason the natives vote for Lisa is because she doles out our tax dollars to them. She is crooked.
Excellent hound dogging, Greg. Food for thought…………..
John Childs, age 84 from Vero Beach FL.. Quite a big-wig! Billionaire from Boston who lives in Vero Beach part time, got caught up in a prostitution sting, lawyered up, charges dropped. Retired from his equity firm. Donates to the RNC regularly. His link to Alaska is “Wild Salmon Center” as a board member. Anti pebble mine. Ducks Unlimited board member and donor. I’m smelling deep state actor. One of those “lock up Alaska so I can enjoy it without all the people” types.
Boring afternoon watching bowl games that dont matter. I’d like to tell ya that I’m a long time listener but first time caller. A friend in Alaska sent me this column to break the boredom. Because seemed implausible on its face. Bored as I was I arrived at the same conclusion. So I took a look at the Federal Election Commission website. Low and behold Lisa Murkowski has reported NOT $6,842,138 in 2025 fundraising BUT about $798,000 which when combined with money left over from past cycles leaves her with about $1,243,000 on hand fo future campaigns. As to the chart of big donors, it took under a minute to run the names through a search engine. They are all businesspeople who are well off and donate to many Republicans. Finally the headline is pretty dim-witted. No dark money here. It is all reported on the FEC website. If you take a
minute to read it. There may well be an alternative interpretations of facts. But not in Mr Surbet’s ramble. The facts are clear. And they don’t care about Surber’s opinion that they are suspicious.
Thanks Retired Newsman for your comment. If you go the the cover page for the FEC websites Murkowski campaign it does indeed show the number you indicated. (Here is the link: https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00384529/) However, if you dig a little deeper, on that same FEC summary page, there is a “Browse Receipts” tab that allows you to see every contribution the Murkowski Reelection campaign has reported in an excel spreadsheet. It takes a little more effort to download that spreadsheet, but it shows every donation to the Murkowski campaign, and the year it was reported to the FEC. If you summarize all contributions made so far in 2025, it amounts to $6,871,283.60. I will leave it to you to investigate the discrepancy, and a plausible explanation.
I also remember the Sam Bankman Fried FTX – Alameda scandal where he contributed millions of illegal dark money mostly to Democrats and a smaller portion to Republicans to not look biased and I believe Murkowski was a recipient but returned the donation after it was exposed because it was such a hot issue. As the saying goes; “Just follow the money”
Murkowski rolled the FTX funds to her sister’s nonprofit. Was the bankruptcy court successful in clawing back the funds?
We’ve been questioning Murkowsk’s legality since she bought votes to beat Miller by passing out wrist bands so people would be able to spell her last name correctly on the write in ballot as an independent, then all of a sudden she is republican again. Should never have got the position from her Father in the first place. Rhino-Rhino-Rhino
Thank you, Greg for your willingness to dig deep and spend time looking into these large D donations to Lisa. May the truth of Lisa’s roots be known far and wide. She is not worthy of the Republican platform/label. And as we all know, most Republicans in Alaska really are subpar (think Giessel and many other turncoats). So to not be worthy, Lisa, says a lot about how low you have groveled.
DUNLEAVYS NOT WORTHY OF THE REPUBLICAN LABEL EITHER KIM! YET NIETHER YOU OR YOUR HUSBAND CALL HIM OUT!!!
Great lead. I went and looked up Lisa Murkowski. The large majority of her support comes from outside the state of Alaska, I guess about 95% is outside money. Copy and Paste the following two lines of text to see for yourself.
https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?committee_id=C00384529&two_year_transaction_period=2026&min_date=01%2F01%2F2025&max_date=12%2F31%2F2026
At some point she will step in her own trap. Everything in life goes full circle. And boy does it.
Dave Maxwell I’m surprised to see you supporting Lisa tells me everything I wanted to know about you, I noticed your also a psychopath by your constant inflamed capital letter writing. Most of us on her can read small case letters too. Sad how angry you are.
doug glenn PSCHOPATH?! HAPPY NEW YEAR! CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW!!!!? doug glenn, iM NO SUPPORTER OF MURKOWSKI! READ COMMENTS AGAIN AND YOU MAY GET A CLUE THAT CONSISTENTENCY IS IMPORTANT WHEN MAKING ACCURATE OBSERVATIONS. MY OBSERVATIONS OF THE MINNERYS IS THAT THEY FOR WHATEVER REASON CONTINUE TO SUPPORT DUNLEAVY AND CALL OUT MURKOWSKI FOR BEING A RHINO! ALASKA STILL KILLS BABIES IN THE NINTH MONTH, UNDER DUNLEAVYS LEADERSHIP! I HOPE THIS SHEDS SOME LIGHT ON THE DETAILS FOR YOU doug glenn.
From Axios:
The Trump administration on Monday announced the first awards to states from the $50 billion rural health fund in this summer’s Republican megabill — including a big award for Alaska, whose lawmakers’ support was critical to the bill’s passage.
Alaska, a rural state with unique challenges for health care access, got the second most funding after Texas, receiving $272 million. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted for the bill after being the focus of hours of negotiations with GOP leaders. The Wall Street Journal reported over the summer that officials had reassured Alaska’s GOP senators that the state would do well in allotments from the fund.
The other half of funding is distributed based on factors including state-level policies, such as efforts to “make rural America healthy again” like implementing the presidential fitness test in schools.
Same corruption different state, it’s easier to see through then at. Wake me up when y’all are ready to do something about it. The great native people of Alaska have been duped and brainwashed over and over again, Just as we all have. The difference is so many now see it, the native people don’t seem concerned or enlightened to reality.
The fact that the COVID shot is still being pushed in AK says it all. How many pharmaceutical executives need to confess to the COVID shot is a bio weapon before it’s banned? Definition of insanity here folks.
Peace!