In the summer of 2024, a non-profit called the Green Dragon Coalition wired the last $20,000 of a $445,000 grant to a Super Pac. Its tax return described the purpose of the transfer as "educational" - a word that has apparently taken on a broad new meaning in certain Wisconsin zip codes.
The same day, per Federal Election Commission records, the Super Pac spent $8,000 attacking Celeste Maloy, the Republican congresswoman for Utah's second district, four days before the primary that would decide her seat. It had already spent over $400,000 promoting her challenger, Colby Jenkins, who was running to her right with the endorsement of Utah senator Mike Lee. One man was involved at every stage: Thomas Datwyler, whose name appears on the paperwork for the charity that raised the money, the non-profit that passed it on, the Super Pac that received it, and the campaign it ultimately supported.
Datwyler's businesses are mostly headquartered at a rented address in Hudson, Wisconsin - a town of 15,000 near the Minnesota border. He operates at industrial scale: treasurer of more than 350 federal political committees this cycle, including 115 congressional campaigns and 100 Super Pacs, plus officer of more than two dozen non-profits. If democracy is a marketplace, Datwyler is the guy running the cash register, the stockroom, and the back door.
Across the 2024 and 2026 cycles, Super Pacs whose books Datwyler keeps have spent more than $2m supporting 14 candidates who are also his clients, or attacking their opponents, according to FEC filings. In several races, the money reached the Super Pac through charities and social welfare groups for which he serves as treasurer. Datwyler-tied groups have been funded by donors connected to rightwing megadonor Leonard Leo, along with the Conservative Partnership Institute and the personal foundation of Claremont Institute board chair Thomas Klingenstein, among others. Non-profit tax filings don't show which donors' funds made up any particular onward transfer - convenient, that.
Along the way, the same firms get paid by both the campaigns and the groups legally required to be independent of them to keep their tax-exempt status. In Florida's 19th district, a campaign and its supposedly independent Super Pac share 14 vendors, per FEC filings. Federal law prohibits coordination between Pacs and campaign committees, but proving it is challenging, and the FEC is a reluctant cop. While Datwyler has attracted significant controversy and state-level investigations, what he does may not actually be illegal.
"Somebody in Datwyler's position is well aware of where all the cracks and crevices in the system are, how to exploit the rules in a way that maximises his clients' ability to secretly influence elections," says Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center. "There's a reason why the same handful of people - and Datwyler's probably chief among them - tend to come up in connection with these dark money operations. It's because they have the knowhow. And they're willing to be the public face on each of these entities. The actual donors providing the money don't want to be publicly outed as the source."
Datwyler wrote to the Guardian that "AxCapital [where he is CEO] is grateful that so many clients entrust our team to facilitate their participation in the democratic process. As an industry leader, we have strict internal firewalls, strong safeguards, and robust policies to ensure full compliance with all laws, regulations, and requirements." Nothing says "firewall" like three entities sharing a rented mailbox.
The Green Dragon entities exemplify the pattern. The Green Dragon Coalition is a 501(c)4 social welfare non-profit, one of three entities registered in Delaware in 2023 with sequential IRS employer numbers, all listing the same Hudson, Wisconsin address. The other two: the Green Dragon Society, a 501(c)3 charity, and the Constitutional Conservatives Fund, a Super Pac. Datwyler is treasurer of all three and the only officer any of them pay - $25,012 from the Coalition and $29,066 from the Society during the 2024 cycle.
That's a fraction of his haul. Tax filings indicate he received at least $487,545 in the 2023-2024 cycle from non-profits. FEC filings show at least $793,470 flowed to Datwyler directly, or to two Delaware-registered consultancies, 10Six Consulting and Same Day Processing, sharing a Wisconsin address with most of his political and charity organizations. AxCapital, where he is CEO, brought in $4.9m across both cycles; it was created in a 2022 merger of HenryAlan and Datwyler's 9Seven Consulting.
The Coalition's $445,000 "educational" grant to the Constitutional Conservatives Fund is recorded in the Pac's FEC receipts as five payments between 15 March and 21 June 2024. The Pac spent $447,347 supporting Jenkins. Datwyler was also treasurer of Colby Jenkins for Congress since October 2023 and of the candidate's joint fundraising committee - meaning he kept the books for the charity, the social welfare group, the Super Pac attacking the incumbent, and the campaign it was attacking her on behalf of. A hat trick, if the hat were a shell corporation.
The Coalition's 2024 revenue was $917,002, of which $750,000 - about 82% - came from the Concord Fund, the Leonard Leo-network group formerly called the Judicial Crisis Network. The Green Dragon Society took $250,000 from Purple Action, a 501(c)4 whose officers include tech mogul and former Trump "crypto czar" David Sacks; $200,000 from the Conservative Partnership Institute; and $90,000 each from DonorsTrust and Fidelity's donor-advised fund. The Thomas D Klingenstein Fund gave the 501(c)3 $75,000 in 2023, before the 2024 payments to the Super Pac.
Lawson Bader, president and CEO of DonorsTrust, said the organisation was "unfamiliar with the Constitutional Conservatives Fund, and the fact that the Green Dragon Coalition has an affiliated 501(c)4." Grants from donor-advised funds to a 501(c)3 "cannot be used for political purposes," he said, adding DonorsTrust "would reconsider future grant recommendations made to organizations that violate the rules governing charitable activities." A Fidelity Charitable spokesperson said political use of grants is prohibited and that the terms non-profits receive include explicit language to that effect.
These aren't the only flows from major conservative funders through Datwyler-connected entities. In 2024 American Majority Action, a 501(c)4 founded by Ned Ryun, gave Integrity Minnesota - for which Datwyler served as treasurer - $250,000 for "voter registration and activation plans." (A 2020 Campaign for Accountability complaint asked the IRS and two state agencies to investigate whether Ryun's groups spent more than half their money on politics; communications director Michael Clauw told the Guardian the IRS never responded or acted.) American Majority Action did not respond to a request for comment.
Integrity Minnesota also received $50,000 that year from Restoration of America, which the Chicago Sun-Times reported in October 2024 was part of "a sprawling empire of organizations pushing far-right agendas and election denialism," funded by at least $150m from shipping-supplies billionaire Richard Uihlein. The Guardian contacted Restoration of America for comment.
Separately, Datwyler vehicle Aurora Venture received $300,000 from Ardleigh Impact Corp, a Delaware 501(c)4 with one director, no employees, no website, registered to the Springfield, Virginia home of Staci Goede, a former Republican State Leadership Committee finance chief who is treasurer of 26 federal political committees this cycle. The Daily Beast reported on 16 May 2024 that Ardleigh had moved more than $2.5m to Republican Super Pacs within months of forming, raising suspicion it may be a straw donor. The Guardian contacted Goede for comment.
The pipeline functions so that none of these organizations are named as donors in the Super Pacs' FEC filings. The Guardian contacted the Concord Fund, Thomas Klingenstein, and the Conservative Partnership Institute for comment, and emailed Purple Action at an address that returned the message undelivered. None responded. Shocking.
This cycle, the Green Dragon Coalition has put a further $177,500 into the same Super Pac in seven payments since 5 December 2025, most recently on 21 April 2026. The Pac's independent expenditures this cycle total $15,000 supporting Barry Moore, the Alabama congressman running to replace Tommy Tuberville, who is leaving the Senate to run for governor. The Guardian contacted Moore for comment.
Elsewhere, the Pac's expenditures have gone to organizations connected to Datwyler's associates. Payments to L4 Consulting LLC total $164,809 across 13 installments between 2 January and 5 June 2026, booked as "PAC strategy consulting" and "fundraising consulting." L4 is run by Dan Hauser, president of both Green Dragon entities, who takes no salary from either. Hauser was reported in October 2025 to have been a paid senior adviser to Utah senator Mike Lee - another Datwyler client - during the same period. In the 2024 cycle, L4 took $207,560 from the same Super Pac; Green Dragon's charity separately paid L4 $128,033 for "event production." The Guardian contacted Hauser for comment.
Ghosh points out that while non-profits must disclose donors to the IRS, they generally don't have to disclose them to the public. "So if the entire object is to conceal the sources of the money, the [501](c)4 on its own can accomplish that objective. The only thing the [501](c)3 layer adds is that [501](c)3 donations are tax deductible for the donor," he said. "But that's a little riskier because if they are using the [501](c)3 to first obtain a tax deduction and then that money is being used to influence elections, that's one of the few things federal tax law does prohibit." Either way, he said, "that's a transparency nightmare. It becomes this problematic daisy chain where the [501](c)3 is sending money to the [501](c)4, theoretically not to support its political advocacy. But again, who can say exactly whether that's happening or not? These are opaque entities. They are black boxes."
Alyssa Bowen, executive director of True North Research, put it more bluntly: "It's like dark money made darker. It's almost like he's running science experiments to find out all the ways you can conceal who's donating." She noted the charity layer carries a second advantage: "The Pacs are legally required to disclose your donors, but you're..."