A nonprofit fund whose directors include prominent election deniers with ties to President Donald Trump funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups that ran misleading advertisements in swing states ahead of the 2024 election, according to tax documents reviewed by the Guardian.
The Foundation For Accountability Integrity & Research In Elections Fund (Fair Elections Fund) sent $300,000 to the American Principles Project Foundation between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025, according to a tax form reviewed by the Guardian. The American Principles Project Foundation used that money to pay for advertisements that suggested local election officials had discretion not to certify election results.
Election law experts say the claim is false. Certification is not optional, and officials are required to certify the vote once the proper process for any election challenges is complete.
The advertisements featured the logo of a group called Follow the Law, but a disclaimer said they were paid for by the American Principles Project Foundation. Follow the Law also sent a letter to at least one clerk in Nevada, according to Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica, urging him not to be a “rubber-stamp” and directing him to a website that again suggested election officials have discretion not to certify elections.
Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer and longtime ally of Trump who assisted his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and Heather Honey, a researcher known for misleading election analyses who now works in the Department of Homeland Security, are both listed as directors of the Fair Elections Fund, which was incorporated in Delaware in 2023. Neither Mitchell nor Honey responded to a request for comment from the Guardian.
Honey’s appointment to an elections role at the DHS has alarmed voting rights groups, who say it places an election denier in a powerful government role. Before joining the government, Honey produced misleading research that Trump has cited to undermine confidence in the 2020 election. She has falsely claimed, for example, that there were more votes in Pennsylvania in 2020 than there were voters.
The Fair Elections Fund has raised more than $7.7 million since its incorporation. The fund appears to have been largely funded by the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), a group that serves as a hub for Trump loyalists in Washington. The CPI, where Mitchell is a senior legal fellow, gave the Fair Elections Fund more than $6 million in 2024, tax documents show. The Fair Elections Fund also lists the CPI’s headquarters as its address on tax documents.
During the same period, the fund also gave $1.875 million to the Article III Foundation, a group linked to a nonprofit run by Trump ally Mike Davis, which ran Spanish-language ads ahead of the 2024 election warning that non-citizen voting was illegal and a deportable offense. The fund also sent $285,000 to Urban Legend Media, a company that connects funders with influencers to promote causes. The Fair Elections Fund spent money as part of a campaign to promote the Save Act, a voting restriction bill that did not pass Congress.
The fund also sent $200,000 to the Election Research Institute, a group where Honey served as president until 2025. Between 2023 and 2025, the group also paid Verity Vote, another group Honey led, nearly $200,000 for consulting.
“Cleta Mitchell and Heather Honey are not only leading figures in the election denial movement, they are also helping channel millions of dollars to an ecosystem of groups that seek to undermine the freedom to vote and mainstream fringe election claims,” said Brendan Fischer, director of strategic investigations at Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group. “These grants are important not only for what they fund individually, but for the broader election denial infrastructure they help build.”
Michael McNulty, the policy director at Issue One, a watchdog group that has analyzed the donors behind the Only Citizens Vote coalition, said: “We still see a massive ecosystem built around producing and spreading and pushing false, baseless, tired, debunked conspiracy theories about election fraud.”
He said the fund “fits perfectly into what we’ve kind of called the ‘election takeover playbook’ that Trump has. The first step [is] just like being able to massively spread these false conspiracy theories about election fraud.”
McNulty added: “What seems to be a large ecosystem, then when you start connecting the dots, a lot of the same people and same groups are involved. And the same funders are involved.”
The American Principles Project did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian.