A clerical error inadvertently revealed a campaign contribution to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) that's now the subject of complaint with the Federal Election Commission.
The nonprofit Project On Government Oversight flagged a $250,000 contribution by the private prison contractor GEO Group to a super PAC aligned with Jordan less than two weeks after the lawmaker helped pass President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which provided funding to double the detention space for immigrant detainees.
"Now, what's interesting aboutthis story is that GEO Groupsaid in response that this is adonation that never should havebeen disclosed because theyactually made it to a 501(c)(4) organization, which is aso-called 'dark money' group thatdoes not legally have todisclose these kinds ofdonations," MS NOW correspondent David Noriega told "Morning Joe."
"So it was basically a mistake, it was an accidentthat we knew about thisdonation in the first place," Noriega continued. "It,of course, raises the questionof how many more dark moneydonations is the GEO Groupmaking to Republicans and to President Trump? Because weknow that they're alreadymaking a lot of publicdonations, that information isavailable. Look right there onyour screen. That's $1.625million in donations to superPACs affiliated withcongressional Republicans. I went back and looked atthe at the FEC records to pullthese numbers, that's justsince 2022 now, on donationsto President Trump. There havebeen about $3.25 million indonations since 2024 to MAGA Inc. and other super PACsaffiliated with President Trump, so the question that thisdark money donation to thegroup associated with Jim Jordan raises is, are thesepublicly known donations justthe tip of the iceberg?"
The private contractor's contribution appears to violate federal law, according to Noriega.
"Is it legalfor a large contractor with thefederal government to makethese kinds of politicaldonations?" he said. "Might that notinfluence things like theawarding of contracts? Well, itis, in fact, illegal for federalcontractors to donate moneypolitically like this. But GEO Group has successfully arguedin the past that because it'smaking these donations throughsubsidiary companies ratherthan through the actual maincompany of the GEO Group thataccepts and handles thecontracts, then it is legal andthey can get away with it. Sofar, they are arguing thatsuccessfully, they arecontinuing to make thesedonations."
"Now to take a stepback again, why does thismatter?" Noriega added. "Well, GEO Group is doing great business locking upimmigrants who are facingdeportation, which is happeningat a greater rate than it everhas before. Let's look at someof the recent earnings reportsthat GEO Group has madepublicly. We just got some oftheir first quarter 2026numbers. They are reporting analmost doubling of profitscompared to Q1 of2025, a 96 percent net income increase, so their profits are almostdoubling."
George Zoley, chairman and CEO of the GEO Group, recently told investors that the company had seen better than expected growth due to its contracts with ICE, which is now being led by former company executive David Venturella as acting director, and the contractor expects to add roughly $520 million in annual revenue.
"A lot of that new money, alot of that new business comesfrom ICE detention facilitiesthat were either offline orempty and have been broughtonline by this surge in new ICEdetainees in the second Trumpadministration, including Delaney Hall in New Jersey,around which there has been somuch furor in recent weeks," Noriega said. "That's a GEO Group facilitythat they owned, [it] was empty, andthey just brought back online."
"Last thing I'll say, I didreach out to GEO Group, theydidn't respond to my requestfor comment," the reporter added. "I did reach out to[Department of Homeland Security]. They did respond, theysaid that DHS has a long-standing relationship with theGEO Group, including going backto the Obama and Bidenadministrations. That is, ofcourse, true, but it is onlyunder the Trump administrationthat GEO Group is achieving these record profits."
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