The Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia this week closed its criminal investigation into Arabella Advisors and will not bring charges against the nation’s leading dark money behemoth.
The office’s decision comes after D.C. attorney general Brian Schwalb (D.) first issued subpoenas to Arabella Advisors, as well as a number of its offshoots, last September following a series of Washington Free Beacon reports on the firm’s practices. An attorney for Arabella told the Washington Examiner on Tuesday that the attorney general’s office “closed its investigation … after finding no evidence of a violation of law.”
Although the exact nature of the investigation into Arabella Advisors and its allied nonprofits is unclear, the D.C. attorney general’s decision ends all legal scrutiny into the groups for the time being. Former staffers at nonprofits affiliated with Arabella Advisors told the Free Beacon that the firm regularly ignored charity laws in various efforts to help elect Democrats.
A spokesman for Arabella Advisors did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for both Arabella and the New Venture Fund, which was also the subject of Schwalb’s investigation, previously denied any wrongdoing.
Arabella Advisors oversees the distribution of billions of dollars in annual donations to left-wing nonprofits, such as the New Venture Fund and the Sixteen Thirty Fund. The New Venture Fund and the Sixteen Thirty Fund collectively raked in roughly $3.3 billion in 2020 and 2021.
Schwalb’s subpoenas suggested he was probing whether Arabella Advisors was deriving illegal profits from New Venture Fund and other dark money groups. Arabella Advisors has collected more than $230 million in management fees from various dark money groups since 2006.
Criminal charges against Arabella Advisors could have dealt a critical blow to Democrats and various activist groups in the lead-up to the 2024 election. The firm faced internal turmoil after it fired its CEO in July and more than 30 employees in May.
