When Bend the Arc Jewish Action endorsed Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor on September 26, 2025, the move was hailed as a historic first. Within 72 hours, the organization launched professional fundraising campaigns and training events, signaling the start of a powerful new chapter in progressive organizing.
But according to forensic investigative accountant Sam Antar—the same whistleblower who exposed Attorney General Letitia “Tish” James’s mortgage corruption scandal—this endorsement is not merely political. It is the visible tip of a multi-million-dollar financial machine designed to convert charitable dollars into political power through a carefully engineered circular funding scheme.
Read Sam Antar’s Full Report Here
Sam Antar’s Breakthrough: Charitable to Political Conversion
Antar’s investigation, built on years of IRS Form 990 analysis and nine separate whistleblower submissions, traces more than $13 million in financial flows from George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society into Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice (501(c)(3)), the charitable arm of Bend the Arc.
From there, the money moves into Bend the Arc Jewish Action (501(c)(4)), the political advocacy arm where Alex Soros—George Soros’s son—serves as founding chair. Both organizations share the same CEO, the same address, and even cost-sharing agreements for staff, creating what Antar describes as “a revolving door of charitable dollars dressed up as political independence.”
“When you strip away the paper trails and focus on the numbers, you see the same money leaving, returning, and leaving again—without ever changing the debt balance,” Antar explained. “That’s not charity. That’s engineered political finance disguised as nonprofit work.”
The Smoking Gun: Balance Sheet Math
The forensic accounting breakthrough came when Antar compared Bend the Arc’s IRS filings across multiple years:
- 2021 – Bend the Arc (c3) reported a $1,533,698 loan to its (c4). The same amount appeared as “accounts receivable.”
- 2022 – The (c4) “repaid” $1,636,274. But instead of reducing the receivable, the ending balance increased to $1,636,274—an impossibility under normal accounting rules.
- 2023 – The receivable still stood at $1,538,473—virtually unchanged from the original “loan” two years earlier.
Antar’s conclusion: these were not legitimate loans or repayments. Instead, grant money was being cycled in a circle to keep a permanent receivable on the books while political operations ran off the inflows.
“The balance sheets don’t lie. If repayments were real, the receivable should go down. It never does. That’s irrefutable evidence of circular funding,” Antar said.
The Five-Step Machine Antar Uncovered
Antar’s broader investigation identifies a five-step tax arbitrage framework:
- Donor Contributions – Wealthy donors give to a 501(c)(3) charity and claim a tax deduction.
- Foundation Pass-Throughs – The funds move through charitable entities controlled by aligned leadership.
- Charitable-to-Political Transfer – Money shifts to 501(c)(4) organizations that can legally do unlimited political work.
- PACs and Campaign Support – The 501(c)(4) money then flows to political committees and candidate support.
- Policy Feedback Loop – Elected officials push policies favorable to the funding network.
For donors, this is a tax-financed shortcut to political power. A $1 million gift to a 501(c)(4) brings no tax deduction. But by running it through a 501(c)(3), the donor still gets $1 million into politics plus a $370,000 tax write-off.
Antar calls this “democracy subsidized by taxpayers without their consent.”
Mamdani’s Mayoral Endorsement in Context
Why does this matter now? Because Bend the Arc’s September 26 endorsement of Mamdani illustrates how these financial machines activate.
- Day 1 (Sept 26): Bend the Arc endorses Mamdani.
- Same day: A fundraising page appears, driving donor money toward the campaign.
- Within 72 hours: A professional campaign training event is live on Mobilize.us.
To ordinary voters, this looks like grassroots momentum. Antar’s investigation shows it is actually pre-existing infrastructure funded by years of circular charitable-to-political transfers.
Pattern Across Six Channels
The Bend the Arc pipeline is what Antar calls Channel 6 in his master investigation of coordinated networks. Across six channels, he has traced over $25 million in flows using the same method:
- Shared executives and addresses across c3/c4 affiliates
- Contradictory IRS disclosures about staff sharing
- Circular funding patterns that keep debts static
- Political outcomes consistently advancing aligned candidates
Each channel reinforces the others, creating a systematic machine for turning charity into politics.
The Regulatory Gap
Antar warns that current campaign finance laws leave voters blind to this activity. Under New York City rules, 501(c)(4) political spending is not treated as a traditional campaign contribution.
This means:
- Voters never see Soros-linked millions in Mamdani’s finance reports.
- Donors get taxpayer-subsidized political spending.
- Organizations maintain the appearance of independence while sharing CEOs, addresses, and staff.
*“It’s not illegal in the technical sense,” Antar notes. “But it is a system designed to exploit gaps in tax and campaign law, hiding political money under the cloak of charity.”
Democracy on the Books
Sam Antar’s investigation into Bend the Arc and the Mamdani endorsement reveals more than clever accounting—it exposes how financial engineering now underwrites political campaigns in New York and beyond.
The persistence of the $1.5 million receivable across three years despite repayments is not an error. It is, in Antar’s words, “a circular machine built to maintain the appearance of independence while funneling charitable dollars into politics.”
With six channels and more than $25 million traced so far, the question is no longer whether these networks exist—it is whether voters, regulators, and taxpayers are willing to confront the fact that the boundaries between charity and politics have been deliberately erased.
