GEO Group Handed $250,000 in Dark Money to a Group Run by Jim Jordan's Former Chief of Staff

POGO's Nick Schwellenbach broke the story of GEO Group's $250K dark money donation to a Jim Jordan-aligned group in POGO Reports.

WASHINGTON — A quarter million dollars. That’s how much GEO Group — the country’s largest private ICE detention contractor — quietly slipped to a political organization tied to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, just days after Congress passed a law expected to make GEO extraordinarily rich.

The donation, first reported by Nick Schwellenbach of the Project on Government Oversight, was routed through a so-called “dark money” vehicle — a 501(c)(4) nonprofit that, by design, keeps its donors secret and faces no legal cap on contributions.

Eleven Days

GEO’s $250,000 landed on July 15, 2025 — eleven days after President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a law that nearly triples ICE’s budget and doubles immigrant detention capacity nationwide. GEO lobbied on the bill before it passed. Jordan was among its loudest champions, calling it the vehicle for “Big, Beautiful Deportations.”

The recipient, American Liberty Action Fund, shares its president, secretary, and treasurer with a Jordan-aligned super PAC called the American Liberty Foundation. The president of both groups, Ray Yonkura, served as Jordan’s chief of staff for nearly a decade.

Jordan chairs the House Judiciary Committee — the primary congressional body with oversight authority over ICE and the Department of Homeland Security.

The Contractor Problem

The circumstances alarm campaign finance watchdogs.

“When a super PAC fails to accurately report where it’s getting its money, that not only violates the law and deprives voters of crucial information they need to make informed electoral decisions, it could also be concealing other illicit activity,” said Saurav Ghosh, the Campaign Legal Center’s director for federal campaign finance reform and a former FEC enforcement attorney, in a statement to POGO.

Federal contractors are broadly barred from making political contributions. GEO has previously argued that certain subsidiaries — which hold no direct federal contracts — are permitted to donate. The FEC deadlocked 3-3 on that question in 2021 and closed the case without a violation finding.

But a dark money donation routed through a company account rather than a PAC is a new wrinkle. GEO’s spokesperson confirmed the $250,000 came from “The GEO Group Inc. Political Contribution Account” — not its PAC — and declined to say whether GEO has made other such donations.

The Revolving Door Over Jordan’s Head

POGO’s reporting lands as two former GEO insiders now hold senior positions shaping the very contracts that enrich the company. David Venturella, a former GEO executive, was tapped this month to run ICE itself. He was reportedly hired into DHS by White House Border Czar Tom Homan — who previously worked as a GEO consultant.

Three Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee raised alarms about those conflicts last August, writing directly to Homan. No Republican on the committee joined the letter. Jordan’s office did not respond to POGO’s request for comment.

“Dark money is a problem no matter where it comes from,” NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice wrote in an assessment of contractor political spending, “but is especially troubling coming from federal contractors.”

The people sleeping in GEO’s detention centers don’t have a PAC. The company operating those facilities just handed a congressman’s inner circle a quarter million reasons to keep it that way.