Federal employees, not agencies, donated to Harris campaign | Fact check

Hannah Hudnall, USA TODAY
Updated ·4 min read
2

The claim: Four federal agencies donated to Kamala Harris' campaign

An Aug. 27 Instagram video (direct link, archive link) shows a woman talking about supposed donations from federal entities to Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign.

The woman says Harris' campaign received the following donations:

  • $213,000 from the Department of Defense

  • $263,000 from the Department of Health and Human Services

  • $199,000 from the Department of State

  • $217,000 from the Department of Veteran Affairs

"These are government entities that we fund as taxpayers," the woman says. "I don't understand how that is not a conflict of interest for them to make a campaign donation."

Text within the video, which was originally shared on TikTok, reads "Kamala received big donations from these 4 Federally Governed entities."

The post garnered more than 1,000 likes in seven days. Other versions of the claim were shared on Facebook and X, formerly Twitter.

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Our rating: False

Employees of the federal agencies and their affiliates donated to Harris – not the agencies themselves. It's illegal for federal agencies to contribute to political campaigns.

Harris donations from employees, not federal entities

As of Aug. 30, Harris' campaign had raised a historic $540 million since President Joe Biden ended his reelection campaign in July. But none of those donations came from federal agencies.

Federal political committees are required by law to file periodic campaign finance reports disclosing donors and contribution amounts. OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization, tracks campaign finance and lobbying and maintains a publicly accessible database of political donations.

The federal agency names are included in the list of top contributors to Harris' campaign on the nonprofit's website, though the contribution amounts differ from those mentioned in the post.

But that's not due to contributions from the agency itself, as the page itself notes prominently atop the listing.

"The money came from the organizations' PACs; their individual members, employees or owners; and those individuals' immediate families," the site notes."At the federal level, the organizations themselves did not donate, as they are prohibited by law from doing so."

The four agencies' individual pages include a similar note that "Organizations themselves cannot contribute to candidates and party committees." The Code of Federal Regulations says the same, according to the National Archives. Employees in many federal agencies, including those cited in the post, are permitted to do so on their own time under the Hatch Act, however.

OpenSecrets also debunked the viral claim in an Aug. 28 X post, saying, "U.S. government entities are not allowed to donate to federal candidates, and none have given money to Kamala Harris' 2024 presidential campaign. Harris' campaign did get money from individual donors who listed a government agency as their employer."

Fact check: Post confuses nationwide number of Harris volunteers with those in Georgia

These contributions are listed on the agencies' respective OpenSecret pages under a column labeled "From Individuals," which OpenSecrets defines as "contributions from members, employees, owners of the organization and those individuals' immediate family members." There are no contributions to Harris' campaign in the column labeled "From Organization" for any of the four agencies.

The database shows people and groups affiliated with the agencies also donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to former President Donald Trump's campaign.

USA TODAY reached out to the Instagram user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response. The TikTok user couldn't be contacted.

Snopes and Check Your Fact also debunked the claim.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No, these four federal agencies didn't donate to Harris | Fact check

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