The Dark Money Game

The film traces the tangled history of campaign finance back to the creation of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in 1975, the 2002 McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Bill, and the Citizens United decision of 2010 that has molded the shape and opacity of present-day super PACs which now flood the system with money. The film looks at the stealth influence of religious groups and explores the fine line between a bribe and a political "gratuity" or donation, and the reciprocity between well-funded special-interest groups and the political process as well as attempts to influence the judiciary at the highest levels.

When a powerful political lobbyist is found shot to death, his apparent suicide highlights a bizarre turn in Ohio's largest public corruption case accidently uncovered by federal investigators that was nearly concealed by loose super PAC campaign financing rules.FBI wiretap recordings ultimately unravel a conspiracy involving a secret $61 million-dollar slush fund for Ohio's Speaker of the House to secure power in order to pay back corporate donors with a billion-dollar corporate bailout at the expense of the state's taxpayers.