Browse sourced findings, connection research, and open questions. Each entry retains the status and qualifications recorded with the research. A connection research note is not automatically a verified network-map relationship.
Research finding · 2026-09-17
Recorded status: Verified live-versus-export mismatch; software cause inferred, not established
A controlled crosscheck found the same live roster problem with two different payees. In Redbird's $9,000 May 1 entry (383994), public detail lists 16 roster rows: 15 named candidates plus a blank-name/blank-office Support row. The preserved CSV lists 16 names including Lori Ann McCann at $529.41, with McCann's office blank. In Hulsen's $77,194 April 30 entry (383322), public detail lists nine rows: eight named candidates plus a blank-name/blank-office Sup…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-17
Recorded status: verified same-date network and targeting pattern; dollar-level allocation unproven
Hometown Heroes transferred $65,000 to Defend and Protect Idaho in two contributions: $45,000 on 2026-05-13 and $20,000 on 2026-05-15. Defend's independent-expenditure ledger reports $110,000 in Redbird Strategies broadcast expenditures on May 13 and $98,725 on May 15—$208,725 across the exact two transfer dates. May 13 opposition spending targeted Daniel Foreman ($26,671), Josh Keyser ($19,483.75), Christy Zito ($19,483.75), Julianne Young ($14,255), Barb…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-17
Recorded status: SOURCE-RESTORED RECOVERY ITEM. URLs and source-specific support statements restored from corrected v2 snapshot. Evidentiary firewall preserved; dynamic aggregates and secondary reports still require ordinary publication-stage verification.
Six Ada County Republican Central Committee officers resigned in October 2023: Victor Miller, Megan Reichle, Travis Clyde, Barrett Tetlow, Dave Litster, and Kim Wickstrum. The resignation statement described a dispute with state-party direction and candidate-support constraints. Several of those names later appear in IMC leadership/donor records.
Evidence firewall: Supports a documented internal-party governance dispute, not an inference of deceptive inte…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-17
Recorded status: verified primary-source finding; beneficial owner/operator remains unresolved
The live Idaho Sunshine expenditure API returns six itemized payments to the payee name “Esto Perpetua Group” at PO Box 2535, Boise, ID 83701: Right 2 Learn ($15,000 on 5/20/2024); Defend and Protect Idaho ($50,000 and $15,427 on 5/20/2024, plus $25,000 on 8/2/2024); Hometown Heroes ($22,396.57 on 8/2/2024); and Accountable Idaho ($15,000 on 1/2/2025). Total identified here: $142,823.57. The same query also returns payments to a separately named payee, “Es…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-17
Recorded status: Primary-record operational identifiers verified; person-name equivalence, legal entity and Redbird links unresolved
New primary evidence: KSNQ contract packet 6601147 page 5 lists agency COMMERCIAL SPACE EXPERTS TX, buyer KRISTIN HULSEN, advertiser DEFEND AND PROTECT IDAHO PAC, and Katz Radio representative Brenda Deaton. The associated issue-ad form on page 3 lists contact K. Black. Invoice 6601147-1 page 1 bills Commercial Space Experts, Attention: Meenah Hulsen. All use the same Austin business billing address already seen on the KIVI form. These records establish sp…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-17
Recorded status: Transaction detail verified; invoice, actual work and approving person unresolved
Opened the $6,272.72 Foreman allocation in Defend's Independent Expenditures tab. Detail confirms a $69,000 Redbird Strategies company expenditure dated May 8, with both distribution Start Date and End Date May 8, purpose Z—Preparation & Production of Advertising. Eleven named candidates are all opposed: Barbara Ehardt, Daniel David Foreman, Scott Herndon, Clint Hostetler, Josh Keyser, Joshua Luke Kohl, David James Leavitt, Elaine Price, Julianne Young, Ch…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY + SELF-BIO VERIFIED: Contours president Sarah Stremlau previously led Arabella fiscal sponsorship. This establishes personnel/operational continuity, not current Arabella control, funding or coordination.
Contours' own Sept. 4, 2025 IRS information-request response identifies Sarah Stremlau as President and states Contours was formed Dec. 27, 2024. In that same sworn response, Contours reported approximately $6.058M total 2025 year-to-date expenditures, including $700,000 in grants to two Section 527 political organizations, $49,990 in political-campaign research/polling and $25,600 in candidate recruitment; it said it had no employees and that independent …
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Verified prior Arabella Managed Organizations work plus current Blue Moon/WFF, Contours and Way Back roles. Current Arabella control or ultimate decision authority remains unproved.
The operational cross-role around Jonah Meyers can now be extended backward with higher-quality evidence. The University of Maryland School of Public Policy reported in 2019 that Meyers (MPP 2016) had been promoted to Associate Director, Managed Organizations at Arabella Advisors. An Arabella Advisors fiscal-sponsorship white paper also lists Jonah Meyers among Arabella contributors, independently establishing his work inside Arabella's nonprofit-managemen…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: STRONG CROSS-NETWORK POLICY SORTING: independent-expenditure records and contemporaneous reporting document opposite PAC support on the same HB93 fault line. No common coordination or motive is inferred.
The 2026 school-choice fights provide unusually clean evidence that outside money was not uniformly pushing one direction; competing outside-funded networks backed opposite sides of a specific Idaho GOP-platform issue. Idaho Education News reported that Citizens Alliance PAC, an Idaho PAC funded by a $450,000 contribution from a Virginia-based Citizens Alliance super PAC, spent $135,291 by April 9 to support 15 Republican legislative candidates. Every incu…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: STRONG POLICY/STRATEGY ALIGNMENT, NO DIRECT FUNDING FOUND: official GOP criticism and issue-level divergences are documented; Dixon/Common Ground open-primary advocacy aligns with Unite America's stated reform agenda. Funding/control remains unproved.
Chenele Dixon provides a concrete case for the new alignment audit because policy divergence, party criticism, and election-reform advocacy are all documented independently. The Idaho Republican State Central Committee's 2023 Resolution 2023-43 named Dixon in a vote of no confidence over her vote against overriding Gov. Brad Little's veto of HB 314 and said the named lawmakers had voted in conflict with the Republican platform. Dixon's 2024 campaign/public…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: ISSUE-LEVEL PATTERN VERIFIED WITH COUNTEREVIDENCE: several IDI-PAC endorsees voted against E-Verify, while Furniss/Guthrie voted for it. Control or single-issue endorsement motive is not established.
The dairy/immigration branch now has a more concrete candidate-vote comparison. Idaho Dairymen's Association publicly opposed E-Verify legislation absent major changes/guest-worker reform and its Spring 2026 PAC materials endorsed a slate that included Ben Fuhriman, Rick Cheatum, Dan Garner, Lori McCann, Stephanie Mickelsen, Rod Furniss and Jim Guthrie. On the House vote for SB 1247, an Idaho E-Verify Act, Fuhriman, Cheatum, Garner, McCann and Mickelsen vo…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary House disclosure verifies consulting for Sixteen Thirty, New Venture and WFF; FEC-derived records verify later Way Back candidate support. Causation/control not established.
A primary U.S. House financial disclosure provides a concrete example of personnel overlap across the same national funding architecture now being traced into Idaho. Nebraska congressional candidate Denise Powell's Aug. 13, 2025 candidate financial disclosure lists compensation in excess of $5,000 from each of Sixteen Thirty Fund, New Venture Fund and Western Futures Fund for consulting, along with multiple Nebraska advocacy/campaign clients. The disclosur…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: COUNTEREVIDENCE / IDENTITY CAUTION: IRS-derived data verify Toolbox EIN 88-3259830 as a distinct Arlington 527 with Halfon/Gilbert officers. Nunnelly/Dupré family-office affiliation is not yet established.
A source-conflict check materially narrows how the Way Back→Toolbox branch should be described. Inside Elections' August 2026 investigation characterizes a Way Back donor called 'Toolbox' as the family foundation of former Bain Capital managing director Mark Nunnelly and Denise Dupré. However, the IRS Form 8872-derived organization actually documented in the IdahoCabal record as a major Way Back funder is Toolbox, EIN 88-3259830, an Arlington, Virginia Sec…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: IRS-DERIVED/PRIMARY TIMING CORRECTION: Article IV closed in 2025; $170K Article IV→DPI is primary-verified for FY2024. Any additional 2025 payment remains unverified; do not label Article IV as fresh 2026 funding without dated state rows.
Article IV (EIN 86-2820532) appears to have completed a wind-down/termination in 2025, which materially changes how its appearance in 2026 Idaho PAC coverage should be interpreted. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer's IRS-derived FY2025 record shows Article IV filed a Form 990-EZ on Jan. 27, 2026 reporting $0 revenue, $1,728,273 in expenses and $0 year-end net assets; the filing also contains Schedule N, the IRS schedule used for liquidation, termination, disso…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: MESSAGING MECHANISM VERIFIED: CAP reduces whole-budget votes to issue labels. Accuracy/motive depends on full context; no deception, coordination, or Article IV direction is established.
The retrospective audit identifies a concrete perception-framing mechanism in Conservative Accountability Project's public messaging. CAP's pages for Brian Lenney, Tammy Nichols, Glenneda Zuiderveld and Dan Foreman use identical language saying each voted against law enforcement, against helping veterans and to weaken prisons, with footnotes to H222, H351 and S1150. The underlying measures were appropriations bills. H222 was a FY2023 supplemental appropria…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY IRS VERIFIED: Sixteen Thirty's FY2024 general grant-monitoring procedure, $2.75M WFF grant and Arabella administrative-services role are documented. Specific WFF grant terms and downstream Idaho direction remain unresolved.
Sixteen Thirty Fund's FY2024 Form 990 materially clarifies the upstream Sixteen Thirty→Western Futures relationship. Schedule I says Sixteen Thirty generally requires a written grant application stating the proposed use of funds, reviews and evaluates the application before issuing a grant, and requires interim and final reporting to confirm funds were used for the specified purpose. The same 2024 filing reports a $2,750,000 grant to Western Futures Fund f…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: MIXED-BENEFIT CASE: employer-directed workforce goals and taxpayer funding are explicit, while current state data show measurable student enrollment/retention benefits. Net distributional effect needs quantification.
Idaho LAUNCH is a useful counterbalance to the data-center tax case because it shows that business-aligned public spending can create both concentrated employer benefits and documented broad benefits. Governor Little's 2023 materials explicitly framed LAUNCH as a response to employers' skilled-worker shortage: grants cover 80% of approved education/training costs up to $8,000 for Idaho high-school graduates pursuing in-demand careers, with roughly $75M ava…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: IRS/Schedule I VERIFIED: Article IV→Votes Idaho $75K across 2022–23; Article IV→Idahoans for Open Primaries $2.22M in 2024; Article IV→Conservative Accountability Project $25K in 2024. Control, coordination and upstream earmarking not established.
Article IV's reported Schedule I grant history adds a previously unrecorded direct Idaho lane. Its filings report two $37,500 general-support grants to Votes Idaho Company in 2022 and 2023 ($75,000 total), followed in 2024 by $2,220,000 to Idahoans for Open Primaries and $25,000 to Boise-based Conservative Accountability Project. An IRS-derived complete Article IV grant aggregation for 2021–2024 identifies these three Boise recipients as its Idaho portfoli…
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: COUNTEREVIDENCE UPGRADED: Mickelsen was network-supported and HB911 ratepayer protections became law. This cuts against broad candidate-level motive/interest generalizations.
Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen is a useful issue-specific counterexample to any attempt to classify the entire Defend/Dairy-supported candidate cluster as uniformly favoring concentrated business interests. Mickelsen voted against HB 93 and was later supported in the 2026 Republican primary by Defend and Protect Idaho, Idaho Dairy Industry PAC and Hometown Heroes, placing her inside the candidate cluster under alignment review. In February 2026 she introduced a …
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Primary subsets + current reporting verified. Later Contours→WFF increment, full Way Back Montana allocation and common-control questions remain unresolved; no same-dollar tracing or centralized command established.
Current 2026 reporting and primary records extend the Contours→Western Futures→Way Back architecture beyond Idaho into a multistate political-support network, while still falling short of proving common legal control. Inside Elections' August 2026 investigation, based on tax and FEC records, reports that super PAC efforts supporting independent Montana Senate candidate Seth Bodnar received aggregate funding across the relevant PACs from Contours ($2.6M), W…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: Official APOC verifies Nunnelly and Dupré each gave Unite America $125K in 2024; current reporting documents Carroll's large Unite America giving and Unite America's Idaho role. Idaho earmarking or donor control is not established.
A donor-level crossline around Unite America can now be documented without relying on the unresolved 'Toolbox' identity claim. An official Alaska Public Offices Commission disclosure filed June 10, 2026 by Unite America PAC identifies Mark Nunnelly and Denise Dupré as direct true-source donors of $125,000 each on June 25, 2024. The same filing provides a long donor list supporting Unite America's Alaska spending. Separately, current Montana reporting based…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: CANDIDATE SUPPORT + COMMITTEE AUTHORITY + BILL OUTCOMES VERIFIED. Industry direction or quid pro quo is not established; Guthrie's immigration record is mixed.
Sen. Jim Guthrie is now a strong case study for the new alignment audit because candidate support, industry interest, platform policy and institutional authority all intersect in one race. Idaho Education News reported that Idaho Prosperity Fund spent $72,392 supporting Guthrie in the 2026 District 28 Republican primary; Idaho Liberty PAC spent another $72,771 supporting him, while Defend and Protect Idaho and other PACs also backed him. Idaho Capital Sun …
Read note and sources →Research finding · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: PRIMARY STRATEGY VERIFIED: IDI-PAC explicitly targets decisive GOP primaries to advance dairy interests, oppose contrary candidates, and develop industry leadership. Corruption/control not established.
Primary Idaho Dairymen's Association material makes the PAC's strategy unusually explicit and substantially sharpens this branch. In its Q1 2022 Idaho Dairy Focus, IDA explained that because Idaho is dominated by the Republican Party, the May Republican primary is the decisive election in most legislative districts; it noted that many November races are effectively uncontested. The same publication says IDI-PAC was formed by dairy producers, processors and…
Read note and sources →Connection research · 2026-09-16
Recorded status: IRS/campaign-finance/reporting crossline verified at organization and role level; same-person CAP↔Idaho Liberty↔GS identity strongly corroborated but underlying Idaho registrations should still be captured directly. No Article IV→Idaho Liberty money flow or coordination established.
A new crossline connects Article IV's Idaho grantmaking to the previously tracked Little/Idaho Victory/Idaho Liberty political network through personnel rather than a proven money transfer between the two systems. Conservative Accountability Project Inc. (CAP), Boise, reports Robert Jones as president, Billie Jean Siddoway as treasurer and Guy Hurlbutt as secretary. Article IV reported a $25,000 general-support grant to CAP in FY2024; CAP reported $38,000 …
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