INVESTIGATIVE EXCLUSIVE: Campaign finance records altered twice in one day after sustained media pressure—but was it a desperate coverup or correction of systematic false reporting that had been deceiving voters for weeks?
🎠The Perfect Trap: Every Answer Makes It Worse
There’s a moment in every investigation when the subject realizes they’re caught. For Zohran Mamdani’s campaign, that moment came on Wednesday, July 2nd, when former Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey contacted the Campaign Finance Board for her New York Post op-ed following our investigative reporting, asking pointed questions about a single name: Jerrod MacFarlane.
Within hours, something extraordinary happened. Campaign finance records that had shown MacFarlane bundling $1,603,331.85—94% of all campaign contributions—were quietly altered not once, but twice—without any public announcement or acknowledgment that the original records had been wrong.
First, MacFarlane’s attribution vanished completely. Then, as if someone realized that looked too suspicious, he reappeared credited with just $5,807.
The $1,597,524.85 difference? Suddenly reclassified as donations with “no intermediary.”
But here’s what makes this story explosive: we don’t know if we’re witnessing a real-time coverup or the correction of systematic false reporting that had been on the books for an unknown period. Either scenario represents serious violations of campaign finance law—and both raise fundamental questions about the integrity of New York’s election system. Either way, his inability to maintain accurate financial records raises serious questions about his honesty and competency if elected mayor—especially considering the campaign spent $82,000 on compliance costs that apparently failed to catch this massive error until our investigation exposed it.
Most importantly: we have the receipts. Screenshots and documentation of the original campaign disclosures showing MacFarlane’s $1.6 million attribution before the alterations—making any denial impossible. Independent internet sleuth ‘Apple Lamps’ was also documenting these irregularities, with @lamps_apple capturing the original records showing MacFarlane’s full attribution.
“The beauty of this investigation is that every possible explanation makes them look worse. It’s the perfect investigative trap.”
🔍 The Smoking Gun Timeline: Five Days That Shook City Hall
What we witnessed wasn’t random. It was a carefully orchestrated response to mounting pressure that began with a single blog post and ended with panicked record alterations.
The Pressure Campaign
Saturday, June 29: We published “How Zohran Mamdani’s ‘Grassroots’ Campaign Engineered the Perfect Political Heist,” exposing that 100% of Mamdani’s contributions were bundled, with 94% flowing through a single individual.
Sunday, June 29: In the Newsmax green room, I shared our findings with former Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey. At 12:30 PM, I made my first television appearance with host Lidia Curanaj detailing the bundling operation to a national audience.
Monday, June 30: We published follow-up investigation with deeper technical analysis revealing a devastating contradiction.
Tuesday, July 1: Second Newsmax appearance starting at 4:07 PM with Lidia Curanaj, reaching millions more viewers with evidence of systematic misreporting. Host Curanaj opened the segment at 4:07 PM with extensive coverage of our investigation, detailing how “1.6 million of the 1.7 million donated to Mamdani’s campaign was funneled through a single bundler” and explaining that of 27,674 contributions, “a mere 77 had no bundler attribution…those 77 contributions amounted to $0.” I joined the discussion at 4:19 PM.
Wednesday, July 2 – The Breaking Point:
- Morning: Following our investigation, McCaughey contacts the CFB for her New York Post op-ed about MacFarlane’s role
- CFB response: Declines to comment
- Hours later: MacFarlane’s $1.6 million attribution completely disappears
- Afternoon: MacFarlane quietly reappears with only $5,807
This timeline shows how our sustained investigative pressure over five days finally forced the CFB’s hand, with mainstream media following our reporting and amplifying the pressure.
The pattern is clear: official records were altered twice in one day—not through routine oversight, but as escalating reactive damage control in response to media scrutiny that began with our investigation.
đź’» The Question That Destroys Everything
If Mamdani’s campaign website uses a generic donation link with no bundler tracking parameters, how did MacFarlane originally get credited with $1.6 million in the first place?
This question is devastating because it exposes a technical impossibility. As we revealed in our June 30th investigation, buried in the HTML of Mamdani’s donation page is this simple line:
<a href="https://contribute.nycvotes.org/campaigns/zohranmamdani/contributions/new">
It’s a generic donation link with no bundler tracking parameters. According to CFB guidance, bundler credit requires custom links tied to individual intermediaries. No such identifiers appear in Mamdani’s code, meaning the NYC Votes platform would automatically record donations as “no intermediary.”
Yet our investigation revealed: out of 27,674 individual contributions, exactly 77 had “no bundler attribution”—and those totaled $0.00. Despite massive social media reach (2.8 million Instagram followers, 1.7 million YouTube views), not a single person donated through the campaign website. Zero organic grassroots support.
The Impossible Contradiction: If the evidence showed zero organic donations through the website originally, why are they now claiming $1.6 million were “no intermediary”?
The Three-Way Trap With No Escape
This question creates a devastating choice with no good options:
Option 1: Are they now creating fake “organic” donations to cover up the embarrassing truth that despite massive online presence, nobody actually donated through the website? Would this mean the “people-powered” revolution was complete political theater?
Option 2: Are they covering up months of systematic false CFB reporting if these donations were actually organic all along? If so, why were they falsely attributed to MacFarlane when the source code shows they should have been “no intermediary” from day one?
Option 3: If they spent $82,000 on compliance costs, how did professional oversight miss a $1.6 million misattribution that only got “corrected” under media pressure?
Option 4: Either way, can Zohran Mamdani keep an honest set of books—and what does this say about his competency and honesty to manage a city with a $106 billion budget?
The Perfect Trap: Every possible explanation forces them to admit to either fake grassroots support, systematic false reporting, or inability to keep honest books.
🎪 The Great Reclassification: Watch the Shell Game
What happened next exposed the panic. As media pressure intensified, the story kept changing:
| Timeline | MacFarlane’s Attribution | What Changed |
|---|---|---|
| June 27 – July 2 morning | $1,603,331.85 | Stable for days |
| July 2 – After reporter call | $0 | Complete disappearance |
| July 2 – Afternoon | $5,807 | Minimal reappearance |
The net result: $1,597,524.85 reclassified from “bundled by MacFarlane” to “no intermediary” in a single day.
We have the original campaign finance disclosures showing these amounts attributed to MacFarlane, making any attempt to deny the changes impossible. But the sudden reclassification only deepens the mystery: if the evidence originally showed zero organic donations, why are they now claiming $1.6 million were organic contributions?
🔥 The Questions That Demand Answers
We’re calling for immediate investigation into:
- How MacFarlane got credited when no tracking mechanism existed
- Whether recent “no intermediary” classifications represent manufactured organic donations
- Why corrections only happened under media pressure
- Whether this disqualifies Mamdani from managing a $106 billion budget
đź’ˇ The Bottom Line
Whether Mamdani is creating fake grassroots support or covering up false reporting, the conclusion remains: he cannot keep an honest set of books.
The truth has a way of coming out. And when it does, Mamdani will have to answer why his records tell three different stories—and why none of them add up.
Until then, we’ll keep investigating, keep asking questions, and keep holding power accountable.
Because that’s what journalism is supposed to do.
📧 This investigation is ongoing. For daily updates, follow @SamAntar on X (formerly Twitter)
Written by Sam Antar
© 2025 Sam Antar. All rights reserved.