EXPOSED: How Politico Coordinated Damage Control for Mamdani’s $1.6 Million Campaign Finance Scandal

When a mayoral candidate and a national news outlet coordinate damage control, the truth still comes out.

Today’s Politico Playbook piece by Jeff Coltin exposed something far more troubling than a campaign finance “glitch”—it revealed how political journalism has become indistinguishable from campaign PR. In attempting to debunk our investigation of record alterations in Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign, Coltin inadvertently confirmed our core findings while demonstrating how easily supposedly independent media can be manipulated.

Here’s what should concern every voter: why did I—working for the fun of it without pay—spot a massive irregularity that $82,000 in professional compliance oversight failed to catch? Either those compliance officials were incompetent, or these weren’t innocent errors requiring correction.

What makes this coordination particularly transparent is both the timeline and the substance of what changed. Our investigations documented that exactly 77 contributions had “no bundler attribution”—totaling $0.00. After the quiet alterations, they suddenly claimed $1.6 million in “no intermediary” donations. This isn’t a correction—it’s a fundamental transformation from zero organic support to claiming massive grassroots funding overnight.

This wasn’t journalism responding to breaking news. This was post-coverup cleanup, with Politico providing media cover after the records had already been quietly altered.

What Politico Confirmed: Our Core Findings Were Accurate

Buried beneath Coltin’s dismissive framing, Politico confirmed every major element of our investigation:

In trying to debunk our investigation, Politico validated our core documentation. The only question: was this the most convenient “glitch” in campaign finance history?

The Real Smoking Gun: From Zero to $1.6 Million Overnight

The disappearance of MacFarlane’s name is less troubling than what replaced his attribution. Our investigation documented that exactly 77 contributions had “no bundler attribution”—totaling $0.00. Despite 2.8 million Instagram followers and massive social media presence, not a single person donated directly through the campaign website.

This transformation from documented zero grassroots support to claiming massive organic funding overnight is the real scandal. It’s not a “correction”—it’s a fundamental rewriting of the campaign’s financial narrative.

The $82,000 Question Politico Ignored

Mamdani’s campaign spent $82,000 on compliance costs—professional oversight designed to catch exactly these errors. Yet this massive discrepancy persisted for months until media pressure following our published investigations forced changes.

When “False Claims” Meet Documented Evidence

Coltin’s most revealing moment: calling our evidence “a false claim” while characterizing us as an “anonymous right wing X account”—despite the fact that I’m a registered Democrat who has exposed corruption across party lines.

The Predetermined Narrative Revealed

Before publishing his damage control piece, Coltin revealed his approach through the contact form he filled out on our website. Rather than genuine journalistic inquiry, his message exposed classic opposition research tactics:

This wasn’t fact-checking—it was predetermined dismissal. Coltin had access to our website with all our evidence, yet chose to characterize meticulously documented campaign finance records as a “theory” while questioning our journalistic standards.

Real journalists approach investigations with genuine curiosity about facts. Coltin’s website message revealed he’d already decided our investigation was wrong before examining the evidence—then proceeded to publish a piece that ironically confirmed our core findings while attempting to discredit them.

The Technical Evidence Politico Couldn’t Address

Our June 30th investigation revealed a technical contradiction that destroys the official explanations: Mamdani’s campaign website uses a generic donation link with no bundler tracking parameters.

The source code doesn’t lie:
<a href="https://contribute.nycvotes.org/campaigns/zohranmamdani/contributions/new">

Did they reclassify professionally bundled money as “organic” donations to manufacture fake grassroots support? Per the campaign filings, MacFarlane’s original $1.6 million attribution represented the professional bundling operation. When pressure mounted, did they simply move that same money into the “no intermediary” category and pretend as if it was grassroots funding all along?

From zero organic donations to $1.6 million overnight—without a single additional donor. This isn’t error correction; it’s a retroactive coverup designed to hide the absence of genuine grassroots support.

This technical evidence makes Politico’s dismissal of our “false claims” particularly damning—they ignored proof that the campaign manufactured fake grassroots support by reclassifying bundled donations as organic contributions.

The Blame Game Shuffle

Politico uncritically accepted contradictory explanations without any journalistic skepticism:

Three different explanations from three different sources for the same “error.” Real journalism would ask: If three entities can’t agree on what happened, how can we be certain it was accidental?

The False Equivalency

Coltin attempts to minimize the scandal by noting that “Cuomo’s campaign also made mistakes reporting intermediaries.” But this misses the crucial difference: were Cuomo’s records altered twice in one day under media pressure? Did Cuomo go from zero organic donations to claiming $1.6 million overnight?

The Bottom Line

Politico confirmed what we documented: campaign finance records were altered following our investigations, exactly as we reported. Their attempt to frame this as routine error correction ignores the timing, the scale of changes, the compliance failures, and the documented evidence that make such explanations implausible.

This investigation continues my ongoing investigation of Zohran Mamdani’s campaign finance irregularities.

Written by Sam Antar
© 2025 Sam Antar. All rights reserved.