The bizarro tale of a phantom super PAC — and our sleuthing to find it

A new super PAC made a splashy entrance onto the Senate battleground scene last week, reporting millions in spending backing Democrats in key races. There’s just one problem: The ads don't exist.

The group, Americans for Progressive Action USA, filed campaign finance reports showing more than $2.5 million in advertising and associated costs across a half-dozen Senate races last week. But six ad makers and advertising platforms listed in the filings said they’ve never heard of the super PAC and have no records of doing business with it.

Google and Facebook’s public advertising databases show no hint of the hundreds of thousands of dollars Americans for Progressive Action USA supposedly spent with them.

GMMB, a major Democratic consulting firm listed as having received $318,000 from the group, said a reporter’s inquiry was the first it had heard of the super PAC. Two other Washington-based vendors listed by the super PAC — Targeted Media Victory and Dixon Gruper — have no trace of previous activity and aren’t registered as corporations in D.C., according to a search of the city’s Department of Regulatory and Consumer Affairs’ database.

It is not unheard of for people to make false filings with the FEC. One prankster in 2016 became a brief internet phenomenon after filing paperwork for a candidate named “Deez Nuts.” But more than a dozen political operatives and campaign finance watchdogs contacted for this story were baffled why someone would file apparently made-up spending reports with the FEC.