A Bezos-backed PAC and Irwin Jacobs are bankrolling Ammar Campa-Najjar

 

By Tessa Balc in San Diego
Times of San Diego

Ammar Campa-Najjar’s bid for the newly redistricted 48th Congressional District got a big boost last week from the Bezos family.

The donation from a group that has received a majority of its funding from Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and his parents. It landed in Serving CA, a committee solely supporting Campa-Najjar, and came in alongside a major donation from Irwin Jacobs, the Qualcomm founder and grandfather of Campa-Najjar’s girlfriend, Rep. Sara Jacobs.

Irwin Jacobs dropped $500,000 to support Campa-Najjar, one of the leading Democratic candidates in a toss-up district that could determine control of Congress. The Bezos-backed group added another $250,000 on his behalf.

The Bezos support came by way of the latest iteration of the With Honor Fund, which in the organization’s nearly 10 years of existence has received $27.3 million from the Bezos family, good for 55% of its total funding.

With Honor Fund is a super PAC that endorsed Campa-Najjar and describes its goal as combatting polarization by supporting bipartisan veteran leadership. Campa-Najjar is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserves, though the Navy scolded him for uniformed photos of him on his website that broke Pentagon rules on political campaigns.

But the Bezos money took a serpentine path before it ended up with Serving CA, the committee created in February to support Campa-Najjar that currently has $819,980 in the bank. Its only other support is from Irwin Jacobs and UA Union Plumbers & Pipefitters Vote! PAC, a labor union PAC, which donated $75,000.

The donation to Serving CA came through the Servant-Leader Fund, a super PAC that describes itself as a fund for Democratic veteran candidates. But 95% of the Servant Leader Fund’s money comes from two other political action committees — With Honor Fund II and With Honor Fund III.

Both of those are subsequent iterations of the original With Honor Fund, which was terminated in 2023 and directed its remaining funds to With Honor Fund II.

Miguel and Jacklyn Bezos — the parents of Jeff Bezos — were prolific donors to the With Honor Fund since its creation in 2017. They were the largest donors to the fund each year with two exceptions. In 2018, Jeff Bezos was the largest donor, when he gave it $10 million. And the Bezos family did not contribute to the fund in 2019, when Barbara Zweig, wife of famed Wall Street investor Martin Zweig, and Alice L. Walton, the heiress to the Walmart fortune, led the way by giving $250,000 each. Miguel Bezos has not contributed yet this year, and Jacklyn Bezos passed away in October.

Last year, Jacklyn Bezos and Miguel Bezos’ combined contribution of nearly $2 million accounted for 76% of the money With Honor Fund II received.

How the money is moving
The first iteration of the With Honor Fund super PAC was active from late 2017 to 2024. With Honor Fund II was established in 2023, and With Honor Fund III became active in 2025.

Up until 2023, contributions flowed into With Honor Fund Inc. The organization typically paid for operating expenses like accounting, IT and payroll and would also pay for PAC representatives to attend conferences.

The original organization rarely contributed or transferred funds to other political organizations. When the super PAC dissolved, it transferred $1.7 million, almost all of the money the organization had on hand, to With Honor Fund II.

With Honor Fund II is unlike the original super PAC — it has consistently contributed money to other political organizations, and mostly to With Honor Fund III. Ninety-five percent of the money With Honor Fund III has received came from With Honor Fund II.

With Honor Fund II makes contributions to a select few other organizations, like the Elect Principled Veterans Fund and the Servant-Leader Fund.

With Honor Find III maintains operating expenses but is also primarily a conduit to groups like Servant-Leader Fund and Patriotic Fund, Inc.

Serving CA’s committee status means it only supports Campa-Najjar, but also cannot coordinate or communicate with him.

The organization’s website, tied to its FEC registration number, does not mention Campa-Najjar and presents an obscure, vague message of supporting policies that support California. Knowing that the organization exists only to support Campa-Najjar requires finding its establishing documents.

Despite the bar on communications, a practice called “red-boxing” provides a somewhat commonplace workaround — and Campa-Najjar is using it.

The media tab of Campa-Najjar’s website includes a literal red box containing information described as “What Voters Need to Know” about the race. It also features media assets, like high resolution photos and video B-roll. Outside groups can rely on those messages and elements to run parallel campaigns with themes consistent with the candidate’s.

So far, Serving CA has only spent money on consulting services.

“The campaign is legally prohibited from coordinating with any outside group,” said Andi McNew, campaign manager for Ammar for Congress. “That applies to every independent expenditure committee operating in this race, including Democratic Majority for Israel PAC, which is spending over $750,000 to defeat Ammar because he’s the son of a Palestinian immigrant.”

The Democratic Majority for Israel PAC has endorsed Marni von Wilpert for the CA-48 race. It’s a hybrid PAC that can make direct contributions to campaigns with limits, while still also making unlimited independent expenditures.

The DMFI PAC indeed recently spent over $750,000 on an advertisement explicitly attacking Campa-Najjar. In its most recent April campaign filings, the PAC also reported a $1,000 contribution to von Wilpert’s campaign, and another $333.34 in independent expenditures on von Wilpert’s behalf, including digital advertising.

Some of this digital advertising from DMFI carries a similar tune to von Wilpert’s red box.

DMFI PAC ran an ad earlier this month depicting Campa-Najjar as a hypocrite who will “say anything.” The message in von Wilpert’s red box: “Ammar Campa-Najjar is a con man. We can’t trust him to represent us in Congress. Marni von Wilpert has a proven record of beating the Republicans, taking on ICE and will stand up to Trump.”

Dan Rottenstreich, von Wilpert’s campaign manager, said that among DMFI PAC, von Wilpert has support from various organizations like Elect Democratic Women and Equality PAC, which he said shows the “contrast here is clear.”

“After three losing campaigns Campa-Najjar has so little support that it’s his grandfather in-law and dark money from Delaware donating to his campaign,” Rottenstreich said.
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Preceding republished from Times of San Diego, which trades articles with San Diego Jewish World.