LANSING, Mich. — Money from some of Michigan's largest companies and wealthiest business executives secretly flowed to a fundraising account for state Senate Republicans during the early days of the pandemic, according to a trove of court records.

Dick DeVos, husband of then-U.S. Senate Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, gave $50,000 to the organization Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, while the Las Vegas-based data center company Switch, which won tax breaks from the Legislature four months earlier, provided $50,000, a prosecutor and an investigator for Attorney General Dana Nessel's office said in open court.

Likewise, J.C. Huizenga, the founder of a charter school management company, gave $25,000, and Edward Levy, the leader of a Dearborn-based road construction company that wanted lawmakers to ease regulations on gravel mining in 2020, chipped in $30,000 for the nonprofit that falls under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code, according to the Attorney General's office.

"The account is a non-disclosed and unlimited (c)(4) account so no one will know that you contributed to the account," wrote Heather Lombardini, a Republican political consultant who worked with Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, in a fundraising pitch to one donor, according to an email read in court on Aug. 8, 2024.

For years, Michigan lawmakers have allowed themselves to collect millions of dollars in contributions through nonprofit organizations that aren't required to release their donors' names or the details of how they spend the cash. Residents of the state have rarely gotten information about who's behind the money and how key officeholders are involved in soliciting it.

But an ongoing criminal case against Lombardini has unlocked bank records and internal emails involving Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility. The group, which worked on behalf of Senate Republicans, raised $8.6 million over a seven-year period from 2014 through 2020, as Republicans set the agenda in the Senate.

The new documents — detailed in court hearings, including one on Wednesday — showed that consultants, along with then-Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, R-Clarklake, privately promoted the nonprofit to potential donors as a vehicle to move political money without the public's knowledge. Those who gave secretly were often individuals with direct connections to bills before the state Legislature, according to the records.

In one email exchange with Lombardini in June 2020 — three months into the COVID-19 pandemic in Michigan — Rory Lafferty, director of government affairs for the Health Alliance Plan, said the insurer wanted to give $20,000 in corporate money to Senate Republicans. Health Alliance Plan or HAP is a Troy-based health insurance company owned by the Detroit-based Henry Ford Health hospital system.

Lafferty specifically identified the nonprofit Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility as the entity to receive the money after Lombardini floated the idea of tying the cash to a Sept. 8, 2020, fundraising dinner for the Senate Republican Campaign Committee, which is required to disclose its donors.

"We are trying to be sensitive of the optics of our corporate support because both HAP and Henry Ford Health Systems (sic) furloughed some employees due to the COVID crisis," wrote Lafferty, according to an email previously read in court. "The plan is to bring these folks back when demand for health care picks back up but that's happening slower than we expected.

"Maybe, we can hold off until we get closer to the dinner before we decide if we can publicly support the event? Maybe, we'll be bringing back some of the furloughed employees at that time."

Lafferty then asked Lombardini to forward an invoice for Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility. Lombardini sent Lafferty a $20,000 invoice to record the transaction, according to court records.

Two months earlier, in April 2020, Henry Ford Health had announced that it would furlough 2,800 employees or 9% of its 31,600 workers across its five hospitals. In 2023, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer appointed Lafferty to the state's Public Health Advisory Council, a position he still holds.

In a statement provided Thursday by a public relations firm on behalf of HAP, the health insurer said there was "absolutely nothing improper about this corporate contribution."

"Further, any contribution to Sen. Shirkey in 2020 was made with strict adherence to campaign finance and nonprofit corporation laws, as were all our other contributions," the HAP statement said. "Contributions to the senator had no relation to any statements he made or positions he held relative to the COVID-19 pandemic."

Henry Ford Health had no involvement in the $20,000 contribution, said Lauren Zakalik, a spokeswoman for the hospital system.

'Other account options'

Shirkey, who left the Senate because of term limits at the end of 2022, didn't respond to a Thursday request for comment from The News.

Lombardini and Shirkey privately promoted Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility as a way for donors to support a 2020 petition campaign to limit Whitmer's emergency powers without their names being made public, according to emails read in open court and recorded in a court transcript.

The Unlock Michigan campaign, which launched on June 1, 2020, aimed to repeal a 1945 law that allowed Whitmer to declare an emergency and issue executive orders without the Legislature's approval. Whitmer's orders were used to close schools, curtail dining at restaurants and restrict social gatherings, among other measures aimed at limiting the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

In one message to potential donors on June 5, Shirkey touted the need to repeal the 1945 Emergency Powers of Governor Act and said the effort would require "significant financial resources."

The Senate leader also shared with the group of donors a W-9 tax document to help businesses make their contributions to the Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility.

"Attached is the W-9 for the preferred non-disclosed (c)(4) account that we will be using," wrote Shirkey, adding that checks should be made payable to Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility.

In an Aug. 3, 2020, email, Lombardini sought a contribution from Bobby Schostak, former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and whose family has a Livonia-based real estate development company. She attached information about Unlock Michigan.

"Attached but please know this is all disclosed since it is a ballot committee," Lombardini wrote to Schostak, according to court records. "Let me know if that will be an issue. If yes, I have other account options that are non-disclosed."

In a similar June 26, 2020, email, Lombardini wrote about the Unlock Michigan campaign, but asked Dan Hibma, owner of Land & Co., which manages rental properties in west Michigan, to give $25,000 to Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility.

Lombardini promised Hibma that "no one will know" about his contribution.

"Dan, we appreciate the conversation and consideration," added Lombardini, referencing that Hibma had also spoken directly with Shirkey on June 26, 2020.

Hibma's Land & Co. ended up donating $25,000 to Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, according to court records. It wasn't clear in the records whether Schostak contributed.

Hibma is the husband of former Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land, a Republican whose job included overseeing Michigan's campaign finance system. He didn't respond Thursday to a request for comment.

In a July 15, 2020, email to Hibma, Lombardini described his $25,000 contribution to Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility as a $25,000 check "for Unlock Michigan," according to court records.

Mark Brewer, a lawyer and a former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, argued funneling money through a nonprofit to a petition campaign to hide donors' identities would be illegal.

The records made available in court likely represented the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to lawmakers raising money from donors interested in matters before the state Legislature, he added.

"This practice has got to end," Brewer said.

'Mystery money'

Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility shifted about $1.8 million it raised from previously undisclosed donors to Unlock Michigan in 2020. The court records disclose the identities of contributors of $1.2 million that went to the nonprofit in 2020.

At the time, Shirkey was the top Senate Republican and the caucus's primary fundraiser. He was also one of the most vocal critics of Whitmer's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and her use of unilateral orders to limit public gatherings and shutter businesses.

Lafferty reached out about contributing on behalf of HAP on June 26, 2020, according to court records. Less than two weeks earlier, Shirkey publicly acknowledged on June 15, 2020, that he had defied Whitmer's stay-at-home emergency orders by getting professional haircuts. On May 6, 2020, Shirkey and then Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield, R-Levering, announced the Legislature was suing Whitmer over her emergency orders.

Currently, Chatfield is facing separate criminal charges over allegations he misused money raised by his nonprofit, the Peninsula Fund. He pleaded not guilty.

On Oct. 2, 2020, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that Whitmer's use of the 1945 Emergency Powers of the Governor Act to respond to the pandemic was unconstitutional.

Throughout 2020, Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility was moving money from undisclosed donors to the Unlock Michigan campaign, providing a pathway for people to secretly support the effort to limit Whitmer's powers and help Shirkey while ensuring the public and the governor wouldn't know about their involvement.

The Detroit News reported on July 27, 2020, that the campaign to limit Whitmer's emergency powers was being funded by "mystery money." Spurred by the reporting, Bob LaBrant, a longtime campaign finance lawyer who previously worked for the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, and Brewer filed a complaint alleging contributions were being improperly moved through Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility to conceal the identity of donors to Unlock Michigan.

That complaint eventually led to Nessel announcing charges against Lombardini and fellow consultant Sandy Baxter on Feb. 21, 2024. Nessel, a Democrat, said they had been involved in an effort to "evade" the disclosure requirements of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act and then lied about it as state officials investigated.

Transparency in court

Lombardini, a longtime fundraiser for Republican candidates and causes, is now facing felony charges of forgery and uttering and publishing after she signed an affidavit on Sept. 9, 2020, denying that funds had been solicited through Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility to give the dollars to Unlock Michigan, the regulated ballot campaign committee.

She has pleaded not guilty, and the charges remain pending in Ingham County Circuit Court, where Judge Wanda Stokes is considering whether the accusations should proceed to trial. Forgery as well as uttering and publishing are punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Lombardini was originally charged with additional campaign finance violations, but those allegations were knocked down in district court because Judge Kristen Simmons ruled they were not filed quickly enough by prosecutors.

During a Wednesday court hearing in Lansing, Lombardini's lawyer, Thomas Cranmer, argued that "the truth or falsity" of a single sentence in an affidavit shouldn't render the entire document false.

"An affidavit with a single false statement is still an affidavit," Cranmer said. "It's simply an affidavit with a factual inaccuracy.

"Now, it may not be an ideal state of affairs, but it doesn't constitute the crime of either uttering and publishing or forgery."

During that same hearing, Stine Grand, an assistant attorney general, listed the names of donors behind $700,000 in giving to Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, including the DeVos family and the Cotton family.

Grand said the donors' names and contributions had been included on a spreadsheet that Lombardini sent to Shirkey in a 2020 email. The subject line of the message was "Unlock—$$$," even though the money went to Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility, according to testimony recorded in court transcripts.

"She directed individuals to contribute to MCFR to fund Unlock," Grand said Wednesday of Lombardini in court. "She planned and organized with Mike Shirkey and others to fundraise and solicit for Unlock by using MCFR."

'Friends asked me'

Five members of west Michigan's DeVos family combined to give $200,000, and two members of Metro Detroit's Cotton family donated $300,000 to the Shirkey-led fund. The Cotton family previously ran Meridian Health Plan before selling the Medicaid provider in 2018. Jon Cotton gave $150,000 to Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility in 2020, and his brother Sean Cotton gave $150,000, according to the Attorney General's presentation.

It wasn't clear in the court records whether all of the donors knew their money would end up going to Unlock Michigan.

In 2020, members of the Cotton family were "vehemently" opposing a bill in the Senate that would have limited the ability of local governments to block gravel mining operations, said former Sen. Adam Hollier, D-Detroit, who sponsored the measure meant to ensure there's aggregate material available to improve the state's roads.

Hollier introduced his measure in August 2019. It advanced out of the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in September 2020, but it never received a vote on the Senate floor, where Shirkey controlled the agenda.

"The Cottons are big Republicans. They’re billionaires. I am not surprised," Hollier said of the $300,000 in previously undisclosed contributions to Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility.

Attempts to reach the Cottons by The News on Thursday were unsuccessful.

Matthew Resch, a public relations consultant who worked on behalf of the Metamora Land Preservation Alliance in opposition to the gravel mining bill, said Thursday that he had no interaction with the Cottons and couldn't speak to the contributions.

Another donor was Michigan Energy First, a nonprofit group connected to Detroit-based DTE Energy, Michigan's largest electric utility. Michigan Energy First, which features multiple DTE officials on its board, spent $17.5 million from 2020 through 2023, according to its tax filings.

Michigan Energy First previously reported giving $100,000 to Michigan Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility in 2020. But the new court records showed how closely tied the group was to DTE.

On July 9, 2020, Pamela Headley, DTE's chief of staff for corporate and government affairs, sent Shirkey an email notifying Shirkey of the $100,000 contribution from the seemingly separate nonprofit.

"Friends asked me to let you know that the Michigan Energy First board approved a $100,000 contribution to Michigan Citizen's (sic) for Fiscal Responsibility," Headley wrote to the Senate majority leader.

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