Charges Watch: When Cases Disappear
Tracking criminal cases where charges were dropped or dismissed, cross-referenced against campaign finance records for defendants, prosecutors, and judges.
Published March 17, 2026
Key Findings
- 4.8M-record donor index built for cross-referencing defendants against campaign finance
- Pipeline tracks criminal cases where charges were dropped or dismissed
- Flags cases where defendant or prosecutor appears in campaign finance records
- ETL infrastructure complete — data ingestion from CourtListener and news in progress
This investigation tracks criminal cases in which charges were dropped or dismissed, then cross-references defendants, prosecutors, and judges against campaign finance databases.
The core question: do campaign contributions correlate with case outcomes?
Infrastructure
A 4.8-million-record donor index has been built from FEC contribution data, structured for fast fuzzy-matching against defendant and official names.
The pipeline is designed to flag:
- Defendants who appear in campaign finance records
- Prosecutors who received donations from defendants or their employers
- Judges appointed by officials who received donations from connected parties
- Cases where the same entity appears on both sides of a contribution relationship
Status
The donor index is complete. Data ingestion pipelines for CourtListener and news archives are in development. This investigation page will be updated as leads are verified and published.