Reports Say Top Advisor to Governor Maura Healey Used Veterans Charity to Fund Campaign to Legalize Psychedelic Drugs

8.5.25

 

BOSTON, MA — The Massachusetts Republican Party is deeply concerned about allegations in Lucid News and the Boston Globe suggesting that Danielle McCourt, former top fundraising staffer to Governor Maura Healey, and Lynda Tocci, former senior campaign staffer to Governor Healey, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Hillary Clinton, enriched themselves while violating campaign finance laws during a 2024 ballot campaign to legalize psychedelic drugs.

 

Whistleblower complaints, submitted to the state campaign finance watchdog, lay out the intricate details of how the campaign, led by its chair McCourt and senior strategist Tocci, played shell games to hide money while handsomely paying politically connected Democratic staffers.

 

One of those shells was Heroic Hearts Project, a nationally-recognized nonprofit assisting veterans with PTSD. Whistleblower records suggest money was illegally routed through Heroic Hearts Project to double pay campaign operatives off-the-books and to purchase over $500,000 of campaign ads without the proper disclosure.

 

The chart below illustrates how Heroic Hearts Project received at least $750,000 through New Approach, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium that raised over $7 million for the campaign. From that total, around $6.5 million went to the campaign committee (Massachusetts for Mental Health Options) with the rest going to Heroic Hearts Project.

 

On Monday, Lucid News reported that New Approach, the nation’s largest political investor in drug policy reform efforts, is ceasing operations and shutting down.

 

Money raised for Heroic Hearts Project was used to:

• Pay for a new psychedelics nonprofit, Open Circle Alliance (OCA), which secretly operated as an extension of the ballot question campaign;
• Pay for $500,000 in “public education” TV ads to support the ballot campaign, which should have been reported as an in-kind contribution but were not; and,
• Pay for a voter outreach effort by Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) to support the ballot question

By law, 501(c)3 organizations like Heroic Hearts Project and OCA may not engage in political lobbying as a primary activity and must publicly disclose campaign spending. Yet Heroic Hearts Project and OCA, while disclosing no campaign contributions, appeared to secretly function as extensions of the ballot question campaign under the direction of politically-connected Democratic staffers, in violation of the law.

 

As campaign chair, McCourt hired Emily Oneschuk – a Cambridge, MA-based veteran who held dual roles as founding treasurer for OCA and spokesperson for the official ballot committee – and organized regular meetings with OCA “to be coordinated,” as internal emails below show.

 

In a press release, campaign whistleblowers said, “Mental health patients and caregivers, both in and outside the veteran community, deserve advocacy that treats them as more than pawns and mascots.”

 

“Without these brave whistleblowers, Democratic henchmen would still be turning a healthy profit by making a mockery of our campaign finance laws — and disgracing veterans in the process,” said MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale. “Massachusetts Republicans call on Governor Healey to denounce the tactics of her advisors and call for the Office of Campaign and Political Finance to complete a thorough review of these disturbing allegations.”

 

 

 

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