What is the American Future Fund?

UPDATE: Here is Halimah's story:

Albrecht declined to discuss whether the media ads targeting Chambliss and Isakson were funded, in part, by energy industry donors.

The group's ranks include some political heavy hitters who may have enough cache to pull in big donors.

Albrecht once worked for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential campaign; Ben Ginsberg, an attorney who also advised the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's attacks on Sen. John Kerry's military record in 2004, serves as the American Future Fund's legal counsel.

The group's media strategist, Larry McCarthy, is also the president of a Washington-based media company that crafted the racially tinged 1988 ad that linked Willie Horton, a convicted felon who committed rape and armed robbery while on a weekend release in Massachusetts, to then-governor and Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.

I find that people who decline to say who's paying the bills are to be trusted implicitly, don't you?
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You may have seen a big ad in your newspaper this morning from the American Future Fund. They're working against Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss' "Gang of 10" energy legislation.

So who is the American Future Fund, and who signs the checks? Our Washington correspondent is working on a story, but the short answer is "It's hard to say."

The Center for Responsive Politics doesn't track them because, according to a center spokesman: "That group is primarily a 501c4 organization. Politics cannot be their primary purpose, but they can do politics and, importantly, they do not have to disclose their donors."

There's a PAC by the same name, but it doesn't appear to be active, listing $0 in donations and $0 on hand as of June 30.

Tim Albrecht, spokesman for the 501c4, says that's a "non-connected PAC." I question how "non-connected" they are, since they have the same name and the American Future Fund's Web site declares itself "a joint website of the American Future Fund and American Future Fund Political Action."

The group's board of directors appears to be Iowa based. The PAC is in Virginia.

Halimah, The Telegraph's Washington correspondent, promises more information later.