JD Vance’s Religious Adviser Busted Taking Shady Cash in TV Sting

A longtime friend and religious adviser to Vice President JD Vance has been swept up in an explosive political funding scandal after undercover footage appeared to show him discussing ways to skirt Britain’s strict rules on foreign donations.

James Orr, a Cambridge University theologian who served as head of policy for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, stepped down from his powerful position Friday after Channel 4 News aired secretly recorded conversations involving alleged overseas funding arrangements.

Orr, 48, denies any wrongdoing and says no illegal donation ever reached Reform UK.

But the footage has triggered an internal party investigation, scrutiny from Britain’s Electoral Commission and calls for police to examine whether election laws may have been violated.

The controversy is also attracting attention in the United States because of Orr’s unusually close relationship with Vance.

The two developed a friendship years before Vance became vice president, bonding over religion, politics and the future of the conservative movement. Vance has reportedly referred to Orr as his “British Sherpa.”

Orr has previously described their relationship as one built around conversations about faith, political philosophy and the direction of the modern right.

The pair were reportedly together for lunch just one day before Donald Trump announced Vance as his running mate in 2024, and members of Vance’s family have visited Orr at his home in Britain.

Still, Orr has previously pushed back on suggestions that he played an outsized role in shaping Vance’s worldview.

“If anything, he has been a mentor to me,” Orr told NPR before the 2024 election, describing the two men as having a camaraderie as they discussed “what the new right should look like in the 21st century.”

Now Orr is facing a political firestorm of his own.

The undercover investigation was conducted by journalists from Verbatim, whose reporter posed as the British-educated son of a wealthy American businessman interested in supporting Reform UK.

British election law generally bars political parties from accepting donations from foreign nationals and overseas entities that do not qualify as permissible donors.

According to reporting on the sting, Orr was filmed discussing the possibility of having an overseas company pay for opinion polling connected to Reform UK.

Channel 4 reported that roughly £32,500, or about $44,000, was involved in polling arrangements examined during the undercover investigation.

Some of the polls later received coverage in major British newspapers and produced results favorable to Reform UK.

In footage described by multiple news organizations, Orr appeared to discuss keeping aspects of the arrangement quiet.

Another Reform adviser, Dan Jukes, was also caught in the sting and stepped down alongside Orr while the party investigates.

The undercover operation also explored a much larger hypothetical donation involving £500,000 from a supposed wealthy American donor.

No such £500,000 donation was ultimately made.

Farage himself appeared in portions of the undercover footage meeting with the supposed donor’s son and thanking him for his support.

Farage strongly denies that Reform UK accepted illegal money.

“The party has not taken any dodgy money or anything like that whatsoever,” Farage told LBC radio, accusing the journalists of carrying out an elaborate entrapment operation.

He acknowledged, however, that some party figures had said things they perhaps should not have said.

Reform UK initially blasted the investigation as a “hoax” carried out by foreign-funded climate activists before announcing an internal probe.

Orr has also publicly rejected the accusation that the polling constituted an improper donation.

“No money reached Reform UK at all, no donation reached Reform UK at all — whether it was in cash or in kind,” Orr said while defending himself.

He agreed to leave his position while the party conducts its investigation and said he would cooperate fully.

Britain’s governing Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats have referred the allegations to the Metropolitan Police.

Police said they were aware of the reporting and would assess the allegations and any information provided to them. The Electoral Commission has also said it is communicating with police regarding the matter.

No criminal finding has been made against Orr, Jukes, Farage or Reform UK in connection with the undercover report.

Orr had only recently risen to become one of Reform UK’s most influential policy figures as Farage’s populist party expanded its political ambitions.

His relationship with Vance has also drawn attention before.

After Vance caused controversy in 2024 by joking that Britain under a Labour government could become the first “truly Islamist country” to obtain nuclear weapons, Orr defended the remark as humor that had been taken too seriously.

“It was said jokingly in front of a few hundred conservatives,” Orr told Politico at the time, adding that Vance did not expect the comment to become an international controversy.

The latest scandal puts Orr’s political connections under a fresh spotlight while investigators determine whether the secretly recorded conversations amounted merely to ill-advised talk or evidence of an effort to circumvent Britain’s campaign finance rules.

Vance’s office had not publicly commented on the controversy as of Friday.