In an audio recording sent out by Governor Kay Ivey’s campaign on Wednesday morning, Mayor Walt Maddox admits that billionaire George Soros’ contributions to a group of Tuscaloosa PACs backing Maddox in the gubernatorial race were indeed for him.

When asked directly about the $200,000 total contribution amount from Soros, Maddox said, “I was absolutely, kind of, almost in shock when we received the donation, but I was glad that we did quite frankly because we need the resources.”

Maddox also advised that he has never met Soros.

Maddox explained, “My assumption is that he’s probably helping Democrats in a lot of states across America, and we were one of the benefactors [sic] of that since we were the nominee for governor.”

Listen:

This comes as members of Maddox’s team have been trying to (irrationally) claim that the Soros money went to Ivey. Ivey’s campaign has previously pointed to the shared liberal views between Soros and Maddox, especially on abortion and gun control, as reasons he probably received the controversial billionaire’s backing.

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Maddox, Planned Parenthood, the Feminist Majority Foundation, the ACLU, URGE and other national liberal organizations are currently opposing the pro-life constitutional amendment on Alabama’s November 6 general election ballot – Amendment Two. Out-of-state, dark money has poured into a PAC over the last few weeks in support of their efforts, with almost $1 million in pro-abortion television advertising set to begin Wednesday in major Alabama media markets.

A mandatory financial disclosure reported Tuesday by Yellowhammer News revealed that Maddox directly accepted a contribution from California billionaire Tom Steyer, who is leading the national “Need to Impeach” movement against President Donald Trump.

Sean Ross is a staff writer for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on Twitter @sean_yhn