Best of CRC Media Hits for June 2021

Congress is out of session for a bit and Washington, DC is quieter and less busy – but there’s still an edge; a white-noise rumbling that fills the air that usually signals that there is much to come over the rest of the summer.

We’ve already started fulfilling the promise of that rumble, and have been writing op-eds, offering quotes and research, and filling their airwaves with our expertise on the funding behind the power players and policy pushes in the nation’s capital. June 2021 was a lighter schedule for us in terms of media hits, but the quality of the hits may represent one of our best months yet. We were featured in The Hill, Newsweek, Roll Call, The Daily Caller, and Fox News, among many others. Here’s a taste of our June.

“Big Left Foundations Fund Biased Barely-Legal Voter Programs” – The American Conservative, Ken Braun (Op-ed), 5/26/2021

[F]or many years 501(c)(3) voter engagement programs have been violating the spirit of this law (if not also the letter) by running programs clearly favoring Democratic politicians.

The evidence is often in plain sight. But more in the shadows is a detailed plan to bankroll these programs during the 2012 election, revealed because of a 2016 data hack of the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations. The Soros memo from nine years ago may have also revealed the embryonic stages of this year’s effort by congressional Democrats to take over federal election laws: the so-called For the People Act (H.R. 1).

“Democrats Caught In Election Integrity Scheme” – OANN, Hayden Ludwig (Guest), 6/30/2021

It seems as if Democrats are constantly lecturing the country on so-called secretive dark money, but some are pointing to the left’s hypocrisy. One America’s Scott Wheeler has more.

“Liberal Dark Money Group 1630 Fund’s Election Wishlist Boosted by Swiss Billionaire” – Fox News, Evie Fordham, 6/28/2021

The Wyss Foundation’s advocacy arm, the Berger Action Fund, gave more than $135 million to the Sixteen Thirty Fund between 2016 and 2020, according to a New York Times report on Wyss.

Closely related to Wyss and the Sixteen Thirty Fund is the Hub Project, a behind-the-scenes group helping progressives that is under the umbrella of the Sixteen Thirty Fund and New Venture Fund, another group that has received millions from the Wyss Foundation. The Wyss Foundation is one of the main donors of the Hub Project, which distributed funds from the Sixteen Thirty Fund to state-level groups ahead of the 2018 midterm elections that gave Democrats control of the House of Representatives, according to the New York Times.

“The Weird Story Behind Sheldon Whitehouse’s Beach Club Furor”  – The Hill, Alexander Bolton, 6/27/2021

Conservative critics have groused about Whitehouse’s membership in the club not gaining much traction in the media.

The Capital Research Center, a conservative nonprofit group that has battled with Whitehouse over climate change and other issues, in April 2019 published a piece by Ken Braun, its senior investigative researcher, that criticized Whitehouse for “trying to represent a left-of-center state while holding a stake in a ritzy beach club fully-stocked with only rich white people.”

“You Have No Idea How Extensive Chinese Propaganda Is In The U.S.” – Instapundit, Mark Tapscott, 6/15/2021

Capital Research Center’s Sarah Lee puts it into a fact-based context for The American Conservative that ought to be sobering for all of us. Consider this graph:

In Alaska, [Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Foreign Affairs Chief Yang Jiechi told a stunned [newly confirmed U.S. Secretary of State Anthony] Blinken, “Many people in the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States.” He was merely echoing what China has already trained many young Americans to think by directly or indirectly funding American nonprofits. Younger Americans had already heard this message on their college campuses and in some cases even earlier, in primary and secondary school. Given the state of political discourse leading up to the 2020 election, there’s evidence to suggest they were dutifully spreading the word as China no doubt intended.”

One of the most important but unheralded consequences of Trump’s attempt to negotiate a new economic relationship with China was the discovery of just how deeply ingrained the CCP’s messaging apparatus had become here in the U.S.

“Left-Wing Groups Responsible for Silence From Many Pro-Israeli Pastors, Say Christian Leaders and Academics” – Newsweek, Carly Mayberry, 6/15/2021

Hayden Ludwig, the CRC’s senior investigative researcher, said that while these groups portray themselves as conservative, they work to convince evangelical Christians to soften their stance on the Israel situation by spreading the same talking points as left-wing secular groups, even sharing the same set of funders. According to Ludwig, most Americans are unaware of the large network of such social justice groups. (The CRC is a conservative Washington, D.C., think tank that examines how foundations, charities and other nonprofits spend money and get involved in politics and advocacy.)

“Whitehouse Bolsters Push to Shine Light on ‘Dark Money’ at Supreme Court” – Roll Call, Todd Ruger, 6/23/2021

Scott Walter from the Capital Research Center responded that he opposes government-coerced donor disclosures. “I trust you can understand why it is difficult to sustain the polite presumption that you are operating in good faith,” Walter wrote.

Whitehouse wrote similar letters to two nonprofit groups that have backed Republican judicial nominees, including the Judicial Crisis Network. The group didn’t respond, but group President Carrie Severino fired back when asked by CQ Roll Call.

“Jeffrey Toobin’s Zoom Call Masturbation Incident Is The Least Of His Offenses” – The Daily Caller, J.D. Gordon (Op-ed), 6/14/2021

Based partially on my first hand experiences, last year the Capital Research Center, a Washington, DC-based investigative think tank, published a comprehensive series of reports including “Cast of The Trump-Russia Collusion Hoax,” a list of mini-bios and roles for over 200 individuals most responsible, to ensure at least some degree of public accountability.

Disgraced CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who was just reinstated by the left-wing network last week after an eight-month suspension, easily made the list.