CRC News: A month in the busy life of InfluenceWatch

A May 29 official committee staff memo written for the members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, cited InfluenceWatch as evidence for its findings. The memo subject was “The Biden-Harris Administration’s Funding of Anti-Netanyahu Non-Governmental Organizations, Part II.”

The House staff memo made this claim:

Al-Shabaka is a U.S.-based think tank composed of “over 200 analysts around the world,” including Salem Barahmeh, a former member of the U.S.-designated terrorist group, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and Omar Barghouti, “a founding member” of the BDS Israel movement.⁶¹

Footnote number 61, used to support this point, directs readers to the InfluenceWatch profile for Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, which contains nearly all of the information contained in the quote. The direct quotes in the House memo are taken directly from InfluenceWatch.

The Capital Research Center launched InfluenceWatch in 2017 “after identifying a need for more fact-based, accurate descriptions of the various influencers of public policy issues.” The ongoing expense and dedication from our small platoon of researchers and writers has slowly turned “IW” into an indispensable resource for policymakers, media, students and the general public.

Another example is this May 27 report from the Independent Sentinel: “Kevin O’Leary Uncovers a Massive Network Manipulating America.” A large chunk of the research and citations in this report are based on InfluenceWatch, which is repeatedly cited directly and indirectly in hyperlinks back to IW. The report also includes at least two directions for readers to find “More information at Influence Watch” (the link tracks back to the “Controversies” section on the IW page for Arabella Advisors.)

Here are seventeen other publicly known examples from just the last month:

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The Federalist—Reid Hoffman’s Left-Wing Antics Go Far Beyond Bankrolling E. Jean Carroll’s Anti-Trump Lawfare

Per the Washington Free Beacon, tax filings show that Hoffman’s group paid approximately $7 million to the firm of Carroll’s lawyer as part of her legal crusade against Trump. The Trump legal team “claimed Hoffman’s support damaged Carroll’s credibility,” according to InfluenceWatch.

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Washington Examiner—E. Jean Carroll is a mess for the administration that won’t go away

Carroll initially said in an October 2022 deposition that she had received no outside funding for her litigation, forcing her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, to correct the record in April 2023 court filings. Kaplan said Carroll “recollected additional information” about the fact that Hoffman, a liberal megadonor and anti-Trump critic, was paying some of her legal bills. Investigators in Chicago are examining issues connected to that left-leaning nonprofit organization American Future Republic, which Hoffman is listed as the president over, according to Influence Watch.

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Jack’s Substack (investigative reporter Jack Cashill)— The E. Jean Carroll Saga Is Darker Than You Think: The Trail of Sedition Leads to the Top

According to Influence Watch, “Tax returns revealed that Hoffman and this organization was the major financial backer of E. Jean Carroll.” As Forbes reported this week, “the DOJ is investigating whether the nonprofit may have directed Carroll to lie in her deposition about the funding.”

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Daily Caller—Jury Convicts Man For Running Foreign Police Station In New York City

“This is not espionage. This is not spying. This is not intelligence gathering,” Carman said following Jianwang’s week-long trial in Brooklyn federal court, according to the AP. “He wasn’t charged with any of that.”

Jianwang’s attorneys claimed the location was a community center where individuals could renew their Chinese driver’s licenses without having to return to China. People also gathered at the location to play ping-pong and mahjong, Carman said. It reportedly shared offices with the America ChangLe Association, an organization Jianwang ran with his brother. The America ChangLe Association has ties to the CCP, according to Influence Watch.

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Hoodline (Chicago indy media)— Lincoln Park High Axes Arabic Classes, Sparks North Side Uproar

Arabic has been woven into Lincoln Park’s world-language and IB offerings for years, with the school’s Arabic department page describing coursework and extracurricular activities designed in part for heritage speakers. Grants and outside philanthropy have helped launch Arabic programs in Chicago schools, but observers note that one-time funding rarely covers recurring teacher salaries or day-to-day operating expenses. Qatar Foundation International has a documented track record of supporting Arabic language initiatives in the United States, according to InfluenceWatch. Lincoln Park’s Local School Council has pointed to the limits of such grants, combined with enrollment trends, as key factors behind its move.

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Chattanoogan.com (local news op-ed in TN)— Who Is Writing Our Local News, And Who Sent Them? – And Response

I am going to share some facts about who runs Report for America and who sits on its board. I will not tell you what to conclude. I will simply ask you to keep these facts in mind when you read the next Jules Feeney byline in your local paper.

Report for America is a project of The GroundTruth Project, which InfluenceWatch identifies as left-of-center, and is co-sponsored by Google News Lab. Its institutional funders include the Packard Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Knight Foundation, all of which operate in the center-left orbit of American philanthropy.

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The Federalist—The Left’s Assassination Cult Welcomes The Fangirls Of Accused Killer Luigi Mangione

Interestingly, Rios zealously served in the volunteer campaign cult for Mamdani known as “Hot Girls for Zohran.” The influencer and model works as a social media manager for Ali Design & Consulting Services in New York, according to her LinkedIn account. The leftist digital marketing firm boasts that it has “a passion for justice, equity, and inclusion.” Its clients include the Unity & Justice Fund, which contributed $100,000 to Mamdani’s super PAC, according to the California Globe. The Unity & Justice Fund is the political fundraising arm of the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a nonprofit organization with alleged ties to Hamas, according to InfluenceWatch.

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Zero Hedge—California Chemical Tank Emergency At F-35 Supplier Comes Amid Far-Left Campaign Against Defense Firms

InfluenceWatch describes Unity of Fields as the former Palestine Action U.S. and says its US branch is focused on “their goal is to dismantle the ability for the Israeli state to carry out its foreign policy objectives by obstructing the facilities that produce arms for Israel.”

InfluenceWatch has also reported that Marxist James “Fergie” Chambers, an heir to the Cox Enterprises family fortune, has provided financial support for Palestine Action members.

InfluenceWatch noted, “Palestine Action was created in July 2020. Its opening act was to vandalize the U.K. headquarters of defense contractor Elbit Systems, which conducts business with the State of Israel.”

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Breitbart— Ohio Democrat Running for Governor Poses as Moderate Despite Overseeing Millions in Grants to Radical Left-Wing Groups

The Columbus Foundation also administered $50,000 in 2017 to the Foundation for National Progress, which publishes Mother Jones. InfluenceWatch describes the foundation as a “center-left nonprofit” that “publishes and supports the social-democratic opinion and news magazine Mother Jones” and “supports the development of left-of-center journalists writing for the publication.”

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Just the News—Leftist firm defending Singham Network from House probe also tied to the Marxist network: A left-leaning law firm helping Singham Network groups push back against House GOP efforts to get answers about the CCP-linked financial network is itself closely tied to parts of the same Marxist network.

The Progress Unity Fund (PUF) is the fiscal sponsor for the ANSWER Coalition, meaning donations to ANSWER flow through the PUF. The conservative Influence Watch describes the PUF as a “a radical-left fiscal sponsorship organization that supports the ANSWER Coalition, an anti-war and anti-Israel protest organization; Justice First, an advocacy organization with extensive connections to the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a socialist political party in San Francisco, California; and Women Organized to Resist and Defend, a pro-abortion feminist organization.”

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Just the News— Marxism-promoting Singham Network leader holds gig at CCP-tied think tank doing United Front work: Singham Network has long been dogged by calls that it should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. New revelations show one of its key leaders holds a position within the CCP and United Front ecosystem.

The right-leaning Capital Research Center’s Influence Watch project states that the “Chongyang Institute was named the executive director of the Belt and Road Think Tank Cooperation Alliance, a coalition and conference created in 2015 by the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Development Research Center of the State Council, the Chinese Academy of Social Science, the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, and Fudan University” and that “the Alliance has officials from Greece, Slovenia, Tanzania, and other countries serving on its International Advisory Committee and counts more than 120 think tanks from countries participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative international infrastructure project as members of its coalition.”

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Daily Caller—There’s Something Smelly About Gavin Newsom’s Free Diaper Giveaway

Kelly Patricof adds another layer of political connection through her marriage to Hollywood producer Jamie Patricof. Jamie’s father, Alan Patricof, built a longstanding reputation as a major Democratic fundraiser, as noted by Influence Watch.

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The Federalist—When California Republicans Run Against Democrats, They’re Running Against The Government

Newsom’s press releases also explicitly cite the state’s policymaking partnerships with CHIRLA, favorably quoting its director on the work they do together.

You can find a detailed discussion of CHIRLA’s funding sources at the InfluenceWatch website, and you can track the same money by looking for it on government websites. The organization gets federal, state, county, and city funding.

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The Federalist—GOP Secures Agreement From North Carolina Election Officials To Clean Up Voter Rolls

Elias Law Group attorneys represented North Carolina Asians Together, a voter ID opposition group, and El Pueblo. The latter is a Raleigh-based liberal get-out-the-vote organization that issues non-governmental identification to noncitizens unable to obtain official ID, according to nonprofit tracker InfluenceWatch. The activists sought to intervene in the lawsuit because they oppose a provision in the law that requires the posting of juror disqualification information about noncitizens on the Board of Elections’ website.

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California Globe—Union-Aligned Activists Promote ‘Neighborhood Defense’ Trainings As ICE Worksite Enforcement Expands: Organized Power in Numbers operates campaigns focused on promoting left-of-center stances on energy, climate, immigration, and labor issues with a focus on promoting labor union organizing

Organized Power in Numbers describes itself as an organization that combines organizing, digital infrastructure, and data strategy to “build worker power in the South and Southwest.” The organization’s website lists campaigns including “Workers Over Billionaires” and “Power Up AZ.” It is a fiscally sponsored project of the Working Families Organization Inc., the advocacy arm of the union-aligned Working Families Party. The Executive Director of Organized Power in Numbers is Neidi Dominguez who illegally entered the United States into California with her mother and sister from Mexico when she was nine years old and is a DACA recipient, according to public records.

Per Influence Watch:

Organized Power in Numbers operates campaigns focused on promoting left-of-center stances on energy, climate, immigration, and labor issues with a focus on promoting labor union organizing. While the funders of the organization are largely unknown, groups listed as partners include the Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation AFL-CIO, the Texas Organizing Project, and the Texas Climate Jobs Project.

Organized Power in Numbers operates campaigns focused on promoting far-left stances on energy, climate, immigration, and labor issues with a focus on promoting union organizing. The group operates a “school of organizing” with an annual cohort in collaboration with On Point Studios that trains in areas including campaign strategy, distributed organizing, data and digital, and base building.

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RadioInk (broadcast industry news)— Meet WaterStone: The Christian Nonprofit Acquiring Salem Media

What makes the Salem deal interesting is that media investment isn’t WaterStone’s core business. The foundation doesn’t hold a portfolio of broadcast properties the way a traditional group owner or private equity firm would. Its known investments, per tax filings and InfluenceWatch research, flow to its own supporting trust structures and organizations like the America First Legal Foundation and Focus on the Family, though the latter has a longstanding syndication relationship with Salem.

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Dynamic Chiropractic (medical industry news)—Unethical Influence

An examination of American Medical Association revenue by Influence Watch states that only $34 million of the AMA’s $493 million 2022 total revenue came from membership dues. The lion’s share, $293 million, came from “royalties and credentialing products,” of which pharmaceutical companies are by far the largest purchasers. Other related income included $33.2 million in insurance commissions, $30.8 million in journal revenue and $13.3 million in advertising.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/crc-news-a-month-in-the-busy-life-of-influencewatch/