CRC News: InfluenceWatch citations for June 2026

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.” InfluenceWatch has fulfilled that mission so well that it has become a trusted source for policy makers and media outlets across the political spectrum. On June 19, for example, CounterPunch, a left-wing opinion journal, cited IW in a report on the behavior of The Nature Conservancy:

According to the conservative outlet Influence Watch, “The Nature Conservancy has a strong business relationship with some of the nation’s largest energy producers, such as Chevron and Duke Energy, and many large businesses such as Dow Chemical. TNC has also maintained associations with the political center-right: Former Senate Republican Leader Bill Frist is a member of the TNC board.”

Similarly, The Advocate is another left-leaning publication that claims to be “the world’s leading source of LGBTQ+ news and information.” In a July 10 report on a controversy involving the Texas U.S. Senate race, The Advocate cited the IW profile of a right-leaning advocacy nonprofit named Citizens for Sanity:

As of April 1, 2026, per Ballotpedia, 31 states have enacted legislation banning deepfakes in political ads, including Texas. (Citizens for Sanity is based in Washington, D.C., per Influence Watch.) However, the Texas bill, which considers the creation of deepfakes a criminal offense, only bans their publication and distribution within 30 days of an election.

Links and full titles of the two reports are as follows:

• CounterPunch—Logging “Giant Sticks of Coal”: Confronting the Biomass Industry
• The Advocate—Republicans run bizarre AI deepfake ad showing James Talarico singing about trans kids: The fake Talarico is shown singing a parody of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music.

Here are eight other IW media citations from June:

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Daily Caller— Officials Warn There’s Something In The Water, And It May Be Making You Infertile

Some doubt mifepristone’s alleged environmental risks.

“There is absolutely no evidence that this is an environmental issue,” Center for Biological Diversity (CBD)’s Environmental Health Science Director Nathan Donley said, according to PolitiFact. “Pharmaceutical waste can be a big issue when we’re talking about widely used drugs, but to somehow point to mifepristone as a bad actor here is completely disingenuous.”

CBD is a “left-of-center environmental activist and legal advocacy organization” that advocates for population control, according to InfluenceWatch.

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California Globe—Ag Secretary Rollins, Interior Sec Burgum Convene White House Meeting Between PG&E Regarding Future of Potter Valley Dam: It has diverted water for over a century through a tunnel to the Russian River basin, supporting agriculture, hydropower, and water supply for hundreds of thousands of people in Northern California

Much of this was backed by The New Venture Fund, like all four nonprofits managed by the for-profit consultancy Arabella Advisors, a left-leaning philanthropic consulting company that provides strategy, advocacy, impact investing, and management services to high-dollar foundations, nonprofits, corporations, and individuals. The company was founded in 2005 by Eric Kessler, a Clinton administration alumnus, which according to Influence Watch, primarily exists to sponsor a number of “fake” groups: websites designed to look like standalone nonprofits. These “fake” groups rarely become fully-fledged nonprofits; instead, they typically exist to effect an issue advocacy campaign pushing left-wing policies and may disappear after the campaign is finished.

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The Federalist— Court Filing: Democrat AGs Behind Lawfare Coordinated With Leftist Groups About ‘How To Stop Trump’

States United Democracy Center is the brainchild of Norm Eisen, a left-leaning lawyer who served as the “Ethics Czar” in the Obama White House. The group was launched originally as the Voter Protection Program “to coordinate left-leaning advocacy groups and Democratic campaign committees in the event that then-President Donald Trump lost and subsequently contested the results of the 2020 Presidential Election,” according to nonprofit tracker InfluenceWatch.

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Science Literacy Project— Viewpoint: How Earthjustice became the poster child for the abuse of special interest activist funding

While Earthjustice chose not to be transparent on which foundations or special interests are funding their lawfare activities, a quick scan of the websites of large foundations that tend to fund NGOs to conduct similar lawsuits did show a considerable network of well-connected funders.

• The Ford Foundation was one of the initial founding donorsof Earthjustice. Does it really make sense for a philanthropy built on a century of auto industry profits to be funding an NGO suing the fossil fuel and tire industries? The Ford Foundation remains a funder but there has been no disclosure of recent donations.
• The MacArthur Foundation has made 11 grants to Earthjustice totaling almost $15 million. Most of those payments have come in the last six declared years.
• Other foundations that have listed support for Earthjustice include the Sandler Foundation, Packard Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Hewlett Foundation, to name but a few (source: InfluenceWatch).

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The Federalist— Arizona’s Lawfare-Pushing AG Can’t Quit Her Witch Hunt Against Trump Allies

The state court of appeals recently found that Mayes illegally withheld communications between the AG’s office and the leftist States United Democracy Center. The leftist election law group reportedly advised Mayes’ office on a pathway to indict the alternate electors.

Nonprofit tracker InfluenceWatch says States United Democracy Center “was founded as one of many organizing coalitions and left-leaning strategy groups to coordinate left-leaning advocacy groups and Democratic campaign committees in the event that then-President Donald Trump lost and subsequently contested the results of the 2020 Presidential Election.” Norm Eisen, a left-leaning lawyer who served as the “Ethics Czar” in the Obama White House, founded the organization.

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Shooting Sports Weekly—We Won’t Let Anti-Gun Billionaires Who Finance Civilian Disarmament Live in the Shadows Anymore

The Trace is headed by John Feinblatt, who also heads Everytown for Gun Safety and once served as a senior advisor to Bloomberg when he was mayor. Feinblatt is the principal officer listed on tax filings for The Trace. Everytown, of course, is a gun control organization that wants to see lawful firearm ownership eliminated in America.

To top it all off, The Trace admits that it has “more than a thousand readers who have stepped up to support financially.” The Trace reported they received over $6.3 million in 2024, according to the watchdog group InfluenceWatch. That means to make its budget work, each of those readers would have had to donated over $6,300.

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The Federalist— Leftists Hate America So Much They’re Turning Her 250th Birthday Into A Celebration Of Marxism

The 50501 Movement similarly sprung up in response to Trump’s return to office. The organization has espoused support for racist DEI policies, “LGBT interests,” and “Palestinian nationalism;” sought Trump’s removal from office; and participated in demonstrations against Trump, Elon Musk, and ICE, according to InfluenceWatch.

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The Federalist—FBI Raids Leftist Group With History Of Suspect Voter Registration Practices: The Ohio Organizing Collaborative has ties to a voter canvassing group with a ‘bad reputation’ for suspected fraudulent voter registrations.

The OOC is tied to myriad left-wing activist groups and claims to be building “a broad-based movement to end the criminalization of poverty.” Its policy focus, according to the group’s website, is on “young people, low income people, and Black people.” As charity tracker InfluenceWatch reports, OOC’s sister group, the Ohio Organizing Campaign, “focuses on registering and mobilizing voters of the same demographics.”

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the collaborative has received significant funding from groups such as far-left sugar daddy George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society (at least $2 million), Arabella Advisors-linked nonprofits, the Voter Registration Project, and big labor outfits like Service Employees International Union, according to InfluenceWatch.

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Daily Caller— EXCLUSIVE: Are Donor-Recommended Grants Bankrolling Assisted Suicide Advocacy?

Some of Wall Street’s largest donor-advised funds may be facilitating grants to America’s largest assisted suicide advocacy group.

Donor-advised funds (DAFs) facilitated by Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund (FC) and Vanguard Charitable contributed a combined millions of dollars total to Compassion & Choices, America’s largest and oldest assisted suicide advocacy group, according to ProPublica’s publicly available data.

[. . .]

FC in particular also helped facilitated over $82 million in grants to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, $834,000 to the pro-LGBTQ+ Human Rights Campaign, and $4 million to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in 2022, according to InfluenceWatch.

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The Washington Times— Leftist bid to ‘reframe’ 250th birthday narrative reunites Women’s March squad

What are the activists mobilizing for? The Next250 initiative touts five policy pillars: a “living wage for all,” “climate justice,” “reproductive rights,” “voting rights,” and “gun safety and peace.”

The fight for reparations for Black Americans also figures prominently.

Aria Florant, CEO of Liberation Ventures, is coordinating “Week of Repair” events from June 19-July 4 that “invite people to engage with concepts of reparations.”

“We’re investing in a whole collection of projects, events and storytelling that are all focused on getting Americans to reckon with the past and to acknowledge and take accountability for what we got wrong, and therefore envision a repair and healing future,” said Ms. Florant on the media call.

As is often the case with efforts billed as helping the poor, Next250 enjoys support from the rich.

Next250 is “housed” at One Fair Wage, a fiscally supported project of the Alliance for a Just Society, according to the Capital Research Center’s InfluenceWatch website.

The alliance’s donors include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Ford Foundation, Tides Foundation, and Foundation to Promote Open Society, which is chaired by Democratic megadonor George Soros.