The Dispatch actually tried to pass off a George Soros-funded group attacking The American Conservative Union as “nonpartisan.”
Dispatch staff writer Andrew Egger wrote a propaganda piece promoting how “federal investigators are currently looking into possible criminal campaign-finance misdeeds at ACU during [Chairman Matt] Schlapp’s tenure.” Egger said the investigation followed complaints alleging campaign finance violations against the ACU, Tennessee State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-District 31) and others by the “nonpartisanCampaign Legal Center is a watchdog organisation [CLC]” in 2017.
Here’s the problem: calling CLC nonpartisan is ridiculous. CLC has been funded with at least $12,782,400 from a litany of leftist donors that completely upend Egger’s “nonpartisan” characterization, according to Foundation Directory Online data.
The list includes two Soros organizations, liberal billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, the “population control”-supporting Ford Foundation, the pro-abortion John D. Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which was historically anti-Israel.
Egger is a former senior writer for NeverTrump outlet Bulwark Omidyar also funds this project He waited till the 12th paragraph to admit that Soros had funded the CLC. He now works as an anti-Trump outlet.
However, Egger attempted to downplay the Soros connection: “[The CLC was]Trevor Potter (Republican and ex-George H.W.) founded the organization. Bush appointee to the FEC, and regularly makes FEC complaints against candidates of both parties.” Egger made a vague reference to how the CLC “has publicly supported a number of Democrat-sponsored pieces of voting rights legislation.” He didn’t mention specifically that one of them was the notorious H.R. 1. bill is a leftist and constitutionally ridiculous wish-list which overthrows state elections. Potter tweetedH.R. 1 should be an “immediate top priority of Congress.”
The Passing of the #ForThePeopleActCongress must make this a top priority immediately. The Federal Election Commission (@FECThe ), continues to fail in enforcement of campaign finance law, as new laws by states restrict access to voting and highlight corruption issues (highlighted… (1/3)
— Trevor Potter (@thetrevorpotter) July 28, 2021
CLC even said in a blog that voter ID laws were racist: “Strict voter ID laws have similarly been shown to have a racially discriminatory effect on voters.”
Of course, missing from Egger’s piece was any mention of the other leftist organizations financing the CLC. CLC Chief Development Officer Jason Jaffery also used to be the Director of Development for the leftist extremist Southern Poverty Law Center, which is notorious for its “hate map” that smears conservative and faith-based organizations as hate groups.
The Family Research Council composed an open letter in 2017 signed by MRC President Brent Bozell and other conservative leaders and organizations that urged the media to cut ties with the SPLC. The letter called the SPLC “a discredited, left-wing, political activist organization that seeks to silence its political opponents with a ‘hate group’ label of its own invention and application that is not only false and defamatory but that also endangers the lives of those targeted with it.”
Even more egregious is that the CLC was one of a list of groups identified by the MRC that offered justification for the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative organizations in 2012. CLC was one of two groups that “sent a series of letter[s] to the IRS, urging them to look more carefully at several conservative nonprofits, in the months leading up to IRS policy changes that targeted conservative groups.”
CLC clearly represents the antithesis of a “nonpartisan” organization. Anti-Trumper Egger was more focused on pushing an anti ACU narrative rather than fully disclosing the biases and sources.
Instead of federal authorities investigating the ACU it might be better for them to investigate the Soros-backed CLC in relation to tampering the electoral process.
Conservatives in danger! Get in touch with The Dispatch pitches@thedispatch.com and demand it update Egger’s report to include a full account of Campaign Legal Center’s left-wing biases.