Key Biden Aide, Dozens of Other WH Officials Tied to Liberal Dark Money Groups
Joe Biden tapped campaign advisor Ron Klain to be his chief of staff late last year, calling him an “invaluable” asset to the Obama administration, particularly its response to Ebola, which Klain led. The Washington insider served as Al Gore’s chief of staff during the Clinton years in the 90s, and in Biden’s presidential campaign back in 1988.
Despite publicly complaining about the potentially poisonous
influence of dark money on politics, Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain and dozens
of other members of the administration are heavily linked to dark money
organisations with a liberal, pro-Democratic Party bent, Fox News reports,
studying financial disclosure documents.
In American politics, ‘dark money’ refers to political
spending by groups listed as ‘nonprofit organisations’ that allows their donors
to remain undisclosed. Such money has been used extensively in political
campaigns, ranging from the local level to state and federal elections, and has
also been deployed to tackle various individual issues, from taxes on soda to
abortion rights.
Democrats, including Mr. Klain, have spent years attacking
conservatives over the influence of pro-GOP dark money organisations such as
Crossroads GPS, the National Rifle Association, and the American Bankers’
Association, to name a few. During the 2020 campaign, Biden promised to
“increase transparency of election spending” and to put an end to “hiding
behind ‘dark money’ groups to spread lies”.
However, according to a recent investigation by the Center
for Responsive Politics – a nonpartisan research centre tracking money in
politics, Klain has worked as a member of the board of the Centre for American
Progress, a self-described policy research and advocacy organisation with a
liberal bent led by former Hillary Clinton aide John Podesta. Despite its
‘progressive’ bent, CAP is notorious for not disclosing the names of its
donors.
A specially created “sister advocacy organisation” known as
the CAP Action Fund provides for direct lobbying, with billionaire banker
George Soros prominently supporting the project in the early 2000s. The latter
group’s initiatives include “The Moscow Project,” ostensibly aimed at
investigating the “Trump-Russia connection” and “Russia’s attacks on American
Democracy” based on the unsubstantiated claim that the Kremlin was somehow
involved in getting Donald Trump elected in 2016, or controlled him like a
puppet during his presidency.
Along with Klain, dozens of other individuals with ties to
CAP now serve in the Biden administration, among them Kelly Magsamen, chief of
staff for Raytheon lobbyist-turned Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, Veterans
Affairs chief Denis Mcdonough, and others. According to a recent investigation
by Business Insider, this list features nearly 60 names.
Other persons tied to Democratic Party-aligned dark money
groups, including Media Matters for America –a liberal media watchdog group,
have received top posts in the Biden administration, among them Energy
Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who received monthly retainer payments of over
$200,000 while serving as a ‘senior advisor’ to the MMFA between January 2017
and November 2020. Media Matters recently came to Granholm’s defence after it
was reported that she has millions of dollars-worth of investments in a company
standing to profit off of Biden’s new $2.3 trillion infrastructure spending plan,
which Republicans have opposed, citing its alleged extravagance.
Similarly, before being tapped by Biden to serve as chief of
the Environmental Protection Administration, Michael Regan worked as VP of the
Environmental Defence Fund, a New York-based nonprofit heavily engaged in
lobbying and receiving criticism for its ties with major multinational
corporations including McDonald’s, Walmart, FedEx and Texas energy giant TXU.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, meanwhile, is known
to have served as an outside advisor to Demand Justice, project operated by
Arabella Advisors, a Washington, DC-based for-profit firm advising liberal
donors and non-profits and serving as a hub for liberal dark money. Demand
Justice is reported to have spent millions of dollars trying to block Brett
Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court in 2018.
According to a recent CRP study, over $1 billion in dark
money was spent on the 2020 campaign by both liberal and conservative groups,
including $174 million in dark support from anonymous donors for Biden (six
times the $25.2 million in dark money donations Trump got), and over $500
million more for pro-Democrat dark money groups and $200 million+ for
Republicans.
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