{"id":1375239,"date":"2022-03-14T05:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1375239"},"modified":"2022-03-14T08:01:57","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T12:01:57","slug":"wapo-fact-checker-carries-water-for-leftist-dark-money-group-behind-bidens-scotus-pick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wapo-fact-checker-carries-water-for-leftist-dark-money-group-behind-bidens-scotus-pick\/","title":{"rendered":"WaPo Fact Checker Carries Water For Leftist \u2018Dark Money\u2019 Group Behind Biden\u2019s SCOTUS Pick"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwapo-fact-checker-carries-water-for-leftist-dark-money-group-behind-bidens-scotus-pick%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1375239&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Screen-Shot-2022-03-13-at-9.45.25-PM-1024x680-1.png\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>One aspect of President Joe Biden\u2019s pick for the coming Supreme Court vacancy isn\u2019t up for debate: Whatever her credentials, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is the \u201cdark money\u201d left\u2019s choice for the nation\u2019s highest court. So why is the Washington Post, which normally decries \u201cdark money,\u201d carrying water for one of the darkest groups in politics?<\/p>\n<p>WaPo<em> <\/em>columnist Glenn Kessler recently \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2022\/03\/04\/hypocrisy-watch-dark-money-groups-complain-about-dark-money\/\">marvel[ed] at the hypocrisy<\/a>\u201d of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network\u2019s \u201cattacks\u201d on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/demand-justice\/\">Demand Justice<\/a> (a partisan activist group backing Jackson with a <a href=\"https:\/\/demandjustice.org\/demand-justice-announces-initial-1m-ad-buy-in-support-of-judge-ketanji-brown-jacksons-nomination-to-supreme-court\/\">$1 million advertising spree<\/a>) and its close ties to the multi-billion-dollar nonprofit network that spawned it. That network, run by Arabella Advisors LLC, raked in nearly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/for-profit\/arabella-advisors\/#network-financial-overview\">$1.7 billion<\/a> in 2020 <em>alone<\/em>, much of it from wealthy left-wing donors and their family foundations. It\u2019s the most powerful liberal lobbying force in Washington.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the Post wants the public to ignore Arabella, since Demand Justice spun off from Arabella\u2019s network last year after spending its first three years as just an accounting code inside Arabella\u2019s Sixteen Thirty Fund. Besides, Kessler assures us, the Arabella behemoth is apolitical because it \u201cessentially provides back-office support, compliance assistance, and grant-processing to liberal philanthropic and nonprofit group,\u201d including those \u201cincorporated so they can received [<em>sic<\/em>] donations from undisclosed donors.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Capital Research Center (CRC) was the <a href=\"https:\/\/capitalresearch.org\/article\/out-of-darkness-cash-part-1\/\">first to expose<\/a> the Arabella network to the world and was pleased to help change the narrative about \u201cdark money\u201d by documenting how the left benefits from it more than the right does. A lot more.<\/p>\n<p>So to see Kessler and the Post downplay what the Arabella network does, while inadvertently confirming its vast size and influence \u2014 something the left-leaning media has ignored for years \u2014 strikes us at the CRC as, frankly, hilarious.<\/p>\n<p>So, to reiterate: Arabella\u2019s in-house nonprofits specialize in \u201cpop-up\u201d campaigns: Creating fake front groups that fool the public into believing they\u2019re independent, grassroots-activist groups based anywhere but D.C. Really, these \u201cpop-up\u201d groups let large foundations and mega-donors quietly fund grubby politics without polluting the rarified air of philanthropy they want you to think they inhabit. The Arabella network has spawned at least 400 such groups since 2006.<\/p>\n<p>Credit Kessler for pointing out that Arabella Advisors has \u201ccollected management fees worth nearly $50 million\u201d from the network since its inception. Bonus points for noting that company founder Eric Kessler (no relation to Glenn) for years chaired the board of its advocacy arm, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/sixteen-thirty-fund\/\">Sixteen Thirty Fund<\/a>, and of its biggest pass-through nonprofit, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/new-venture-fund\/\">New Venture Fund<\/a>. He might\u2019ve added that all four nonprofits appear to share Arabella\u2019s D.C. address and have interlocking boards that until recently included sharing Arabella\u2019s general counsel and chief financial officer.<\/p>\n<p>Kessler fails to<em> <\/em>note that Sixteen Thirty Fund created Demand Justice in 2018 to derail Justice Brett Kavanaugh\u2019s confirmation with rallies and a smear website (<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180801231523\/https:\/stopkavanaugh.com\/\">StopKavanaugh.com<\/a>) and did the same with Justice <a href=\"https:\/\/capitalresearch.org\/article\/the-activist-left-turns-it-fire-on-amy-coney-barrett\/\">Amy Coney Barrett<\/a> in 2020. Ditto another Arabella spin-off, the ironically named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/fix-the-court\/\">Fix the Court<\/a>, which filled websites (<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20181011021246\/https:\/www.brettkavanaugh.com\/\">BrettKavanaugh.com<\/a>) with links to sexual assault support groups in order to smear the nominee as a rapist.<\/p>\n<p>Nor does Kessler inform the public that Demand Justice is the left\u2019s chief <a href=\"https:\/\/capitalresearch.org\/article\/dark-money-confirms-biden-will-pack-the-court\/\">court-packing<\/a> pressure group. Also left unmentioned is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fec.gov\/data\/individual-contributions\/?committee_id=C00760827&#038;two_year_transaction_period=2020\">$454,000<\/a> Sixteen Thirty Fund gave to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/political-party\/demand-justice-pac\/\">Demand Justice\u2019s PAC<\/a> to elect Democrats in 2020, which was 62 percent of the PAC\u2019s revenues that cycle.<\/p>\n<p>Demand Justice\u2019s blatant partisanship and obvious \u201cdark money\u201d ties may make things tough for Senate Democrats\u2019 thin majority as it tries to place Jackson on the Supreme Court. But the Post\u2019s editors clearly intend to do whatever they can to help the Democrats.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to Kessler\u2019s amusing \u201cfact-check,\u201d the Post<em> <\/em>also published an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2022\/02\/17\/federalist-society-dark-money-breyer-supreme-court-seat\/\">op-ed<\/a> by the Senate\u2019s biggest \u201cdark money\u201d hypocrite, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island. The controversy over the vast Arabella network is now so loud that even he felt obliged, finally, to mention its existence, even as he hinted it was smaller than the conservative network he\u2019s smearing.<\/p>\n<p>But compare the senator\u2019s griping over anonymous gifts to his nemesis versus the cash that Demand Justice\u2019s original parent, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, took in: the highest the senator can object to is $48 million in 2020. But the same year, Sixteen Thirty snagged the following anonymous gifts in that range: $45 million + $46 million + $53 million + $86 million.<\/p>\n<p>The final proof of the Post\u2019s hypocrisy: its own editorial board was horrified in 2019 at an anonymous $26.7 million donation to Sixteen Thirty Fund: \u201cWho are these donors? The public will not find out.\u201d (We later <a href=\"https:\/\/capitalresearch.org\/article\/read-crcs-letter-to-the-editor-in-the-washington-post\/\">told them<\/a> the cash came from another Arabella nonprofit, New Venture Fund.)<\/p>\n<p>Back then, the Post wondered if this left-wing giant was \u201cpart of a larger network of dark money.\u201d Today\u2019s Post<em> <\/em>would rather you not know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One aspect of President Joe Biden\u2019s pick for the coming Supreme Court vacancy isn\u2019t up for debate: Whatever her credentials, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is the \u201cdark money\u201d left\u2019s choice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1375239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1375239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1375239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1375239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1375239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}