Demint Bak

see main=<div align="left" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=</div><div align="left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/coup-plotters-reunion-ginni-thomas/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/coup-plotters-reunion-ginni-thomas/</a></div><div align="left" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div align="left" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">an 11 22 badash</div><div align="left" style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Political experts are warning about a group of nearly 60 far-right wing politicos including <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Ginni+Thomas" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Ginni Thomas</a>, <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Matt+Schlapp" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Matt Schlapp</a>, and <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Cleta+Mitchell" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Cleta Mitchell</a> who reportedly will issue a letter calling for the House and Senate to delay votes on leadership positions including Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader.Axios’ Jonathan first reported the news, posting at least part of the letter and the <a href="https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1592132077184782337" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">list of signatories</a> (below).Some of the other more recognizable names on the letter include <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Mark+Meadows" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Mark Meadows</a>, the former Trump White House chief of staff; <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Cleta+Mitchell" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Cleta Mitchell</a>, the attorney who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/30/us/politics/republican-poll-monitors-election-activists.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">The New York Times</a> calls the “architect of Donald J. Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election”; former Trump attorney <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Jenna+Ellis" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Jenna Ellis</a>; former U.S. Senator and former Heritage Foundation president <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Jim+DeMint" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Jim DeMint</a> (R-SC); former Trump deputy campaign manager <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22David+Bossie%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">David Bossie</a>, the right wing activist and head of the organization responsible for the <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22Citizens+United%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Citizens United</a> Supreme Court lawsuit that made countless billions of dark money in political elections legal.READ MORE: <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2022/09/heist-ginni-thomas-tells-j6-committee-election-was-stolen-says-she-never-discussed-efforts-to-overturn-with-spouse/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">‘Heist’: Ginni Thomas Tells J6 Committee Election Was Stolen, Says She Never Discussed Efforts to Overturn With Spouse</a>Also, white supremacist and disgraced former U.S. Congressman <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Steve+King" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Steve King</a> (R-IA); convicted felon and disgraced former U.S. Congressman <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=%22Steve+Stockman%22" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Steve Stockman</a> (R-TX), right-wing religious extremist <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Kenneth+Blackwell" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Kenneth Blackwell</a> of the <a href="https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/?s=Family+Research+Council" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(11, 13, 101); outline: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Family Research Council</a>, which is on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-LGBTQ hate groups, and others....</div>=<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/demint-marks-a-new-sharper-edge-for-heritage-foundation/2012/12/06/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/demint-marks-a-new-sharper-edge-for-heritage-foundation/2012/12/06/</a>
Politics
DeMint marks a new, sharper edge for Heritage Foundation
By Karen Tumulty and
Allen McDuffee
December 6, 2012

When the Heritage Foundation set up shop in a red-brick Capitol Hill townhouse more than three decades ago, it represented the cutting edge of conservative thought. Ronald Reagan himself once lauded it as “that feisty new kid on the conservative block.”

Now, as the think tank hands over its leadership to Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a tea party icon known more for his confrontational political style than his policy chops, the question is whether Heritage can catch up to the movement it once helped lead.

The changing of the guard comes at a crucial moment, when conservatism itself is gripped by self-doubt and angst in the wake of back-to-back Republican presidential defeats.

“This organization is in a position to do more to save our country than any other organization I’m aware of,” DeMint told more than 200 Heritage staff members shortly after it was announced that he would succeed Edwin Feulner, who co-founded Heritage in 1973 and has served as president for the past 36 years.

“I believe that we have put together here the power, the muscle, the ideas to turn things around,” DeMint added.
What you need to know about Sen. Jim DeMint
View Photos
The GOP senator from South Carolina has announced his retirement to lead the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Measured in dollars, that muscle is enormous. According to Heritage’s financial report, the foundation brought in nearly $70 million last year.

And Heritage remains deeply embedded in the DNA of the Republican establishment. Nearly half of the advisers to Mitt Romney’s presidential effort were former or current Heritage scholars — among them Lanhee Chen, the campaign’s policy director.

But the intellectualism that was once the Heritage hallmark has become somewhat suspect in an era in which the insurgent passion of the tea party sets the terms of political activism.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, for instance, Heritage was often cited as the originator of a concept that most conservatives now find heretical — the “individual mandate” in the Obama health-care law requiring people to buy insurance coverage if they do not receive it from their employers or government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Heritage had already begun to retool its brand for the tea party era by setting up a separate political and lobbying arm it called Heritage Action for America.

That activist effort has received mixed reviews. Many congressional Republicans were dismayed when it put out a scorecard dinging them for being insufficiently conservative for what the lawmakers regarded as relatively insignificant votes.

DeMint, on the other hand, scored a near-perfect 99 percent rating by Heritage Action — the highest of any senator.

The selection of DeMint to head the foundation “kind of moves Heritage firmly into the anti-establishment, conservative, populist side of the equation,” said Craig Shirley, a Reagan biographer. “It’s going to push that argument that the party needs to have with itself.”

In an interview, DeMint said that by taking the job, he was also taking a side in that argument.

“The election showed me that my party was not doing a good job and that we weren’t going to win another national election until we got control of our message,” DeMint said.

“We need to separate the conservative movement from the Republican Party,” he added. “We didn’t do a good job. It wasn’t a failure of conservative ideas; it was a failure of the Republican Party.”

Heritage is not the only conservative organization to face an identity crisis during this turbulent political season.

Earlier this week, former House majority leader Richard K. Armey left the conservative tea party group FreedomWorks during an internal dispute over its future direction.

And in March, the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch filed a lawsuit seeking control of the libertarian Cato Institute, which they helped establish and fund. The legal dispute was resolved after Edward H. Crane, Cato co-founder and its only president since 1977, agreed to step down.

Though Feulner had long ago signaled his desire to relinquish the day-to-day operation of the Heritage Foundation, many had expected his successor to be David Addington, who had served as chief of staff to former vice president Richard B. Cheney and who had joined the foundation’s top ranks in May.

DeMint’s selection is likely to be popular with many of the foundation’s conservative financial backers, particularly the legions of small donors who contribute in response to its direct-mail solicitations. But it remains to be seen whether he has the temperament or connections required to manage many of its bigger benefactors.

“Bringing DeMint in makes more ideological sense than others, including David Addington,” said James McGann, director of the Think Tanks and Civil Society Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

“But that might not be best for Heritage in the long run,” McGann said. “Feulner has a long history of strong relations with Heritage donors, his senior staff and Washington political elite, and it’s not clear DeMint has those same qualities outside of his time in the Senate.”

Alice Crites contributed to this report.

Karen Tumulty is a Washington Post columnist covering national politics. She joined The Post in 2010 from Time magazine and has also worked at the Los Angeles Times. Follow

Allen McDuffee writes about politics and policy and covered think tanks for The Washington Post from 2011 to 2013. He freelances and hosts a podcast at governmentality.net and is currently working on a book about the influence of think tanks in Washington.
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<a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00002472">https://www.opensecrets.org/members-of-congress/summary?cid=N00002472</a>

=<a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/</a>#1 donor  
<table class="table table-bordered"><tbody><tr><td class="text-center">
</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/david-koch/">David Koch</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,400</td><td>2009</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/dkoch57/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">2</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/david-koch/">David Koch</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,400</td><td>2009</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/dkoch58/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">3</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/john-w-childs/">John W. Childs</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,400</td><td>2009</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/childs101/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">4</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/john-w-childs/">John W. Childs</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,200</td><td>2009</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/childs102/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">5</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/marlene-childs/">Marlene Childs</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,200</td><td>2009</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/childs339/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">6</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/marlene-childs/">Marlene Childs</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,400</td><td>2009</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/childs340/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">7</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/paul-e-singer/">Paul E. Singer</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,400</td><td>2009</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/singer115/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">8</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/charles-koch/">Charles Koch</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,400</td><td>2009</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/ckoch40/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">9</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/charles-koch/">Charles Koch</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,400</td><td>2009</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/ckoch41/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">10</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/robert-mercer/">Robert Mercer</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,300</td><td>2007</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/mercer183/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">11</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/doylene-perry/">Doylene Perry</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$600</td><td>2004</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/perry398/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">12</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/bob-perry/">Bob Perry</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$600</td><td>2004</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/perry208/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">13</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/david-koch/">David Koch</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,000</td><td>2004</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/dkoch123/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">14</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/julia-koch/">Julia Koch</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,000</td><td>2004</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/dkoch303/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">15</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/john-w-childs/">John W. Childs</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,000</td><td>2004</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/childs222/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">16</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/john-w-childs/">John W. Childs</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,000</td><td>2004</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/childs223/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">17</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/robert-mcnair/">Robert McNair</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,000</td><td>2004</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/mcnair142/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">18</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/robert-rowling/">Robert Rowling</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,000</td><td>2004</td><td class="text-center"><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/transaction/rowling104/">+</a></td></tr><tr><td class="text-center">19</td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/donor/terry-rowling/">Terry Rowling</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/recipient/demint-for-senate-committee/">DeMint for Senate Committee</a></td><td><a href="http://conservativetransparency.org/candidate/jim-demint/">Jim DeMint</a></td><td>$2,000</td><td>2004</td></tr></tbody></table>
<div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">=</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left"><a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/166778/cleta-mitchell-trump-lawyer-2022-midterm-elections">https://newrepublic.com/article/166778/cleta-mitchell-trump-lawyer-2022-midterm-elections</a></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" align="left">no lnx many

Peter Stone/June 29, 2022
Ballot Boxer
This Former Trump Lawyer Wants You to Disrupt the 2022 Midterms
Cleta Mitchell desperately

tried to undo Trump's loss in Georgia in 2020. Now she's using the Big

Lie to recruit conservatives as poll workers for the November elections.

A

spacious ballroom at the Arizona Grand Resort in Phoenix was packed the

weekend of March 11 with scores of Donald Trump loyalists still fuming

about widely debunked claims that Joe Biden won the 2020 election thanks

to rampant fraud. Dubbed an “election integrity summit,” the gathering

was the handiwork of Trump’s former legal adviser, the veteran

conservative activist Cleta Mitchell. And while Mitchell has garnered

national attention for riling up Trumpists with false claims of election

fraud in Georgia after the state was called for Biden, she’s now

quietly channeling that anger into mobilizing activists to aggressively

combat the specter of voting fraud in the next battle: the 2022 midterm

elections.

Mitchell

organized the Arizona summit on behalf of the Conservative Partnership

Institute, a nonprofit that raked in $1 million from Trump’s leadership

PAC last year. Founded in 2017 by former South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint, CPI has become a hub for the Big Lie in exile, with former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows

signing up as senior partner shortly after leaving the White House last

year, and Mitchell joining in March 2021 as senior legal fellow. CPI

boasted revenue of $5.3 million in fiscal 2019, has arranged D.C.

internships for young conservatives, and has worked with other

right-wing groups to push conservative goals.

But central to the institute’s current mission is Mitchell, who leads its self-styled “election integrity network.”

She has engineered a roaming series of summits this year in states

Republicans hope to swing back in 2024: Georgia, Pennsylvania, Virginia,

Michigan, and Nevada—along with the perennial battleground Florida,

which Trump won. Mitchell has sold the network as a way to create state

and local election “infrastructure,” which includes advocating

unorthodox surveillance tactics of election officials and operations to

ferret out any hints of fraud—real, or more often hypothetical.

One

notable speaker at the summit, whom Mitchell interviewed on a stage,

was Karen Fann, the Arizona state Senate president and 2022 national

chairwoman of the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council,

a group that promotes model laws for states to adopt, and that Mitchell

has previously advised. Arizona has already passed one anti-voting law

this year, imposing onerous restrictions to prove citizenship before

registering to vote, and the state legislature is currently considering a

raft of other measures that would empower state officials to conduct

further reviews of elections.

One attendee of the Phoenix summit,

who asked for anonymity, told me that “the event definitely used the

false allegations of fraud in 2020 as a call to action to rally support

for vigilant engagement this year in the election process,” to spur more

robust monitoring of polling sites. The attendee added: “There was a

large focus on recruiting precinct officials to watch the polls and all

of the other processes associated with elections.”

To voting

rights advocates, the campaign looks like a recipe for voter suppression

and intimidation, especially of minorities, and could incite harassment

against election officials. At these summits, the 71-year-old Mitchell,

members of conservative groups such as Tea Party Patriots, GOP

elected officials, and Republican National Committee staffers have

delivered a blunt message: Conservatives ought to expand poll watching

and “clean up” voter rolls—often by working as precinct and poll

officials—in order to curb any voting fraud and bolster their electoral chances in 2022.

Mitchell

hails from Oklahoma, where she began her career as a Democratic member

of the state legislature before moving to D.C. and switching parties in

the 1990s. Since then, she has amassed an extensive résumé of

conservative clients: Mitchell has done legal stints advising the

National Rifle Association (where she was once a board member), numerous

GOP campaigns, and several dark-money nonprofit groups.

Some

veteran conservatives who know Mitchell’s work say that her advice

often pushed the legal envelope. “You tell Cleta where you want to end

up, and she will come up with a way to get you there, whether it’s legal

or not,” one former senior NRA official told me, quipping that she’s

the “fringe of the fringe.” And a GOP election lawyer who has known

Mitchell for years, and requested anonymity, added: “Cleta was sort of a

classic lawyer for Donald Trump because she told Trump what he wanted

to hear, as opposed to what he ought to hear from his lawyer.”

Mitchell started as a volunteer legal adviser to bolster Trump’s fraud claims in Georgia. She

was recruited by Meadows the day after the 2020 election and eventually

emerged as part of the core group of Trump lackeys attempting to

subvert the results. She participated in Trump’s phone call with

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, wherein the president

attempted to coerce the state official to “find” the extra 11,780 votes

he needed to win the state. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis

is currently conducting a wide-ranging probe into that call, examining

whether Trump and the other participants broke state laws. A special

grand jury was impaneled in early May.

Mitchell has also been

subpoenaed by the House panel probing the January 6 insurrection, as she

was in contact with Trump that day. In response, Mitchell filed a

lawsuit to block the subpoena. When reports of her role on Trump’s call with Raffensperger quickly surfaced in 2021,

Mitchell resigned from her two-decade career with the law firm Foley

& Lardner—as it was conducting an internal review—and joined CPI two months later. (Mitchell did not respond to a request for comment for this story.)

“Cleta

Mitchell allied herself with Trump’s election conspiracy theories on

the infamous Trump-Raffensperger call,” Dennis Aftergut, a former

federal prosecutor, said, adding acidly: “If that makes one an advocate for election integrity, Charles Ponzi was a champion of investment integrity.”

In

loose alliance with other conservative groups such as Heritage Action,

Tea Party Patriots, and FreedomWorks—where she was tapped in March 2021

to lead a “National Election Protection Initiative” with a

multimillion-dollar budget—Mitchell and CPI have worked with gusto to

tighten voting laws: That campaign helped spur at least 19 states in

2021 to pass more stringent voting measures, including voter

identification mandates and curbs on absentee ballots, according to the

Brennan Center for Justice.

Mitchell’s

cachet among the right’s big donors is considerable: She sits on the

board of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which has doled out

hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent years to conservative

election integrity and legal groups, including the Public Interest Legal

Foundation, where Mitchell chairs the board. To help Trump overturn his

loss in Arizona, Mitchell raised about $1 million in funds for a partisan audit of the state’s largest county—which wound up backfiring when the audit confirmed Trump’s loss there.

The

programming at the CPI summits this year has partly overlapped, and

included participants from an RNC election integrity drive that has

recruited directors in 18 states and thousands of poll watchers, as The

New York Times revealed in late May. To tutor activists at the summits

about how to create local and state task forces, Mitchell and CPI have

distributed a 19-page manual dubbed “The Citizens Guide to Building an

Election Integrity Infrastructure.” The manual suggests some

traditional poll monitor methods, but takes an ominous tone, urging

activists to follow “every step” of vote-by-mail operations and advising

them to “be ever-present” inside election offices.

AMAC Action,

a conservative grassroots arm of the Association of Mature American

Citizens that boasts over two million members, has co-sponsored several

CPI summits. “We don’t want to see the kinds of shenanigans in

2020” again, Bob Carlstrom, AMAC Action’s president, told me. Carlstrom,

a veteran D.C. lobbyist who expected to attend his first summit in

North Carolina in June, added that AMAC Action has encouraged its

volunteers to be poll workers, election officials, and poll watchers.

His group also has “been quite active in working on legislation” in

Arizona, Texas, Pennsylvania, and other states where CPI and allied

groups have spent millions promoting new laws that have curbed voting

rights.

Such multifaceted conservative efforts by Mitchell

and CPI have prompted concern from election watchdogs worried about the

false narrative of major fraud leading to voter suppression and

intimidation targeting Black and other minority voters. “These lies are

then used to justify restrictive policies that make it harder for people

to vote, particularly in communities of color,” said Sean

Morales-Doyle, the acting director of the voting rights and elections

program at the Brennan Center for Justice. He added, “It is also

important to remind voters that there are laws prohibiting the

intimidation of voters and election officials. We cannot let the threat

of intimidation alone prevent anyone from participating in our

democracy.”

According to Mitchell’s blog and radio interviews

she’s done this year—including an April one with Trump uber loyalist

Steve Bannon—the CPI summits are building a state-based “movement.”

Mitchell now hosts a podcast, dubbed Who’s Counting, where she speaks

with like-minded conservative activists in states such as Arizona,

Michigan, and Pennsylvania. The podcasts tend to hype allegations of

improper voting and election practices. Mitchell bluntly told Jane Mayer

of The New Yorker last year that the goal of her post-2020 work has

been “to make it harder to cheat,” without a nod to former Attorney

General William Barr’s acknowledgment in late 2020 that there was no

significant fraud in Biden’s win by over seven million votes nationally.

Since

the first meeting in 2021, the summits have drawn several conservative

and political bigwigs, including Tea Party Patriots leader Jenny Beth

Martin and CPI chair DeMint.

Meadows was a keynote speaker at a CPI summit in Georgia, but his

public role has diminished following the disclosure in March that North

Carolina was investigating whether he committed voter fraud. The

inquiry was prompted by a New Yorker report that in 2020 Meadows

registered to vote using an address where he’d never lived—a potential

rare instance of actual voter fraud. Shortly before the probe became

public, Meadows quietly dropped out of CPI’s Phoenix summit, where he

was supposed to be a keynote speaker, and he does not appear to have

been at any other public CPI events.

The “election integrity” agenda advanced by CPI and Mitchell has set off alarm bells for Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

“From Cleta Mitchell’s dark-money group to Heritage Action, we see dark

money crawling everywhere behind voter suppression and election

subversion,” Whitehouse told me.

Looking ahead, the Brennan

Center’s Morales-Doyle is worried that the summits could “increase the

risk that vigilante actors will engage in intimidation and harassment of

voters and election workers. In short, the people promoting these lies

about so-called election integrity are doing serious harm to our

democracy.”

Peter Stone is a Washington-based investigative

journalist who has covered a wide array of lobbying, legal, and campaign

finance issues, working for National Journal, McClatchy newspapers, and

Legal Times, among other publications. As a freelancer, his work has

also appeared in The Guardian, The New York Review of Books Daily,

Mother Jones, The Intercept, and many other news outlets. He is the

author of Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, His Republican Allies and

the Buying of Washington.
Read More: Magazine, July-August 2022,

State Of The Nation, Politics, The Soapbox, Midterm Elections,

Republican Party, Donald Trump, Arizona, Georgia
</div>===

===
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/10/25/god-trump-closed-door-world-council-national-policy/">https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/10/25/god-trump-closed-door-world-council-national-policy/</a>
wapoin October 2015, Donald Trump was still a laugh

line for right-wing Christian activists. By their lights he was a failed

casino owner and thrice-married playboy. He had no apparent principles,

no policy blueprint and no grasp of the Bible. He didn’t even

understand free-market theory, something they consider to be a

fountainhead of American liberty. Yet here he was in a conference room

at the Ritz-Carlton in McLean, Va., soliciting support from a

closed-door group of conservative leaders called the Council for

National Policy. <div class="ent-raw-container custom-html"> </div> Trump looked the part. He wore a blue

suit, white shirt and shiny blue tie. But he seemed to lose his way

during the pitch and began riffing about his hair. He turned his head to

various angles for the crowd. “It looks pretty good back here,” Trump

said, as CNP’s president, Bill Walton, would later recall during a

confidential talk captured on video. It was too much for Marjorie

Dannenfelser, an antiabortion activist also in the crowd. “This is

insulting,” Dannenfelser said, according to her recorded recollection.

She pulled on Walton’s sleeve. “Can you believe what is happening here?”

she asked. For

months after the event, Dannenfelser and some other CNP members were

determined to stop Trump. While he solidified his lead as GOP

front-runner, they denounced him as a “charlatan” in the conservative

magazine National Review, blasted his prior support of abortion rights

and implored Republican voters to choose another candidate. “America

will only be a great nation when we have leaders of strong character

who will defend both unborn children and the dignity of women,”

Dannenfelser and other women wrote in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/26/antiabortion-activists-to-iowa-voters-support-anyone-but-donald-trump/" target="_blank">an open letter to Iowa voters</a> in January 2016. “We cannot trust Donald Trump to do either.” Then

came a great swerve that would upend politics in America: Millions of

conservatives — Dannenfelser and other CNP members among them — got

firmly behind Trump. Today, the Republican Party has been transformed,

and Trump or one of his ideological heirs is likely to be the GOP

nominee in 2024. [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/as-trump-hints-at-2024-comeback-democracy-advocates-fear-a-worst-case-scenario-for-the-country/2021/09/28/ee357558-1a47-11ec-914a-99d701398e5a_story.html">As Trump hints at 2024 comeback, democracy advocates fear a ‘worst-case scenario’ for the country</a>] Much

has been written about this turn of conservatives toward Trump. But I

wanted to learn more about the political and communications

infrastructure that converted this support into votes and influence. How

did these leaders and activists — once so critical of Trump — end up

helping shape and advocate for his agenda? And now that he is almost a

year removed from the White House, how are they continuing to serve him

and his cause? Working with fellow Washington Post reporter Shawn

Boburg, I started gathering documents and cultivating sources. We

zeroed in on key figures and groups, making charts of their ties and

timelines of their actions. We identified <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/how-bannons-multimedia-machine-drove-a-movement-and-paid-him-millions/2017/04/09/203df1ce-197b-11e7-855e-4824bbb5d748_story.html" target="blank">networks of groups </a>that served as a kind of nerve system for <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/leonard-leo-federalists-society-courts/" target="blank">conservative influence campaigns</a>. <div data-elm-loc="" class="ent-photo "> <a name="BXHAV4RHXQI6ZBZZLS3KXIYKGA">  The

Council for National Policy provides a window into the conservative

political and communications infrastructure that boosted Donald Trump.

(Eric Baradat/AFP/Getty Images) </a> </div> Enmeshed in these

efforts was the Council for National Policy. CNP may be the most

unusual, least understood conservative organization in the nation’s

capital. A registered charity, it has served for 40 years as a social,

planning and communications hub for conservative activists in Washington

and nationwide. One of its defining features is its confidentiality. In

a town where people and groups constantly angle for publicity, CNP bars

the press and uninvited outsiders from its events. All members — even

such luminaries as former vice president Mike Pence, Ralph Reed and

Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas — agree to

remain silent about its activities. Other bastions of

conservative influence — from policy groups like the Heritage Foundation

to media outlets like Breitbart News — generally have clear missions.

By contrast, CNP’s executive director, Bob McEwen, told me that the

organization itself does not “do anything.” He and other CNP leaders

will tell you it is merely an educational venue aimed at uniting its

conservative members. Yet as I began to learn more, I came to see

that it would be a mistake to underestimate the group’s significance. I

also realized that researching CNP represented a rare opportunity: to

get a behind-the-scenes look at the outlook, goals and methods of

activists who have so successfully promoted Trumpism. “I just wanted to

thank you and the Council for National Policy for your support and for

consistently amplifying the agenda of President Trump and our

Administration,” Pence wrote to CNP last year. “I know our collaboration

with CNP will only strengthen and deepen this year and beyond.” The

Council for National Policy began taking root on Jan. 22, 1981, when

six religious and social conservatives gathered for dinner at a home in

Dallas. Most American conservatives were still jubilant about the

inauguration of Ronald Reagan two days earlier. They rejoiced at the

prospect that Reagan might make good on one of his campaign slogans:

“Let’s Make America Great Again.” Over dinner, they resolved to bring

together Christian activists, business interests and wealthy donors

under one umbrella to cajole and pressure the new administration. Details

about CNP’s history have emerged periodically over the decades, as

journalists, authors and left-leaning activists pieced together leaked

internal documents and other material. In early June this year, Nick

Surgey, executive director of a progressive watchdog group called

Documented, reached out to say he had obtained a speech from a CNP

meeting in May that celebrated the group’s 40th anniversary. Did I want

it? The speech offered a wealth of new information and context.

And it supplemented dozens of hours of confidential conference

recordings and documents that I obtained from Surgey and other sources.

“I’m not going to crystal-ball-gaze about the way ahead,” speaker Ed

Feulner told the crowd gathered behind closed doors in Naples, Fla., on

May 21. “Rather, I’m focusing on the early days of CNP. How we started,

who did what and how the foundations were laid for us now, four decades

later.” One of the organizers of the initial dinner was Tim

LaHaye, an evangelical minister, writer and political activist. LaHaye

later wrote the popular Left Behind series, books about the end of times

and the Antichrist, using themes derived from the Bible. He thought the

Christian right would have greater force if its components banded more

tightly together. “This new organization could help bring America back

to moral sanity,” he told Feulner, according to the speech. LaHaye

knew the endeavor would need funding, so he reached out to Cullen

Davis, a wealthy Texas oil scion. Davis — who told me recently that the

original organizers thought that communists were going to take over the

U.S. government and that Christianity in America needed staunch

defenders — agreed to host the dinner. He called his pal Nelson Bunker

Hunt, another wealthy oil figure known for trying to corner the global

market in silver. They also tapped Richard Viguerie, a fundraising

pioneer and master of far-right persuasion campaigns who once said he

mailed out 1.5 billion letters for more than 100 public policy groups. During

the dinner they agreed to reach out to a long list of other influential

evangelicals and social conservatives. Several weeks later, more than

two dozen activists gathered around a conference table at a hotel near

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to sketch out CNP’s ambitions.

Together, they made up a formidable force: Paul Weyrich spoke about a

group he was building to help elect conservatives to Congress. Phyllis

Schlafly described her campaign to thwart the Equal Rights Amendment.

For his part, Feulner, a co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, spoke

about how religious conservatives needed an alternative to the Council

on Foreign Relations. On a rainy evening in May 1981, the group

had a coming-out party in the suburbs of the nation’s capital, or, as

Feulner put it in his speech, “the belly of the beast.” Some 160

activists and politicos ventured to tents set up in the backyard of

Viguerie’s home in McLean. It was a rare exception to the fledgling

group’s rules around confidentiality. Guests found a spread of Peking

duck, lobster, sushi and piña coladas served in coconuts, according to

Feulner’s account. The special guest, David Stockman, Reagan’s

Office of Management and Budget director, received a standing ovation

for his efforts to scale back the government. Optimism and good cheer

wafted through the tents. But even then, CNP members grumbled that the

Reagan administration needed to change how it was selecting political

appointees. “Appointments have been made on the basis of credentials

rather than shared values,” one CNP member complained, according to

Feulner’s speech. “The council hopes to identify people with these

values and put them forward.” <div class="ent-pullquote "> <div class="ent-pullquote-text">In a town where people and groups constantly angle for publicity, CNP bars the press and uninvited outsiders from its events.</div> </div> Feulner

told me recently that CNP has always aimed at providing a forum where

certain conservative elites could socialize and strategize — and raise

money from wealthy donors. “You could let your hair down and just talk

candidly about shared visions,” he said. “You also have a lot of people

who can write significant checks.” [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2020/biden-appointee-tracker/">The Post's Biden Political Appointee Tracker</a>] From

the start, CNP members cultivated political power at the highest levels

in Washington. In an early letter to the Reagan White House, a CNP

leader wrote that the group included “some of the most influential

business, political and religious leaders in America” who wanted to

“plan together the future of our country.” Their goal was a “moral

rebirth” for our society. CNP’s leaders had much experience in political fundraising, organizing and communication. Among

them was a political operative named Tom Ellis, who had played on White

racial fears as he helped build the career of the late former senator

Jesse Helms of North Carolina. (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/04/AR2008070401185.html" target="blank">Helms</a>, who became a revered member of CNP, was once described by The Post’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/06/AR2008070602321.html" target="blank">David Broder</a>

as “the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this

country.”) Others included televangelist Pat Robertson; Ed Meese, the

attorney general under Reagan; Sam Moore, the nation’s largest Bible

publisher; and Rich DeVos, billionaire co-founder of Amway and funder of

conservative causes. CNP members showed they were willing to

participate in behind-the-scenes activity in support of their values.

Consider the covert campaign run by Oliver North, a member of the

National Security Council staff from 1981 to 1986. In 1984 — apparently

before he became a member — North spoke at a CNP meeting about the

importance of supporting the contra rebels opposing a leftist regime in

Nicaragua. At the time, Congress had imposed a prohibition on government

financial support for the contras. According to an audio

recording of the session, North told CNP members that Nicaragua’s

leaders and their Soviet supporters had more than Central America in

their crosshairs. “The real target is the United States,” he said. “This

country is in great, great jeopardy from these people, who are truly

godless communists.” North sought financial support from CNP

members, including a wealthy elderly woman named Ellen Clayton Garwood,

whom he met at a CNP meeting. “With tears in his eyes,” a Senate report

later recounted, “North explained to her that the Contras were hungry,

poorly clothed, and in need of lethal supplies.” Garwood eventually gave

about $2.5 million to support North’s off-books effort, according to

the Senate report. Using old CNP directories and other documents, I

determined that four CNP founders, members or funders were cited in the

Senate report as contributors to North’s mission. (I reached out to

North, but a spokesman declined my requests for an interview.) In

internal videos, audio and documents, the conservatism of CNP members

often seemed linked to fear — not just of the godless foreign communists

that North invoked but of liberal Americans as well. In September 2017,

a guest of CNP was invited to discuss his efforts to map leftist

organizations. “I almost think we might want to call it tracking and

defeating evil,” an unidentified CNP leader said during the speaker’s

introduction, according to an internal CNP audio recording. “The

activists on the left and the people who fund them are out to destroy

everything you hold dear,” the leader explained. “Your families.

Marriage. Your businesses. Your freedom of speech. Your freedom of

religion. Everything.” <div class="ent-photo-grid ent-photo-grid-2"> <img class="unprocessed _3-to-2 placeholder " src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/resources/img/spacer-gray.png&w=3&h=2" data-hi-res-src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/NRR4AUBINUI6ZHPICVX62PUBX4.jpg&w=750&h=500" data-low-res-src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/NRR4AUBINUI6ZHPICVX62PUBX4.jpg&w=243&h=162" data-raw-src="https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/NRR4AUBINUI6ZHPICVX62PUBX4.jpg" data-threshold="243" /> <img class="unprocessed _3-to-2 placeholder " src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/resources/img/spacer-gray.png&w=3&h=2" data-hi-res-src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/XCKTHCRILMI6ZBZZLS3KXIYKGA.jpg&w=750&h=500" data-low-res-src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/XCKTHCRILMI6ZBZZLS3KXIYKGA.jpg&w=243&h=162" data-raw-src="https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/XCKTHCRILMI6ZBZZLS3KXIYKGA.jpg" data-threshold="243" /> </div> <div class="ent-photo-grid-big-caption">LEFT:

An internal CNP directory for 2015 had about 400 members across the

country. They included Kellyanne Conway, who would become a White House

counselor. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post) RIGHT: Steve Bannon,

who was chief executive of Trump’s campaign, was also listed as a

member. (Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP)</div> When

candidate Trump arrived at the CNP meeting in the fall of 2015, many

White conservative evangelicals were still aggrieved about Barack

Obama’s presidency and his promotion of progressive policies, such as

near-universal health care. The presence of a Black man in the White

House served as a reminder of a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/08/12/census-data-race-ethnicity-neighborhoods/" target="_blank">new demographic reality</a>:

They constituted a diminishing proportion of the electorate and were

losing their power to shape America’s culture and politics. [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/08/mixed-race-americans-increase-census/">‘We’re talking about a big, powerful phenomenon’: Multiracial Americans drive change</a>] Trump’s

appearance was part of a weekend-long meeting in suburban Washington;

CNP usually holds these meetings three times a year in posh hotel

conference rooms around the country. All the candidates had been invited

to speak, but only Republicans responded, a CNP official told me. I

obtained an internal CNP directory for 2015 and examined it for

insights about the kinds of people Trump would be courting. There were

about 400 members from across the country, many of them leaders of

relatively small nonprofits focused on social and religious

conservatism. But I also saw some now-familiar names: Leonard Leo, then

of the Federalist Society; Steve Bannon, then leader of Breitbart News

and later chief executive of Trump’s campaign; David Bossie, the head of

the group Citizens United and later Trump’s deputy campaign manager;

and Kellyanne Conway, who would become a White House counselor. On

hand for Trump’s presentation was Ralph Reed, an evangelical political

leader and CNP member. By his own account, he had come to know and

admire Trump. But Reed sensed intense skepticism from other CNP members,

as he writes in his book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1684510570/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thewaspos09-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1684510570&linkId=e53b1ebe22e78c2fb145bd626c8b3a0b" target="_blank">For God and Country: The Christian Case for Trump</a>.”

Then, at the meeting, something unexpected happened. After his

presentation, Trump, like the other Republican candidates, answered

questions and offered to stand with any CNP member for a photo. The line

went clear out of the ballroom. Still, in early 2016, just months before the election, Hillary Clinton

appeared to be ahead in the esteem of most Americans. It was

increasingly clear Trump needed the conservative evangelical vote to

win. “The Trump train kept rolling, and Evangelical leaders were either

going to have to get on board or get out of the way,” Reed writes.
That

March, Trump and Donald McGahn, who would become a White House lawyer,

hosted a meeting with Leo, who was involved with a nonprofit network

that was raising hundreds of millions to fund media campaigns and other

initiatives in support of conservative judges and causes. The three men

focused on the Supreme Court seat left open after the recent death of

Justice Antonin Scalia. McGahn thought Trump could benefit by releasing a

list of nominees to replace Scalia, an unusual move that would reassure

religious and social conservatives who wanted an antiabortion jurist.

Trump expressed support for one of Leo’s long-cherished goals: a federal

court system dominated by judges who would interpret the Constitution

in ways that favored business and conservative views. As

Leo later told members of CNP — where he served on the board of

governors — that was only going to happen through a campaign by the

conservative movement. “We’re going to have to understand that judicial

confirmations these days are more like political campaigns,” Leo said,

according to one of the videos I reviewed. “We’re going to have to be

smart as a movement.” [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/court-barrett-senate-trump/2020/10/25/d9eed9c0-16bc-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html">Trump’s conservative imprint on the federal judiciary gives Democrats a playbook</a>] On May 18, 2016, Trump greatly boosted his prospects when he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/18/donald-trump-releases-list-of-11-potential-supreme-court-nominees/" target="_blank">released the list of judges</a>.

The next month, he convened a faith advisory board of conservative

evangelicals at Trump Tower. Reed and James Dobson, a Christian activist

who had been with CNP from the early days, were on the board, according

to Reed’s book. The meeting was followed by an extraordinary

closed-door conclave at a Times Square hotel for nearly a thousand

conservative Christians. The Religion News Service <a href="https://religionnews.com/2016/06/21/evangelicals-give-trump-much-needed-boost-after-manhattan-summit/" target="_blank">account </a>asked

in a headline: “Could conservative Christian leaders rescue a

Republican presidential candidate whose personal lifestyle and religious

bona fides have been punchlines more than a testimonial?” But something

else in that story popped out at me: It said a chief organizer of the

Times Square conclave was CNP member Bill Dallas. Dallas was an

unusual figure. He had been convicted two decades earlier on felony

embezzlement charges. He was sent to San Quentin State Prison, where a

newfound commitment to Christianity deepened, according to his book, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001PVGPUW?ie=UTF8&tag=washpohgg2021-20&camp=1789&linkCode=xm2&creativeASIN=B001PVGPUW" target="_blank">Lessons From San Quentin</a>.”

Now he was a data entrepreneur who headed a nonprofit called United in

Purpose, which gathered and parsed information about Christian voters. Among the board members was CNP executive director Bob McEwen, who is also a former House member from Ohio. United

in Purpose’s network of allies and clients included other CNP members

from groups such as the American Family Association, the Family Research

Council and Reed’s Faith & Freedom Coalition, according to Anne

Nelson, a research scholar at Columbia University and author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/163557319X/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=thewaspos09-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=163557319X&linkId=5006bffe8b62e59cf0db7f091a506f6b" target="_blank">Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right</a>,”

a book that examines CNP. Dallas’s operation seemed a perfect

complement to other initiatives by groups affiliated with CNP members.

“What the CNP has done is convene these forces in a highly strategic way

and create an environment in which they can collaborate and leverage

each other’s work off the radar,” Nelson told me. “It’s a well-oiled

machine.” In a chat with me, Dallas said he is no longer a member

of CNP and is stepping back from political activism. He expressed pride

about the 2016 Times Square event and recalled one remark there that he

believes won over the Christian activists. It was when Trump told them

not to be ashamed of their own religious culture and beliefs. “He said,

‘Christians should not be afraid to say Merry Christmas at

Christmastime,’ ” Dallas told me. “I think that was a turning point.” In

the summer of 2016, Trump made another strategic move that would seal

the deal with Dannenfelser, the antiabortion activist, and other CNP

members. He pledged to oppose abortion and put the promises onto paper

in September. “Dear Pro-Life Leader,” Trump’s letter began. “I am

writing to invite you to join my campaign’s Pro-Life Coalition, which is

being spearheaded by longtime leader Marjorie Dannenfelser.” Trump said

he would nominate “pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court,” defund

Planned Parenthood and take other measures that the antiabortion

activists had demanded. Dannenfelser was thrilled. “Before that

we were still stomping our feet,” she said last year at a CNP meeting,

according to one of the internal videos. “Little did we know that this

man, who was a performer and can incite audiences in ways we never even

thought could be, would galvanize audiences in battleground states all

over the country and put life at the center of the project.” The CNP

crowd whooped and hollered at her remarks. In Reed’s book, he writes

that Dannenfelser told him: “Trump was my last choice until he was my first.” (A spokeswoman for Dannenfelser declined my request for an interview.) <div class="ent-pullquote "> <div class="ent-pullquote-text">In an early letter to the Reagan White House, a CNP leader wrote that the group’s goal was a “moral rebirth” for our society.</div> </div> Pence

acknowledged CNP’s support in his letter last year: “We are grateful

for CNP’s timely counsel and unique capacity to rapidly garner support

for the difficult decisions the President and I are making each day.”

And CNP meetings reflected the group’s standing with the administration.

In May 2017, for instance, Environmental Protection Agency

Administrator Scott Pruitt appeared at a CNP meeting and crowed about

the rollback of regulations, with an emphasis on Obama administration

measures aimed at climate change. “With respect to the EPA, the future

ain’t what it used to be,” he said, drawing cheers. Surgey, the

director of Documented, who first obtained the internal CNP videos I

reviewed for this story, said he “started studying CNP because it seemed

like its members were becoming a power base, in terms of their public

support of the Trump administration.” He added, “I was surprised by just

how many leading Trump advocates appear on the videos.” [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2021/climate-environment/biden-climate-environment-actions/">Tracking Biden’s unwinding of Trump’s energy and environmental policies, and new ones of his own</a>] Activist

David Horowitz spoke at a CNP meeting later in 2017. Horowitz, leader

of a nonprofit group called the David Horowitz Freedom Center, captured

the sense of desperation expressed by many on the right — a feeling

that had drawn them to Trump. “For all of Donald’s faults, and everybody

knows them, he stood on the right side. We are in a civil war,” he

said. “This is the standard-bearer for us in this war.” I

met Bob McEwen at the small suite of offices CNP maintains in the Hall

of the States building, just down the hill from the U.S. Capitol, a

remarkably tiny space for a group with such a large reach. Joining us

was lawyer Alan Dye, a CNP member and nonprofit specialist. Meeting

with someone like me was a departure for a group that has spent decades

trying to avoid attention from the mainstream media. McEwen emphasized

that CNP was not involved in political campaigns and exists only to

educate its members, leaders of allied nonprofit groups across the

country who are invited to join. Like all tax-exempt charities, CNP may

not under Internal Revenue Service rules engage in political activity or

support particular candidates for office. An affiliated group called

CNP Action — another type of nonprofit — is permitted by the IRS to

focus more on political activity. McEwen, also president of CNP

Action, told me he would not discuss the conservative movement in

general or the activity or advocacy of CNP members. When I asked about

his group’s efforts to operate in secret, he rejected the premise of the

question. “It’s not secret,” McEwen said. “It’s just private. And

anything that we want to elevate is going to be elevated by the

members.” He said CNP and its members have privacy rights, and

confidentiality helps create an atmosphere where participants can freely

exchange ideas without unwanted judgment. “Quite frankly, in a

nonpolitical sense, this is like a Rotary Club,” McEwen said. “CNP is a

convening organization of patriotic Americans that love their country

and have increasingly been of the opinion that the information they

receive is unreliable. And there’s not very many places they could get

the truth. And CNP seeks to deliver the truth.” I asked about the

influence campaigns — the advertisements, social media and such — run

by various networks of people and groups linked through CNP. As an

example, I mentioned the concerted efforts of interlocking nonprofit

groups allied with Leonard Leo. “What you’re really talking about

is a whole bunch of different networks. You could do a Venn diagram, I

suppose,” Dye said. “So there’d be pro-life. There’d be this and that.

All the various issues, and in every place they overlap would be a

network. And clearly there’s a network of people supporting conservative

judicial nominees. And Leonard, of course, would be in that network. It

might not encompass the entire CNP membership, but it might encompass a

fair number of them.” Both men asserted the networks on the left

are far larger and better funded than those on the right, and that some

are financed by billionaire philanthropist George Soros. “They’re much

bigger,” Dye told me. McEwen said, chuckling, “We’re a gnat.” <div data-elm-loc="" class="ent-photo ent-photo-fullwidth "> <a name="5DDIX6BNAYI6ZGC5GFIPPYIGWI" /><a name="5DDIX6BNAYI6ZGC5GFIPPYIGWI"></a><a name="5DDIX6BNAYI6ZGC5GFIPPYIGWI" /><a name="5DDIX6BNAYI6ZGC5GFIPPYIGWI"> </a></div><a name="5DDIX6BNAYI6ZGC5GFIPPYIGWI"> </a><a name="5DDIX6BNAYI6ZGC5GFIPPYIGWI">I

learned about another dimension of CNP through a video featuring Jim

DeMint, a former senator and tea party favorite. It was 2018, and he was

telling CNP members about an initiative called the Conservative Action

Project, which had been launched years earlier by CNP leaders.</a> <a name="5DDIX6BNAYI6ZGC5GFIPPYIGWI">CAP

claims to include more than 100 groups “representing all major elements

of the conservative movement — economic, social, and national

security.” Its website publishes policy memos signed by the leaders of

its member groups. It turns out that, according to documents, CAP shares

an address with CNP, and many CAP activists are members of both groups.

CAP also works hand-in-hand with yet another group that DeMint had

started not long before called the Conservative Partnership Institute.

(“The Conservative Partnership Institute arms, trains, and unites

conservative leaders in Washington ready to fight,” its </a><a href="https://www.cpi.org/">website until recently stated.</a>) “The

whole point was to support people on the inside,” explained DeMint,

listed on the 2018 video as a CNP executive committee member. “But that

doesn’t work unless we’ve got people like the folks here tonight with

the Council of National Policy on the outside building public support

for the right ideas to get things done. We’ve got an outside game. We’ve

got an inside game. And it’s the only way to win.” DeMint said

CAP’s efforts were coming to fruition under the Trump administration.

“Folks, there are more of us than there are of them. There is no reason

for conservatives to be losing,” he said. “We got the power in our

hands.” At

one point in the video, DeMint praised Trump. “We’ve got an amazing

opportunity here,” DeMint told them. “And it’s incredible with this

president, who is the last person I ever thought would promote religious

freedom, pro-life. I mean, the Lord confuses things!” He grinned and

paused while the CNP crowd broke into laughter and applause. “But this

guy’s more genuine than anybody I’ve ever known,” he said. “I mean, I

don’t know, I’m just really confused. But then, he seems willing to work

for us because he’s confused, too.” I recalled another internal

CNP video where others described how a delegation of CNP and CAP

officials met most every week with Trump administration officials, often

at the White House. “It’s kind of this little secretive huddle that

meets every Wednesday morning,” Paul Teller, director of strategic

initiatives for Pence when he was vice president, said on the video. Yet

another video included Rachel Bovard, a conservative activist who works

closely with DeMint at CPI. She said CAP people worked behind the

scenes with the White House and allies in Congress to maintain public

support for Trump during <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/impeachment/" target="_blank">impeachment </a>proceedings.

“We worked a lot to coordinate messaging,” Bovard said. Throughout the

Trump administration, she explained, CAP leaders also collaborated with

White House officials to select political appointees. “We work very

closely — CAP does and then we at CPI also — with the Office of

Presidential Personnel at the White House to try and get good

conservatives in the positions, because we see what happens when we

don’t vet these people,” she said, adding: “All these people that led

the impeachment against President Trump shouldn’t have been there in the

first place.” Last

year, in the months before the election, there was a new air of

desperation in some of the rhetoric of CNP members. L. Brent Bozell III,

a CNP executive committee member, claimed in a closed-door meeting that

“evidence is pouring out of an attempt by the far left to steal the

election,” an internal video shows. “Today we’re as close to

losing this nation as we ever have been,” Kay Coles James, then

president of the Heritage Foundation, said at another CNP session,

according to an internal video. “And make no mistake about it: This

November is not about winning or losing an election. It’s about winning

or losing our country.” [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/durbin-report-trump-pressure-justice/2021/10/07/b51712d4-2769-11ec-8d53-67cfb452aa60_story.html">Senate report gives new details of Trump efforts to use Justice Dept. to overturn election</a>] The integrity of elections has been a preoccupation on the right for years. In 2017, Trump announced a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/01/04/trumps-controversial-election-integrity-commission-is-gone-heres-what-comes-next/" target="_blank">Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity</a>,

which included two CNP members: Kenneth Blackwell, the former secretary

of state in Ohio, and J. Christian Adams of the Public Interest Legal

Foundation. In August 2019, Lisa Nelson, a CNP member and chief

executive of the American Legislative Exchange Council, launched an

initiative called “ALEC Political Process Working Group,” according to

an internal email. Among other things, the group was going to focus on

“election law and ballot integrity.” (In a letter to funders defending

that effort this year, Nelson said the group “connected legislators with

each other as well as federal officials to discuss process and

governance issues including the census, redistricting and other issues

related to how state governments work.”) Among those working with

her was a CNP board of governors member named Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer

who often speaks in the closed-door meetings about issues around

election integrity. Mitchell has described herself jokingly as

“consigliere to the vast right-wing conspiracy.” She was a driving force

behind the allegations a decade ago that the IRS and Obama White House

engaged in a political witch hunt against tea party groups — and later

worked closely with Trump as he disputed the 2020 election results. <div class="ent-pullquote "> <div class="ent-pullquote-text">[“We’ve

got an amazing opportunity here,” Jim DeMint told CNP members about

Trump in one video. “This guy’s more genuine than anybody I’ve ever

known.”</div> </div> In February 2020, Nelson told a CNP Action

session that ALEC, in collaboration with Mitchell and other CNP members,

had begun prepping state lawmakers on rules they could invoke during an

election dispute. “And I think we’ve identified a few,” she said

in the meeting. “They can write a letter to the secretary of state

questioning the validity of an election and saying, ‘What did happen

that night?’ So we are drafting a lot of those things. If you have ideas

in that area, let us know and we’ll get those to the state legislators,

and they can start to kind of exercise their political muscle in that

area.” That spring, the election preparations coincided with

efforts by CNP members to push back against pandemic restrictions.

Working through newly formed coalitions, the members pumped out messages

aimed at opposing face masks, business closures and other measures to

contain the coronavirus. The campaigns received attention in

mainstream media. But the fact that CNP members played leading roles was

not generally understood. One new push was called the <a href="https://www.freedomworks.org/content/conservative-groups-launch-save-our-country-coalition">Save Our Country Coalition</a>.

It was announced by FreedomWorks, whose leader is a CNP member. Other

participants included Nelson from ALEC and Jenny Beth Martin, a CNP

member and leader of Tea Party Patriots. Nearly two dozen participants

in all were CNP members. The group called for a resumption of normal

economic activity, an end to federal control of the nation’s pandemic

response and protection of “individual liberties of our citizens from

unconstitutional power grabs by the federal, state and local

governments.” Weeks later, McEwen and other members hosted a

confidential conference call for activists that included Trump campaign

officials. Their goal was to make recommendations to the campaign and

coordinate efforts to pressure state and federal officials to reopen the

country. According to a recording of the call obtained by the Center

for Media and Democracy, a left-leaning group, McEwen opened with a

prayer: “We would give you the praise in Christ’s name.” He described

government efforts to contain the pandemic as “tyranny.” [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/09/27/grim-reality-partisan-pandemic/">Analysis: The grim reality of a partisan pandemic</a>] CNP

member Nancy Schulze told the campaign officials about “a doctors

coalition who are extremely pro-Trump that have been preparing and

coming together for the war ahead in the campaign, on health care.” A

campaign official expressed enthusiasm. “Those are the type of guys that

we should want to get out on TV and radio to help push out the

message,” the official said. The

next few months became a whirlwind for CNP members. At a CNP meeting in

August, the organizers of the health-care initiatives offered more

details on what they were up to, internal videos show: It was an

advertising campaign crafted or promoted by several nonprofits and CNP

allies, including former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Tom Price,

former health and human services secretary under Trump. In a video

of the session, organizers showed examples of ads featuring doctors in

white lab coats. “And so I remind people that what we’re trying to do is

put on theater here,” said Alfredo Ortiz, president of a group called

Job Creators Network and chief executive of its affiliated foundation.

“It’s the stage. It’s the script and the actors.” During another

CNP session that August, various members also discussed the upcoming

election in breathless terms. Some zeroed in on the proliferation of

mail-in balloting as an ominous trend, claiming it made the system ripe

for fraud. “We need to stop those ballots from going out, and I want the

lawyers here to tell us what to do,” said Tom Fitton, CNP’s new

president and the leader of Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog

group. J. Christian Adams, the former Justice Department official

who served on Trump’s election integrity commission, described mail-in

voting in the video as “the number one left-wing agenda.” He urged CNP

members not to be cowed by criticism about efforts to stop such voting.

“Be not afraid of the accusations that you’re a voter suppressor, you’re

a racist and so forth,” Adams said. (Fitton and Adams did not respond

to requests for comment for this article. In a previous email, Adams

stood by his remarks. In an interview last fall, Fitton told me: “The

left has war-gamed this out. … And it could cause civil war.”) As

I watched the video of these men and other CNP members describing the

election with such passion, I wondered: Were they trying to outdo one

another in the zeal department in a play to wealthy donors? I knew from

tax filings that donations to some groups led by CNP members had soared

during the Trump years. Donations to Judicial Watch, for example, rose

to $104 million last year from $44 million four years earlier, tax

filings show. In October 2020, I wrote a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/council-national-policy-video/2020/10/14/367f24c2-f793-11ea-a510-f57d8ce76e11_story.html" target="_blank">Post story</a>

about those and other election-related discussions at the group’s

meetings. But of course, I learned later that much more was in play.

Multiple people from far-right groups were promoting a movement to “Stop

the Steal” that included specious claims that Trump won. One of the

most prominent leaders was a former CNP fellow named Ali Alexander,

formerly Ali Akbar. “We will not go quietly. We’ll shut down this

country if we have to,” Alexander said at a Phoenix rally in December,

later leading the crowd in a chant of “1776.” [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/08/06/trumps-brazen-attempt-overturn-2020-election-timeline/">Timeline: Trump’s pressure campaign to overturn the 2020 election</a>] At least five other CNP members and their groups worked with other Trump supporters to amplify the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2020/election-integrity/" target="_blank">Stop the Steal claims</a>.

On Dec. 30, Cleta Mitchell wrote to White House Chief of Staff Mark

Meadows and offered to send some 1,800 pages of documents purporting to

support claims of election fraud, according to an email included in a

report this month by Democratic staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Three days later, Mitchell joined Trump on a call <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-raffensperger-call-georgia-vote/2021/01/03/d45acb92-4dc4-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html" target="_blank">aimed at pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state</a> “to find 11,780 votes,” the report said. <div class="ent-raw-container custom-html"><div class="ent-note"> <div class="ent-note-title">[Read more</div> <div class="ent-note-body"> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/02/25/this-rural-liberal-set-out-talk-his-pro-trump-neighbors/"> This rural liberal set out to talk to his pro-Trump neighbors. It didn’t go well — until it did. </a> </div> <div class="ent-note-body"> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/2021/03/22/latino-men-trump-2020/"> Why did Latino men shift toward Trump in 2020? I looked to my dad for answers.</a>] </div> </div></div> Several CNP members were involved in the organization or promotion of the rallies preceding the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6. Jenny

Beth Martin was listed as a speaker in promotional materials (though

she did not speak, in the end) and Tea Party Patriots was listed as a

“coalition partner.” CNP member Charlie Kirk — the leader of <a href="https://www.tpusa.com/LIVE?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Grant%20TPUSA&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5561yNig7gIVGvLjBx3ysggmEAAYAiAAEgJ8APD_BwE">Turning Point USA</a>,

a group oriented to conservative students, and Turning Point Action,

its political advocacy arm — offered to transport and house student

protesters. Months earlier, Turning Point Action was behind a secretive

campaign that relied on teenagers to pump out social media postings in

favor of Trump. Meanwhile, Ginni Thomas, then a CNP Action board member, praised rallygoers in tweets: “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/ginni-thomas-apology-clarence-thomas-clerks-trump-rally/2021/02/02/a9818cce-6496-11eb-8c64-9595888caa15_story.html" target="_blank">LOVE MAGA people!!!!</a>”

Ultimately, Stop the Steal organizers urged protesters to “take to” the

Capitol steps “to make sure that Congress does not certify the botched

Electoral College” on Jan. 6, according to webpages that have since been

removed. Thomas did not respond to a request for comment. She <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/ginni-thomas-apology-clarence-thomas-clerks-trump-rally/2021/02/02/a9818cce-6496-11eb-8c64-9595888caa15_story.html">wrote a note on social media</a>

stressing that her encouragement came before the violence. Kirk, Martin

and other CNP members who helped the rallies condemned the subsequent

events at the Capitol. “We are shocked, outraged, and saddened,” Martin

told me in an e-mail in January. McEwen also condemned the

insurrection, saying CNP had no role in the events or its members’

activity. “What they do on their own time — I won’t say I don’t care —

we have no interest or capacity to monitor,” McEwen told me earlier this

year. [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/capitol-rally-organizers-before-riots/2021/01/16/c5b40250-552d-11eb-a931-5b162d0d033d_story.html">Rallies ahead of Capitol riot were planned by established Washington insiders</a>] That

reminded me of something he told me last year: CNP itself “doesn’t do

ad campaigns. It doesn’t do brochures. It is a meeting of leaders,” he

said. “Anything that’s done is done by the membership, not by the

Council for National Policy.” <div class="ent-photo-grid ent-photo-grid-2"> <img class="unprocessed _3-to-2 placeholder " src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://www.washingtonpost.com/pb/resources/img/spacer-gray.png&w=3&h=2" data-hi-res-src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/OGKIKPA4LMI6ZPVIGCHKCNCZJ4.jpg&w=750&h=500" data-low-res-src="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/OGKIKPA4LMI6ZPVIGCHKCNCZJ4.jpg&w=243&h=162" data-raw-src="https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/OGKIKPA4LMI6ZPVIGCHKCNCZJ4.jpg" data-threshold="243" /> </div> <div class="ent-photo-grid-big-caption">[LEFT:

Former vice president Mike Pence recently became a “dues-paying CNP

member,” according to one speaker at a CNP event. (Attila

Kisbenedek/AFP/Getty Images) RIGHT: Charlie Kirk, center, listens as

President Donald Trump speaks at the 2018 Young Black Leadership Summit

in the East Room of the White House. Kirk, a member of the Council for

National Policy, is leader of Turning Point USA, a group oriented to

conservative students. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)]</div> After

it was clear that Biden was the next president — and nothing was going

to undo that — CNP members and their allies dove headlong into new

initiatives. Much of their activism now seems focused on state

legislatures and election rules. And once again, groups with ties to CNP

appear to be closely coordinating with one another. In March,

two months after Biden’s inauguration, a CNP leader named Kelly

Shackelford hosted a private Zoom session organized by CNP Action.

Shackelford is president of First Liberty Institute, a legal

organization that promotes religious liberties. The call focused on H.R.

1, sweeping reform legislation that Democrats promised would, among

other things, make it far easier for Americans to vote. Shackelford said

the bill represented “the existential threat for our country.” “The

number one priority of the Nancy Pelosi Democrats was to change the

rules for our elections to ensure that the Democrats would never, ever,

ever lose again,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), according to someone

participating on the call. “This bill is a partisan power grab at an

order of magnitude we have never seen.” For nearly an hour,

speakers urged CNP members and their allies to coordinate their efforts

to pressure Congress and sway regular Americans. They recommended the

use of billboards, websites, social media, Internet memes and “on the

street” videos of people opposed to H.R. 1. They suggested organizing

protests at the homes of certain Democratic lawmakers. “Urban art

is another really exceptional strategy, both for the media and for

actually awakening the American people with a visceral campaign,” one

official on the call said. Instead of a Stop the Steal movement, “we

want to establish ‘Stop the Pigs’ or ‘Stop the Corrupt Politicians,’ ”

as social media themes. It was vital, the official said, to “kill this

bill” without getting “trapped in a voter suppression conversation.” In

an interview, Shackelford defended the call. “I’ve looked at that bill.

It’s just crazy stuff,” he told me. He also defended the persuasion

tactics. “I mean, I’m sure everybody on every side does that, right?” At

the same time, CNP members have expanded related campaigns regarding

voter laws. An effort called the Election Transparency Initiative was started with the endorsement of Dannenfelser, who has continued to make <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/11/trumps-fusillade-falsehoods-mail-voting/" target="_blank">dubious claims</a>

about the election. “The integrity of our electoral system was severely

compromised in 2020 when pro-abortion Democrats — utilizing the

COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse — weakened state laws that ensure free

and fair elections,” she said in a Feb. 23 news release. Leonard

Leo and a former Heritage Foundation official have ties to a group

launched last year called the Honest Elections Project. Kenneth

Blackwell took the lead of a group called the <a href="https://americafirstpolicy.com/latest/afpi-announces-chair-and-director-of-the-center-for-election-integrity/">Center for Election Integrity</a>.

He told me election-rule changes during the pandemic to encourage

mail-in balloting created significant vulnerabilities in the electoral

system. He said that allied groups would collaborate to become “force

multipliers” on the issue. Cleta Mitchell and FreedomWorks,

meanwhile, are teaming up for the National Election Protection

Initiative. “What is urgently needed today is the involvement by

conservative and patriotic Americans in the election process at the

local and state levels, challenging the vast resources of the leftist

groups who have dominated election activism for too long,” Mitchell told

Newsmax. By early October, 19 statehouses had passed 33 laws curbing

voting access, according to the <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-october-2021">Brennan Center for Justice</a> in New York. (Mitchell declined to comment for this story.) CNP

members have also joined Advancing American Freedom, a new group

co-founded by Mike Pence. About half of the 40-some people on the

group’s advisory board and its board of directors have been CNP members

or guests in recent years, a review of internal directories and videos

shows. And Pence himself recently became a “dues-paying CNP member,”

according to Feulner’s speech. [<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-weighing-2024-run-pence-tests-whether-there-is-political-life-after-trump/2021/10/06/523a1df2-2217-11ec-9309-b743b79abc59_story.html">In weighing 2024 run, Pence tests whether there is political life after Trump</a>] Marc

Short, Pence’s former chief of staff, told me that, for AAF, Pence

wanted a combination of people who served in the Trump administration

and those “who represent the more traditional elements of the

conservative movement.” “I think we can marry them together to sort of

build a winning coalition,” Short added. That will be a tall

order. Some conservatives I interviewed for this story said that Trump

had effectively fractured the movement. Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at

the Ethics & Public Policy Center who was previously a speechwriter

for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, said the

conservative movement was in a long decline by the time Trump was

elected. “The conservative movement, I think it was already sort of

stuck in a time warp,” he said. “It was like every day was January 20th,

1981.” That remark stuck with me. It captured a feeling I had

about CNP throughout my efforts to understand the group. In their quest

to remake our country — to purge it of the cultural and political decay

they believe has sapped it of virtue — CNP members are looking backward

to receding triumphs. But it’s clear they’re also looking forward — and

they are as determined as ever to shape the nation’s future. Late

this month CNP leaders and the Conservative Action Project are slated

to host a strategy summit in the nation’s capital for the leaders of

more than 100 conservative groups. They want to seek ways “to slow the

Administration’s left wing policies” and advance a conservative agenda

in Congress and the states, according to an invitation obtained by

American Oversight, a left-leaning group in Washington. The title of the

meeting? “Saving the Country: The Pathway Forward.” Robert O’Harrow Jr. is an investigative reporter at The Post.
==<div>cpi demint incub off bs  <a href="https://www.conservativepartnership.org/staff">https://www.conservativepartnership.org/staff</a></div><div>
</div><div>Matthew is Deputy Director at Large of OpenTheBooks.com. Matthew is also an active board member of Project Veritas, where he works closely with founder and modern-day muckraker James O'Keefe. In addition to his domestic issue-based political activism, he is also an engaged Polish dual citizen and advises the current conservative Polish government on an ad hoc basis. Mr. Tyrmand frequently appears in Polish mass media commenting on Polish, American, and European political issues. Moreover, he pens a weekly column for one of Poland's top conservative newsweeklies, Do Rzeczy. He has contributed to Breitbart, Forbes, American Thinker, The American Conservative, The Jerusalem Post, The European Conservative, and numerous other Polish and American outlets and has authored two books in the Polish market. He is a Claremont Institute Lincoln Fellow and a member of the Philadelphia Society. Before entering the conservative movement full time, Mr. Tyrmand spent the years following his graduation from the University of Chicago in the finance industry as an equity and equity derivatives trader, analyst, and portfolio manager at some of Wall Street's most well-known hedge funds.  https://www.conservativepartnership.org/staff
<div>
</div><div></div></div>

<p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;">Congratulations are in order for Jim DeMint: Saying that his move signals a “new mission” for the Tea Party, the former senator has gone from presiding over <a href="http://gawker.com/leaked-files-show-how-the-heritage-foundation-navigates-1727706821" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">one of the most well-funded institutions</a> in the dark-money ecosystem to advising one of the most radical. DeMint, the Republican who retired from the Senate in 2013 to run the Heritage Foundation has been named a “senior advisor” to the Convention of States Project—a nationwide effort <a href="http://fusion.kinja.com/right-wing-billionaires-are-buying-themselves-a-new-con-1793960357#ga=2.254206336.924033623.1497300927-1445517093.1479398248" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">backed by billionaires like the Kochs and the Mercers</a> to revise the United States Constitution without the approval of Congress.

<p style="margin: 0px auto 1.25rem; font-size: small; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; word-break: break-word; padding: 0px; line-height: 32px; max-width: 636px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A hero to Tea Party Republicans, DeMint <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/24/us/politics/in-the-demint-era-at-heritage-a-shift-from-policy-to-politics.html?r=0" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">was already perceived</a> to have led Heritage away from its policy-oriented beginnings, and <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/02/why-jim-demint-was-ousted-from-heritage-237876" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">according to Politico</a>, his continued support for Trump drove a wedge between him and the Heritage Foundation’s board of directors. They voted early last month to remove DeMint as president of the organization amid a broader debate in the conservative establishment over what posture to take towards an increasingly volatile Trump administration. Various activist groups have sought to amend the constitution on specific points through an Article V convention before, but few have been as well-funded or as ideologically driven as theConvention of States Project, steeped in evangelical Christianity and backed by millions of dollars in dark money. Between 2011 and 2015, the group’s <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3525760-Citizens-for-Self-Governance-2015-Form-990.html" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">budget</a> more than tripled to $5.7 million—buoyed by donations from the Mercer Family Foundation and various donor-advised funds linked to the Koch brothers. (Eric O’Keefe, a longtime Koch operative, co-founded the Convention of States Project’s parent organization, Citizens for Self Governance, and serves as chairman of its board of directors.) Two thirds of state legislatures (so, 34) must pass resolutions petitioning Congress to hold an Article V convention in order to make it happen; so far, <a href="https://www.cosaction.com/missouri_passes_convention_of_states_application_becoming_12th_state_to_do_so" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">12 have passed</a> the Convention of States application.

<p style=" margin: 0px auto 1.25rem; box-sizing: inherit; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; word-break: break-word; padding: 0px; line-height: 32px; max-width: 636px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“People are disgusted with Washington,” <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/12/jim-demint-joins-group-that-wants-to-amend-constitution-tea-party/102748540/" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">DeMint told USA Today</a>. “They are ready to move power back closer to home.” A fitting cause for the gentleman from South Carolina—although, actually, the preferred terminology these days isn’t “states’ rights” but “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/12/05/next-up-for-alec-taming-the-federal-government/?utm_term=.48b55023830f" target="blank" rel="noopener" style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; outline: currentcolor none medium; box-sizing: inherit; line-height: inherit;">local control</a>.

==
ggl 722
c St.: where scandal meets spirituality - POLITICO
https://www.politico.com › story › 2009/07 › c-st-wher...
Jul 20, 2009 — Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) described living at C Street as “one of the best parts” of life in Washington. “We kind of make that commitment to ...

Sex and power inside "the C Street House" - Salon.com
https://www.salon.com › ... › Jeff Sharlet's Articles
Jul 21, 2009 — Jim DeMint, one of Ensign's C Street roommates, insists that the prayer groups that meet there -- "invisible believing groups," in the Family's ...

C Street Center - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › C_Street_Center
The C Street Center is a three-story brick townhouse in Washington, D.C. operated by The Fellowship. It is the former convent for nearby St. Peter's Church.
‎Background · ‎Controversy · ‎Tax status, subsidized...

A Refuge For Powerful Lawmakers - NPR
https://www.npr.org › templates › story › story
Sep 23, 2010 — Jim DeMint. Sharlet writes about C Street and the politicians who are affiliated with the house in C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to ...

Behind the closed doors on C Street - Las Vegas Sun
https://lasvegassun.com › news › jul › behind-closed-do...
Jul 19, 2009 — 133 C Street S.E. is registered as a church and affiliated with a secretive ... within The Family than Ensign would be Coburn or DeMint.

C Street Scandal, the Media, the Future of the Family
https://religiondispatches.org › c-street-scandal-the-med...
Oct 1, 2009 — C Street Scandal, the Media, the Future of the Family: An Interview with ... Senator Sam Brownback, Senator Jim DeMint, and, now infamously, ...

The Boys of C Street - Vanity Fair
https://www.vanityfair.com › News › republicans
Aug 5, 2009 — Six devout “family values” politicians rent rooms at C Street House, ... /photos/$$img:/images/blogs/2009/08/head-demint.jpg]__Senator Jim ...

Did The New Yorker Really Have To Blow Every Last Member ...
https://washingtoncitypaper.com › Archives
Sep 29, 2010 — ... and connections to various official government intelligence agencies are sprinkled throughout C Street and the Family Rolodex; ...

Who Lives At The C Street Center In 2019? Netflix's ... - Bustle
https://www.bustle.com › who-lives-at-the-c-street-cente...
Aug 9, 2019 — Netflix's The Family dives into the mysterious group of the same name that, despite not being well-known outside of political circles, ...
Missing: demint ‎| Must include: demint

Secrets of C Street - The Daily Beast
https://www.thedailybeast.com › secrets-of-c-street
Jul 26, 2009 — A list of American politicians associated with the Family, most of whom are right-wing Republicans but also some Democrats, including, at one ...

</div>

==

demint617

===

lcv score 7

==

bails to head heritage:  http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/12/06/1293171/jim-demint-resign/

In an unexpected move, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), an arch-conservative and leader of the Tea Party movement, is resigning his seat in order to head up the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington DC.

DeMint has been among the most extreme members of the Senate since first getting elected in 2004, drawing a hard-right line on issues from unions to LGBT rights to abortion and beyond.

Here’s a look back at some of DeMint’s Senate highlights:

1. Stood with Akin after “legitimate rape” remarks. Following Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) infamous statement that victims of “legitimate rape” can’t become pregnant, DeMint was one of the first major conservatives to stand with the Missouri congressman. DeMint even used his political action committee to donate $90,000 to Akin’s campaign and used its network to raise hundreds of thousands more. “We support Todd Akin and hope freedom-loving Americans in Missouri and around the country will join us,” DeMint’s group said.

2. Led the opposition against Obamacare. In 2009, during the height of the GOP’s opposition to health care reform, DeMint told a conference call of conservative activists that, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Ironically, DeMint once supported Mitt Romney’s health care reform in Massachusetts, the law on which Obamacare is based.

3. Wants to prevent gay or unmarried teachers from teaching in public schools. In 2010, DeMint “said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.” During his first Senate campaign in 2004, DeMint agreed with the state party’s platform barring gay teachers from public schools, claiming that the government shouldn’t endorse certain behaviors.....

==

, "Both senators from eight states of the 'Toxic 20' states -- Kentucky, Indiana, Georgia, Texas, Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi -- supported a resolution by Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., to repeal the health-protective mercury and air toxics standard."

==

democ now

ceo jpm dimon kiss ass:

SEN. JIM DEMINT: Thank you, Mr. Dimon. I really appreciate you voluntarily coming in to talk with us. It is important that we talk about things happening in the industry. It will, I think, advise us, help us and—as we look forward, and hopefully it will contribute to best practice scenario in the industry, and I appreciate your emphasis on a continuous quality improvement. We can hardly sit in judgment of your losing $2 billion. We lose twice that every day here in Washington and plan to continue to do that every day. And it’s comforting to know that even with the $2 million—$2 billion loss in a trade last year, your company still, I think, had a $19 billion profit. During that same period, we lost over a trillion dollars. So if we had a clawback provision, none of us would be getting paid here. So the intent today is really not to sit in judgment, but to maybe understand better what happened.

===

one of most conservative

wants to defund NPR

kingmaker/funding provider

Reporting from Washington —

Republican South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint's political action committee, which is trying to elect like-minded conservatives to the Senate, made a fundraising push Friday as it neared its $5-million goal.

The committee already has invested $4.9 million in 11 Senate campaigns, including those of Christine O'Donnell in Delaware, Rand Paul in Kentucky and others.

On Friday, DeMint highlighted Joe Miller in Alaska, who beat Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the primary but now faces a write-in challenge from the incumbent, as well as the campaigns of Ken Buck in Colorado, Dino Rossi in Washington and Sharron Angle in Nevada.

C street

met w/ honduran coup prez?

----

TP:

Koch Industries—Executing The Inside Game

“On the day in October 2009, David Koch announced he had planned the Tea Party movement Koch gave Senator Jim DeMint the [Americans for Prosperity Foundation] Washington Award.”

I had already determined Sen. Jim DeMint’s obvious role – he has repeatedly endorsed “tea party” candidates* throughout the country and a little research at www.opensecrets.org produced the information he has received $62K in donations from Koch Industries.  (In addition to some nice contributions by Club for Growth and AT&T – net neutrality anyone?  And, of course, DeMint’s protégés would be more than happy to vote him in as the next Leader of the Senate – either as majority or as minority).  I doubt his vanity is behind this, however.  His principles, maybe -

Senator Jim DeMint: “Well, I think people are seeing this massive government growing and they’re realizing that it’s the government that’s hurting us and I think they’re turning back to God in effect is our salvation and government is not our salvation and in fact more and more people see government as the problem and so I think some have been drawn in over the years to a dependency relationship with government and as the Bible says you can’t have two masters and I think as people pull back from that they look more to God. It’s no coincidence that socialist Europe is post-Christian because the bigger the government gets the smaller God gets and vice-versa. The bigger God gets the smaller people want their government because they’re yearning for freedom.”

As he ranks as one of the poorest Senators, money does not appear to be his issue.  His “C Street” association with “The Family” and the above statement indicates he’s much more dangerous – an ideologue.

And now Senator DeMint has anointed himself king/dictator/president to decide what will get passed in the Senate.  A one man bandit holding up the Senate.  If the Dems hold the Senate, is this what we can expect for the next two years from the Senate?  If the GOTP takes over the Senate, will he continue this tactic to for the GOP to get in line behind him?

I don’t think this is how our democratic republic is supposed to work.   And I think this is a warm up to protect the interests of the Koch brothers and their kind who have decided to put their interests ahead of the people in this country.  It seems money (for them) can buy happiness.  For the rest of us…not so much.

*  Christine O’Donnell, Ovide Lamontagne, Ken Buck, Rand Paul, Pat Toomey, Marco Rubio, Joe Miller, Dino Rossi (an establishment candidate who beat the Tea Party/Palin endorsed Clint Didier,.  Chuck DeVore (an establishment candidate who lost to Fiorina)

http://politicsunspun.com/?p=244

===

Leadership PAC:

MINT PAC

Senate Conservatives Fund

Career Fundraising

1989 - 2010 Total Receipts:

$17,204,404

1989 - 2010 Total Spent:

$14,758,643

Debts:

$0

Last Report:

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Top 5 Contributors, 1998 - 2010

Contributor

Total

Indivs

PACs

Club for Growth

$153,996

$147,100

$6,896

Scana Corp

$77,725

$62,725

$15,000

Cancer Centers of the Carolinas

$71,500

$0

Nelson, Mullins et al

$67,374

$48,874

$18,500

Edens & Avant

$60,000

$0

...view more data

SCANA Corporation (SCANA), through its wholly owned regulated subsidiaries, is primarily engaged in the generation, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity in parts of South Carolina and in the purchase, transmission and sale of natural gas in portions of North Carolina and South Carolina. Through a wholly owned nonregulated subsidiary, SCANA markets natural gas to retail customers in Georgia and to wholesale customers primarily in the southeast. Other wholly owned nonregulated subsidiaries provide fiber optic and other telecommunications services and provide service contracts to homeowners on certain home appliances and heating and air conditioning units. A service company subsidiary of SCANA provides administrative, management and other services to SCANA and its subsidiaries.  Ceo funded b2 and McC

PACs

Nelson, Mullins et al lawyers

Fundraising/Spending by Cycle

2010 election

Total Receipts

$260,900

Total Spent  (view expenditures)

$319,923

Begin Cash on Hand

$62,767

End Cash on Hand

$3,744

Debts

$0

Date of last report

October 13, 2010

Contributions from this PAC to federal candidates (list recipients)

(72% to Democrats, 28% to Republicans)

$200,050

Contributions to this PAC from individual donors of $200 or more ( list donors)

$162,570

partner: Mr. Farrier has tried numerous cases in nonjury settings and has successfully resolved litigation through pre-trial dismissals and settlements. He has represented clients ranging from international insurance companies and oil conglomerates to national for-profit hospitals to local developers, investors, and closely held corporations. These cases have involved claims of ground water contamination, patent infringement, unfair competition and trade practices, violations of healthcare regulations, breaches of contract or fiduciary duties, partnership and shareholder disputes, thefts of trade secrets, bad faith denial of insurance coverage, and other allegations of improper conduct in business transactions. http://www.nelsonmullins.com/attorneys/richard-farrier

Top 5 Industries, 1998 - 2010

Industry

Total

Indivs

PACs

Retired

$1,120,618

$0

Health Professionals

$834,505

$607,005

$227,500

Republican/Conservative

$801,888

$723,229

$78,659

Real Estate

$760,627

$668,127

$92,500

Lawyers/Law Firms

$736,548

$606,250

$130,298

...view more data

Source of Funds

Individual Contributions

$12,002,559

(70%)

PAC Contributions

$4,247,868

(25%)

Candidate self-financing

$10,000

(0%)

Other

$943,977

(5%)

NOTE: All the numbers on this page are for the 1998 - 2010 election cycles and based on Federa

---

James Warren "Jim" DeMint is the Junior Senator for the state of South Carolina. He is a Republican and was first elected in 2004. (map)

Contents

[hide]

1 Record and controversies

1.1 Iraq War

1.2 Environmental record

1.2.1 Block of the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007

1.3 National security and foreign policy

2 Biography

3 Money in politics

4 Committees and Affiliations

4.1 Committees

4.1.1 Committee assignments in the 109th Congress (2005-2006)

5 More Background Data

6 Contact

6.1 Campaign contact information

6.2 Twitter

7 Articles and resources

7.1 Resources

7.2 Local blogs and discussion sites

7.3 Articles

7.3.1 Articles By DeMint

7.3.2 General Articles

Record and controversies

General information about important bills and votes for can be found in Congresspedia's articles on legislation. You can add information you find on how Jim DeMint voted by clicking the "[edit]" link to the right and typing it in. Remember to cite your sources!

Iraq War

DeMint voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 that started the Iraq War.[1]

For more information see the chart of U.S. House of Representatives votes on the Iraq War.

Environmental record

For more information on environmental legislation, see the Energy and Environment Policy Portal

Block of the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007

On June 28, 2007, Sen. DeMint blocked a deal between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that would have started up long-stalled conference proceedings on the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007. DeMint made an objection to the agreement by phone to the Senate floor, minutes after McConnell had said Republicans would drop their objections to naming conferees. DeMint argued that he would not let the bill proceed until certain earmark reforms were accepted. He stated, "We will not have earmark reform during this year’s appropriations process. That is why this is being done," DeMint charged on the floor, adding later that "the only reason to go to conference with [the rules] in is to take them out." Democrats responded, Harry Reid commenting, "Here we are, seconds from going to conference and a call comes in to the Republican cloak room. I understand the Minority Leader has a responsibility to take that ... but the eyes of the nation are on us... to not let us go to conference on some petty issue that my friend has raised is really bad.”

Main article: Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007

National security and foreign policy

In early March 2007, the Senate began debate on a security bill (S.4) similar to the one passed by the House. The Senate legislation would drop House-passed provisions that would require that all containers on U.S.-bound vessels be screened in foreign ports for radiation, and all cargo loaded onto U.S. airliners be screened for explosives. Like the House version, the Senate bill contained a provision allowing airport screeners (employees of the Transportation Security Administration) to unionize. The Bush administration declared that the president would veto the bill if the provision was included in any bill which reached his desk. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff echoed Bush’s opposition, arguing that unionization would impede the department’s quick response to possible threats. Sen. DeMint promised to help uphold a veto, telling Bush “If the final bill contains such a provision, forcing you to veto it, we pledge to sustain your veto.”

Main article: Congressional efforts to implement recommendations of the 9/11 commission

Biography

DeMint was born September 2, 1951 in Greenville, South Carolina. He was educated at Wade Hampton High School in Greenville, the University of Tennessee and Clemson University. He owned a market research firm in Greenville.

DeMint won the Republican primary for the 4th district in 1998, when Fourth District Congressman Bob Inglis decided to honor a promise to serve only three terms in the House and run against Senator Fritz Hollings. DeMint easily won election in November. The district is considered the most Republican in the state, and he never faced serious or well-funded opposition.

DeMint declared his candidacy for the Senate on December 12, 2002 after Hollings decided to retire after the 2004 elections. DeMint placed a distant second in that primary on June 8, 2004, 18 points behind former South Carolina governor David Beasley. However, he won a convincing victory in the runoff, and faced Democratic state education superintendent Inez Tenenbaum in November. The state's strong support for George W. Bush gave DeMint enough of a push to defeat her by 9.6 percentage points in November.

DeMint favors eliminating the Internal Revenue Service and Federal income tax. Additionally, while in Congress he sponsored legislation that would replace the current system with a 23% national sales tax on all goods and services. He claimed he had signed onto the legislation "to advance the debate" on tax reform, and that he did not specifically favor that version of reform over others.

DeMint also stirred controversy during debates with Tenenbaum when he stated his belief that openly gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools. [1] When questioned by reporters, DeMint also stated that single mothers who live with their boyfriends should similarly be excluded from being educators. He later apologized for making the remarks without specifically retracting their substantive claims, saying they were "distracting from the main issues of the debate." He also noted that these were opinions based on his personal values, not issues he would or could deal with as a member of Congress. He also favors banning all forms of abortion.[2] [3]

Money in politics

This section contains links to – and feeds from – money in politics databases.  cid=N00002472&cycle=2006

Links to more campaign contribution information for Jim DeMint

from the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org site.

Fundraising profile:

2006 election cycle

Career totals

Top contributors by organization/corporation:

2006 election cycle

Career totals

Top contributors by industry:

2006 election cycle

Career totals

Revolving door profile for Jim DeMint from the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org website.

2006 privately funded travel profile for Jim DeMint from the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org website.

Personal finance profile for Jim DeMint from the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org website.

Committees and Affiliations

Committees

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Subcommittee on Aviation Operations, Safety, and Security

Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure, Safety, and Security

Subcommittee on Oceans, Atmosphere, Fisheries, and Coast Guard

Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce, Trade, and Tourism - Ranking Member

Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Innovation

Joint Economic Committee

Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources

Subcommittee on Water and Power

Subcommittee on Energy

Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Subcommittee on European Affairs

Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance

Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations, Democracy and Human Rights

Committee assignments in the 109th Congress (2005-2006)

Joint Economic Committee

Senate Special Committee on Aging

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation

Subcommittee on Aviation

Subcommittee on Consumer Affairs Product Safety and Insurance

Subcommittee on Disaster Prevention and Prediction - Chair

Subcommittee on National Ocean Policy Study

Subcommittee on Technology Innovation and Competitiveness

Subcommittee on Trade Tourism and Economic Development

Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works

Subcommittee on Clean Air Climate Change and Nuclear Safety

Subcommittee on Fisheries Wildlife and Water

More Background Data

Background information on Jim DeMint from Project Vote Smart

Interest group scorecard ratings for Jim DeMint from Project Vote Smart

Voting record for Jim DeMint from the Washington Post database

Information on Jim DeMint from Congress Merge

Wikipedia also has an article on Jim DeMint. This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the GFDL.

Campaign contact information

DC Office:

340 Russell Senate Office Building

Washington, D.C. 20510-4002

Phone: 202-224-6121 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              202-224-6121      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Fax: 202-228-5143

Web Email

Website

District Office- Greenville:

105 North Spring Street, Suite 109

Greenville, SC 29601

Phone: 864-233-5366 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              864-233-5366      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Fax: 864-271-8901

District Office- Charleston:

112 Customs House

200 East Bay Street

Charleston, SC 29401

Phone: 843-727-4525 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              843-727-4525      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Fax: 843-722-4923

District Office- Columbia:

1901 Main Street, Suite 1475

Columbia, SC 29201

Phone: 803-771-6112 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              803-771-6112      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Fax: 803-771-6455

Twitter

Jim DeMint posts on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jimdemint/

Latest posts:

JimDeMint: I'll introduce legislation to end taxpayer funding for NPR & PBS.

JimDeMint: The incident with Juan Williams reminds us the only free speech liberals support is the speech with which they agree.

JimDeMint: Great column in Human Events: "Earmark Moratorium Should Be GOP’s Top Priority" http://bit.ly/9ByR8P

See all the members of Congress who Twitter

Articles and resources

Resources

Official website

Technorati Search: Jim DeMint

Google News Search: Jim DeMint

Yahoo! News Search: Jim DeMint

Power Trips: How much did Jim DeMint travel?

GovTrack Statistics: Jim DeMint

See how you compare to Jim DeMint

Local blogs and discussion sites

South Carolina Democratic Party

Articles

Articles By DeMint

Jim DeMint, "We have an efficient, clean energy alternative", Spartanburg Herald-Journal, August 31, 2008. (In this column DeMint promotes nuclear power as a solution to US energy problems. The column quotes Patrick Moore as an environmentalist who supports nuclear, without noting he is a paid consultant for the Nuclear Energy Institute industry group.)

General Articles

Charles Babington, "GOP Nominee Regrets Remarks," Washington Post, October 17, 2004.

Robert Novak, "How to Erase Earmarks," The Conservative Voice, March 28, 2006.

Mark Mazzetti, "Bush Allies in Congress Block Bill That Would Require Intelligence Disclosures," New York Times, April 17, 2007.

Corresponding article on Wikipedia and Cause Caller. (If Cause Caller link does not work, pick from its list of senators and representatives.)

Current Office: U.S. Senate

111th Congress

Leadership Position:

Committees Chaired:

Committees,

Ranking Member On:

Caucuses:

Committees:

110th Congress

Leadership Position:

None

Committees Chaired:

Committees,

Ranking Member On:

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation/Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce, Trade, and Tourism

Caucuses:

Committees: Joint Economic Committee, Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation, Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation/Subcommittee on Aviation Operations Safety and Security, Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation/Subcommittee on Interstate Commerce Trade and Tourism, Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation/Subcommittee on Oceans Atmosphere Fisheries and Coast Guard, Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation/Subcommittee on Science Technology and Innovation, Senate Committee on Commerce Science and Transportation/Subcommittee on Surface Transportation and Merchant Marine Infrastructure Safety and Security, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources/Subcommittee on Energy, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources/Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources/Subcommittee on Water and Power, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations/Subcommittee on International Operations and Organizations Democracy and Human Rights, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations/Subcommittee on European Affairs, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations/Subcommittee on International Development and Foreign Assistance Economic Affairs and International Environmental Protection

Congressional Career

First Elected to Current Office:

November 2, 2004

First Took Current Office:

January 3, 2005

Next Election:

November 2, 2010

Term Ends:

Freshman Member?

No

Previous Political Work?

U.S. House of Representatives

Other Party Membership:

District Offices:

1. 105 North Spring Street, Suite 109 Greenville, SC 29601

Phone: 864-233-5366 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              864-233-5366      end_of_the_skype_highlighting / Fax: 864-271-8901

2. 112 Customs House 200 East Bay Street Charleston, SC 29401

Phone: 843-727-4525 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              843-727-4525      end_of_the_skype_highlighting / Fax: 843-722-4923

3. 1901 Main Street, Suite 1475 Columbia, SC 29201

Phone: 803-771-6112 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              803-771-6112      end_of_the_skype_highlighting / Fax: 803-771-6455

Campaign Contact:

Website:

Webform Email: / Email:

Campaign Offices:

1.

Phone: / Fax:

Zip Code Affiliations:

Misc:

Date of Birth: January 3, 2005

==

Jim DeMint

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia