Kibbe, Matt fdmwks

Ur-TP

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/12/mysterious-gunman-beau-singleton-freedomworks-dick-armey

GINNI PAL OF KIBBE TOO

Pratt represents a kind of pivot point between the right-wing extreme and the right-wing establishment. While Pratt is cozy with Howard Phillips, the Christian Reconstructionist founder of the Constitution Party, he's also friendly withformer House Majority Leader Richard Armey, the chairman of FreedomWorks, the kingpin of Tea Party Inc. astroturf groups. Armey once served on the advisory board of the now-defunct Family Foundation, an organization founded by Pratt, that housed an anti-immigrant group,English First (which still exists).

Ginni Thomas worked as an aide to Armey when he served in Congress in the GOP leadership, according to Politico. Today,Armey chairs FreedomWorks, the powerful Washington, D.C., organization that helped organize last summer's disruptions of town-hall meetings conducted by members of Congress about health care reform legislation. FreedomWorks also sponsored the stage program at the conclusion of last fall's 912 march [TRUMP? BECK] on Washington, and an anti-health care rally on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol last spring. Ginni Thomas also worked with FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe when both were on staff at the anti-regulatory lobbying group, the Chamber of Commerce.Like FreedomWorks, in last month's GOP primary runoff for Utah's U.S. Senate seat, Thomas' Liberty Central endorsed Tea Party candidate Mike Lee (the only candidate Liberty Central has endorsed so far).

let's go brandon!

DAVID CORN

FreedomWorks Made Video of Fake Giant Panda Having Sex With Fake Hillary Clinton

The investigation at the influential tea party group could get weird.

By David Corn | Thu Feb. 14, 2013

Aninternal investigation [1] of FreedomWorks—the prominent conservative advocacy group and super-PAC—has focused on president Matt Kibbe's[2]management of the organization, his use of its resources, and a controversial book deal he signed [3], according to former FreedomWorks officials who have met with the private lawyers conducting the probe. One potential topic for the inquiry is a promotional video produced last year under the supervision of Adam Brandon [4], executive vice president of the group and a Kibbe loyalist. The video included a scene in which a female intern wearing a panda suit simulates performing oral sex on Hillary Clinton. [Author's note: The previous sentence contains no typos.] 

In December, after months of bitter in-fighting, two members of FreedomWorks' board of trustees—C. Boyden Gray,the White House counsel for President George H.W. Bush, and James Burnley IV, a secretary of transportation during the Reagan years—notified [1] Kibbe that they had received "allegations of wrongdoing by the organization or its employees" and had hired two lawyers, Alfred Regnery and David Martin, to investigate. Soon after, Regnery and Martin began interviewing past and present FreedomWorks employees and officials. This list included Dick Armey, the former House majority leader who in November resigned [5] as chairman of the group (and pocketed an $8 million payout [6]), citing concerns about the management of the organization. The investigating lawyers, Armey says, "picked my brain. I told them a forensic audit would be imperative because so much is hidden there." ...

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/freedomworks-hopes-anti-critical-race-theory-organizing-will-bring-massive-right-wing-gains-in-2022/

freedomWorks, one of the many right-wing groups taking part in the dishonest campaign against critical race theory, is fomenting opposition to teaching about systemic racism in an effort to mobilize conservative voters to turn out in 2022 midterms and take over school boards.

The day after Thanksgiving, FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon wrote in a fundraising email that opposition to critical race theory “could be the key to making MASSIVE political gain in 2022.” He claimed that “the Left” is out to “indoctrinate children with CRT – so our kids will start hating our country and our God-given freedoms as much as the Left does.”

FreedomWorks’ Noah Wall followed up with an email a couple days later claiming that “The radical Left has proven that they are willing to do whatever it takes to brainwash future generations to transform America into a socialist nation.”

Brandon’s email touted FreedomWorks’ efforts to recruit and train school board candidates. He claimed that since the group had launched its BEST (Building Education for Students Together) initiative, it had hosted grassroots events reaching 3,700 activists, trained more than 300 activists to run for the school board, encouraged 150 of its Candidate Academy graduates to commit to filing paperwork to run for school board seats, and created partnerships with many of the other right-wing groups rallying activists to take over school boards.

Just a few days later, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah lent his name to a Dec. 1 FreedomWorks fundraising email that focused on other supposed threats from “the Left’s socialist wish list” such as a $15 minimum wage and statehood for the District of Columbia.  Lee’s brief note introduced a longer message from Brandon, who asked for money to fight “the swamp” and elect right-wing candidates in 2022. “Whether it’s AOC’s so called ‘Green New Deal,’ Washington D.C. Statehood, Supreme Court packing—or the Democrats’ schemes to seize TOTAL control of our election system—America is facing a GRAVE THREAT.”

FreedomWorks is associated with the State Policy Network, a collection of think tanks and advocacy groups that promote right-wing policies at the state level. Brandon is a member of Council for National Policy, a secretive and influential network of right-wing and far-right activists.

Tags: Adam Brandon, Mike Lee. Noah Wall, Critical Race Theory, Election 2022 School Boards Council for National Policy Freedom Works FreedomWorks State Policy Network

===

guk

...In another radio segment, Mitchell said that last September she told Trump and his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, there was a “massive effort to steal the election”.

More recently, Mitchell told the AP that she and Trump have been in contact “fairly frequently”, but declined to provide details.

Meanwhile, other right leaning groups with which Mitchell has had good ties are engaged in campaigns that seem to overlap those of FreedomWorks and CPI to limit voting rights.

For example, Mitchell told the AP: “I’ve been working with state legislatures for several years to get them to pay attention to what I call the political process.”

To be sure, Mitchell prior to the election served as outside counsel and helped coordinate a major voting law initiative for the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), an influential group of conservative state legislators which promotes model bills for states. Alec has reportedly been increasingly active this year in pushing its ideas for changing voting laws.

Known as well connected in conservative big money circles, Mitchell also serves on the board of the deep pocketed Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, a top donor to many rightwing groups including Alec to which it gave $750,000 dollars in 2020, records show.

Further, Mitchell has attended meetings of the famously secretive Council for National Policy, an influential rightwing group that boasts top donors, evangelical leaders and prominent conservatives like FreedomWorks’ Brandon.

At a CNP national meeting in mid November one panel featured Mitchell, Christian Adams the president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (Pilf), and other lawyers discussing “Election results and legal battles: What now?”

Mitchell, who also chairs Pilf, which received $300,000 in 2020 from the Bradley foundation, has indicated it could get active in the legal battles over the new Georgia law....

FreedomWorks Made Video of Fake Giant Panda Having Sex With Fake Hillary Clinton

The investigation at the influential tea party group could get weird.

By David Corn | Thu Feb. 14, 2013

Aninternal investigation [1] of FreedomWorks—the prominent conservative advocacy group and super-PAC—has focused on president Matt Kibbe's[2]management of the organization, his use of its resources, and a controversial book deal he signed [3], according to former FreedomWorks officials who have met with the private lawyers conducting the probe. One potential topic for the inquiry is a promotional video produced last year under the supervision of Adam Brandon [4], executive vice president of the group and a Kibbe loyalist.The video included a scene in which a female intern wearing a panda suit simulates performing oral sex on Hillary Clinton. [Author's note: The previous sentence contains no typos.]

In December, after months of bitter in-fighting, two members of FreedomWorks' board of trustees—C. Boyden Gray, the White House counsel for President George H.W. Bush, and James Burnley IV, a secretary of transportation during the Reagan years—notified [1] Kibbe that they had received "allegations of wrongdoing by the organization or its employees" and had hired two lawyers, Alfred Regnery and David Martin, to investigate. Soon after, Regnery and Martin began interviewing past and present FreedomWorks employees and officials. This list included Dick Armey, the former House majority leader who in November resigned [5] as chairman of the group (and pocketed an $8 million payout [6]), citing concerns about the management of the organization. The investigating lawyers, Armey says, "picked my brain. I told them a forensic audit would be imperative because so much is hidden there."

One former FreedomWorks official says three "investigative themes" emerged when he was interviewed by Regnery and Martin. The two attorneys indicated they were examining the book deal [3] that awarded Kibbe the profits from a book whose production, several former FreedomWorks officials say, involved extensive use of the organization's resources. Kibbe has contended that he wrote the book without significant help from FreedomWorks. (Armey and two former officials have also told Mother Jones that the nonprofit bought thousands of copies of Kibbe's book from retail sources in an attempt to land it on bestsellers lists. FreedomWorks, one former staffer says, "used tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, to promote this book.")

The investigative team has also discussed with former staffers Kibbe's use of his expense account. "The question is whether Matt Kibbe used FreedomWorks resources and donor funds to live the high life," one past staffer says. And Regnery and Martin have questioned FreedomWorks sources about management and personnel matters. A former FreedomWorks official says Kibbe and Brandon ran the group as a "cult of personality" geared toward promoting Kibbe, and that Kibbe at times issued crude guidelines for hiring women based on their appearance. The investigators, according to a witness interviewed by them, have "asked about a hostile work environment that also included Adam [Brandon] pitting people against each other."

"I heard complaints of insensitive, boorish behavior and of obnoxious references to the condition of pregnancy," Armey says. "Such comments put you in jeopardy of lawsuits." A former FreedomWorks official says, "There was a pattern of misbehavior and inappropriateness that rubbed people the wrong way."

Some FreedomWorks staffers worried last year about a promotional video created ahead of FreePAC, a FreedomWorks conference held on July 26, 2012, where thousands of conservative grassroots activists nearly filled [7] the American Airlines Center in Dallas to hear from tea party favorites, including Glenn Beck and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). The short film hailing FreedomWorks was intended to play on the large video screens inside the arena.

In one segment of the film, according to a former official who saw it, Brandon is seen waking from a nap at his desk. In what appears to be a dream or a nightmare, he wanders down a hallway and spots a giant panda on its knees with its head in the lap of a seated Hillary Clinton and apparently performing oral sex on the then-secretary of state. Two female interns at FreedomWorks were recruited to play the panda and Clinton. One intern wore a Hillary Clinton mask. The other wore a giant panda suit that FreedomWorks had used at protests to denounce progressives as panderers. (See here [8], [9], and here [10].) Placing the panda in the video, a former FreedomWorks staffer says, was "an inside joke."

Another FreedomWorks staffer who worked there at the time confirms that "Yes, this video was created."

Days before the FreePAC event, the video was screened for staff. "My mouth was wide open," a former official recalls. "'What the hell is this?'" Several FreedomWorks staffers were outraged and stunned that Brandon, the group's second-in-command after Kibbe, had overseen the video's production, appeared in it, and intended to show this film at the conference, which would be attended by many social-conservative activists. They raised objections to the film.

"How was that not some form of sexual harassment?" a former FreedomWorks official asks, noting that two female interns had been requested to act out a pretend sex scene. "And there were going to be thousands of Christian conservatives at this thing. This was a terrible lack of judgment."

Brandon, a former FreedomWorks official says, defended the film, insisting it was creative and funny. But eventually a decision was made not to show the video at FreePAC.

Armey says he didn't became aware of the film until months later: "I heard they had made an obscene video mocking Hillary Clinton." He says he was told the video showed Clinton having sex with an intern. "I asked another [FreedomWorks] guy if he had seen it," Armey recalls. "He said, 'I heard about it. I was traveling at the time. It was shown around the office.'" Armey adds, "There was a concern that this kind of behavior could land you in court. I was shocked at the ugly and bad taste."

Former FreedomWorks officials who have been interviewed by Regnery and Martin say they do not know if the Clinton-panda video is under scrutiny by the investigators. But they say the episode was symptomatic of problems within the group.

Kibbe, Brandon, and Jackie Bodnar, director of communications for FreedomWorks, did not respond to requests for comments. Nor did they respond to emails containing a list of questions regarding the video and the internal investigation. Asked to comment on the film, Burnley did not indicate whether the lawyers were examining this matter or whether the board of trustees was aware the video had been made. In an email, he noted, "I'm not comfortable being drawn into a dialogue with you about such allegations. I believe this is a situation in which a 'middleman' doesn't make sense. If those who say they have such information about such matters will communicate directly with me, I would be most appreciative…Of course, if the allegations are plausible, I will have to follow up appropriately."

The ongoing internal investigation, one former staffer notes, could end badly for FreedomWorks, which for years has been a powerhouse organization of the right. "I think the whole thing will implode," this person says, "and it will be destroyed out of mismanagement and hubris."

UPDATE: As several readers have noted, the obscene scene in the video was likely based on a [11] in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

Source URL: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/panda-hillary-clinton-sex-tape-freedomworks-matt-kibbe-dick-armey

Links:

[1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/dick-armey-freedomworks-hostile-takeover-memo

[2] http://www.freedomworks.org/matt-kibbe

[3] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/dick-armey-freedomworks-kibbe-book-contract-smoking-gun

[4] http://www.freedomworks.org/adam-brandon

[5] http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/12/dick-armey-resigns-freedomworks-tea-party

[6] http://bigstory.ap.org/article/tea-party-group-chief-quits-cites-internal-split

[7] http://ow.ly/i/NJ2l

[8] http://www.freedomworks.org/images/panda-monium-from-freedomworks-north-carolina-4

[9] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdYFC-mkhEk

[10] http://www.redstate.com/tabithahale/2011/02/23/union-thuggery-descends-on-freedomworks/

[11] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmOoekbK6YI&feature=youtu.be

==

coup:

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/15230-dick-armeys-attempted-armed-coup-of-the-tea-party

Dick Armey's Attempted Armed Coup of the Tea Party

By Amy Gardner, The Washington Post

26 December 12

he day after Labor Day, just as campaign season was entering its final frenzy, FreedomWorks, the Washington-based tea party organization, went into free fall.

Richard K. Armey, the group's chairman and a former House majority leader, walked into the group's Capitol Hill offices with his wife, Susan, and an aide holstering a handgun at his waist. The aim was to seize control of the group and expel Armey's enemies: The gun-wielding assistant escorted FreedomWorks' top two employees off the premises, while Armey suspended several others who broke down in sobs at the news.

The coup lasted all of six days. By Sept. 10, Armey was gone - with a promise of $8 million - and the five ousted employees were back. The force behind their return was Richard J. Stephenson, a reclusive Illinois millionaire who has exerted increasing control over one of Washington's most influential conservative grass-roots organizations.

Stephenson, the founder of the for-profit Cancer Treatment Centers of America and a director on the FreedomWorks board, agreed to commit $400,000 per year over 20 years in exchange for Armey's agreement to leave the group.

The episode illustrates the growing role of wealthy donors in swaying the direction of FreedomWorks and other political groups, which increasingly rely on unlimited contributions from corporations and financiers for their financial livelihood. Such gifts are often sent through corporate shells or nonprofit groups that do not have to disclose their donors, making it impossible for the public to know who is funding them.

In the weeks before the election, more than $12 million in donations was funneled through two Tennessee corporations to the FreedomWorks super PAC after negotiations with Stephenson over a preelection gift of the same size, according to three current and former employees with knowledge of the arrangement. The origin of the money has not previously been reported.

These and other new details about the near-meltdown at FreedomWorks were gleaned from interviews with two dozen current and past associates, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to talk freely.

The disarray comes as the conservative movement is struggling to find its way after the November elections, which brought a second term for President Obama and Democratic gains in the House and Senate. Armey said in an interview that the near-meltdown at his former group has damaged the conservative cause.

"FreedomWorks was the spark plug, the energy source, the catalyst for the movement through the 2010 elections," Armey said, referring to the GOP midterm sweep. "Harm was done to the movement."

Stephenson, 73, declined a request for an interview. Matt Kibbe, the group's president, and Adam Brandon, its senior vice president, declined to discuss the issue.

"I don't comment on donors," Brandon said. "He's on our board, he's a board member like anyone else. That's it. I see him at board meetings."

Stephenson, a longtime but little-known player in conservative causes, is a resident of Barrington, Ill., a northwest suburb of Chicago known for its affluence and sprawling horse estates such as his Tudor Oaks Farm. He founded the Cancer Treatment Centers of America in 1988 following his mother's death from bladder cancer, according to the for-profit company's Web site and his public remarks. Stephenson also holds investments in a broad portfolio of other businesses, including finance and real estate companies.

Stephenson has a passion for libertarian politics stretching back to the 1960s, when he attended seminars featuring "Atlas Shrugged" author Ayn Rand and economist Murray Rothbard, according to those who know him at FreedomWorks. Like Armey, Stephenson was an early supporter of Citizens for a Sound Economy, the conservative lobbying group founded by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch in 1984 that split into FreedomWorks and Americans for Prosperity 20 years later. The Kochs, known for bankrolling a variety of conservative causes, kept control of AFP, while Stephenson and Armey stayed with FreedomWorks.

FreedomWorks has been on a remarkable run in recent election cycles, growing its annual budget from $7 million to $40 million in just a few years and helping lead the tea party movement against Obama's agenda. The group was among several that rose up last week in opposition to a failed proposal from House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to raise federal taxes on millionaires.

The group played a crucial role in ushering a wave of tea party candidates into office in recent years, staging rallies, hawking books and videos, and organizing media appearances with conservative personalities such as Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh.

"I've enjoyed my association with FreedomWorks," said Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who defeated incumbent Bob Bennett with help from the group. "Matt Kibbe and Dick Armey endorsed me early in my candidacy for the U.S. Senate, and they were a big help to me."

Despite such testimonials, FreedomWorks has struggled with accusations that it is an "astro­turfer" - a national organization of big-money donors that swept in to lay claim to an independent movement.

According to public records, FreedomWorks received more than $12 millionbefore the election from two corporations based in Knoxville, Tenn.: Specialty Investments Group and Kingston Pike Development. The firms were established within a day of each other by William S. Rose III, a local bankruptcy lawyer.

Rose, who could not be reached for comment, has said publicly he would not answer questions about the donations. But according to three current and former FreedomWorks employees with knowledge of the donations, the money originated with Stephenson and his family, who arranged for the contributions from the Tennessee firms to the super PAC.

Brandon, FreedomWorks' executive vice president, told colleagues starting in August that Stephenson would be giving between $10 million and $12 million, these sources said. Brandon also met repeatedly with members of Stephenson's family who were involved in arranging the donations, the sources said.

Stephenson attended a FreedomWorks retreat in Jackson Hole, Wyo., in August at which a budget was being prepared in anticipation of a large influx of money, according to several employees who attended the retreat. At the retreat, Stephenson dictated some of the terms of how the money would be spent, the employees said.

"There is no doubt that Dick Stephenson arranged for that money to come to the super PAC," said one person who attended the retreat. "I can assure you that everyone around the office knew about it."

Among other things, Stephenson wanted a substantial sum spent in support of Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), a tea party favorite and Stephenson's local congressman, several who attended the retreat recalled. Walsh garnered national headlines during the campaign when he questioned whether his opponent, Tammy Duckworth, a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot who lost both legs in Iraq, was a "true hero." Despite internal misgivings about the value of the investment, FreedomWorks spent $1.7 million on ads supporting Walsh; he lost the race.

Two watchdog groups last week asked the Federal Election Commission and the Justice Department to investigate the donations from the two Tennessee companies. The groups, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, say the arrangement could violate federal laws that prohibit attempting to hide the true source of a political contribution by giving it under another name. (Brandon declined to comment on the complaints, but he said the group's books were in order.)

Partnership Unravels

For years, FreedomWorks was headed by an unlikely duo: Armey, 72, the old-guard pol who wears a black cowboy hat even when he's not on his Texas ranch, and Kibbe, 49, who sports mutton-chop sideburns and has a passion for the Grateful Dead.

But the most important relationship appears to be the bond between Kibbe and Stephenson, who bridged their age gap through shared libertarian views and Kibbe's battle with testicular cancer a decade ago, Armey and others said. They said Kibbe, after being given a terminal diagnosis, was encouraged by Stephenson to get treatment at his cancer clinics; more than a decade later, they said, he is cancer-free.

Until this year, the partnership between Kibbe and Armey worked well. Armey's renown as a former House member drew media attention and crowds of conservative activists - most of them old enough to remember Armey's role in the Republican revolution in Congress in 1994. And Kibbe's youthful intellectualism drew a new generation of libertarian soldiers into the FreedomWorks fold. In 2010, the two co-wrote a book, "Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto," that became a New York Times bestseller and a successful marketing tool for FreedomWorks, which collected the book's proceeds and used it to attract donations.

The partnership came to a crashing end when Armey marched into FreedomWorks's office Sept. 4 with his wife, Susan, executive assistant Jean Campbell and the unidentified man with the gun at his waist - who promptly escorted Kibbe and Brandon out of the building.

"This was two weeks after there had been a shooting at the Family Research Council," said one junior staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. "So when a man with a gun who didn't identify himself to me or other people on staff, and a woman I'd never seen before said there was an announcement, my first gut was, 'Is FreedomWorks in danger?' It was bizarre.'?"

By nearly all accounts, including from those loyal to him, Armey handled his attempted coup badly. Armey says he was stepping in because of ethical breaches by Kibbe and Brandon, accusing them of improperly using FreedomWorks staff resources to produce a book - ironically, named "Hostile Takeover" - for which Kibbe claimed sole credit and was collecting royalties. The use of internal resources for Kibbe's benefit could jeopardize the group's nonprofit tax status; the group denies any impropriety.

"This is not only about this one incident," Armey said. "But that one incident was a matter of grievous concern."

Armey also accused Brandon, Kibbe and other staff members loyal to them of squeezing him out of media appearances and management decisions while using his name to market the group.

Armey appeared out of touch and unsure of how FreedomWorks operated when he took over that Tuesday morning, according to interviews with more than a dozen employees on both sides who witnessed the takeover. Sitting in a glass-walled conference room visible to much of the staff, he placed three young female employees on administrative leave, then reversed himself when they burst into tears; his wife lamented aloud that maybe they had "jumped the gun."

In subsequent meetings, Susan Armey passed her husband notes that several employees assumed contained suggestions on what to say. According to a recording of a staff conference call provided to The Washington Post, Armey bewildered his audience by demanding more FreedomWorks support for Todd Akin, the Missouri Republican whose Senate campaign had already cratered after his comments about "legitimate rape."

"It was clear that under Armey's leadership, the organization as we knew it was going to be driven into the ground," said one junior employee.

Enter Stephenson, who agreed to the multimillion-dollar financial incentive to push Armey out and install Kibbe back at the helm.

The payments were necessary, several FreedomWorks leaders said, because Armey was threatening to sue over Kibbe's book deal.

"It was very clear to him that I would not work with Matt," Armey said, referring to Stephenson. "He felt that Matt knew the levers and understood it better than I did and was very urgent to reinstate that."

Brandon, back in the No. 2 spot as executive vice president, scoffed at the notion that the group is in trouble or that the dispute with Armey was indicative of a larger problem for the tea party. He said FreedomWorks has 2.1 million members, nearly 4 million fans on Facebook and a budget that has grown sixfold in five years. He also pointed to the elections of Senate conservatives Ted Cruz in Texas and Jeff Flake in Arizona as evidence of the group's electoral success.

"We doubled our budget, and we doubled our membership," Brandon said, referring to the group's growth since 2011. "That's how we ended up the year."

An article published online this week by Washingtonian magazine catches up with former House Majority Leader Dick Armey on his ranch in Texas. The whole thing is worth a read, but of particular interest is the article’s account of the frantic days in September during which Armey attempted to take over the conservative group FreedomWorks, before eventuallyagreeing to retire in exchange for $8 million.

According to the article, things between Armey and Matt Kibbe, one-time allies during FreedomWorks’ early days, came to a head over in late summer, after a multi-day FreedomWorks retreat at a luxury hotel in Wyoming. There, Armey “saw signs of his reduced standing everywhere.” Kibbe was the face of the event. And there, Armey was given a document to sign, which would certify that no “significant FreedomWorks resources” were used in the writing of Kibbe’s book Hostile Takeover, and that Kibbe was “the sole author and copyright owner.” Armey now maintains that Kibbe did use FreedomWorks resources to write the book:

Diverting nonprofit resources for personal use is a violation of federal tax code. If Kibbe had used “significant staff resources” to produce his book, he would have put FreedomWorks’ tax-exempt status at risk. Kibbe, Armey says, “had put the organization in jeopardy, and he had done it to line his own pockets.”

Armey went to Maine after that to show the document to C. Boydon Gray, FreedomWorks’ third trustee (along with Armey and Kibbe) and a former Whie House counsel. On Sept. 4, 2012, Armey and Gray called a special meeting of the group’s three-person board. At the meeting, Armey and Gray voted to remove Kibbe from the group’s board, and put Kibbe and Adam Brandon — another FreedomWorks executive — on leave.

The same day, Armey called his assistant, Jean Campbell, at the FreedomWorks office and instructed her to secure the office. Armey was worried Kibbe’s allies would destroy documents related to the book deal, according to Washingtonian. Campbell got employees away from their computers and into the conference room. An armed ex-Capitol Police officer accompanied her. (That officer was identified back in December as Beau Singleton.) According to Washingtonian, many at FreedomWorks had trouble accepting Armey:

To the young staffers, Armey seemed ill suited to run the organization. He put three additional FreedomWorks employees on administrative leave but—when they broke down in tears—immediately reinstated them. Staffers say he referred to a Japanese employee with a ponytail as “that Indian fella.” (Armey denies this.) And when Armey kicked his cowboy boots up on a table in Kibbe’s office, that was it. “It was kind of like, ‘Well, I’ll be damned if this is going to happen,’ ” a young employee says.

Kibbe and Brandon, meanwhile, began trying to build up support among FreedomWorks donors, volunteers, and other stakeholders. Kibbe “loyalists” met for a meal at Kibbe’s home, and younger staffers began using their cell phones to record conversations with Armey or Campbell.

The day after the takeover, Armey travelled to Colorado for a donor event. On the way back, he and his wife stopped in Chicago, to visit Richard Stephenson, the founder of the for-profit Cancer Treatment Centers of America and a major FreedomWorks backer:

When Armey arrived, Stephenson introduced a therapist who he suggested could mediate Armey and Kibbe’s dispute. Armey didn’t know it, but Kibbe had flown in from Washington and was waiting in another room. “If you think you’re going to therapize me into working with Matt Kibbe again, you’re kidding yourself,” Armey told the therapist.

Armey passed by Kibbe in adjacent room after the meeting with Stephenson, but did not speak with him. The next day, Gray met with Armey, and said that Stephenson would pay Armey $8 million — spread out over 20 years — to retire. Armey agreed. Kibbe and Brandon returned to the FreedomWorks office the same day.

 Dick Armey, FreedomWorks

==

And who will be helping these anti-elite elites get into office? Well, there's FreedomWorks, a tea party outfit run by Dick Armey, the former Republican lawmaker whose last job was with a big lobbying firm. His deputy at FreedomWorks is Matt Kibbe, who worked for none other than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

sw

Matt Kibbe (also known as Matthew B. Kibbe) is president of Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE), a position he was appointed to in June 2004. [1]. He started as a policy analyst at CSE in ±1987. Around that time he was a graduate student of economics and a fellow at the Center for the Study of Market Processes, George Mason University.

That center, also known as 'Center for Market Processes' (CMP), later turned into the Mercatus Center. Both the Cato Institute and CSE recruited people from CMP as can be seen from this posting of Vernon Imrich on March 7, 1994:

"The Center for (the Study of) Market Processes is a research and education organization. We do policy analysis, train scholars, and work with organizations and businesses to solve actual problems in the real world. Some of our faculty are adjunct scholars of the Cato Institute, and many of our alumni work for CSE and other pro-market, pro liberty organizations." [2] (emphasis added)

According to the 2002 Internal Revenue Service return filed for CSE's educational arm, the Citizens for a Sound Economy Educational Foundation, Kibbe was paid $80,000 at the time. [3]

Matt Kibbe was in the news soon after he became the president of CSE because it turned out that CSE mobilised its supporters in an attempt to place Nader on the presidential ballot in Oregon. (see also Nader for President 2004)

Education:

• BA in Economics from Grove City College

Career:

• 1988-1989: Managing Editor of Market Process, an academic economics journal published by the Center for the Study of Market Processes at George Mason University
• 19??-1990: Senior Economist for the Republican National Committee
• 1990-1993: Director of Federal Budget Policy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• 1993-1996: Chief of Staff and House Budget Committee Associate for U.S. Representative Dan Miller (R-FL)
• 1996-2004: Executive Vice President of CSE
• 2004- : President CSE

Early Publications:

• Matthew B. Kibbe, "The Minimum Wage: Washingtons Perennial Myth", Cato Institute, May 23, 1988
• Matthew B. Kibbe, "Book Review: The Theory of Free Banking: Money Supply Under Competitive Note Issue by George A. Selgin", The Freeman, February 1989
• Matthew B. Kibbe, "The Unspoken Dialogue of the Market, The Freeman, November 1989
• Matthew B. Kibbe, "Book Review: South Africa's War Against Capitalism by Walter E. Williams", The Freeman, October 1990
• Matthew Kibbe, "Regulatory Nightmares: The Costly, the Deadly, and the Just Plain Stupid", U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 1992 [4]

Related Links

• "Team CSE: Matt Kibbe", Citizens for a Sound Economy, 2004
• "CSE President Paul Beckner to Join Silk Lintott Incorporated, Current Executive Vice President Matt Kibbe to Lead CSE", Citizens for a Sound Economy, June 3, 2004

Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Matt_Kibbe"

Categories: Stubs | Tea Party Movement

Matthew B. 'Matt' Kibbe is President and CEO of FreedomWorks, a position he has held since 2004. He originally joined the organization (previously known as Citizens for a Sound Economy) as a policy analyst in 1986. He previously worked as Chief of Staff to U.S. Representative Dan Miller (R-FL), Senior Economist at the Republican National Committee, Director of Federal Budget Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Managing Editor of Market Process, an academic economics journal published by the Center for the Study of Market Processes at George Mason University.^[1][2]

Kibbe has contributed in numerous print and online publications including The Wall Street Journal^[3], The Washington Times^[4], USA Today, RedState.com, America Spectator and Reason Magazine^[5]. On television, Kibbe has appeared on MSNBC’s The Dylan Ratigan Show, FOX News’ Fox and Friends, FOX News’ Glenn Beck, NBC’s The Today Show, FOX News’ America’s Newsroom, CSPAN, FOX News’ Neil Cavuto, FOX Business Network’s Happy Hour and numerous other programs.^[6]

[edit] Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto

Kibbe and FreedomWorks Chairman Dick Armey wrote Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto in 2010. The book has reached numerous best seller lists including The USA Today^[7] and The Washington Post political books.^[8]

[edit] Works

• Armey, Dick; Matt Kibbe (2010). Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto. New York: William Morrow. ISBN 9780062015877. 

[edit] References

1. ^ Matt Kibbe, FreedomWorks
2. ^ Matt Kibbe, HarperCollins Publishers
3. ^ 6, The Wall Street Journal
4. ^ 7, The Washington Times
5. ^ 8, Reason.com
6. ^ Videos, FreedomWorks
7. ^ 2, The Washington Post
8. ^ Political Bookworm, The Washington Post

[edit] External links

• Biography at FreedomWorks
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Works by Matthew B. Kibbe in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Profile at SourceWatch

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Kibbe"

Categories: Living people | American chief executives | American activists | Tea Party movement

2019

http://conservativeactionproject.com/conservatives-support-ken-cuccinelli-for-secretary-of-the-department-of-homeland-security/

...Cuccinelli is a champion of conservative policies, and a man of unimpeachable character. We have no doubt that he will execute the president’s agenda with the integrity, commitment, and excellence that we have known him to bring to every other position. He has our strongest support.

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