I’m utterly shocked at this revelation, considering how much and often Democrats rail against dark money. Whitehouse whines about it almost every day
The industry doesn’t just lie and pay politicians — fossil fuel companies also use trade associations and dark-money front groups to whip up opposition to climate legislation. They pull out all the stops. pic.twitter.com/PUaAWERIHY
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) February 7, 2022
Unsurprisingly, Sheldon, like so many, reaps the benefits from this dark money. You can see it at opensecrets.org.
Dark Money Link to Democrats’ Climate Probes
It was Democrats who nearly a decade ago first labeled the opaque funneling of millions of dollars into various political influence operations “dark money” and railed against the then-GOP-dominated practice.
Over the past two election cycles, however, Democrats have not only caught up but surpassed Republicans in channeling unlimited sums of special interest and billionaire spending through nonprofits that do not disclose their donors’ identities.
Liberal groups and political operatives allied with the Democratic Party have also grown more creative in the types of political influence operations the funds support. A little-noticed dark-money entity created at least three years ago to help Democrats in Congress work more effectively is now drawing scrutiny.
The piece then spends a lot of time on quite a few of these big dark money groups, leading to
Schiliro previously told the New York Times that the group has trained lawmakers and staff on how best to extract meaningful information from well-coached witnesses called to testify before Congress.
Schiliro and Barnett’s recent work with Democrats on Capitol Hill stirred Republican scrutiny in recent months after the House Committee on Oversight and Reform held an October hearing titled, “Fueling the Climate Crisis: Exposing Big Oil’s Disinformation Campaign to Prevent Climate Action.” After the hearing, the panel issued subpoenas to oil companies whose executives were called to testify. (snip)
After the October hearing, Rep. Ro Khanna, who chairs the environment subcommittee of the oversight panel, told reporters that he was working with former Waxman staffers with the goal of modeling the “Big Oil” hearings after those held into the tobacco companies in the 1990s on whether nicotine is addictive. Khanna told The Hill newspaper that he expected the investigation to continue for months, and boasted that the committee has enlisted the help of “a lot of people” involved in planning the Waxman hearings for advice.
Khanna’s comments and the dark-money role in funding Co-Equal formed the basis of a formal complaint to the House of Representatives’ Office of Congressional Ethics. Government Accountability and Oversight, a conservative government watchdog organization, in mid-January filed a complaint arguing that Co-Equal was providing privately financed or in-kind support for the House oversight panel in violation of House ethics rules.
“This development, which on its face is in violation of House rules (XXIV) and ethics requirements, represents the extension of a new but rapidly expanding practice of privately underwriting governmental staff, for ‘climate’ policy and even investigating private parties viewed as impeding advancement of the climate policy agenda,” the watchdog argued.
Surprise? Democrats have taken the whole dark money thing and kicked it up a few notches while attempting to shake down companies and push climate authoritarianism.
Read: Surprise: Democrats Getting Lots Of “Dark Money” To Push Their Climate Authoritarism »