vault backup: 2026-10-01 22:18:57
This commit is contained in:
parent
97174bf29c
commit
2d66edd3ea
86 changed files with 15926 additions and 174 deletions
114
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/80,000 Hours.md
Normal file
114
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/80,000 Hours.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,114 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- EightyThousandHours
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- EffectiveVentures
|
||||
- CentreForEffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- OpenPhilanthropy
|
||||
- CareerAdvice
|
||||
- AISafety
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- 80,000 Hours
|
||||
- 80000 Hours
|
||||
- 80K
|
||||
- 80k Hours
|
||||
- 80,000 Hours Limited
|
||||
- 80,000 Hours Foundation
|
||||
summary: "Career-advice organization founded in Oxford in 2011 by Benjamin Todd and William MacAskill, hosted by the Centre for Effective Altruism's charity until 2025 and funded with at least 39.4 million dollars by Open Philanthropy."
|
||||
start: 2011
|
||||
location: "London, England; Oxford, England; San Francisco Bay Area"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Benjamin Todd]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2011
|
||||
role: "cofounder"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[William MacAskill]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2011
|
||||
role: "cofounder"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Benjamin Todd]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Effective Ventures]]"
|
||||
end: 2025-03-31
|
||||
role: "project fiscally sponsored by the charity first registered as the Centre for Effective Altruism"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2017-03
|
||||
role: "thirteen grants totaling 39,355,325 dollars from March 2017 to February 2025"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Konstantin Sietzy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-03-19
|
||||
role: "director of 80,000 Hours Limited while deputy director of talent and operations at the UK AI Security Institute"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Alex Lawsen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-03-19
|
||||
role: "director of 80,000 Hours Limited while a senior program associate at Open Philanthropy"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Anna Weldon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-03-19
|
||||
role: "director of 80,000 Hours Limited and 80,000 Hours Foundation while chief operating officer of the Centre for Effective Altruism"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Joshua Rosenberg]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-03-19
|
||||
role: "director of 80,000 Hours Limited while chief executive of the Forecasting Research Institute"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
80,000 Hours is a career-advice organization that "started in 2011 when our founders, Ben and Will, were about to graduate from Oxford," the founders' names linking to [[Benjamin Todd]] and [[William MacAskill]]. It began as a part-time project after a lecture the two gave in February 2011 and attended the [[Y Combinator]] startup accelerator in 2015.[^1] It operated as a project of the charity company incorporated as the [[Centre for Effective Altruism]], whose objects include "the advancement of education by providing sources of information about the ethics of career choices."[^2] It completed its separation from that company, by then called Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), on 31 March 2025.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Inside the Centre for Effective Altruism
|
||||
|
||||
The company that hosted 80,000 Hours had [[Nick Beckstead]] as a director from 23 February 2012 to 2 April 2019, and [[Robert Wiblin]], later the organization's director of research, as company secretary from 21 April 2014 to 1 July 2015.[^4] The American charity, Centre for Effective Altruism USA Inc, listed Todd in its return for 2019 as "CEO of the 80,000 Hours project," paid 107,119 dollars; the same return listed [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] as a former board member of that charity.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Open Philanthropy]] recommended 1,125,000 dollars to 80,000 Hours for general support in March 2017, with Beckstead, then a director of the hosting company, as grant investigator. The page states that "80,000 Hours staff also reviewed this page prior to publication," that the money would raise salaries "by about 30% from previously low levels, to match comparable organizations in the [[San Francisco]] Bay Area (to which 80,000 Hours has recently moved)," and that 80,000 Hours reported about 1,500 "impact-adjusted significant plan changes" since 2011. It also records Open Philanthropy's reservation that some 80,000 Hours documents "seem 'salesy' to us and to create an impression of more impact being attributable to 80,000 Hours than we believe is reasonable." A photograph caption names Todd as chief executive and Wiblin as director of research. The page does not mention Beckstead's directorship.[^6] The renewal of February 2018, 510,000 dollars, names Beckstead and Nicole Ross as investigators; its amount was set at the sum 80,000 Hours had raised from other donors in 2017.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Later grants were recommended first by a "Committee for Effective Altruism Support" and then without a named investigator: 4,795,803 dollars over two years in February 2019, for "helping talented graduates age 20-40 enter high-impact careers"; 3,457,284 dollars in February 2020; 1,250,000 dollars in May 2022; 3,000,000 dollars for marketing and advertising in June 2022; 1,200,000 dollars in January 2023; 2,492,000 dollars for marketing in April 2023; 4,408,000 pounds (about 5,575,238 dollars) in May 2023; 4,250,000 dollars in two grants and 2,400,000 dollars for marketing in October 2023; 6,600,000 dollars in October 2024; and 2,700,000 dollars for marketing in February 2025, a page that refers to an earlier grant of December 2023. The thirteen grants whose pages were retrieved total 39,355,325 dollars. From February 2019 the pages place the grants within the program for "growing and empowering the community of people focused on global catastrophic risk reduction," later named "Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Claire Zabel]], who according to Open Philanthropy "went on to lead our Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building team," was a director of the hosting company from 18 July 2019 to 28 March 2024, and [[Eli Rose]], Open Philanthropy's program officer for the same program, has been a director since 9 February 2024.[^4][^7] The hosting charity's accounts state that both have "significant influence over some of the funding decisions made by Open Philanthropy in relation to several of the charity's projects."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
In a 2022 interview on the 80,000 Hours podcast, according to [[Charlotte Alter]] of [[Time|TIME]], MacAskill described himself as "remarkably aligned with Sam" and called the [[FTX Future Fund]] potentially "an enormous inflection point for EA."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Accounts
|
||||
|
||||
The accounts of Effective Ventures Foundation (UK) attribute 4,713,277 pounds of expenditure to 80,000 Hours in the year to June 2024 and 5,454,605 pounds in the year to June 2025, of which 3,645,558 pounds were direct costs, against 8,135,491 pounds for the Centre for Effective Altruism and 9,982,687 pounds for EA Funds and [[Giving What We Can]]. The trustees' report states that until the spin-out the project launched a video programme, automated "most of its headhunting pipeline," updated "its organisational strategy in light of recent technological developments," and grew its staff by 12 percent. The report records the charity's dependence on Open Philanthropy "for a majority of its funding."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Spin-out
|
||||
|
||||
80,000 Hours announced its plan to leave Effective Ventures in December 2023 and announced the completion on 28 May 2025. It established two English entities: 80,000 Hours Limited, which "houses our website, podcast, job board, one-on-one service, and our operations," and 80,000 Hours Foundation, a registered charity to "facilitate donations and own the 80k intellectual property." The announcement named among the board members [[Konstantin Sietzy]], "Deputy Director of Talent and Operations at UK AISI"; [[Alex Lawsen]], "Senior Program Associate at Open Philanthropy and former 80,000 Hours Advising Manager"; [[Anna Weldon]], "COO at the Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) and former EV board member"; and [[Joshua Rosenberg]], "CEO of the [[Forecasting Research Institute]]." It stated that 80,000 Hours had "recently sharpened our focus on careers that can help make AI go well."[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
80,000 Hours Limited, company number 15746854, a company limited by guarantee registered at 20 Old Bailey in London, was incorporated on 28 May 2024 with three directors, who resigned as directors on 19 March 2025 and were appointed company secretaries the same day, when five new directors were appointed, among them Sietzy, Weldon, Rosenberg and Lawsen (registered as Alex Ritchie Jack Lawson); a further director replaced one of the five on 23 May 2025. The five current directors are each registered as having significant influence or control. 80,000 Hours Foundation, number 15777224, was incorporated on 13 June 2024 at the same address; its sole registered controller is 80,000 Hours Limited, with 75 percent or more of the voting rights and the right to appoint directors, and Weldon has been a director since 10 April 2025.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: 80,000 Hours, "About us," retrieved 1 October 2026 (founder names linked to benjamintodd.org and williammacaskill.com). https://80000hours.org/about/
|
||||
[^2]: Charity Commission for England and Wales, "Charity Inquiry: Effective Ventures Foundation UK," 22 May 2024, section "The charity." https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charity-inquiry-effective-ventures-foundation-uk/charity-inquiry-effective-ventures-foundation-uk
|
||||
[^3]: Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), Trustees' Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2025, filed at Companies House 13 February 2026: Trustees' Report ("Objectives and Activities," "Loss of major donors"), note 9 ("Analysis of expenditure by activities") and note 25 ("Related party transactions"). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/filing-history/MzUwNDQ3MTAxM2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf
|
||||
[^4]: Companies House, "Effective Ventures Foundation (UK)," company number 07962181, register of officers, retrieved 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/officers
|
||||
[^5]: Centre for Effective Altruism USA Inc, EIN 47-1988398, Form 990 for 2019, Part VII, Section A, as rendered from IRS e-file data by ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, object 202003039349302045, retrieved 1 October 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202003039349302045/IRS990
|
||||
[^6]: Open Philanthropy grant pages for 80,000 Hours, Wayback Machine captures of 2025: "General Support" (award date March 2017, grant investigator Nick Beckstead, published May 2017); "General Support (2018)" (February 2018, Beckstead and Nicole Ross); "General Support (2019)" (February 2019) and "General Support (2020)" (February 2020), Committee for Effective Altruism Support; "General Support (2022)" (May 2022); "Marketing" (June 2022); "General Support (2023)" (January 2023); "Marketing (2023)" (April 2023); "General Support (May 2023)"; "General Support (October 2023)"; "Marketing (October 2023)"; "General Support (October 2024)"; "Marketing (2025)" (February 2025). https://web.archive.org/web/20251115131122/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-general-support/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251114060844/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-general-support-2018/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250106011133/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-general-support-2019/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251023014900/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-general-support-2020/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250107043340/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-general-support-2/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250107091214/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-marketing/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250620013228/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-general-support-2023/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250210164429/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-marketing-2023/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250117184942/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-general-support-may-2023/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250811131533/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-general-support-october-2023/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250620013941/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-marketing-october-2023/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250309231210/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-general-support-october-2024/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250729084645/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/80000-hours-marketing-2025/
|
||||
[^7]: Open Philanthropy, team biographies "Claire Zabel" (Wayback capture of 5 January 2025) and "Eli Rose" (Wayback capture of 6 January 2025). https://web.archive.org/web/20250105212156/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/team/claire-zabel/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250106073801/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/team/eli-rose/
|
||||
[^8]: Alter, Charlotte. "Exclusive: Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed." TIME, 15 March 2023. https://time.com/6262810/sam-bankman-fried-effective-altruism-alameda-ftx/
|
||||
[^9]: 80,000 Hours, "80,000 Hours completes spin-out from Effective Ventures," 28 May 2025. https://80000hours.org/2025/05/80000-hours-completes-spin-out-from-effective-ventures/
|
||||
[^10]: Companies House, "80,000 Hours Limited," company number 15746854, and "80,000 Hours Foundation," company number 15777224, overviews, registers of officers and persons with significant control, retrieved 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15746854/officers ; https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/15777224/officers
|
||||
251
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Alcor Life Extension Foundation.md
Normal file
251
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Alcor Life Extension Foundation.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,251 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- AlcorLifeExtensionFoundation
|
||||
- Cryonics
|
||||
- Transhumanism
|
||||
- TedWilliams
|
||||
- DoraKent
|
||||
- LarryJohnson
|
||||
- Scottsdale
|
||||
- Arizona
|
||||
- Section501c3
|
||||
- SuspendedAnimation
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Alcor Life Extension Foundation
|
||||
- Alcor Life Extension Foundation Inc
|
||||
- Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Inc.
|
||||
- Alcor Life Extension Foundation Inc.
|
||||
- Alcor
|
||||
- Alcor Foundation
|
||||
- Alcor Society for Solid State Hypothermia
|
||||
summary: "California-incorporated cryonics nonprofit, based in Scottsdale since 1994, whose record includes the 1988 Riverside coroner raids, a 1992 appellate ruling, the Ted Williams dispute, Arizona's failed 2004 regulation bill, and related-party vendor payments."
|
||||
start: 1972
|
||||
location: "Scottsdale, Arizona"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Max More]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president and chief executive officer in the returns for 2011 to 2019"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Patrick Harris]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chief operating officer in the return for 2019; president and chief executive officer in the returns for 2020 to 2022"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jerry Lemler]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president and chief executive officer in October 2003"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Arrowood]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president and chief executive officer in the return for 2023"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Marji Klima]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "co-chief executive officer and president in the returns for 2022 and 2023"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Linda Chamberlain]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1972
|
||||
role: "co-founder and first chief executive officer, per Alcor"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Fred Chamberlain III]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1972
|
||||
role: "co-founder, per Alcor"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Hugh Hixon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1982
|
||||
role: "facilities engineer, per Alcor"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Joseph Waynick]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chief executive officer in 2004"
|
||||
fn: 17
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Saul Kent]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the returns for 2011 to 2016"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Catherine Baldwin]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the returns for 2013 to 2017"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Ralph Merkle]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the returns for 2011 to 2022"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Michael Riskin]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the returns for 2011 to 2022; chairman in the returns for 2011 to 2018"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Brian Wowk]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the returns for 2011 to 2021"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Andrew Aymeloglu]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the returns for 2016 to 2023"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Larry Johnson]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2003-01
|
||||
end: 2003-08-11
|
||||
role: "chief operating officer, per the East Valley Tribune"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Suspended Animation, Inc.]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "research and cryomedicine vendor; payments in the returns for 2013 to 2019, 2022 and 2023"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "legal services, 452,828 dollars in the return for 2019 and 898,223 dollars in the return for 2020"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "legal services, 648,038 dollars in the return for 2019 and 567,711 dollars in the return for 2020"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Arrowood Herbert PLLC]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "legal services, 426,049 dollars in 2019, 298,846 dollars in 2020 and 195,132 dollars in 2021"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Barry Aarons]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "lobbyist during the 2004 Arizona House bill"
|
||||
fn: 16
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Alcor Care Trust Supporting Organization]]"
|
||||
role: "12,707,651 dollar grant in the return for 2018; 200,000 dollar grant in the return for 2020"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Riverside County Coroner's Office]]"
|
||||
start: 1987-12
|
||||
role: "coroner's inquiry into the death of Dora Kent, search warrants and seizures of January 1988"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Inc. is a cryonics organization that stores the bodies and heads of legally dead members in liquid nitrogen. The [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruling date recorded for the organization is December 1972, and its returns list 7895 East Acoma Drive, [[Scottsdale]], as its address.[^1] The [[East Valley Tribune]] reported in 2003 that it was incorporated in [[California]] in 1972 as the Alcor Society for Solid State Hypothermia, took its present name in 1977, and moved its headquarters to the Scottsdale Airpark in 1994.[^2] An Iowa appellate opinion describes it as "a California nonprofit corporation registered as a tax exempt 501(c)(3) scientific organization engaged in the study and practice of cryonic suspension."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Alcor's current staff page states that [[Linda Chamberlain]] "is one of the co-founders of Alcor (Alcor Life Extension Foundation) and served as its first CEO," that she and her husband, [[Fred Chamberlain III]], "started Alcor in 1972," and that [[Hugh Hixon]] "commenced employment at Alcor in 1982 as the Facilities Engineer."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Riverside Coroner and Dora Kent, 1987 to 1992
|
||||
|
||||
According to the timeline Alcor published in its magazine, [[Dora Kent]], the 83 year old mother of the cryonics activist [[Saul Kent]], was brought from a nursing home to the Alcor facility in [[Riverside]], California, on December 10, 1987, examined by the physician [[Steve Harris]], and stopped breathing shortly after midnight on December 11; the account states that Alcor personnel, "misinterpreting" the coroner's requirement of a physician in attendance, proceeded with the suspension without a physician present to pronounce death, and that the physician signed the death certificate the following day.[^5] On December 16 the [[Riverside County Coroner's Office]] removed the non-suspended remains, and on December 21 told Alcor that an autopsy had found pneumonia as the cause of death. Alcor's account states that on December 23 two coroner's deputies told its representatives the case was closed, and that on December 24 a newspaper reported that the coroner's office was investigating whether she was alive when her head was removed.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
[[United Press International]] reported on January 14, 1988, that Coroner [[Ray Carrillo]] said the investigation into the cause of death continued, exploring "murder, suicide, accidental or natural causes," that Deputy Coroner [[Dan Cupido]] said investigators did not believe she was alive during the decapitation, that sedatives were found in a search of the facility, that Cupido said conversations with her personal physician revealed that the doctor did not consider her a "terminal patient," and that equipment found there was under investigation as possibly stolen from the [[UCLA]] Medical Center, which Alcor said it had bought as surplus. Alcor refused to surrender the head for autopsy, arguing that it would prevent future revival, and a judge had temporarily barred the coroner from thawing the head or other specimens.[^6] [[Time]] reported in March 1988 that the coroner had classified the death as a homicide and asserted that she had been injected with barbiturates that hastened her death, while Alcor officials maintained that barbiturates were given immediately after clinical death "to act as a preservative and insulate the brain."[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Alcor's account of January 7, 1988, states that coroner's deputies entered the facility under a search warrant for all patient care records and for the head of Dora Kent, copied the names and addresses of members, and handcuffed [[Mike Darwin]] and Hugh Hixon and later four others, six people in all, who were taken to the Riverside County Jail; only Darwin was charged with anything, and the account says the charge was dropped when Alcor's attorney arrived. It states that on January 12 and 13 deputies returned with UCLA police and a SWAT team and over about 30 hours removed equipment, and that on January 13 Riverside Superior Court Judge [[Victor Miceli]] issued a temporary restraining order barring the coroner from thawing or autopsying any Alcor patient.[^5] The account states that a preliminary restraining order followed on February 1, 1988, and that in a settlement with Saul Kent the coroner agreed to halt the search for the head in exchange for Kent dropping a demand for 25,600 dollars in legal expenses.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The same account reports a further development in October 1989: that, through a leak at the [[Board of Medical Quality Assurance]], Alcor learned that the Riverside County District Attorney's Office was preparing to file 19 felony counts of practicing medicine without a license against members of its suspension team, and that the physician who had accepted the anatomical gift was to be charged with aiding and abetting. It also states that Carrillo lost the coroner's election of November 6, 1990, to his chief deputy [[Scotty Hill]], and that the false arrest claims by the six detained people were settled for about 90,000 dollars, divided among them and their attorneys.[^5] The Tribune later summarized the Kent matter as one in which "the case was dropped after extensive legal wrangling."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Alcor v. Mitchell, 1992
|
||||
|
||||
In *Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Inc. v. Mitchell*, 7 Cal.App.4th 1287, 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 572, the Court of Appeal decided on June 10, 1992, an appeal by the [[California Department of Health Services]], its Office of the State Registrar and their heads from a judgment for Alcor and two of its members. The opinion, by Justice Gates with Justices Nott and Manella concurring, records that "for a number of years Alcor was apparently permitted to operate" under the [[Uniform Anatomical Gift Act]], but that in March 1988 the State Registrar, [[David Mitchell]], "in a letter making explicit reference to Alcor," advised the Riverside County Coroner that burial permits may not be issued for cryonic suspension.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
The opinion states that three months later, answering an inquiry from the Riverside County Department of Health, Mitchell stated that if Alcor was storing bodies or body parts it would be "guilty of a misdemeanor" and "should be reported to the local District Attorney for investigation and prosecution as appropriate," and that the department then issued a handbook instructing local registrars that cryonic suspension is not a "scientific use." The court observed that the state had set up no procedure by which Alcor could be licensed as a procurement organization, called the position a "catch-22" that "exposes Alcor to potential criminal liability," and affirmed the trial court's injunction against interference with death registration and disposition permits for members, writing that the trial court "has expressed no opinion on the validity of cryonics or the manner in which it should be regulated, nor do we."[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Scottsdale, 1994 to 2003
|
||||
|
||||
The Tribune reported in October 2003 that Alcor had operated in the Scottsdale Airpark largely without public scrutiny since 1994 and that "the state has little power to regulate cryonics." It reported 58 patients stored, charges of about 120,000 dollars for whole-body suspension and 50,000 dollars for a head, about 600 members, 12 employees, and a policy since 2001 requiring new members to name Alcor as beneficiary of their life insurance. Revenue rose from 485,310 dollars in 1998 to 875,615 dollars in 2001 according to Internal Revenue Service filings, and a 2002 annual report showed 2.6 million dollars (the Tribune's accompanying fact box gives 2.3 million dollars in total revenue and 5.5 million dollars in assets for 2002); the Tribune quoted [[Tom Pollak]] of the [[Urban Institute]] on administrative costs of 45 to 50 percent of expenses from 1998 to 2001, against a national median of about 13 percent, and added his caution that reporting methods vary. The chief executive, [[Jerry Lemler]], who joined Alcor in 2001, earned 85,240 dollars in 2001.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Ted Williams and Larry Johnson, 2002 to 2012
|
||||
|
||||
After the baseball player [[Ted Williams]] died in July 2002, his son [[John Henry Williams]] had the body frozen at Alcor, a decision that his daughter [[Bobby-Jo Williams Ferrell]] disputed.[^10] [[Larry Johnson]], described by the Tribune as Alcor's former chief operating officer, worked at Alcor from January 2003 until August 11, 2003, when he said he was fired. [[Sports Illustrated]] reported in August 2003, on information Johnson supplied, that Alcor had severed Williams's head, drilled holes in it, fractured the skull and misplaced DNA samples; the Tribune reported that Alcor "has never publicly acknowledged ownership of Williams' body" and denied that his DNA was missing. Alcor sued Johnson for breach of a confidentiality agreement and theft of property, and Johnson filed a counterclaim alleging false accusations and slander.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
In the same period Johnson, through the lawyer [[John A. Heer]], wrote to [[Los Angeles]] police in mid-July 2003 about the 1992 death of a terminally ill man with AIDS whose remains are stored at Alcor. A [[Los Angeles Police Department]] robbery-homicide detective, [[Brian Carr]], confirmed to the Tribune that the death was under investigation on the basis of evidence Johnson provided, which included recordings Johnson made without the speakers' knowledge. On one recording, according to the Tribune, a man Johnson identified as Hixon, an Alcor senior board member and facilities engineer, stated that he was at the scene when a then-employee injected the man with a drug known to paralyze, adding that "after about seven or eight minutes (the patient) quit breathing, which was entirely to be expected." On another, a man Johnson identified as a second Alcor executive said that the information would "absolutely destroy" Alcor if public and that "it's deniable." The Tribune withheld the names of the former employee and of the second executive, who could not be reached; Hixon, contacted by the Tribune, said "I'm declining comment" and referred questions to Lemler, who did not return calls, and Alcor director [[Carlos Mondragon]] wrote on the Alcor website that Alcor was in active litigation with Johnson and could not comment.[^2][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
John Henry Williams died of leukemia on March 6, 2004, and the Tribune reported that Boston newspapers said his body was also stored at Alcor.[^10] On March 18, 2004, Ferrell and two nephews of Ted Williams filed suit in [[Maricopa County Superior Court]] demanding that Alcor produce a "document of gift" under the [[Arizona Anatomical Gift Act]]; Alcor chief executive [[Joseph Waynick]] said that "every patient we have has a document of gift" and that the plaintiffs had no standing.[^10] In June 2004 the [[Associated Press]] reported that Ferrell and her husband signed a settlement agreeing that they would no longer try to remove the remains from Alcor or object to their preservation, that the estate, which had sued the Ferrells on May 10, would drop its litigation through its executor [[Al Cassidy]], and quoted her husband: "This has cost us about $100,000."[^11] Alcor stated that Maricopa County Superior Court Judge [[Thomas Dunevant III]] ordered it to present the document of gift to the two nephews, that it submitted a judgment to expedite the order, that the court's final order was dated November 30, 2004, and that it decided not to appeal and delivered the documents on December 20, 2004.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
Johnson's book *Frozen*, written with [[Scott Baldyga]] and published by [[Vanguard Press]], appeared in October 2009, and Alcor sued Johnson, Baldyga and the publisher in New York.[^13] On February 10, 2012, Alcor published a statement by Johnson, issued, in Alcor's words, "in connection with the end of litigation." It reads: "my account of the Ted Williams cryopreservation, which was not based upon my first-hand observation as noted in my book, is contradicted by information furnished by ALCOR. I am not now certain that Ted Williams' body was treated disrespectfully, or that any procedures were performed without authorization or conducted poorly." Alcor states that Johnson's bankruptcy filing ended its ability to collect damages from him, that on May 1, 2014, its defamation complaint against the publisher and Baldyga was dismissed on the ground that Alcor could not show knowledge of falsity at that stage, and that an appellate court later held Alcor to be a general purpose public figure and dismissed its appeal.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Arizona House Bill 2637, 2004
|
||||
|
||||
On February 6, 2004, [[Arizona]] House Bill 2637 was introduced by Representatives Stump, Gullett, Huffman, Meza and O'Halleran, with a long list of further sponsors that includes Senators Anderson, Bee, Blendu, R. Cannell, Giffords and Martin. Its text did not name Alcor: it required a license or registration under the funeral directors and embalmers chapter for a person or entity that stores a dead human body or remains for more than five years, even if storage began before January 1, 2005.[^14] The version engrossed by the House added that the entity must also accept money or assets as payment, that board rules could not disclose the identity of persons stored or require storage containers to be opened unless a court ordered it, and that a licensed entity would not be an organ procurement organization.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
The Tribune reported before the session that [[Bob Stump]], a [[Peoria]] Republican, said the state had "scant regulatory authority over companies such as Alcor" and that he was examining what steps to take, and that [[Rodolfo Thomas]], executive director of the [[Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers]], said "there is no regulation in terms of a mechanism for complaints, or where there is true oversight."[^2] On the March 11, 2004, floor debate, the Tribune quoted Representative [[Michele Reagan]] of Scottsdale saying the bill could drive Alcor out of business or out of Arizona and that "the tax revenue from what Alcor does (with one client) is the same as 10 car sales," and Representative [[Wally Straughn]] saying he found it "difficult to tell the difference between what Alcor does in Scottsdale and what the man did in northern Arizona who had his deceased wife in the deep freeze on the back porch." Alcor's lobbyist [[Barry Aarons]] said that after an outcry from Alcor supporters Stump added amendments allowing Alcor to keep client identities secret and containers sealed absent a court order.[^16] Alcor's own chronology records Alcor testifying at the February 26 committee hearing through Aarons, Waynick, a funeral director under contract and the researcher [[Aubrey de Grey]]; a third reading vote of 43 to 14 with 3 not voting on March 15; assignment to the [[Senate Commerce Committee]] on March 24; and withdrawal of the bill on April 1, 2004.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### Alcor v. Richardson, 2010
|
||||
|
||||
On May 12, 2010, the [[Iowa Court of Appeals]] decided *Alcor Life Extension Foundation v. Richardson*, No. 09-1255. A [[Burlington, Iowa]], pharmacist had applied for membership on June 1, 2004, chose neurosuspension, signed documents on December 15, 2004, authorizing Alcor to take his remains, and paid a lump-sum lifetime fee of 53,500 dollars. After his death on February 19, 2009, his brother and sister, who had been appointed his co-conservators in 2008, had him embalmed and buried on February 21 without notifying Alcor. The court reversed the district court, held that Alcor was entitled to a mandatory injunction directing the siblings to sign the application for a disinterment permit at Alcor's expense, and declined to find the request moot, stating that it could not do so "without making scientific and philosophical judgments we are not prepared to make."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Litigation from 2017 and Legal Spending
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Santa Barbara Independent]] reported in April 2019 that a [[Goleta]], California, member who had signed a whole-body contract in 1990 died in 2015 at age 90, that Alcor technicians removed his head and the rest of his remains were cremated and mailed to his son in Montana, and that Alcor sued the son over the life insurance proceeds and the son sued back, in a case to be tried in [[Santa Barbara Superior Court]] the following year. The Independent wrote that the son's lawyers intended to challenge "the validity of the entire cryonics industry by questioning its basis in science and the promises it makes to customers," quoted the son's lawyer, [[David Tappeiner]] of [[Fell Marking]], as asking "does the model itself work?", and wrote that "if they win, it could put Alcor out of business." Alcor's attorney, [[James Arrowood]], wrote that Alcor was confident that the court and, if necessary, a jury "will properly weigh all the facts and, as they have in the past, find that Alcor has acted appropriately."[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
Alcor's returns list its highest paid independent contractors. In 2019 these were [[Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth]] (648,038 dollars for legal services), [[Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan]] (452,828 dollars), [[Arrowood Herbert PLLC]] (426,049 dollars) and [[Suspended Animation, Inc.]] (134,585 dollars for research). In 2020 they were Quinn Emanuel (898,223 dollars), Stradling Yocca (567,711 dollars), Arrowood Herbert (298,846 dollars), [[Sonoran Crest Development, LLC]] (277,062 dollars for construction) and [[International Cryomedicine Experts]] (116,935 dollars). In 2021 they were Arrowood Herbert (195,132 dollars), International Cryomedicine Experts (173,654 dollars) and [[Advanced Neural Biosciences]] (109,250 dollars for research and case outcomes).[^19] Total expenses on the 2018 return were 15,641,107 dollars, including a grant described below, against 4,936,084 dollars in 2019 and 4,386,958 dollars in 2020.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Directors, Officers and Related Parties
|
||||
|
||||
The Form 990 for 2011 lists as directors [[Ravin Jain]], Saul Kent, [[Ralph Merkle]], [[Michael Riskin]] (chairman), [[Michael Seidl]], [[Brian Wowk]], [[Tim Shavers]] and [[James Clement]], with [[Max More]] as president and chief executive officer and [[Michael Perry]] as secretary, treasurer and chief financial officer. [[Catherine Baldwin]] appears from the 2013 return; [[Andrew Aymeloglu]] and [[Michael O'Neal]] from 2016; [[Michael Anzis]] and [[Bonnie Magee]] (vice president of finance) from 2017; [[Patrick Harris]] as chief operating officer in the 2019 return and as president and chief executive officer from the 2020 return; and Linda Chamberlain as secretary in the 2022 return, with [[Marji Klima]] as co-chief executive and president and [[Jason Harrow]] as a director.[^19] Saul Kent appears as a director through the 2016 return and not in the 2017 return.[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
Alcor's staff page, which lists its current directors, describes Andrew Aymeloglu as "Director of Engineering at [[Palantir Technologies]] from 2005-2015" and an Alcor member since 2011; Jason Harrow as a partner at Gerstein Harrow LLP, formerly chief counsel and executive director of [[Equal Citizens]] and an assistant solicitor general in the [[New York Attorney General]]'s office; [[Rebecca Lively]] as an attorney who worked "in the private sector and in government, with a focus on legal and policy issues relating to acquisitions, intellectual property, and cyberspace operations"; and Ralph Merkle as a co-inventor of public key cryptography formerly at [[Xerox PARC]] and [[Zyvex]], stating of him that in 2008 he and [[Robert Freitas]] wrote "A Nanofactory Roadmap," a research proposal "which was declassified and published in 2025."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
More's reportable compensation was 131,328 dollars in 2011, 126,532 dollars in 2012, 123,728 dollars in 2013 (with 15,499 dollars of other compensation), 128,245 dollars in 2014 and 141,493 dollars in 2015; Perry's was 31,593 dollars in 2011 and 31,951 dollars in 2013.[^19] The 2020 return states that Alcor has no employees and leases them from [[Employers Resource]] on a direct reimbursement basis.[^19] The return for 2023 lists James Arrowood as president and chief executive officer (reportable compensation 203,665 dollars), Marji Klima as co-chief executive and president (176,500 dollars), Michael Perry as treasurer (42,000 dollars) and Linda Chamberlain as secretary (54,500 dollars), with directors including Aymeloglu, Harrow, Merkle, Michael O'Neal, Michael Seidl, Blake Honiotes and Lively, and total revenue of 5,728,535 dollars of which membership dues were 872,439 dollars.[^20] Arrowood Herbert PLLC appears among the highest paid contractors in the returns for 2019 to 2021, and the Santa Barbara Independent named James Arrowood as Alcor's attorney in April 2019; Alcor's staff page now gives his title as "CEO/President, General Counsel," and states that before becoming chief executive he served as Alcor's general counsel.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Schedule L of the 2011 and 2012 returns reports a business transaction with [[21st Century Medicine]], described as a common officer relationship with Saul Kent, for licensing, 18,008 dollars.[^19] The 2013 return reports a research payment of 113,125 dollars to Suspended Animation, Inc. of Boynton Beach, Florida, stating that "Saul Kent and Catherine Baldwin, directors with Alcor are officers with Suspended Animation, Inc, a vendor of the organization." The same statement appears with 75,896 dollars in 2014, 88,520 dollars in 2015 and 92,740 dollars in 2016.[^19] Alcor's reviewed 2014 financial statements state that in 2014 and 2013 Alcor purchased 75,896 dollars and 113,125 dollars of services from a company for which board members are officers.[^21] The return for 2017 reports 14,704 dollars of research payments to Suspended Animation with the statement that Baldwin, "a director with Alcor," is an officer of the company. The return for 2018 lists it as the only contractor above 100,000 dollars (164,076 dollars, research) with the statement that Baldwin, "a former director," is an officer of the company; neither Kent nor Baldwin appears among the directors in the 2018 return. The returns for 2019 and 2022 list Suspended Animation as a contractor (134,585 dollars for research and 216,367 dollars for cryomedicine) without a related-party statement, and the return for 2023 lists it at 239,846 dollars for cryomedicine. The company's address is given as Boynton Beach, Florida, in the return for 2013, Santa Margarita, California, in those for 2018 and 2019, and Lake Forest, California, in those for 2022 and 2023.[^19][^20] The 2020 financial statements add that "in 2013, the [[Alcor Patient Care Trust]] purchased an investment of preferred stock in a privately held company for which Alcor Life Extension Foundation's board members are officers," without naming the company.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### Trusts, Supporting Organizations and Transfers
|
||||
|
||||
The consolidated statements, prepared under an accountants' review report and not an audit, describe the Alcor Patient Care Trust as an irrevocable trust for patients in biostasis, which held an 84.058 percent interest in [[Cryonics Property, LLC]], the owner of the Scottsdale building, through 2018 and 95.6542 percent after an additional purchase of 11.5962 percent in 2019; the [[Alcor Endowment Trust Supporting Organization]], formed in 2013 and controlled through a shared board; and the [[Alcor Care Trust Supporting Organization]], formed in June 2016.[^21] The statements for 2018 state that during that year the Patient Care Trust transferred approximately 12 million dollars of investments to the Care Trust Supporting Organization, with the intent that the deferred patient care reserve liability follow, though "the liability was not legally assumed as of December 31, 2018." The 2018 return's Schedule I reports a grant of 12,707,651 dollars to the Alcor Care Trust Supporting Organization (EIN 32-6428275), a 200,000 dollar grant to it appears in 2020, and the 2020 statements record an August 9, 2020, board approval of the transfer of the Deferred Patient Care Reserve to it, establishing a 12 million dollar liability at year end.[^19][^21]
|
||||
|
||||
ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer lists revenue of 9,205,020 dollars for 2010, 5,447,800 dollars for 2011, 7,169,093 dollars for 2018, 15,560,830 dollars for 2020 and 5,728,535 dollars for 2023, and total assets of 30,564,278 dollars for 2023. The 2020 return reports 14,344,987 dollars of noncash contributions on line 1g of Part VIII; the returns do not identify donors.[^1][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Peter Thiel
|
||||
|
||||
[[Peter Thiel]], asked by [[Bari Weiss]] in an episode of her *Honestly* podcast, reported by [[Mediaite]] on May 5, 2023, whether he is signed up to be cryonically preserved, answered: "Yes, but ... think of it more as an ideological statement. I don't necessarily expect it to work, but I think it's the sort of thing we're supposed to try to do." Mediaite added, without naming a source, that in 2016 he "was named as one of many tech investors behind the Alcor Life Extension Foundation."[^22] The Form 990 and financial statement text reviewed for this page, covering 2010 to 2022, does not name Thiel as a donor or officer, and the Form 990-PF of the [[Thiel Foundation]] for 2023, which lists 59 grants totaling 4,334,013 dollars, contains no reference to Alcor.[^19][^21][^23]
|
||||
|
||||
### Epstein Library References
|
||||
|
||||
Documents in the [[Department of Justice]] [[Epstein Files|Epstein Library]] mention Alcor in correspondence. On January 17, 2013, [[Ben Goertzel]] sent [[Jeffrey Epstein]] a "cleaned-up list of interesting people" that includes Max More, described as "CEO of Alcor (the leading cryonics firm), and before that, arguably the founding philosopher of transhumanism."[^24] On August 24, 2016, [[Joscha Bach]] wrote to Epstein under the subject "Marvin and Alcor": "Marvin had a contract with Alcor to cryopreserve his brain. Do you happen to know if they got to him in time?"[^25] On April 15, 2018, Bach wrote to Epstein about the brain preservation company Nectome that "since they only share it with Alcor even that might work out"; Epstein's reply, on another subject in the same message, was "jim is clever. only spoke once to him."[^26] No document located in this search shows a contract or payment between Epstein and Alcor.
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: ProPublica, Nonprofit Explorer API, Alcor Life Extension Foundation Inc (EIN 23-7154039, Scottsdale, AZ; IRS ruling date 1972-12; Form 990 totals for 2010 to 2023). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/237154039.json
|
||||
[^2]: Bill Bertolino, "Alcor may face tighter controls," East Valley Tribune, October 12, 2003. https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/news/alcor-may-face-tighter-controls/article_168b6466-490f-5d17-8515-769f79968123.html
|
||||
[^3]: Alcor Life Extension Foundation v. Richardson, No. 09-1255, 785 N.W.2d 717 (Iowa Ct. App. May 12, 2010) (Mansfield, J.), slip opinion, sections I and F. https://www.iowacourts.gov/moduledocuments/embed/18885/0098_86FEF47040AE0.pdf
|
||||
[^4]: Alcor Life Extension Foundation, "Meet the Team" (Alcor Leadership and Board of Directors biographies), alcor.org, accessed October 1, 2026. A description by the organization of its own staff. https://www.alcor.org/about/alcor-staff/
|
||||
[^5]: Alcor Life Extension Foundation, "Alcor's Dora Kent Crisis and Legal Aftermath," compiling articles from CRYONICS magazine of January 1988, February 1988, October 1989, December 1990 and September and November 1992 (timeline of December 9, 1987, to January 13, 1988; February 1, 1988 update; Legal Update; Out-of-Court Settlement for False Arrest). An account by a party to the dispute. https://www.cryonicslegal.org/dorakent/DoraKent.html
|
||||
[^6]: Susan Seager, "Woman died before cryonics lab cut off her head, coroner says," United Press International, January 14, 1988. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1988/01/14/Woman-died-before-cryonics-lab-cut-off-her-head-coroner-says/6063569134800/
|
||||
[^7]: "California: How Mama Lost Her Head," Time, March 7, 1988. https://time.com/archive/6711741/california-how-mama-lost-her-head/
|
||||
[^8]: Bill Bertolino, "Scottsdale company's role in death probed," East Valley Tribune, September 28, 2003. https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/news/scottsdale-company-s-role-in-death-probed/article_c5d5e866-8926-5e28-b077-adca15135be0.html
|
||||
[^9]: Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Inc. v. Mitchell, 7 Cal.App.4th 1287, 9 Cal.Rptr.2d 572 (Cal. Ct. App. June 10, 1992) (Gates, J.; Nott and Manella, JJ. concurring), text as reproduced by the Cryonics Archive. https://www.cryonicsarchive.org/library/california-appellate-court-decision/
|
||||
[^10]: Bill Bertolino, "Williams' family sues Alcor," East Valley Tribune, March 19, 2004. https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/news/williams-family-sues-alcor/article_2e0302c6-e6e5-5f96-b78a-97944e607bcd.html
|
||||
[^11]: Associated Press, "Daughter of Ted Williams drops case against Alcor," Sun Journal (Lewiston, Maine), June 16, 2004. https://www.sunjournal.com/2004/06/16/daughter-ted-williams-drops-case-alcor/
|
||||
[^12]: Alcor Life Extension Foundation, press releases of September 17, October 4, December 3 and December 20, 2004, collected as "Alcor Press Releases Re: Ted Williams," Cryonics Archive. Statements of a party. https://www.cryonicsarchive.org/press/alcor-press-releases-re-ted-williams/
|
||||
[^13]: Alcor Life Extension Foundation, "Response to Larry Johnson Allegations" (entries of February 10, 2012, and May 19, 2014, with updates of March and August 2015), Cryonics Archive. Statements of a party. https://www.cryonicsarchive.org/press/response-to-larry-johnson-allegations/
|
||||
[^14]: Arizona Legislature, Forty-sixth Legislature, Second Regular Session, HB 2637, introduced version (462R, "I Ver"), 2004. https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/46leg/2R/bills/HB2637P.htm
|
||||
[^15]: Arizona Legislature, HB 2637, House engrossed version (462R, "H Ver"), 2004, section 1 (A.R.S. 32-1340). https://www.azleg.gov/legtext/46leg/2R/bills/HB2637H.htm
|
||||
[^16]: Le Templar, "03/12 - Preliminary approval given for cryonics oversight," East Valley Tribune, March 12, 2004. https://www.eastvalleytribune.com/special_reports/cryonics/article_4e6e16f3-3912-5735-98bf-70f95322bacf.html
|
||||
[^17]: Alcor Life Extension Foundation, "Chronology of Attempted 2004 Cryonics Legislation in Arizona," Alcor Library. A chronology by a party. https://alcor.org/Library/html/legislation.html
|
||||
[^18]: Tyler Hayden, "In Cryonics Lawsuit, Son Fights for Father's Frozen Head," Santa Barbara Independent, April 17, 2019. https://www.independent.com/2019/04/17/in-cryonics-lawsuit-son-fights-for-fathers-frozen-head/
|
||||
[^19]: Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Form 990 for tax years 2010 to 2022 as posted by Alcor (Part VII, Sections A and B; Part VIII; Schedules I, L and O), e.g. https://www.alcor.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/alcor-form-990-2013.pdf, .../alcor-form-990-2018.pdf, .../alcor-form-990-2019.pdf, .../alcor-form-990-2020.pdf and .../alcor-form-990-2022.pdf.
|
||||
[^20]: Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Form 990 for the year ended December 31, 2023 (Part VII, Sections A and B; Part VIII; Schedule L), Internal Revenue Service e-file object 202423209349326972, IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search bulk data, 2024_TEOS_XML_11A. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
|
||||
[^21]: Alcor Life Extension Foundation, Inc. and Affiliates, consolidated financial statements with independent accountants' review report, years ended December 31, 2014, 2018 and 2020 (notes on principles of consolidation, related parties and investments). https://www.alcor.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/alcor-financial-statement-2014.pdf, .../alcor-financial-statement-2018.pdf and .../alcor-financial-statement-2020.pdf
|
||||
[^22]: Mediaite, "Peter Thiel Confirms His Plans to Be Cryogenically Frozen When He Dies But Admits 'I'm Not Convinced It Works,'" May 5, 2023, citing the New York Post and reporting the *Honestly with Bari Weiss* interview. https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/peter-thiel-confirms-his-plans-to-be-cryogenically-frozen-when-he-dies-but-admits-im-not-convinced-it-works/
|
||||
[^23]: The Thiel Foundation (EIN 20-3846597), Form 990-PF for the year ended December 31, 2023 (Part XV), Internal Revenue Service e-file object 202403209349108200, IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search bulk data, 2024_TEOS_XML_11A. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
|
||||
[^24]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, DataSet 9, EFTA00715319, email from Ben Goertzel to Jeffrey Epstein, January 17, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00715319.pdf
|
||||
[^25]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, DataSet 11, EFTA02454349, email from Joscha Bach to Jeffrey Epstein, August 24, 2016. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02454349.pdf
|
||||
[^26]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, DataSet 9, EFTA00832674, email exchange between Joscha Bach and Jeffrey Epstein headed "Re: Nectome," April 15, 2018. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00832674.pdf
|
||||
|
|
@ -1,21 +1,195 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- organization
|
||||
- media
|
||||
- contra-war
|
||||
summary: The Associated Press was the news service whose reporters Robert Parry and Brian Barger broke early stories on Contra drug trafficking that were suppressed by editors.
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- NewsAgency
|
||||
- Cooperative
|
||||
- Media
|
||||
- NaziGermany
|
||||
- OfficeOfCensorship
|
||||
- ContraWar
|
||||
- PressFreedom
|
||||
- WhiteHouse
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Associated Press
|
||||
- The Associated Press
|
||||
- AP
|
||||
- A.P.
|
||||
- AP GmbH
|
||||
summary: "New York news cooperative of United States newspapers and broadcasters, founded in 1846, whose Berlin photo subsidiary worked under Nazi press law and whose phone records, Gaza bureau and White House access drew government action."
|
||||
start: 1846
|
||||
location: "New York City"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Kent Cooper]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1925
|
||||
end: 1948
|
||||
role: "general manager"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Byron Price]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1937
|
||||
end: 1941-12
|
||||
role: "executive editor"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Alan J. Gould]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1941
|
||||
end: 1963
|
||||
role: "executive editor"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Parry]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 1987
|
||||
role: "Washington correspondent"
|
||||
fn: 17
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Berrellez]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "roving correspondent for Latin America"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Gary Pruitt]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president and chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Daisy Veerasingham]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president and chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Associated Press v. United States]]"
|
||||
start: 1944-12
|
||||
end: 1945-06
|
||||
role: "appellant"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
|
||||
start: 2012-04
|
||||
end: 2012-05
|
||||
role: "toll records for more than 20 lines subpoenaed for April and May 2012"
|
||||
fn: 21
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Israel Defense Forces]]"
|
||||
start: 2021-05-15
|
||||
end: 2021-05-15
|
||||
role: "bureau building destroyed by airstrike"
|
||||
fn: 25
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Associated Press v. Budowich]]"
|
||||
start: 2025-02
|
||||
role: "plaintiff"
|
||||
fn: 28
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Associated Press]] (AP) was the news service whose reporters [[Robert Parry]] and Brian Barger broke early stories on [[Contras|Contra]] drug trafficking in the 1980s. Their groundbreaking reporting was suppressed by editors who sat on the story for weeks, heavily edited it, and ultimately spiked it.[^1]
|
||||
The Associated Press (AP) is a news cooperative headquartered in [[New York City]], founded in 1846 and owned by [[United States]] newspapers and broadcasters as its members.[^1] In 1846 five New York City newspapers funded a pony express route through [[Alabama]] to bring news of the [[Mexican-American War|Mexican War]] north faster than the Post Office could carry it.[^2] The AP's history page carries a photograph of its president and chief executive, [[Daisy Veerasingham]], taken at the New York headquarters on January 11, 2022.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Suppressed Reporting
|
||||
### Cooperative structure
|
||||
|
||||
Robert Parry, one of the AP reporters who wrote the story on Contra drug connections, said his editors sat on the piece for weeks and edited it heavily, only to spike it at the last minute. The suppression of the AP's Contra-drug story in the 1980s foreshadowed the media establishment's treatment of [[Gary Webb]]'s [[Dark Alliance]] series a decade later. The AP's failure to publish its own reporters' findings allowed the government to maintain its denial of Contra-connected drug trafficking for years.[^2]
|
||||
The AP was incorporated as a cooperative association under the Membership Corporations Law of the State of New York. In its 1945 decision the [[Supreme Court]] counted the publishers of more than 1,200 newspapers among its members and described a body of by-laws that bound every member, allowed the board of directors to fine, suspend or expel a member for a violation, and barred members from selling news to non-members. The AP had begun as an [[Illinois]] corporation in which an existing member held an absolute veto over the application of a competing publisher; the by-laws were amended in 1931 to extend a right of protest to members of more than five years' standing, and again in 1942 after complaints to the [[Department of Justice]] produced an investigation. In [[Associated Press v. United States]], argued December 5 and 6, 1944 and decided June 18, 1945, Justice [[Hugo Black]] wrote for the Court that the by-laws restrained trade in violation of the [[Sherman Antitrust Act]]. Justices [[William O. Douglas]] and [[Felix Frankfurter]] filed concurring opinions, Justice [[Owen Roberts]] dissented in part in an opinion joined by the Chief Justice, Justice [[Frank Murphy]] dissented, and Justice [[Robert H. Jackson]] took no part.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The board is drawn from member publishers and broadcasters. At the annual meeting of April 2022 the AP announced a board of 13 directors, who were elected by members or appointed by the board, each eligible to serve nine years in total with the chair exempt. [[Gracia Martore]], formerly president and chief executive of [[Tegna]] and a director since 2013, became chair in succession to [[Steven Swartz]], president and chief executive of [[Hearst Corporation]], who had been elected in 2009 and had completed a five-year term as chair. The meeting added [[Mark Adams]] of Adams Publishing Group as a director representing small-market newspapers, and the directors named included [[Michael Newhouse]], co-president of [[Advance Publications|Advance]], and [[Isaac Lee]], founder of Exile Content.[^4] The notice of May 2014 had reported a board of 21 directors, with [[Jon Rust]] of the Southeast Missourian as vice chair, and had listed Lee as president of news for [[Univision]] and [[Rob King]] as a senior vice president of [[ESPN]], both appointed by the board.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
A search of the Nonprofit Explorer index of [[Internal Revenue Service]] exempt-organization returns on October 1, 2026 returned the Associated Press Emergency Relief Fund (EIN 02-0749041) and the Associated Press Media Editors foundation (EIN 13-3529099), and returned no Form 990 filer under the name of the cooperative itself.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Berlin, 1931 to 1941
|
||||
|
||||
The AP opened subsidiaries in Britain and Germany in 1931. The German subsidiary, the AP GmbH, was a German-registered photo service whose staff, as the AP's own 2017 history states, was "wholly subject to Nazi law." The [[Berlin]] news bureau was run by [[Louis P. Lochner]], who received the 1939 [[Pulitzer Prize]] for correspondence; the photo service sent some pictures to New York, where editors selected them for distribution to the AP's 1,400 American newspaper members.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
In late 1935, after resisting for two years, the AP complied with the decree that all persons working in German media be of German "Aryan" origin; the picture service reassigned or discharged six employees considered Jewish. The AP's history states that five eventually resettled in the United States with its help, that a sixth was reassigned to the [[Vienna]] bureau and was arrested by the [[Gestapo]] when the Nazis arrived in 1938, and that [[Alfred Eisenstaedt]] and two other discharged colleagues launched the Pix photo agency in New York at the end of 1935.[^8] The historian [[Harriet Scharnberg]] wrote in 2017 that the AP was the only Anglo-American picture agency operating internationally that kept its Berlin subsidiary open after 1935, that its German photographers were bound by the [[Schriftleitergesetz]] (Editors' Law) not to act to the detriment of the Reich, and that AP pictures appeared in the propaganda pamphlets *Die Juden in USA* (1939) and *Der Untermensch* (1942). She wrote that the AP's review of its own history confirmed these points and that the AP stated it regretted not having protested the use of its pictures in that way.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
In December 1938 [[Kent Cooper]], the AP's general manager from 1925 to 1948, wrote to Lochner about an unspecified proposal from the German government to the AP GmbH, a letter the AP's history reproduces. Cooper wrote: "We will want to give consideration to the suggestion for the reason that it is a suggestion to AP GmbH which is a German company." He continued that "even The Associated Press of New York is better off in Germany if it uses its good offices with the German company [AP GmbH] to bring the practices of the German company [AP GmbH] in harmony with the suggestions of the German government," and that the subsidiary "might even get the benediction of German officials." The same letter said he had long wished the subsidiary could have a German at its head so that an American need not serve as its Geschaeftsfuehrer. Lochner wrote in 1946, in a passage the history quotes, that in 1937 Nazi authorities had insisted that he give up that post because he was a foreigner and that he had then recommended Brandt, and [[Willy Brandt (AP manager)|Willy Brandt]] became Geschaeftsfuehrer; a letter from Cooper to the [[London]] manager in 1939 recorded the appointment. The history states that the subject of the German proposal has not been established.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Franz Roth]], an [[Austria]]n-born photographer hired by the AP to cover the war in [[Ethiopia]] in 1935, had left the AP and was freelancing in 1938 when he was named the official Nazi party photographer for Austria. When Lochner planned to rehire him, [[W. F. Brooks]], the AP's managing director in London, wrote to [[Lloyd Stratton]] in New York that it "would not be good business for AP to have on its staff the official S.A. photographer," and proposed a freelance arrangement giving the AP a right of first refusal on Roth's pictures. Stratton replied that he agreed "wholly" with the original reply on employing Roth and also agreed "with the contractual method of obtaining Roth's product, assuming that the contract is approved by counsel."[^11] The AP's history records Roth as an "ardent Nazi" who traveled with the [[Waffen SS|Waffen-SS]] before and after the AP's expulsion from Germany and who died in combat in 1943.[^12] Scharnberg wrote that Roth was in [[Lemberg]] on July 2, 1941, during a pogrom in which about 4,000 Jewish inhabitants were killed, and that he photographed Soviet prisoners of war, captured tanks and cheering residents rather than the violence or its victims; the pictures passed German censorship and were distributed in the United States by the AP.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
After 1939 the German government drafted several AP photographers into propaganda units, requiring that their pictures be pooled for German media while the AP continued to pay their salaries, and the photographers sent some pictures to the AP picture service as exclusives. The AP's history states that its photo and news managers worked to keep the picture service free of propaganda, that it found no record that the AP protested directly to the editors of pro-Nazi media about biased headlines and captions, and that "the AP in the totality of its conduct fulfilled its mission to gather the news in Germany forthrightly and as independently as possible." It adds that the AP should have protested when its photographs were exploited by the Nazis for propaganda within Germany and should have refused to employ German photographers with active political affiliations, and that suggestions "that AP at any point sought to help the Nazis or their heinous cause are simply wrong." Scharnberg wrote that none of the results in her 2016 article, "The A and P of Propaganda," published in *Zeithistorische Forschungen* (Studies in Contemporary History), were disproven by the review.[^9][^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Bureau Laux photo exchange and the Office of Censorship
|
||||
|
||||
On December 11, 1941 the AP's Berlin office was closed and its American staff arrested; they were interned for five months and returned in a prisoner exchange via [[Lisbon]] in spring 1942. The German picture service, with its files, was confiscated and given to the [[Auswärtiges Amt|Foreign Ministry]] under the control of [[Helmut Laux]], a Waffen-SS photographer, and most of its German personnel were absorbed into the Bureau Laux. Brandt, the German manager of the picture service, who had been drafted into the [[Luftwaffe]], was transferred by Laux into the Waffen-SS to work full-time for the Bureau.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
In 1942 Laux proposed to the AP's Lisbon correspondent, Luiz C. Lupi, a photo exchange, an arrangement in which Lochner, during his repatriation, took part. Under it the Bureau Laux sent packets of photographs from Germany and German-occupied Europe to AP offices in New York and London through neutral [[Portugal]], and later [[Sweden]], until 1945, and the AP sent photographs from the United States to the neutral countries for distribution by Laux inside Germany. The earliest evidence of the arrangement in the AP's archives is an undated 1942 cable from the executive newsphoto editor in New York, Al Resch, to the Lisbon agent.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Byron Price]] had been named the AP's first executive editor in 1937. Ten days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] took him from the AP to direct the [[Office of Censorship]]. On July 13, 1942 the AP's executive editor, [[Alan J. Gould]], telephoned N. R. Howard, an assistant to Price, to ask "if I could think of any reason why the AP should not make and/or renew loose photo exchange agreements with syndicates" in neutral countries. Howard's memorandum of the call records his reply: "Told him I could think of none as long as censorship operated on the news photos sent out of this country." On July 14 Gould wrote to Howard that "an experimental arrangement whereby an exchange of news pictures is being undertaken by the Associated Press" with a photographic agent in Lisbon, who furnished pictures "including pictures from Axis territories" in return for American photographs, was subject to censorship regulations. Howard replied that the Office of Censorship, including its postal, cable and press divisions, "has no objection to such an exchange, with all hands understanding that the pictures, as usual, and like all others, are subject to censorship regulations." The acting chief of postal censorship, Army Major N. V. Carlson, wrote that the exchange "should be encouraged for the information value that may be derived from the arrangements." The three letters are in the National Archives and are reproduced in the AP's history.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
German editors received the AP's photographs through Laux, who copied them for Nazi leaders and offered them to German newspapers and magazines; with one exception the pictures were unaltered, and the captions were rewritten. Allied investigators who compared the original and published captions after the war found that "practically every text was altered before release to the German public." The AP's annual reports listed the receipt of photographs from Germany among the cooperative's wartime accomplishments, and its captions identified their German origin to member newspapers.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
Laux cooperated with Allied criminal investigators and intelligence after the war, argued that his arrangement with the AP should spare him punishment, served time in an Allied detention camp, founded a photo agency in [[Frankfurt]] and sold pictures of [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] on D-Day to *[[Life (magazine)|Life]]*. Brandt's request to return to the AP was refused by the American military authorities overseeing denazification because of his enlistment in the SS, which Brandt had said was forced; Lochner was embittered that the AP did not contest the finding, and the AP rehired Brandt in 1950, when he headed sales for the reconstituted AP German service until he retired in 1978. The AP sold its German-language service in 2010.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
The AP published its history, *Covering Tyranny: The AP and [[Nazi Germany]], 1933-1945*, on May 10, 2017, after Scharnberg's article of 2016. The report describes itself as the result of research in previously unexamined AP archives, other repositories, American military documents and records declassified by the [[National Archives and Records Administration]] in response to AP [[Freedom of Information Act]] requests, and it is accompanied by a separate file of scans of 43 documents, a number that Scharnberg's statement gives as 70.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Contra reporting, 1985 to 1987
|
||||
|
||||
[[Robert Parry]] and [[Brian Barger]], AP reporters in Washington, wrote in December 1985 the first story on cocaine trafficking by some [[Contras]] to raise money, with the [[Reagan administration]] turning a blind eye, according to Parry. Parry wrote that the story prompted the then freshman senator [[John Kerry]] to open an investigation, that the reporting was attacked by the [[White House]], the conservative press and "mainstream outlets like [[New York Times|The New York Times]]," and that by summer 1986 "our AP editors had begun to lose faith in us" and Barger resigned after being left indefinitely on the overnight editing shift. Parry left the AP in early 1987 to join *[[Newsweek]]*.[^17] Parry had also been, he wrote, the first reporter to describe the activities of the White House aide [[Oliver North]] in arranging support for the Contras after Congress ended [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] funding.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Gary Webb]] wrote in *[[Dark Alliance]]* that Parry's editors sat on the story for weeks, edited it heavily and spiked it at the last minute, that the suppression of the AP story foreshadowed the media establishment's treatment of Webb's own series a decade later, and that the AP's failure to publish its own reporters' findings allowed the government to maintain its denial of Contra-connected drug trafficking for years.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Correspondents who moved to other posts
|
||||
|
||||
[[Robert Berrellez]] was born in [[Nogales, Arizona]], was educated in [[Arizona]] and worked for the AP in [[Phoenix, Arizona|Phoenix]] before becoming a roving correspondent with headquarters in [[Mexico City]]. A column in the *Phoenix Republic* of April 2, 1978 states that he was in [[Cuba]] when [[Fidel Castro]] came to power and spent six months in jail there, that he had gone to work for [[ITT Corporation|International Telephone and Telegraph]], that he was by then the company's public relations director in the Southwest, and that a court in Washington was to decide whether he had committed perjury and obstructed an investigation in testifying before a [[United States Senate|Senate]] subcommittee on the company's conduct in [[Chile]].[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Telephone records, 2012 and 2013
|
||||
|
||||
On Friday, May 10, 2013 the AP's general counsel, [[Laura Malone]], received a letter from [[Ronald C. Machen Jr.]], United States attorney for the District of Columbia, who had been appointed by Attorney General [[Eric Holder]] to lead an inquiry into leaks. The letter stated that the Department of Justice had obtained telephone toll records for more than 20 separate lines assigned to the AP and its journalists for April and May 2012.[^20] On May 13 the AP's president and chief executive, [[Gary Pruitt]], wrote to Holder: "There can be no possible justification for such an overbroad collection of the telephone communications of The Associated Press and its reporters."[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
Deputy Attorney General [[James M. Cole]] replied on May 14 that the Department had opened criminal investigations into unauthorized disclosures of classified information in May 2012, and had conducted "over 550 interviews" and reviewed "tens of thousands of documents" before seeking the toll records. He wrote that for each number in the May 10 letter "there was a basis to believe the numbers were associated with AP personnel involved in the reporting of classified information," that the subpoenas did not seek the content of calls, that the records covered "only a portion" of the two-month span, and that they had been "closely held and reviewed solely for the purposes of this ongoing criminal investigation."[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
In September 2013 [[Donald Sachtleben]], a former [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] bomb technician who had continued working for the bureau as a contractor, agreed to plead guilty to disclosing national defense information to a reporter in May 2012 about a thwarted Yemen-based plan to bomb a United States-bound airliner. The Department of Justice said he "was identified as a suspect in the case of this unauthorized disclosure only after toll records for phone numbers related to the reporter were obtained through a subpoena and compared to other evidence collected during the leak investigation," and that this allowed investigators to obtain a search warrant for his phone and computer. The plea agreements, filed in [[Indianapolis]], carried a 43-month term on the national security counts and a consecutive 97-month term on two [[Child sexual abuse material|child pornography]] counts.[^22][^23]
|
||||
|
||||
On July 12, 2013 the Department of Justice published a report on its policies toward the news media that reversed the presumption concerning advance notice to affected media organizations. Notice and negotiation would be omitted only if the Attorney General, taking account of the recommendations of a newly established News Media Review Committee, determined for compelling reasons that they would pose a clear and substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation, risk grave harm to national security or present an imminent risk of death or serious bodily harm, and any delay would run for an initial 45 days with at most one further 45 days.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Gaza bureau, 2021 and 2024
|
||||
|
||||
On May 15, 2021 an Israeli airstrike destroyed a high-rise building in [[Gaza City]] that housed the AP's bureau and other media offices. The AP's account stated that the strike came roughly an hour after the Israeli military ordered people to evacuate the building and that all AP employees and freelancers left safely. Pruitt's statement said that the Israeli military had "long known the location of our bureau and knew journalists were there," that the AP had received a warning that the building would be hit, that it was seeking information from the Israeli government and was engaged with the [[State Department]], and that "the world will know less about what is happening in Gaza because of what happened today."[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
Secretary of State [[Antony Blinken]] held a press availability in Copenhagen on May 17, 2021. A reporter's question recited that the prime minister of Israel and officials of the [[Israel Defense Forces]] had said over the weekend that they had transmitted intelligence to the United States showing that [[Hamas]] used the tower to house military assets. Blinken answered that he had spoken over the weekend with Pruitt, that "we did request additional details regarding the justification" for the strike, that he "wouldn't want to weigh in on intelligence matters," and that he would "leave it to others to characterize if any information has been shared and our assessment of that information."[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 21, 2024 Israeli officials seized an AP camera and broadcasting equipment in [[Sderot]], accusing the AP of violating a media law enacted against Al Jazeera by supplying it with live images of northern Gaza. The communications minister, [[Shlomo Karhi]], ordered the equipment returned the same day.[^27]
|
||||
|
||||
### Exclusion from the White House press pool, 2025
|
||||
|
||||
On February 11, 2025 White House press secretary [[Karoline Leavitt]] told the AP that it would not be permitted in the [[Oval Office]] or the press pool unless it revised its style guide to refer to the Gulf of America. The AP was also excluded from events in the [[East Room]]. Press pool membership had historically been set by the [[White House Correspondents' Association]], of which the AP is a founding member and which had offered the AP a standing invitation to send one reporter and one photographer. On February 25 the White House announced that it would select pool participants itself. The AP sued on [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] grounds in *[[Associated Press v. Budowich]]*, No. 1:25-cv-00532 (D.D.C.), naming [[Taylor Budowich]], the Deputy Chief of Staff, as defendant.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
Judge [[Trevor N. McFadden]] entered a preliminary injunction on April 8, 2025. On April 14 the AP was denied access to the Oval Office while the injunction was in effect; on April 15 the White House issued a policy abolishing the wire services seat from the press pool, and the district court denied the AP's motion to enforce, finding the new policy facially neutral and crediting a White House declaration that it had not excluded the AP on the basis of viewpoint.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
On June 6, 2025 a panel of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] granted the government's motion for a stay pending appeal in part, staying the injunction except as applied to the East Room. Judge [[Neomi Rao]], joined by Judge [[Gregory Katsas]], wrote that the White House was likely to succeed because "these restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion" and that the White House "retains discretion to determine, including on the basis of viewpoint, which journalists will be admitted." Judge [[Cornelia Pillard]] dissented and would have denied the stay.[^28] On July 22, 2025 the full court denied the AP's motion for en banc reconsideration and vacatur of the stay order.[^29] The D.C. Circuit's posted opinion lists for January through September 2026 contain no opinion in No. 25-5109.[^30]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 27.
|
||||
[^2]: Webb, Gary. *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion.* Seven Stories Press, 1998. Ch. 27.
|
||||
[^1]: Associated Press, "About," https://www.ap.org/about/ (accessed October 1, 2026): "We were founded as an independent news cooperative, whose members are U.S. newspapers and broadcasters."
|
||||
[^2]: Associated Press, "History," https://www.ap.org/about/history/ (accessed October 1, 2026).
|
||||
[^3]: *Associated Press v. United States*, 326 U.S. 1 (1945), Nos. 57, 58 and 59, argued December 5-6, 1944, decided June 18, 1945; opinion of Black, J.; Douglas, J., and Frankfurter, J., concurring; Roberts, J., dissenting in part, the Chief Justice joining; Murphy, J., dissenting; Jackson, J., taking no part. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/326/1
|
||||
[^4]: "AP announces 1 director, 4 incumbents at annual meeting," *Editor & Publisher*, April 27, 2022 (Associated Press release), https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/ap-announces-1-director-4-incumbents-at-annual-meeting,225891
|
||||
[^5]: "AP Names Three New Directors, Re-Elects Another," *Editor & Publisher*, May 7, 2014, https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/ap-names-three-new-directors-re-elects-another,154134
|
||||
[^6]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, organization search for "associated press," https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/search.json?q=associated+press (queried October 1, 2026).
|
||||
[^7]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny: The AP and Nazi Germany, 1933-1945* (New York, May 10, 2017), Introduction, pp. 1-4, and chapter 2 (Lochner), https://www.almendron.com/blog/wp-content/images/2017/06/ap-in-germany-report.pdf (copy of the AP's published report; the AP's own page ap.org/about/history/ap-in-nazi-germany returned "Page not found" on October 1, 2026).
|
||||
[^8]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, Key findings, pp. 5-6.
|
||||
[^9]: Harriet Scharnberg, "Press statement by Harriet Scharnberg on AP's review 'Covering Tyranny. The AP and Nazi Germany: 1933-1945,'" May 12, 2017, https://zeithistorische-forschungen.de/sites/default/files/medien/static/2016-1/Material/Press_Statement_Scharnberg_on_AP_May_2017.pdf ; her article is "The A and P of Propaganda. Associated Press and Nazi Photojournalism," *Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History* 13, no. 1 (2016), http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/1-2016/id=5324 (article not opened; cited through the statement).
|
||||
[^10]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, chapter 3, "The AP GmbH Photo Service," pp. 67-68 (Cooper to Lochner, December 1938, with the AP's commentary; Cooper to Brooks, 1939; Lochner on Brandt, 1937), and the report's passage on the news-agency cartel (Cooper, general manager from 1925 to 1948).
|
||||
[^11]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, chapter 4, "New York Photos: the Gatekeepers," pp. 72-73 (Brooks to Stratton; Stratton's reply).
|
||||
[^12]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, Key findings, p. 6.
|
||||
[^13]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, Introduction, pp. 2-3, and Key findings, pp. 5-6.
|
||||
[^14]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, Key findings, pp. 6-7, and chapter 5, "The Bureau Laux," pp. 91-104 (undated 1942 Resch cable; Gould telephone call of July 13, 1942 and letter of July 14, 1942 to N. R. Howard; Howard memorandum; Office of Censorship reply; Carlson letter, with National Archives images); the report gives Gould as AP executive editor from 1941 to 1963 and Price as the AP's first executive editor in 1937.
|
||||
[^15]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, Key findings, p. 7.
|
||||
[^16]: Associated Press, *Covering Tyranny*, 2017, Introduction, pp. 1, 4.
|
||||
[^17]: Robert Parry, "The Lost Opportunity of Iran-Contra," *Consortium News*, December 1, 2011, https://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/01/the-lost-opportunity-of-iran-contra/ ; Parry, "Regret over Gary Webb's Demise," *Consortium News*, June 1, 2013, https://consortiumnews.com/2013/06/01/regret-over-gary-webbs-demise/
|
||||
[^18]: Gary Webb, *Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion* (Seven Stories Press, 1998), ch. 27 (citation carried from the existing vault page for the Associated Press; not reopened in this run).
|
||||
[^19]: "Bad Deal For Berrellez," *Phoenix Republic*, April 2, 1978, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP09T00207R001000030015-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp09t00207r001000030015-6
|
||||
[^20]: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "Justice Department defends decisions in secret seizure of AP phone records as criticism mounts," May 14, 2013, https://www.rcfp.org/justice-department-defends-decisions-secret-seizure-ap-phone-records/ (describing the Machen letter of May 10, 2013 and quoting Pruitt's letter of May 13).
|
||||
[^21]: James M. Cole, Deputy Attorney General, letter to Gary B. Pruitt, May 14, 2013, https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/oip/legacy/2014/07/23/dag-letter-to-ap-president-pruitt.pdf
|
||||
[^22]: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "Filing in case over AP bomb-plot leaker details contacts between reporter and FBI source," September 2013, https://www.rcfp.org/filing-case-over-ap-bomb-plot-leaker-details-contacts-between-report/ (quoting the Department of Justice statement of September 23, 2013).
|
||||
[^23]: "Ex-FBI Agent Cornered on Terror Plot Leaks," *Courthouse News Service*, September 25, 2013, https://www.courthousenews.com/ex-fbi-agent-cornered-on-terror-plot-leaks/ (the justice.gov press release returned a block on October 1, 2026).
|
||||
[^24]: U.S. Department of Justice, *Report on Review of News Media Policies*, July 12, 2013, https://www.justice.gov/ag/news-media.pdf
|
||||
[^25]: Associated Press, "AP statement on Israeli attack on building housing AP office," May 15, 2021, archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20210515141355/https://apnews.com/article/israel-middle-east-business-israel-palestinian-conflict-f595d0ea0a7e21a4e4974ae55e00024d
|
||||
[^26]: U.S. Department of State, "Secretary Antony J. Blinken and Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod at a Joint Press Availability," Copenhagen, May 17, 2021, https://2021-2025.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-and-danish-foreign-minister-jeppe-kofod-at-a-joint-press-availability/
|
||||
[^27]: "Israel says it will return video equipment seized from AP," Associated Press, May 21, 2024 (copy at https://www.wsls.com/news/world/2024/05/21/israeli-officials-seize-ap-equipment-and-take-down-live-shot-of-northern-gaza-citing-new-media-law/).
|
||||
[^28]: *Associated Press v. Budowich*, No. 25-5109 (D.C. Cir.), order of June 6, 2025 granting stay pending appeal in part (Pillard, Katsas, Rao, Circuit Judges), with statement of Rao, J., joined by Katsas, J., and dissenting statement of Pillard, J., on appeal from No. 1:25-cv-00532-TNM (D.D.C.), https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/orders/docs/2025/06/25-5109LDSN3.pdf (reciting the district court's preliminary injunction of April 8, 2025, 2025 WL 1039572, and footnote 2 on events of April 14 and 15, 2025).
|
||||
[^29]: *Associated Press v. Budowich*, No. 25-5109 (D.C. Cir. July 22, 2025) (per curiam order denying emergency petition for rehearing en banc, construed as a motion for en banc reconsideration and vacatur), https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/orders/docs/2025/07/25-5109LDEN.pdf
|
||||
[^30]: U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, opinions by date for January through September 2026, https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/bydate/2026/1 through /9 (checked October 1, 2026 for "5109"; no matches).
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
203
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Bellingcat.md
Normal file
203
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Bellingcat.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,203 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Bellingcat
|
||||
- OpenSourceInvestigation
|
||||
- EliotHiggins
|
||||
- NationalEndowmentForDemocracy
|
||||
- Russia
|
||||
- GRU
|
||||
- MH17
|
||||
- Skripal
|
||||
- Navalny
|
||||
- UndesirableOrganization
|
||||
- Netherlands
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Bellingcat
|
||||
- Stichting Bellingcat
|
||||
- Bellingcat Foundation
|
||||
- Bellingcat Ltd
|
||||
- Bellingcat US
|
||||
- Bellingcat US Inc
|
||||
- Bellingcat Fund
|
||||
- Bellingcat Fund Inc
|
||||
summary: "Open-source investigation collective founded by Eliot Higgins in 2014, run since 2018 as a Dutch foundation funded by lotteries, foundations and, in 2020 to 2022, the National Endowment for Democracy; undesirable in Russia in 2022."
|
||||
start: 2014
|
||||
location: "Amsterdam, Netherlands"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Eliot Higgins]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Eliot Higgins]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015-11-05
|
||||
role: "sole director of Bellingcat, the UK company by guarantee"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Eliot Higgins]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chairman of the board of the Dutch foundation in the 2019 to 2021 policy plan"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Aric Toler]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015-11
|
||||
end: 2023-09
|
||||
role: "director of research and training"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Christo Grozev]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-02
|
||||
end: 2022-12
|
||||
role: "executive director"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[National Endowment for Democracy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020
|
||||
end: 2022
|
||||
role: "grants of EUR 112,524 (2020), EUR 212,229 (2021) and EUR 87,041 (2022) in the accounts"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[StartSmall Foundation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2024
|
||||
role: "EUR 4,803,535 listed in the 2024 accounts"
|
||||
fn: 17
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[ZINC Network]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019
|
||||
end: 2021
|
||||
role: "listed as income from companies, EUR 5,000 (2019), 54,511 (2020), 10,358 (2021)"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Adam Smith International]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020
|
||||
end: 2020
|
||||
role: "listed as income from companies, EUR 65,428"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Dutch Postcode Lottery]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019
|
||||
role: "EUR 250,000 in 2019 and 333,333 a year from 2021 to 2023, EUR 600,000 a year notified for 2024 to 2028"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[The Insider]]"
|
||||
start: 2018-09-26
|
||||
role: "joint investigations"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[GRU]]"
|
||||
start: 2018-09-26
|
||||
role: "identification of the Skripal poisoning suspects"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Prosecutor General's Office of Russia]]"
|
||||
start: 2022-07-15
|
||||
role: "designated an undesirable organization"
|
||||
fn: 29
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Bellingcat is an investigative organization that publishes research built from open sources, and that also sells training workshops and takes grants from foundations, lotteries and companies. It exists as a Netherlands foundation (Stichting Bellingcat), a dormant company in England, a Delaware corporation with [[United States]] charity status, and a Dutch production company of which the foundation holds 60 percent.
|
||||
|
||||
### Origins and Registrations
|
||||
|
||||
[[Eliot Higgins]] founded Bellingcat in 2014; he has written that he raised just under 60,000 pounds on [[Kickstarter]] that year.[^1] The English company Bellingcat (number 09858798) was incorporated on 5 November 2015 as a private company limited by guarantee, with Higgins as sole director, and its registered office has been in [[Oadby]] and in [[Leicester]]. Its accounts for the year to 31 December 2020 show 4,378 pounds in cash and a 25,026 pound loan account due to the director, and the company has filed no profit and loss account; its accounts for the year to 31 December 2025 were filed as those of a dormant company.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Stichting Bellingcat]] was registered with the [[Kamer van Koophandel]] on 11 July 2018 under number 72136030.[^3] The 2019 to 2021 policy plan states that the English company was registered at the end of 2015 to run as a non-profit and that the Dutch foundation was set up in 2018 as the "global hub" for training and research.[^4] The first annual accounts of the foundation, covering 11 July 2018 to 31 December 2019, state that the foundation remained dormant until the second quarter of 2019 and that the English company was to be merged into it later in 2020; the English company remains on the register.[^5] A Dutch company, Bellingcat Productions B.V., was established on 9 July 2021, with the foundation as 60 percent shareholder.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Boards and Advisers
|
||||
|
||||
The policy plan lists the first board of the foundation as Higgins (chairman), [[Dessislava Lange-Damianova]] (treasurer) and [[Aric Toler]] (secretary), and a supervisory board of [[Joseph Peeraer]] (chairman, described as an entrepreneur and philanthropist), [[Marietje Schaake]] (a former member of the European Parliament) and [[Yoeri Albrecht]] (director of the cultural centre De Balie).[^4] Toler served as director of research and training from November 2015 to September 2023, and [[Christo Grozev]] as executive director from February to December 2022.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The foundation's current pages list an executive board of Higgins, Lange-Damianova and [[Giancarlo Fiorella]]; a supervisory board of [[Sander van Luik]], [[Maria Teresa Ronderos]] and [[Miriam Struyk]]; and an international advisory board of [[Alan Jagolinzer]], [[Algirdas Lipstas]], [[Anya Niestat]], [[Francis Fukuyama]], [[Premesh Chandran]] and an external adviser, [[Emiel Jurjens]].[^3] The 2021 and 2022 annual reports describe Lipstas as a former director of the [[Open Society Foundations]] and Niestat as legal director of the Docket Initiative of the [[Clooney Foundation for Justice]]; Fukuyama is described as a senior fellow at [[Stanford University]].[^8] The executive director and the operations director of the foundation are each paid 90,000 euros a year, according to its remuneration policy, and supervisory board members are unpaid.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Higgins was described in July 2016, in a piece he wrote for the [[Atlantic Council]]'s UkraineAlert blog, as a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council's [[Digital Forensic Research Lab]].[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Funding, 2019 to 2022
|
||||
|
||||
The foundation's own funding page states that Bellingcat does not solicit or accept money directly from governments, that it may take money from intergovernmental bodies such as the European Commission and the [[United Nations]], and that it may take money distributed by a private foundation that itself accepts government funds.[^10] The policy plan of 2019 states that Bellingcat attracted "the attention (and financial support)" of the Open Society Foundations, the [[National Endowment for Democracy]] and the [[Adessium Foundation]], and lists the National Endowment for Democracy as an institutional donor.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The accounts for 2019, the first year of the foundation, show total income of 920,250 euros. The [[Dutch Postcode Lottery]] provided 250,000 euros and other non-profit organizations 155,403 euros: the [[Auxilium Foundation]] 100,000, the [[Human Rights Foundation]] 22,149, [[Charities Aid Foundation America]] 12,622, the "Open Society Foundation" 10,632 and [[Stichting QOSB]] 10,000. The note on income from companies reads in full that the foundation "received a donation of ZINC Network for the launch event of EUR 5.000". Grants received in advance at 31 December 2019 were 510,000 euros: the Dutch Postcode Lottery 250,000, Porticus Auxilium 100,000, Adessium 90,000 and [[Zandstorm CV]] 70,000. The accounts show no payment from the National Endowment for Democracy in 2019.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
In 2020 income was 1,715,624 euros. The National Endowment for Democracy appears for the first time, at 112,524 euros against a budget of 160,000, and a note records a further grant from it received in advance and to be settled in early 2021. The other non-profit income that year included the Auxilium Foundation (100,000), Stichting Saxum Volutum (100,000), Adessium (90,000), the [[Sigrid Rausing Trust]] (87,730) and [[Lighthouse Reports]] (15,157). Income from companies was 228,857 euros: Zandstorm CV 100,000, [[Adam Smith International]] 65,428, ZINC Network 54,511 (budgeted at 160,000), [[Chemonics International]] 5,323 and other companies 3,595. Income from governments and intergovernmental bodies was 3,876 euros, and the accounts state that Bellingcat accepts contributions only from international institutions such as the European Union, the OSCE and the United Nations.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
For 2021 the National Endowment for Democracy line is 212,229 euros against a budget of 160,000. The same table lists NEF/Civitates (115,000), the Auxilium Foundation (100,000), Adessium (90,000), the Sigrid Rausing Trust (85,256), the [[Limelight Foundation]] (60,000), [[Founders Pledge]] (46,491) and Charities Aid Foundation America (31,846); the Dutch Postcode Lottery gave 333,333 euros and the Swedish Postcode Lottery 43,328. Income from companies was 43,331 euros, including ZINC Network at 10,358, the [[Nationwide Building Society]] at 11,176 and anonymous companies at 19,938. A note states that the Russian government had designated Bellingcat a foreign agent and that some donors therefore prefer to remain anonymous.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
The 2022 accounts record the National Endowment for Democracy at 87,041 euros against a budget of 75,000. Ten anonymous grants total 674,442 euros, with the largest three at 236,100, 145,833 and 100,000; Limelight gave 120,000, Civitates 115,000, Adessium 90,000 and the Sigrid Rausing Trust 89,253. Twenty anonymous grants from companies total 383,365 euros, and Zandstorm CV appears at minus 100,000 euros. The accounts state that the European Union provided 162,703 euros.[^6] The annual report for 2022 states that "last year marked the final year of project funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) that provided funding for Russian-language workshops at no cost to journalists and human rights researchers based in Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia and the Caucasus."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
The notes to the 2022 accounts also contain a statement about the supervisory board. The foundation reports that it "received a generous donation of 100.000 EUR by the chair of the Supervisory Board in two instalments - in December 2019 and in January 2020," and that it refunded the amount in December 2022, three years after receiving it, "even though the Chairman deemed this unnecessary." The accounts add that the foundation "should have refunded it earlier in accordance with our wish for independence, and to avoid any conflict of interest," and that its donation acceptance policy was amended with effect from 1 January 2023 to bar donations from supervisory board members.[^6] The policy plan names Peeraer as chairman of the supervisory board in 2019.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The 2022 accounts also list, among obligations related to current projects at 31 December 2022, 484,545 euros attributed to Custom House Financial Ltd.[^6] Companies House records a company numbered 04380026, now named [[Convera UK Limited]], whose previous names were Custom House Financial (UK) Ltd and Custom House Currency Exchange (UK) Limited; the Bellingcat accounts do not identify the Custom House Financial Ltd of their ledger further.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Funding, 2023 to 2025
|
||||
|
||||
In the 2023 accounts the National Endowment for Democracy line is zero. The 2023 note lists the [[Wellspring Philanthropic Fund]] at 162,635 euros, Limelight at 120,000, Civitates at 118,386 and the Sigrid Rausing Trust at 86,924, and twenty-two anonymous grants at 1,614,630 euros, against 674,442 euros from ten anonymous grants the year before. The accounts report total income of 3,978,146 euros.[^14] The Dutch Postcode Lottery's funding request for 2024 was not approved at that point; in February 2025 the lottery notified an annual donation of 600,000 euros for 2024 to 2028.[^14][^15]
|
||||
|
||||
The 2024 accounts list the [[StartSmall Foundation]] at 4,803,535 euros, thirteen anonymous grants at 1,860,737 euros, the Sigrid Rausing Trust at 177,221, the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund at 153,175, Limelight at 120,000, Civitates at 115,000, the [[Proton Foundation]] at 63,494 and Charities Aid Foundation America at 48,073; the table totals 8,301,410 euros. The statement of income in the same accounts gives 1,927,307 euros for income from other non-profit organizations and 3,968,928 euros for total income.[^15][^16] The foundation announced on 16 May 2024 that StartSmall, [[Jack Dorsey]]'s philanthropic initiative, had made a donation to be used over several years.[^17] The 2025 accounts show no StartSmall income against a budget of 483,559 euros, Wellspring at 417,439, the Sigrid Rausing Trust at 182,749, twenty-three anonymous grants at 1,445,279 and total income of 3,409,323 euros. Under income from companies the 2025 accounts list Custom House Financial Ltd at 72,608 euros for 2025 and 222,561 euros for 2024.[^16] The foundation's current funding page lists Civitates, the Dutch Postcode Lottery, the European Commission, the Limelight Foundation, the Sigrid Rausing Trust, the StartSmall Foundation, the Swedish Postcode Foundation and the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund, and states that other funders are known to its auditors but not named.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Bellingcat US
|
||||
|
||||
Bellingcat US, Inc. (originally Bellingcat Fund Inc.) was established as a Delaware corporation in 2022 and received its [[Internal Revenue Service]] exemption as a charity under section 501(c)(3) with a ruling date of 1 November 2022. Its return for 2024 gives an address in Wilmington, Delaware, [[Evan Guillemin]] as principal officer and treasurer, five voting board members, eight employees and a mission "to be the leader in open-source fact finding." Revenue was 459,649 dollars in 2023 and 6,772,053 dollars in 2024, with 1,560,628 dollars of expenses and 6,301,770 dollars in assets at the end of 2024. The schedule of contributors in the return carries the entry "RESTRICTED" in place of donor names. The return was prepared by a firm named Abacus Hive.[^18][^19] The foundation's 2024 accounts state that a new board of the American entity was appointed that year and that the entity was renamed Bellingcat US in February 2025; the foundation's pages name [[Jennifer Coogan]] as its executive director.[^3][^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### MH17
|
||||
|
||||
The Joint Investigation Team stated at its press meeting of 24 May 2018 that the Buk launcher that shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 came from the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, and added: "Earlier, the investigation collective Bellingcat came up with the same conclusion." The text continues that the team carries out "our own independent investigation."[^20] The English text of the judgment of the [[District Court of The Hague]] of 17 November 2022 in the MH17 criminal case contains no occurrence of the words Bellingcat, Higgins, Grozev or The Insider.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### Salisbury
|
||||
|
||||
On 26 September 2018 Bellingcat and [[The Insider]] published their identification of the man travelling as "Ruslan Boshirov", a suspect in the poisoning of [[Sergei Skripal]] and the death of [[Dawn Sturgess]], as the GRU colonel [[Anatoliy Chepiga]].[^22] The 2019 to 2021 policy plan records that Bellingcat researchers appeared at a press briefing at the House of Commons in October 2018.[^4] In the Dawn Sturgess Inquiry, the closing statement for [[Counter Terrorism Policing]] states, of the identification of the three suspects as Mishkin, Chepiga and Sergeev, that the identifications were "publicly announced by CTP in September 2021, and earlier than that by media organisations." The same statement relies on open-source images from a Russian military command school in identifying Chepiga and cites a "heat map" that Bellingcat published for a mobile telephone registered in the name of the third suspect, Sergey Fedotov.[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
### Navalny
|
||||
|
||||
On 14 December 2020 Bellingcat published, with The Insider, [[CNN]] and [[Der Spiegel]], an investigation which stated that telecommunications and travel data and passport files showed a unit of the [[FSB]] working under the cover of its Criminalistics Institute to have shadowed [[Alexei Navalny]] on more than 30 overlapping flights in 2017, 2019 and 2020, and named three operatives, Alexey Alexandrov, Ivan Osipov and Vladimir Panyaev, as having travelled alongside him to Novosibirsk and followed him to Tomsk before the poisoning of August 2020. The article records that the [[OPCW]] had identified the agent as a cholinesterase inhibitor resembling the Novichok group.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
### Far-Right Network Investigations
|
||||
|
||||
Bellingcat's article of 6 November 2019 explained how to access and interpret the leaked database of the [[Iron March]] forum, and stated that the [[Internet Archive]] had removed the file while it remained available from [[Distributed Denial of Secrets]].[^25] On 19 December 2019 it published "Transnational White Terror: Exposing Atomwaffen And The Iron March Networks" on the network around [[Atomwaffen Division]], written by [[Alexander Reid Ross]], [[Emmi Bevensee]] and a researcher identified as ZC, in collaboration with the Autonomous Disinformation Research Network.[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
### Russian Designations
|
||||
|
||||
The 2022 accounts state that the Russian government designated Bellingcat a foreign agent in 2021 and an "undesirable organisation" in 2022, an "upgrade", and that funders of an undesirable organization can face administrative or criminal action.[^6] The Moscow Times reported that Bellingcat and The Insider were labelled foreign agents in October 2021.[^27] On 15 July 2022 the [[Prosecutor General's Office of Russia]] declared the activity of Bellingcat undesirable, together with The Insider and a Czech group; [[Radio Free Europe|Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty]] reported that the Prosecutor General's Office gave as its reason a "threat" to the country, and that the list of undesirable organizations then held 56 entries.[^28] Bellingcat's statement of the same day gave the designation's stated motive as a threat "to the foundations of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation", and noted that its website had been blocked by court order on 16 March.[^29]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Eliot Higgins, foreword, Bellingcat Annual Report 2024 (Stichting Bellingcat, June 2025), p. 3. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2025/06/Annual-Report-2024.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: Companies House, BELLINGCAT, company number 09858798: overview, officers, filing history; accounts for the year ended 31 December 2020 (filed 15 November 2021), balance sheet and note 6; accounts for the year ended 31 December 2025 (dormant, filed 30 September 2026). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09858798
|
||||
[^3]: Bellingcat, "General Information" (KvK 72136030, RSIN 859000515, registered 11 July 2018; executive board, supervisory board, international advisory board and remuneration policy), consulted 1 October 2026. https://www.bellingcat.com/about/general-information
|
||||
[^4]: Bellingcat Policy Plan 2019-2021, sections I, V, VIII and IX. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/06/Bellingcat-Policy-Plan-2019-2021.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: Stichting Bellingcat, Annual Accounts 2019 (11 July 2018 to 31 December 2019), supervisory board report p. 3, statement of income and expense p. 8, notes 9, 11, 12 and 13 pp. 12 to 14. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2020/08/Bellingcat-Foundation-Annual-Accounts-2019.pdf
|
||||
[^6]: Stichting Bellingcat, Annual Accounts 2022 (consolidated), principles of consolidation (p. 16, Bellingcat Productions B.V. established 9 July 2021 and 60 percent held), notes 9, 13 to 16, pp. 21 to 25. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2023/06/Bellingcat-Annual-Accounts-2022.pdf
|
||||
[^7]: Bellingcat, "Previous Bellingcat Directors." https://www.bellingcat.com/previous-bellingcat-directors/
|
||||
[^8]: Bellingcat Annual Report 2022, workshops section and international advisory board page; Bellingcat Annual Report 2021, advisory board page. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2023/06/Bellingcat-Annual-Report-2022_com.pdf and https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2022/05/Bellingcat-Annual-Report-2021.pdf
|
||||
[^9]: Eliot Higgins, "New Generation of Digital Detectives Fight to Keep Russia Honest," Atlantic Council UkraineAlert, 13 July 2016. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/mh17-crash-two-years-later/
|
||||
[^10]: Bellingcat, "Funding and How to Support Bellingcat," consulted 1 October 2026. https://www.bellingcat.com/about/funding-and-how-to-support-bellingcat
|
||||
[^11]: Stichting Bellingcat, Annual Accounts 2020, statement of income and expenses and notes 11, 12, 15, 16 and 17. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2021/05/Bellingcat-Annual-Accounts-2020-1.pdf
|
||||
[^12]: Stichting Bellingcat, Annual Accounts 2021, notes 15 to 17, p. 20. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2022/05/Bellingcat-Annual-Accounts-2021-pw.pdf
|
||||
[^13]: Companies House, CONVERA UK LIMITED, company number 04380026 (previous names CUSTOM HOUSE FINANCIAL (UK) LTD and CUSTOM HOUSE CURRENCY EXCHANGE (UK) LIMITED). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/04380026
|
||||
[^14]: Stichting Bellingcat, Annual Accounts 2023, notes 12 and 13, pp. 28 to 29, and statement of income p. 34. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2024/06/Bellingcat-Annual-Accounts-2023.pdf
|
||||
[^15]: Stichting Bellingcat, Consolidated Annual Accounts 2024, executive summary, note 12 and note 13, pp. 7 and 26, statement of income p. 32. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2025/06/consolidated-annual-accounts-Bellingcat-2024.pdf
|
||||
[^16]: Stichting Bellingcat, Annual Accounts 2025, notes 13 to 15, p. 27, statement of income p. 32. https://www.bellingcat.com/app/uploads/2026/07/Bellingcat-annual-accounts-2025.pdf
|
||||
[^17]: Bellingcat, "Jack Dorsey's #startsmall Becomes Newest Bellingcat Funder," Amsterdam, 16 May 2024. https://www.bellingcat.com/jack-dorseys-startsmall-becomes-newest-bellingcat-funder/
|
||||
[^18]: Bellingcat US Inc, IRS Form 990 for 2024, ObjectId 202512269349301691, Part I, signature block, Schedule B (ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer full-text rendering). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/920346579/202512269349301691/full
|
||||
[^19]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, organization 920346579 (Bellingcat US Inc), ruling date 2022-11-01, 2023 revenue 459,649 dollars. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/920346579.json
|
||||
[^20]: Joint Investigation Team, "Update investigation JIT MH17, press meeting 24-5-2018, speaker's text," Dutch Public Prosecution Service. https://www.prosecutionservice.nl/topics/mh17-plane-crash/criminal-investigation-jit-mh17/speakers-text-jit-mh17-press-meeting-24-5-2018
|
||||
[^21]: District Court of The Hague, judgment of 17 November 2022, case 09/748004-19, ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2022:14037 (English translation), full text searched for the strings "Bellingcat", "Higgins", "Grozev" and "Insider." https://data.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraken/content?id=ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2022:14037
|
||||
[^22]: Bellingcat, "Skripal Suspect Boshirov Identified as GRU Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga," 26 September 2018. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/09/26/skripal-suspect-boshirov-identified-gru-colonel-anatoliy-chepiga/
|
||||
[^23]: Inquiry into the Death of Dawn Sturgess, "Closing Statement on Behalf of Operation Verbasco," paras 66 to 72 and 78. https://dsiweb-prod.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/Op-Verbasco-Closing-Submissions.pdf
|
||||
[^24]: Bellingcat, "FSB Team of Chemical Weapon Experts Implicated in Alexey Navalny Novichok Poisoning," 14 December 2020. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/12/14/fsb-team-of-chemical-weapon-experts-implicated-in-alexey-navalny-novichok-poisoning/
|
||||
[^25]: Bellingcat, "Massive White Supremacist Message Board Leak: How to Access and Interpret the Data," 6 November 2019. https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/how-tos/2019/11/06/massive-white-supremacist-message-board-leak-how-to-access-and-interpret-the-data/
|
||||
[^26]: Alexander Reid Ross, Emmi Bevensee and ZC, "Transnational White Terror: Exposing Atomwaffen And The Iron March Networks," Bellingcat, 19 December 2019. https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2019/12/19/transnational-white-terror-exposing-atomwaffen-and-the-iron-march-networks/
|
||||
[^27]: "Russia Bans Bellingcat, Insider as 'Undesirable' Orgs," The Moscow Times, 15 July 2022. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/07/15/russia-bans-bellingcat-insider-as-undesirable-orgs-a78306
|
||||
[^28]: "Russia Bans News Outlets Bellingcat, The Insider, Czech Group As 'Security Threats'," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 15 July 2022. https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-bans-news-outlets-bellingcat-insider-undesirable/31944955.html
|
||||
[^29]: Bellingcat, "Statement on the Designation of Bellingcat as an 'Undesirable Organisation' in Russia," 15 July 2022. https://www.bellingcat.com/statement-on-the-designation-of-bellingcat-as-an-undesirable-organisation-in-russia/
|
||||
140
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Breitbart News.md
Normal file
140
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Breitbart News.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,140 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Media
|
||||
- NewRight
|
||||
- Breitbart
|
||||
- Mercer
|
||||
- SteveBannon
|
||||
- AltRight
|
||||
- SuperPAC
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Breitbart News
|
||||
- Breitbart
|
||||
- Breitbart News Network
|
||||
- Breitbart News Network LLC
|
||||
- Breitbart News Network, LLC
|
||||
- Breitbart.com
|
||||
- Breitbart London
|
||||
- Breitbart Jerusalem
|
||||
- Breitbart Texas
|
||||
summary: "Los Angeles news website organized in 2011 as a Delaware company, with a reported ten million dollar Mercer investment that year and Steve Bannon as executive chairman from 2012 to January 2018."
|
||||
start: 2011
|
||||
location: "Los Angeles, California"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Andrew Breitbart]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2012-03-01
|
||||
role: "chief executive officer and manager"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Larry Solov]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president and manager in 2011; president and chief executive in 2014 and 2018"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Steve Bannon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2012
|
||||
end: 2018-01-09
|
||||
role: "executive chairman"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Steve Bannon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2011-06
|
||||
role: "board seat under the 2011 investment agreement"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Mercer family]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2011
|
||||
role: "reported investor of 10 million dollars for a large stake"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Make America Number 1]]"
|
||||
start: 2015-11-25
|
||||
end: 2016-01-27
|
||||
role: "vendor, list purchase and prepaid media"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Raheem Kassam]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-02-16
|
||||
role: "led Breitbart London"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Aaron Klein]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015-11-17
|
||||
role: "led Breitbart Jerusalem"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Breitbart News Network, LLC is a limited liability company organized in Delaware in 2011 with its business address in [[Los Angeles]]. Its only filing on the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]]'s EDGAR system is a notice of an exempt securities offering that names [[Andrew Breitbart]] as chief executive officer and manager and [[Larry Solov]] as president and manager.[^1] Breitbart died on March 1, 2012, shortly after midnight, at the [[UCLA]] Medical Center, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's office.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2011 Securities Offering
|
||||
|
||||
The notice, a Form D filed on September 26, 2011 under accession number 0001530877-11-000003, reports an offering of equity securities under the Rule 506 exemption with a date of first sale of August 17, 2011. The total offering amount and the total amount sold were each 9,999,990 dollars, the minimum investment accepted was 1,999,998 dollars, and two investors had invested, none of them non-accredited. The form reports no sales commissions or finders' fees and was signed on September 23, 2011 by the company's counsel. It does not name the investors.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Jane Mayer]] reported in *The New Yorker* in March 2017 that the [[Mercer family]] met Andrew Breitbart in 2011 at a conference organized by the [[Club for Growth]]; that [[Steve Bannon]] drafted a business plan for the Mercers calling for an investment of 10 million dollars in Breitbart News in exchange for a large stake; that the Mercers signed the deal in June 2011; and that one provision of the deal placed Bannon on the company's board. She wrote that the investment was made through Gravitas Maximus, L.L.C., which she described as a front group that once had the same Long Island address as [[Renaissance Technologies]], and that Breitbart News had operated from office space in Santa Monica that Bannon owned. According to Mayer, Breitbart died nine months after the signing and Bannon became executive chairman.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Executive Chairman
|
||||
|
||||
In February 2014 the company described Bannon as its executive chairman.[^4] A November 2015 company announcement identified Larry Solov as president and chief executive.[^5] Mayer reported that a house lease Bannon signed in 2013, published by *[[Washington Post|The Washington Post]]*, stated his Breitbart salary as 750,000 dollars.[^3] On January 9, 2018 Bannon stepped down as executive chairman. A source close to Bannon told ABC News, on condition of anonymity, that he was essentially forced out and had to choose between Breitbart and his political activities; ABC reported that the Breitbart board had discussed his future after remarks attributed to him in Michael Wolff's *Fire and Fury*, that [[Rebekah Mercer]], whom ABC described as a Breitbart shareholder, had disavowed him after the remarks, and that a source close to Mercer, also speaking anonymously, told ABC that she favored his departure. Solov said: "Steve is a valued part of our legacy, and we will always be grateful for his contributions."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Editorial Direction and the Trump Campaign
|
||||
|
||||
Mayer wrote that under Bannon's direction the editors introduced a rubric called Black Crime, and that by tracking which negative stories about Hillary Clinton drew the most clicks and likes the editors identified the most potent story lines. She quoted an insider at Breitbart as saying that Rebekah Mercer "reads every story, and calls when there are grammatical errors or typos," and wrote that in 2011 David Bossie, head of [[Citizens United]], introduced Donald Trump to Bannon. She quoted the Trump campaign aide [[Sam Nunberg]] as saying: "Breitbart gave Trump a big role." Bannon told her: "The Mercers laid the groundwork for the Trump revolution."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Mayer reported that after [[Paul Manafort]] resigned from the Trump campaign in 2016, Rebekah Mercer pushed for a staff shakeup that promoted three people funded by the family: Bannon to chief executive of the campaign, [[Kellyanne Conway]] to manager and Bossie to deputy manager. She also reported that Citizens United's foundation paid Bannon Strategic Advisors 300,000 dollars in 2012 for what it described to the [[Internal Revenue Service]] as fund-raising services; Bossie told her the filing must have been an error and that the payment was for Bannon's film development work.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Government Accountability Institute
|
||||
|
||||
Mayer reported that Rebekah Mercer joined the board of the [[Government Accountability Institute]], a Tallahassee nonprofit Bannon had recently founded, in 2012; that the [[Mercer Family Foundation]] gave it 1 million dollars in 2013, 1 million dollars in 2014 and 1.7 million dollars in 2015, the last more than the institute's entire budget the previous year; and that the institute paid Bannon 376,000 dollars in its first four years while reporting to the Internal Revenue Service that he worked for it thirty hours a week, in addition to running Breitbart News.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The institute's Form 990 for calendar 2016 lists [[Peter Schweizer]] as president and director with reportable compensation of 210,000 dollars, Rebekah Mercer as chairman of the board with none, Stephen Bannon as a board director with 61,539 dollars, and Wynton Hall as a key employee with 175,000 dollars. Part VI of the return states that Bannon, Schweizer and Hall "have a business relationship." The return reports contributions of 2,601,000 dollars.[^7] The Mercer Family Foundation's Form 990-PF for 2016 lists a grant of 2,000,000 dollars to the institute, alongside 2,000,000 dollars to the [[Media Research Center]], 800,000 dollars to the [[Heartland Institute]], 500,000 dollars to the [[Heritage Foundation]] and 100,000 dollars to the [[Gatestone Institute]].[^8] The foundation's return was obtained from the Internal Revenue Service's bulk electronic filing archive; the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer listing for the foundation has no 2016 document.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Payments from Political Committees
|
||||
|
||||
[[Federal Election Commission]] records show two disbursements by the super PAC [[Make America Number 1]] to Breitbart News Network LLC: 109,341.25 dollars on November 25, 2015, described as a list purchase expense, and 10,000 dollars on January 27, 2016, described as prepaid media. The committee, an independent-expenditure-only committee first filed on April 6, 2015, reported receiving 11,000,000 dollars from [[Robert Mercer]] on April 10, 2015, followed in 2016 by 500,000 dollars from him on February 26, 2,000,000 dollars on March 17 and 2,000,000 dollars on July 14. Its 2016 receipts also include 2,000,000 dollars from [[Bernard Marcus]] on September 6, 1,000,000 dollars from Cherna Moskowitz on August 23 and 1,000,000 dollars from [[Peter Thiel]] on October 26.[^9][^10]
|
||||
|
||||
The committee's Schedule E independent expenditure line items for the 2016 cycle, 633 in all as returned by the Federal Election Commission's database, sum to 13,289,047.38 dollars in support of [[Ted Cruz]] between July 17, 2015 and March 31, 2016, 8,852,893 dollars in opposition to Hillary Clinton between July 17, 2015 and November 4, 2016, 4,489,236.14 dollars in opposition to [[Marco Rubio]] between December 10, 2015 and March 6, 2016, and 1,798,133.68 dollars in opposition to [[Donald Trump]] between January 14 and February 5, 2016.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
Other committees reported payments to Breitbart entities: 18,150.06 dollars from Club for Growth Action to Breitbart.com, LLC on November 30, 2011 for internet advertising; 12,500 dollars from Scott Walker Inc. for online advertising on September 24, 2015; 100,000 dollars from Dave McCormick for US Senate on May 10, 2022 for a media buy; 60,000 dollars from the National Republican Congressional Committee on October 25, 2022 and 80,000 dollars from the National Republican Senatorial Committee on October 28, 2024, both for media; and 12,500 dollars from Make America Great Again Inc. on November 2, 2022 for digital advertising.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
Taken together, the Schedule B records for payees whose names begin Breitbart News, Breitbart.com or Breitbart alone list 32 disbursements from 20 differently named filers between October 2009 and October 2024, totaling 548,713.31 dollars; by filer the largest sums are 135,000 dollars from the National Republican Senatorial Committee (2020 and 2024), 119,341.25 dollars from Make America Number 1, 100,000 dollars from Dave McCormick for US Senate, 63,000 dollars from the National Republican Congressional Committee and 28,150.06 dollars from Club for Growth Action (2011 and 2023). Payments to advertising or list intermediaries are not captured by this query.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
Mayer also reported a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission by the [[Campaign Legal Center]], which noted that at the end of the 2016 campaign the super PAC run by the Mercers paid Glittering Steel, a film production company sharing a Los Angeles address with [[Cambridge Analytica]] and Breitbart News, 280,000 dollars for advertisements attacking [[Hillary Clinton]]; that the super PAC also paid Cambridge Analytica about 5 million dollars, the company being incorporated at the same address as Bannon Strategic Advisors; and that Bannon, then chief executive of the Donald Trump campaign, appeared to have been paid nothing by the campaign. Brendan Fischer of the center said this raised "the possibility of the Mercers subsidizing Steve Bannon's work for the Trump campaign."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### London and Jerusalem
|
||||
|
||||
On Sunday, February 16, 2014 the company launched Breitbart London and Breitbart Texas. [[James Delingpole]], formerly of *The Daily Telegraph*, and Raheem Kassam, formerly of TrendingCentral.com, were to lead Breitbart London with a staff of ten; Bannon called London and Texas "two fronts in our current cultural and political war."[^4] On November 17, 2015 it launched Breitbart Jerusalem under Aaron Klein, who had been senior reporter and Jerusalem bureau chief of WND.com since 2005 and whom, the announcement stated, Andrew Breitbart had approached before his death to run a Jerusalem bureau. Klein named Bannon, Solov and Marlow as the company's leaders.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The Companies House register lists Breitbart News Network (UK) Limited, company number 09351324, incorporated on December 11, 2014 with a registered office in Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, and the activity code for media representation services. Its two directors, both appointed on December 11, 2014, are Laurence Gregory Solov and a corporate director, Breitbart News Network Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands under number 1850470 at an address in Road Town, Tortola. The persons with significant control, notified on April 6, 2016, are Solov (more than 25 and not more than 50 percent of shares and voting rights), an individual resident in the [[United Kingdom]] (more than 50 and less than 75 percent of shares and voting rights and the right to appoint directors), and the British Virgin Islands company, whose entry (shares and voting rights of 75 percent or more, and the right to appoint or remove directors) shows it ceased to be a person with significant control on the same day, April 6, 2016. The company status is active, with accounts filed to December 31, 2025. A first Gazette notice of compulsory strike-off was published on January 28, 2025 and the action was discontinued on February 5, 2025. No Mercer or Bannon appears among the officers or controllers.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Yiannopoulos Emails
|
||||
|
||||
*BuzzFeed News* reported on October 5, 2017, from a cache of emails of the Breitbart technology editor [[Milo Yiannopoulos]], that in March 2016 he sent requests for contributions to an article on the "alt-right" to [[Curtis Yarvin]], to Andrew Auernheimer and to an editor of the white nationalist magazine *American Renaissance;* that on March 27 the co-bylined draft was sent to Bannon and to Breitbart's chief executive Larry Solov; and that Bannon wrote: "I need to go thru this tomorrow in depth...although I do appreciate any piece that mentions evola." Yiannopoulos told BuzzFeed that he is not a racist; BuzzFeed reported that Bannon, the other Breitbart employees named in the story and the Mercer family did not respond to multiple requests for comment.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
BuzzFeed also reported an email from Bannon to Yiannopoulos stating "for your eyes only we r going to use the mercers private security company," on which Bannon's co-producer at Glittering Steel, Dan Fleuette, was copied and who, BuzzFeed wrote, acted for months as the go-between for Yiannopoulos and the Mercers. After Breitbart dismissed Yiannopoulos, BuzzFeed reported, Marlow accompanied him to the Mercers' [[Palm Beach, Florida|Palm Beach]] home to discuss a new venture, MILO Inc., and on February 27 an email arrived from a woman describing herself as Robert Mercer's accountant stating that a wire payment would be sent that day.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR, Form D, Breitbart News Network, LLC, CIK 0001530877, accession no. 0001530877-11-000003, filed September 26, 2011. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1530877/000153087711000003/primary_doc.xml (the EDGAR company page lists this as the only filing).
|
||||
[^2]: "Publisher and Author Andrew Breitbart Dead," ABC News, March 1, 2012. https://abcnews.com/US/andrew-breitbart-publisher-author-dead/story?id=15824337
|
||||
[^3]: Jane Mayer, "The Reclusive Hedge-Fund Tycoon Behind the Trump Presidency," *The New Yorker,* March 27, 2017 (print headline "Trump's Money Man"). https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/27/the-reclusive-hedge-fund-tycoon-behind-the-trump-presidency
|
||||
[^4]: "Breitbart News Launches 'Breitbart London' & 'Breitbart Texas' Verticals," Breitbart.com, February 16, 2014. https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2014/02/16/breitbart-news-launches-breitbart-london-breitbart-texas-verticals/
|
||||
[^5]: "Breitbart News Continues International Expansion With Launch Of Breitbart Jerusalem," Breitbart.com, November 17, 2015. https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2015/11/17/breitbart-news-continues-international-expansion-with-launch-of-breitbart-jerusalem/
|
||||
[^6]: "Steve Bannon steps down from Breitbart News," ABC News, January 9, 2018. https://abcnews.com/Politics/steve-bannon-steps-breitbart-news/story?id=52243145
|
||||
[^7]: Government Accountability Institute, Form 990 for calendar 2016, EIN 45-4681912, object ID 201743179349306999, Part VII, Part VI Section A line 2 and Part I, from the Internal Revenue Service bulk e-file archive, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2017/download990xml_2017_7.zip ; ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/454681912 (organization, EIN and ruling date).
|
||||
[^8]: Mercer Family Foundation, Form 990-PF for calendar 2016, EIN 20-1982204, object ID 201723199349104262, Part XV, from the Internal Revenue Service bulk e-file archive, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2017/download990xml_2017_4.zip ; ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/201982204
|
||||
[^9]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00575373, Make America Number 1, Schedule A receipts for the 2016 election cycle. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?committee_id=C00575373&two_year_transaction_period=2016&sort=-contribution_receipt_amount ; committee record, https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00575373/
|
||||
[^10]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule B disbursements to payees named Breitbart, https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_b/?recipient_name=BREITBART ; Make America Number 1 images 201605099015396478 (http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?201605099015396478) and 201606139017571044 (http://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?201606139017571044).
|
||||
[^11]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00575373, Make America Number 1, Schedule E independent expenditures, two-year period 2016, 633 line items summed by candidate and support or oppose indicator. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_e/?committee_id=C00575373&two_year_transaction_period=2016 (the sums are of line items as returned and have not been reconciled against amended filings).
|
||||
[^12]: Companies House, Breitbart News Network (UK) Limited, company number 09351324: overview, officers, persons with significant control and filing history, accessed October 1, 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09351324
|
||||
[^13]: Joseph Bernstein, "Here's How Breitbart And Milo Smuggled White Nationalism Into The Mainstream," *BuzzFeed News,* October 5, 2017. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/josephbernstein/heres-how-breitbart-and-milo-smuggled-white-nationalism
|
||||
225
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Bridgewater Associates.md
Normal file
225
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Bridgewater Associates.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,225 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- BridgewaterAssociates
|
||||
- HedgeFund
|
||||
- RayDalio
|
||||
- Connecticut
|
||||
- China
|
||||
- JamesComey
|
||||
- DaveMcCormick
|
||||
- StateSubsidies
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- DalioFoundation
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Bridgewater Associates
|
||||
- Bridgewater Associates, LP
|
||||
- Bridgewater Associates LP
|
||||
- Bridgewater Associates, L.P.
|
||||
- Bridgewater Associates Holdings
|
||||
- Bridgewater Associates Holdings, LLC
|
||||
- Bridgewater
|
||||
- Bridgewater Associates Inc
|
||||
- Bridgewater (China) Investment Management
|
||||
- Bridgewater China Investment Management
|
||||
summary: "Westport, Connecticut hedge fund founded in 1975, registered with the SEC since 1990, whose record includes James Comey as general counsel, Connecticut subsidies, a Chinese fund license, and a Brunei sovereign fund shareholder."
|
||||
start: 1975
|
||||
location: "Westport, Connecticut"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Ray Dalio]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "founder"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[James Comey]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2010-09
|
||||
end: 2013-01
|
||||
role: "general counsel"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Dave McCormick]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2022-01
|
||||
role: "chief executive officer"
|
||||
fn: 36
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Nir Bar Dea]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-01
|
||||
role: "chief executive officer"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Prince]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1986-03
|
||||
role: "co-chief investment officer"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Gregory Jensen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2004-11
|
||||
role: "co-chief investment officer"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Karen Karniol-Tambour]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2023-01
|
||||
role: "co-chief investment officer"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Luke Pettit]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "former employee, later Treasury nominee"
|
||||
fn: 38
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Holden Karnofsky]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "investment analyst"
|
||||
fn: 39
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Elie Hassenfeld]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "investment analyst"
|
||||
fn: 39
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Brunei Investment Agency]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019-09
|
||||
role: "indirect member through Amanah Sdn Bhd (ownership code C at each tier)"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016-05-27
|
||||
end: 2023-03-21
|
||||
role: "First Five agreement, 22 million dollars in loan and grants plus tax credits; terminated"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[National Labor Relations Board]]"
|
||||
start: 2016-02-10
|
||||
end: 2016-10-28
|
||||
role: "case 01-CA-169426"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Jones Day]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016
|
||||
end: 2016-10-28
|
||||
role: "respondent counsel in NLRB case 01-CA-169426"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Bridgewater Associates, LP is a [[Delaware]] limited partnership and an investment adviser registered with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] since January 12, 1990, with its offices in [[Westport]], [[Connecticut]].[^1] A Connecticut fiscal analysis prepared for a 2016 bond commission meeting gave its founding year as 1975 and described its clients as "foreign governments and central banks, corporate and public pension funds, university endowments and charitable foundations."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Registration, Ownership and Officers
|
||||
|
||||
The firm's current Form ADV, filed on August 18, 2026, lists [[Robert Prince]] as co-chief investment officer since March 1986, [[Gregory Jensen]] as co-chief investment officer since November 2004, [[Tracey Yurko]] as chief legal officer and secretary since June 2017, [[Nir Bar Dea]] as chief executive officer since January 2022, [[Karen Karniol-Tambour]] as co-chief investment officer since January 2023 and [[Michael Kitson]] as chief compliance officer since March 2024.[^1] Bridgewater Associates Intermediate Holdings, LP is its general partner and majority owner. Schedule D states that Bridgewater Associates Holdings, LLC is the sole general partner and majority owner of Intermediate Holdings, and that the holding company's board "is comprised of equity owners, the chief executive officer, other senior employees and external directors."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Schedule B lists the following as board members of Bridgewater Associates Holdings, LLC: [[Richard H. Anderson]], [[Sian Beilock]], [[Margo Cook]] and [[Osman Nalbantoglu]] (each since September 2022), Bar Dea, Prince and Jensen (since September 2022), [[Philip Dobrin]] (since January 2025) and [[Jasjeet Sekhon]] (since June 2026). The same schedule lists a Robert P. Prince 2016 Revocable Trust as a member since July 2024, and [[Amanah Sdn Bhd]], a foreign entity, as a member since September 2019, each with ownership code C (25 percent but less than 50 percent). The Brunei Investment Agency is listed as a member of Amanah, also since September 2019 and also with code C.[^1] The filing does not contain the name of [[Ray Dalio]], whom Xinhua describes as the firm's founder.[^1][^3] It states that "No holder of BAH LLC units is able to exercise unilateral control of the Bridgewater entities," and its disclosure reporting pages for criminal, regulatory and civil judicial actions each read "No Information Filed."[^1] [[CNBC]] reported in August 2025 that "Dalio sold his remaining stake in Bridgewater and stepped away from the board" as of the start of that month.[^4] [[Benzinga]] reported on August 1, 2025, citing [[The Wall Street Journal]], that Bridgewater repurchased the remaining shares held by Dalio and then issued new shares to the Brunei Investment Agency in a multibillion-dollar transaction giving the agency nearly 20 percent of the firm, and that the firm's communication to clients did not disclose the agency's involvement.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The Form ADV lists, among the firm's other business names, "[[United States]] Bridgewater Associates, LP [[Beijing]] Representative Office," and notes a Connecticut notice filing effective February 12, 2002. The Securities and Exchange Commission's submissions record gives the business address as One Nyala Farms Road, Westport; the 2013 Senate questionnaire of its former general counsel gave it as One Glendinning Place, Westport.[^6][^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Raymond Dalio and Political Contributions
|
||||
|
||||
[[Federal Election Commission]] records for individual contributions under the names Raymond Dalio, Ray Dalio and [[Barbara Dalio]] show gifts, most of them to Republican committees and candidates, from 1998 through 2016. The earliest entry is 5,000 dollars to the [[Freedom and Free Enterprise PAC]] on November 12, 1998. Entries followed for [[Straight Talk America]] (5,000 dollars in August 2000 and again in March 2006), 1,000 dollars to Friends of [[John McCain]] on November 18, 2002, and 25,000 dollars to the [[Republican National Committee]] on June 23, 2004, in which the contributor's employer is recorded as Bridgewater Associates Inc. and his occupation as president.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
In 2007 and 2008 the entries concentrate on the McCain presidential campaign: 2,300 dollars to John McCain 2008 on March 9, 2007, 28,500 dollars to the [[McCain Victory Committee]] on April 21, 2008 (with a matching 28,500 dollar entry for the Republican National Committee on April 25 described as included in a joint fundraiser transfer), 31,000 dollars to McCain Victory 2008 on May 29, 2008, and 7,750 dollars each to the Republican parties of Colorado, [[New Mexico]], Minnesota and Wisconsin through the same joint committee. He also gave 2,300 dollars to the presidential campaign of [[Mitt Romney]] on April 18, 2007, and 2,300 dollars to the presidential committee of [[Rudy Giuliani]] on November 26, 2007, in a reattribution from his wife. Further entries are 9,800 dollars to the McCain Leadership Fund on June 23, 2009, with transfers recorded to [[Country First PAC]] and Friends of John McCain on September 23, 2009; 5,000 dollars to [[America's Conservation PAC]] on July 11, 2014, in which the employer is Bridgewater Associates LP and the occupation chairman and chief investment officer; and 5,400 dollars to Friends of John McCain on June 20, 2016, as a redesignation.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
Barbara Dalio's entries include 1,000 dollars to Sanchez 2000 (September 30, 2000, employer recorded as "BRIDGEWATER ASSOCIATES/MONEY MANAGE," as truncated in the filing), 2,100 dollars to Ned Lamont for Senate (October 6, 2006), 2,400 dollars to [[Charlie Crist]] for U.S. Senate (October 21, 2009) and 5,000 dollars to America's Conservation PAC (June 30, 2014). The name searches returned no individual contribution entries dated after June 20, 2016.[^9] Searches of the Senate lobbying disclosure database for the client name Bridgewater return only [[Bridgewater Capital Corporation]], a client of the lobbyist [[Michael A. Andrews]] between 2007 and 2011, and none for Bridgewater Associates; a search for the client name Dalio returns none.[^10] An email in the [[Department of Justice]] [[Epstein Files|Epstein Library]], sent by [[Jeffrey Epstein]] to [[Bill Gates]] on November 9, 2013, reads in full "Kissinger got the same pitch from ray dalio last week," without identifying the pitch or giving a first name for Kissinger.[^11] An email of October 5, 2012, from Epstein's assistant to Epstein, headed "Tim Zagat/Ray Dalio," relayed that "Tim says Ray Dalio is on a boat in Japan at the moment...but Tim will have a party for Ray in January and will invite you."[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### James Comey as General Counsel
|
||||
|
||||
[[James Comey]]'s 2013 questionnaire for the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] lists the following employment: Deputy Attorney General of the United States from December 2003 to August 2005; senior vice president and general counsel of [[Lockheed Martin]] from September 2005 to September 2010; general counsel of Bridgewater Associates, LP, from September 2010 to January 2013; director of [[HSBC]] Group plc from March 2013; and member of the [[Defense Legal Policy Board]] from September 2012.[^8] In the section on deferred income, he reported that he expected to receive 163,000 dollars from Bridgewater on June 30, 2013, and, "if I am confirmed," a full payout of his interests in its profit sharing plan, in the amount of 3,072,654 dollars, before assuming the directorship of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]].[^8] He listed a Lockheed Martin lump-sum pension of 400,000 dollars expected in December 2015.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
At the hearing on July 9, 2013, Senator [[Chuck Grassley]] asked about the FBI's March 2010 stop-work order to Lockheed Martin on the Sentinel case management system; Comey answered that he had no involvement, that he "was aware of it internally at Lockheed Martin just in a general way," and that he had been Deputy Attorney General when the contract was let.[^8] Grassley then noted that the Department of Justice had entered a deferred prosecution agreement with HSBC and asked whether Comey would have a conflict. Comey answered that "it would be a conflict, and so I would recuse myself from any involvement in any matter relating to my former employers."[^8] Grassley also asked about the firm's "radical transparency." Comey replied that "Bridgewater's founder suggested I consider taping all meetings at the FBI. I am not prepared to commit to that," and that he had gone to Bridgewater "in part because of that culture of transparency."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Connecticut Subsidies
|
||||
|
||||
On September 24, 2012, during Comey's period as general counsel, [[Westfair Communications]] (publisher of the *[[Fairfield County Business Journal]]*) reported that Governor [[Dannel Malloy]] had made Bridgewater the newest participant in the state's First Five program, with the company to relocate from Westport to a 750 million dollar headquarters at the [[Harbor Point]] development in [[Stamford]] on the promise of creating at least 750 jobs. The package as reported was a 25 million dollar forgivable loan at 1 percent for ten years, a job training grant of up to 5 million dollars, a grant of up to 5 million dollars for alternative energy systems, and up to 80 million dollars in urban and industrial sites reinvestment tax credits, for those jobs. Bridgewater had already leased about 225,000 square feet at the Wilton Woods Corporate Center, and area real estate brokers had long speculated about a Stamford headquarters, "with Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio's son having been an employee of BLT," the Harbor Point developer [[Building and Land Technology]].[^13] A later analysis by the legislature's [[Office of Fiscal Analysis]] stated that under the 2012 agreement Bridgewater "was eligible to receive up to $115 million" and that the [[State Bond Commission]] allocated 9 million dollars in August 2013 for environmental remediation and bulkhead replacement on the 14 acre Bateman Way site in Stamford for the new headquarters.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The Stamford plan did not proceed. On May 27, 2016, item D of the State Bond Commission agenda requested funds for a grant-in-aid and loan to Bridgewater Associates, LP under First Five "to assist with expansion of its facilities in Westport, [[Wilton]] and [[Norwalk]]," conditioned on retaining 1,402 jobs and creating 750; the loan was at 1 percent for ten years with principal deferred for five years, forgivable if the job targets were met by the end of 2021, with a 2 million dollar training grant and a 3 million dollar alternative energy grant. The agenda gave a total estimated cost of 527,500,000 dollars, of which company funds were 505,500,000 dollars.[^14] The Office of Fiscal Analysis listed the bond allocation as 22,000,000 dollars and noted eligibility for up to 30 million dollars in state tax credits.[^2] House Minority Leader [[Themis Klarides]] and Senate Minority Leader [[Len Fasano]] criticized the item before the vote; Governor Malloy, who chaired the commission, replied that "some day I want to live in a world where I can have it both ways."[^15] The commission approved the item on May 27, 2016, by a vote of 7 to 2. State Comptroller [[Kevin Lembo]] and Representative [[Chris Davis]] voted no. Lembo said that "the size, scope and nature of this particular proposal stands out and meets a new threshold that compels me to vote against it," and Davis asked, "Did they not have the capital funds themselves," describing Bridgewater as "a company that is quite capable of paying for this themselves." Malloy said the company was also considering at least one location in Westchester County, New York, and that Massachusetts and Boston had provided more than 145 million dollars in incentives to attract about 200 jobs away from Connecticut, after [[General Electric]] announced in January that it was moving its global headquarters from [[Fairfield, Connecticut|Fairfield]] to [[Boston]].[^16] [[CT Mirror]] reported that the state's economic development department said Bridgewater risked losing as much as 17 million dollars if it missed job benchmarks.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
Bridgewater and the state ended the arrangement in 2023. [[Connecticut Post]] reported on May 26, 2023, that a termination agreement dated March 21 and signed by [[Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development|Department of Economic and Community Development]] Commissioner [[Alexandra Daum]] and Bridgewater chief executive Bar Dea provided that the firm would keep 12 million dollars in tax credits already earned, forgo 18 million dollars in further credits, keep 5 million dollars in grants issued in 2018 and about 11 million dollars in loan forgiveness, and repay a loan balance of about 6.5 million dollars. The agreement barred the firm from relocating out of Connecticut before May 16, 2026, on pain of default and a penalty of 5 percent of the 22 million dollars in loan and grant funding. [[Sarah Fass]], Bridgewater's chief human resources officer, said in a statement that "we have no plans to relocate."[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### National Labor Relations Board Proceeding
|
||||
|
||||
[[National Labor Relations Board]] case 01-CA-169426 against Bridgewater Associates, LP, Westport, was opened on February 10, 2016, on a charge by an individual whose name the docket withholds. The docket lists allegations of discipline under section 8(a)(4) and coercive actions including surveillance under section 8(a)(1). An amended charge was signed on June 23, 2016. The Region issued a Complaint and Notice of Hearing on June 30, 2016, Bridgewater answered on July 13, 2016 through counsel from [[Jones Day]], the hearing was rescheduled by a Regional Director's order on September 8, and a further Regional Director's order is dated October 28, 2016. The docket's status for the case is "Closed."[^19] The State Bond Commission vote of May 27, 2016, fell between the charge and the complaint.[^14][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Arbitration with Former Employees
|
||||
|
||||
In 2017 Bridgewater brought an arbitration against two former employees, [[Zachary Squire]] and [[Lawrence Minicone]], founders of [[Tekmerion Capital Management]], alleging misappropriation of trade secrets. The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2020, on the basis of a court filing by the two men, that a three-arbitrator panel found that Bridgewater brought the claims "not to prove misappropriation, but rather, to adversely affect [their] ability to conduct a competitive business" and that it had falsified and withheld certain evidence.[^20] [[Institutional Investor]] described the two men's position as being that the panel found Bridgewater "manufactured false evidence." Bridgewater's responding filing, as reported by the same publication, stated that the legal fees at issue totaled 1.99 million dollars, that the panel had initially found that neither side proved its claims, that its employment contracts allowed fee recovery by former employees only in discrimination claims, and that many of its investment strategies "reside in the minds of senior Bridgewater personnel."[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Partnership for Connecticut
|
||||
|
||||
In 2019 the [[Connecticut General Assembly]] enacted [[Public Act 19-117]], the biennial budget implementer (House Bill 7424). Section 183 established "The Partnership for Connecticut, Inc." as a nonstock corporation "organized and established by the philanthropic enterprise and its agents," and defined the "philanthropic enterprise" as "a philanthropic enterprise founded in 2003 and located in Fairfield County that advances diverse philanthropic initiatives which include strengthening public education in this state and supporting financial inclusion and social entrepreneurship." The act does not name the enterprise.[^22] The [[Dalio Foundation]], Inc. of Westport carries an [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruling date of September 2003.[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
The act provided that the corporation "shall not be construed to be a department, institution, public agency, public instrumentality or political subdivision of the state, or to perform any governmental function," and that its directors and officers would not be state employees or public officials for purposes of the ethics code. Section 185 set the board as four directors appointed by the director of the philanthropic enterprise, three appointed by the Governor, the Governor, the Senate president pro tempore, the Speaker of the House, the two legislative minority leaders and the corporation's president. Section 186 required the enterprise to provide 20 million dollars to the corporation for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2019, and the state to transfer 20 million dollars to a "Philanthropic Match" account on certification of that transfer; sections 188 and 189 allowed the Secretary of the [[Office of Policy and Management]] to spend 20 million dollars a year on the match for a maximum of five fiscal years.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
Governor [[Ned Lamont]] announced the partnership at [[East Hartford]] High School on April 5, 2019, with Barbara Dalio and Ray Dalio present; CT Mirror reported that the state would match the Dalio Foundation's 100 million dollars over five years and that the first 20 million dollar state installment would come from fiscal reserves.[^24] The [[The 74]] reported in October 2019 that the Lamonts and the Dalios were neighbors in [[Greenwich]] who "didn't know each other before Lamont became governor in January." Federal Election Commission records show a 2,100 dollar contribution from Barbara Dalio to Ned Lamont for Senate on October 6, 2006.[^9][^25] Attorney General [[William Tong]] ruled in August 2019 that communications with the elected officials on the board were subject to the [[Freedom of Information Act]], and Republican legislative leaders on the board declined in September to sign approvals needed to start the programs; [[Dalio Philanthropies]] had spent more than 50 million dollars on Connecticut schools since 2010.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
The partnership hired [[Mary Anne Schmitt-Carey]] as chief executive in March 2020 at a salary of 247,500 dollars; she was asked to resign on May 4, 2020, and on May 19, 2020, Barbara Dalio announced the Dalios' "intent to withdraw from the Partnership," writing that "it has become clear that it's not working because of political fighting."[^26] According to [[Fox Business]], Schmitt-Carey sued Dalio Philanthropies and [[Say Yes to Education]] in New York County in September 2020 for defamation and breach of contract and sought at least 2.5 million dollars. The complaint, as Fox Business quoted it, alleged that Ray Dalio had told her, "If my wife wants to distribute 10,000 coats, your job is to figure out how to do that," and, in Fox Business's words, "also states that Dalio conditioned his $100 million donation on the basis that it be exempt from state ethics and disclosure rules." The complaint is quoted as stating that "This exemption risked allowing an entity created by state legislation, with one-third of its budget coming from public funds, and with a board of directors including five elected officials, to operate in large part behind closed doors." A spokesperson for Dalio Philanthropies replied: "Anyone can make outlandish accusations. The evidence will be presented and judged fairly following the legal process."[^27] [[ProPublica]]'s Nonprofit Explorer lists Partnership for Connecticut Inc. (IRS ruling July 2019) with revenue of 20,013,287 dollars, expenses of 19,008,875 dollars and assets of 39,744,678 dollars for the fiscal year ending June 2020, and the Dalio Foundation's Form 990-PF filings show total assets of 322,846,770 dollars for 2011, 842,052,652 dollars for 2013, 804,361,145 dollars for 2020 and 1,484,061,978 dollars for 2021, a year of 687,569,757 dollars in revenue, and 1,541,767,086 dollars for 2023.[^23] The foundation's Form 990-PF for 2024 lists Raymond T. Dalio as president and director and Barbara Dalio, Mark Dalio and Matthew A. Dalio as directors, none compensated; reports total assets of 1,665,091,766 dollars, grants paid of 50,888,478 dollars and grants approved for future payment of 35,170,000 dollars; and lists, among 214 grants paid, 2,000,000 dollars to Connecticut Rise Network, 700,000 dollars to the [[Connecticut Conference of Municipalities]], 1,000,000 dollars to the [[Center for Strategic and International Studies]] for its endowment campaign, 1,000,000 dollars to the [[Aspen Institute]] for its Economic Strategy Group, 500,000 dollars to the [[National Committee on United States-China Relations]] for general operations and 100,000 dollars to the [[Council on Foreign Relations]].[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
### China
|
||||
|
||||
Bridgewater's own account, in a July 4, 2018 release, stated that it had "managed money for Chinese institutional investors in global markets since 1993," opened a Beijing office in 2011, and in 2016 established Bridgewater China Investment Management in [[Shanghai]] under general manager [[Wang Yan]]. The release announced that the [[Asset Management Association of China]] had granted it a private securities investment fund manager license, and quoted [[Dave McCormick]], then co-chief executive, saying the firm had been "deeply involved in and studying the evolution of its economy and markets for more than 30 years."[^29] The Form ADV lists Bridgewater (China) Investment Management Co. Ltd. as a related person registered with the [[China Securities Regulatory Commission]] and the Asset Management Association of China, and lists funds named Bridgewater All Weather China, Ltd. and Bridgewater China Total Return Fund, Ltd.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
In December 2017 Institutional Investor reported that the firm's wholly foreign-owned enterprise license had been "paved in part by years of charitable giving and Dalio's personal relations as an informal adviser to some of the nation's most senior regulatory officials," that Dalio had written in his book that he advised Chinese regulators on the formation of the stock markets in the late 1980s, and that Dalio had founded the [[Beijing Dalio Public Welfare Foundation]], led since 2013 by [[Jesse Wang Jianxi]] after he retired as chief risk officer of the [[China Investment Corporation]]. The analyst [[Andrew Collier]] of [[Orient Capital Research]] was quoted as saying that Bridgewater "may be the first large hedge fund to obtain access to the Chinese market due to behind the scenes maneuvering by Ray Dalio, which is likely to have included the appointment of Jesse Wang from CIC."[^30]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Rob Copeland]]'s book *[[The Fund]]*, in a passage published by [[Semafor]] in November 2023, states that Dalio first visited China in 1984, met representatives of [[CITIC]], said in one meeting, "Whatever fees you pay, I will donate back to China personally," and that "Bridgewater collected more than $10 billion for its funds from Chinese government wings." Copeland writes that Dalio became close to [[Wang Qishan]], who endorsed one of Dalio's principles, and that Dalio called him a friend, a hero, and "a remarkable force for good." Dalio's statement on the book, quoted in the same publication, was that "Bridgewater obviously is not and was not as he describes it" and that the book was "more a sign of the times when bad journalism is more a fiction than a source of truth."[^31]
|
||||
|
||||
The Chinese state news agency [[Xinhua News Agency]] reported that [[He Lifeng]] met "Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates" in Beijing on August 29, 2024, and expressed the hope that Dalio "will continue to play a bridging role and promote U.S. companies to seize opportunities and deepen mutually beneficial cooperation with China." It reported a further meeting in Beijing on March 31, 2025, at which He said that "international investors are welcome to participate actively in the construction of China's capital market." In each report Dalio expressed willingness to contribute to cooperation between the United States and China.[^3][^32]
|
||||
|
||||
The firm's quarterly Form 13F filings list its United States exchange-traded securities held at quarter end; they do not show holdings in China-listed securities or in the China-domiciled funds named in the Form ADV. Positions in four Chinese issuers listed in the United States ([[Alibaba Group]], [[Baidu]], [[JD.com]] and [[PDD Holdings]], formerly Pinduoduo) were 17.1 million dollars of 10.93 billion at December 31, 2018 (0.16 percent); 84.6 million dollars at December 31, 2019; 392.5 million dollars of 5.96 billion at June 30, 2020 (6.58 percent); 664.4 million dollars of 8.31 billion at September 30, 2020 (7.99 percent, with Alibaba at 392.2 million); 884.3 million dollars of 11.55 billion at December 31, 2020 (7.65 percent); 773.8 million dollars of 17.20 billion at December 31, 2021 (4.50 percent, with Alibaba at 507.0 million); 1.28 billion dollars of 24.81 billion at March 31, 2022 (5.18 percent, with Alibaba at 813.9 million); 356.5 million dollars, all PDD, at December 31, 2023; 159.1 million dollars at December 31, 2024 (0.73 percent); and 1.26 billion dollars of 21.55 billion at March 31, 2025 (5.85 percent: Alibaba 748.5 million, PDD 206.3 million, Baidu 191.1 million, JD.com 114.6 million). The filings for June 30, 2025 and each later quarter through June 30, 2026 list none of the four.[^33] [[CNN]]'s KFile, reviewing the filings for a broader set of Chinese companies listed in the United States, reported that the firm's holdings in them grew from 1.6 million dollars in the second quarter of 2017 to 1.77 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2021, from one company to 47; that it held a further 779 million dollars through exchange-traded funds; that a China-focused fund launched in 2018 had grown to 6.15 billion dollars by March 2022; and that after the United States added a subsidiary of an energy company in which Bridgewater held shares to a trade blacklist in June 2021, over alleged human rights violations against Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang, Bridgewater "more than doubled its shares in the parent company" between the second and fourth quarters of 2021. The company and China denied the violations, and Bridgewater did not respond to CNN.[^34] CNBC reported in August 2025 that the firm "divested from U.S.-listed Chinese stocks in the second quarter."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Government Alumni
|
||||
|
||||
McCormick is recorded in a Treasury press release of May 19, 2008, as Under Secretary for International Affairs of the [[United States Department of the Treasury]], speaking on behalf of Secretary [[Henry Paulson]] at the annual meeting of the [[European Bank for Reconstruction and Development]] in [[Kiev]].[^35] In a July 2018 firm release he is named as co-chief executive of Bridgewater.[^29] The [[Associated Press]] reported in April 2022, from his Senate candidate financial disclosure, that he earned more than 22 million dollars in 2021 as chief executive of Bridgewater, a post he left in early January 2022 to run for the Senate in [[Pennsylvania]], and that he reported owning Bridgewater stock valued at more than 50 million dollars.[^36] In written testimony dated September 12, 2023, to the [[House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party]], McCormick wrote that "As CEO, I had a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders and our clients to maximize returns in line with their needs," that he "held deep reservations about Bridgewater's exposure to the moral and patriotic hazards of doing business in China and often disagreed with key colleagues over China's trajectory and the nature of the CCP," and that the firm "had only a very tiny percentage of its overall business that relied on investment in China."[^37] CNN reported that a spokeswoman for his campaign, Elizabeth Gregory, said he had "consistently spoken out" about the risk posed by the Chinese Communist Party, including against Dalio, and that he lost the 2022 Republican Senate primary in Pennsylvania to [[Mehmet Oz]] by fewer than a thousand votes.[^34]
|
||||
|
||||
A July 2025 press release from Senator [[Bill Hagerty]] stated that [[Luke Pettit]], a nominee for Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions, had previously worked at the [[Senate Banking Committee]], Bridgewater Associates and the [[Federal Reserve]].[^38] [[Marc Gunther]] wrote in the *[[Stanford Social Innovation Review]]* in 2018 that [[Holden Karnofsky]] and [[Elie Hassenfeld]], investment analysts at Bridgewater, founded [[GiveWell]] after struggling to work out how to give away their money.[^39]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Bridgewater Associates, LP, Form ADV Part 1A with Schedules A, B and D, SEC File No. 801-35875, CRD No. 105129, filing date August 18, 2026 (Item 1, Schedule A, Schedule B, Schedule D Sections 1.B, 7.A and Miscellaneous). https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/reports/ADV/105129/PDF/105129.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: Connecticut General Assembly, Office of Fiscal Analysis, "Analysis of State Bond Commission Agenda Items for May 27, 2016 Meeting," item D, "Bridgewater Associates, First Five (22,000,000)," and First Five Program Funding table. https://cga.ct.gov/ofa/Documents/year/SBC/2016SBC-20160527_Analysis%20of%20State%20Bond%20Commission%20Agenda%20Items%20for%20May%2027,%202016%20Meeting.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: Xinhua, "Senior Chinese official meets Bridgewater founder," China Government Network (english.www.gov.cn), August 29, 2024. https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202408/29/content_WS66d07ea0c6d0868f4e8ea553.html
|
||||
[^4]: CNBC, "Bridgewater Associates sells stake in big Chinese companies," August 15, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/15/bridgewater-associates-sells-stake-in-big-chinese-companies.html
|
||||
[^5]: Benzinga, "Billionaire Ray Dalio Steps Down From Bridgewater Associates, Sovereign-Wealth Fund Of Brunei Acquires Final Stake," August 1, 2025, reporting an account by The Wall Street Journal. https://www.benzinga.com/news/financing/25/08/46789004/billionaire-ray-dalio-steps-down-from-bridgewater-associates-sovereign-wealth-fund-of-brunei-acqui
|
||||
[^6]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, firm summary for Bridgewater Associates, LP (CRD 105129): SEC registration effective 1/12/1990, Connecticut notice filing effective 2/12/2002, other business names. https://api.adviserinfo.sec.gov/search/firm/105129
|
||||
[^7]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR submissions record for Bridgewater Associates, LP, CIK 0001350694, business address. https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0001350694.json
|
||||
[^8]: U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Confirmation Hearing on the Nomination of James B. Comey, Jr., to Be Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, S. Hrg. 113-850, Serial No. J-113-19, July 9, 2013 (Washington: GPO, 2017), including the nominee questionnaire (employment record; item 18, deferred income and future benefits) and questions and answers of Senator Grassley. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-113shrg23750/pdf/CHRG-113shrg23750.pdf
|
||||
[^9]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API v1, schedules/schedule_a, contributor name queries "Dalio, Raymond," "Dalio, Ray" and "Dalio, Barbara," run October 1, 2026, entries dated November 12, 1998 to June 20, 2016. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/
|
||||
[^10]: U.S. Senate, Lobbying Disclosure Act database API, queries client_name=Bridgewater (18 filings, all registrant Michael A. Andrews, client Bridgewater Capital Corporation, 2007 to 2011), registrant_name=Bridgewater and client_name=Dalio (no filings), run October 1, 2026. https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/
|
||||
[^11]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, DataSet 9, EFTA00975553, email from Jeffrey Epstein to Bill Gates, November 9, 2013. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00975553.pdf
|
||||
[^12]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, DataSet 11, EFTA02561326, email headed "Tim Zagat/Ray Dalio," October 5, 2012. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02561326.pdf
|
||||
[^13]: Alexander Soule, "Bridgewater to Stamford in First Five deal," Westfair Communications (Fairfield County Business Journal), September 24, 2012. https://westfaironline.com/banking-finance/bridgewater-to-stamford-in-first-five-deal/
|
||||
[^14]: Connecticut State Bond Commission, Index of Agenda Items, May 27, 2016, item D (Department of Economic and Community Development, First Five Program, Bridgewater Associates, LP). https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/OPM/AgendaMay272016pdf.pdf
|
||||
[^15]: Ken Dixon, "Local Republicans criticize Malloy over $22 M grant to Bridgewater," Connecticut Post, May 23, 2016. https://m.ctpost.com/local/article/Republicans-criticize-Malloy-over-22-M-grant-to-7940560.php
|
||||
[^16]: Keith M. Phaneuf, "Bond panel OK's $22M for hedge fund expansion; Lembo votes no," CT Mirror, May 27, 2016. https://ctmirror.org/2016/05/27/bond-panel-oks-22m-for-hedge-fund-expansion-lembo-votes-no/
|
||||
[^17]: Keith M. Phaneuf, "State offers reassurances over its aid to Bridgewater hedge fund," CT Mirror, August 3, 2016. https://ctmirror.org/2016/08/03/state-offers-reassurances-over-its-aid-to-bridgewater-hedge-fund/
|
||||
[^18]: Paul Schott, "Hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates pays back state loan, forgoes $18M in tax credits," Connecticut Post (CT Insider), May 26, 2023. https://www.ctpost.com/business/article/hedge-fund-bridgewater-forego-state-funds-18117916.php
|
||||
[^19]: National Labor Relations Board, Case 01-CA-169426, Bridgewater Associates, LP, Westport, CT, Region 1, docket activity, allegations and participants. https://www.nlrb.gov/case/01-CA-169426
|
||||
[^20]: Neer Varshney, "Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Loses Trade Secrets Claim Against Former Staff, Arbitrators Say Hedge Fund Manufactured Evidence," Yahoo Finance, July 14, 2020, summarizing Wall Street Journal reporting of a court filing by Squire and Minicone. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ray-dalios-bridgewater-loses-trade-144235883.html
|
||||
[^21]: Alicia McElhaney, "Bridgewater Fires Back Against Finding That It 'Manufactured False Evidence,'" Institutional Investor, July 14, 2020. https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2bsx0wq4jdzo82fn57zeo/culture/bridgewater-fires-back-against-finding-that-it-manufactured-false-evidence
|
||||
[^22]: Connecticut Public Act 19-117 (House Bill 7424), "An Act Concerning the State Budget for the Biennium Ending June 30, 2021," sections 183 to 189 (pp. 219 to 226 of the enrolled act). https://www.cga.ct.gov/2019/ACT/pa/pdf/2019PA-00117-R00HB-07424-PA.pdf
|
||||
[^23]: ProPublica, Nonprofit Explorer API, Dalio Foundation Inc (EIN 43-1965846, Westport, CT, IRS ruling date 2003-09; Form 990-PF filings for 2011 to 2023) and Partnership For Connecticut Inc (EIN 84-1931601, Hartford, CT, IRS ruling date 2019-07; Form 990 for the year ending June 2020). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/431965846.json and https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/841931601.json
|
||||
[^24]: Keith M. Phaneuf, "Dalio foundation spearheads major investment in CT schools," CT Mirror, April 5, 2019. https://ctmirror.org/2019/04/05/dalio-foundation-spearheads-major-investment-in-ct-schools/
|
||||
[^25]: Debra West, "Hands-on Philanthropists With a Proven Track Record, Ray and Barbara Dalio Announced in April They Wanted to Give $100M to Connecticut Schools. And Then Things Got Complicated," The 74, October 28, 2019. https://www.the74million.org/article/hands-on-philanthropists-with-a-proven-track-record-ray-and-barbara-dalio-announced-in-april-they-wanted-to-give-100m-to-connecticut-schools-and-then-things-got-complicated/
|
||||
[^26]: Michael C. Bingham, "Dalios' exit spells end for education Partnership," Hartford Business Journal, May 19, 2020. https://hartfordbusiness.com/article/dalios-exit-spells-end-for-education-partnership/
|
||||
[^27]: Lydia Moynihan and Charlie Gasparino, "Ray Dalio's $100 million education charity hit with abuse of wealth and power lawsuit," Fox Business, September 24, 2020. https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/controversial-ray-dalio-backed-education-charity-faces-massive-lawsuit
|
||||
[^28]: Dalio Foundation Inc (EIN 43-1965846), Form 990-PF for the year ended December 31, 2024, Internal Revenue Service e-file object 202513219349106086 (Part VII; Part XV, grants and contributions paid during the year and approved for future payment), IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search bulk data, 2025_TEOS_XML_11D. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip
|
||||
[^29]: Bridgewater Associates, "Bridgewater Associates Gains Approval From AMAC To Launch Investment Products In Mainland China," PR Newswire, July 4, 2018. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bridgewater-associates-gains-approval-from-amac-to-launch-investment-products-in-mainland-china-300676410.html
|
||||
[^30]: Allen T. Cheng, "How Ray Dalio Broke Into China," Institutional Investor, December 18, 2017. https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2bsvwnnf4pr8akxh2axvk/corner-office/how-ray-dalio-broke-into-china
|
||||
[^31]: Rob Copeland, excerpt from *The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates, and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend*, published as "Ray Dalio ran Bridgewater like the global strongmen he admired," Semafor, November 6, 2023. https://www.semafor.com/article/11/06/2023/ray-dalio-ran-bridgewater-like-the-global-strongmen-he-admired
|
||||
[^32]: Xinhua, "Senior Chinese official meets with Bridgewater founder," China Government Network (english.www.gov.cn), April 1, 2025 (meeting of March 31, 2025). https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202504/01/content_WS67eb1caac6d0868f4e8f1595.html
|
||||
[^33]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, EDGAR, Bridgewater Associates, LP (CIK 1350694), Form 13F-HR information tables for report dates December 31, 2018 through June 30, 2026 (accession nos. 0001567619-19-003499, 0001567619-20-014895, 0001567619-20-019382, 0001567619-21-003290, 0001172661-22-000562, 0001172661-22-001289, 0001172661-24-001126, 0001172661-25-000823, 0001172661-25-001828, 0001172661-25-003151, 0001172661-25-004777, 0001350694-26-000001, 0001350694-26-000002 and 0001350694-26-000003); values of the Alibaba, Baidu, JD.com and Pinduoduo/PDD lines and filing totals summed for this page, values in thousands converted for filings before the report for December 31, 2022. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=1350694&type=13F-HR
|
||||
[^34]: Em Steck, "McCormick wants the US to divest from China. As a hedge fund manager, he oversaw investments in Chinese companies grow more than a thousand-fold," CNN, November 4, 2023. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/04/politics/kfile-mccormick-bridgewater-chinese-investments/index.html
|
||||
[^35]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Under Secretary for International Affairs David H. McCormick Statement at the Annual Meeting of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development," press release HP-984, May 19, 2008. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/hp984
|
||||
[^36]: Associated Press, "Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick earned $22M as hedge fund CEO," April 19, 2022 (as published by WESA). https://www.wesanews.org/politics-government/2022-04-19/pennsylvania-senate-candidate-dave-mccormick-earned-22m-as-hedge-fund-ceo
|
||||
[^37]: David H. McCormick, Written Testimony Submitted to the U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, hearing "Systemic Risk: The Chinese Communist Party's Threat to U.S. Financial Stability," September 12, 2023. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/ZS/ZS00/20230912/116380/HHRG-118-ZS00-20230912-SD001.pdf
|
||||
[^38]: Office of Senator Bill Hagerty, "Hagerty Announces Staff Additions, Trump Admin Appointments," July 9, 2025. https://www.hagerty.senate.gov/press-releases/2025/07/09/hagerty-announces-staff-additions-trump-admin-appointments/
|
||||
[^39]: Marc Gunther, "Giving in the Light of Reason," Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer 2018. https://ssir.org/articles/entry/giving_in_the_light_of_reason
|
||||
231
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cambridge Analytica.md
Normal file
231
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Cambridge Analytica.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,231 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- CambridgeAnalytica
|
||||
- SCLGroup
|
||||
- Emerdata
|
||||
- RobertMercer
|
||||
- SteveBannon
|
||||
- FacebookData
|
||||
- PoliticalConsulting
|
||||
- UKInformationCommissioner
|
||||
- TrumpCampaign
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Cambridge Analytica
|
||||
- Cambridge Analytica LLC
|
||||
- Cambridge Analytica Ltd
|
||||
- Cambridge Analytica (UK) Limited
|
||||
- CA
|
||||
- Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC
|
||||
- Cambridge Analytica(UK) Limited
|
||||
- SCL Group
|
||||
- SCL Group Limited
|
||||
- SCL Elections
|
||||
- SCL Elections Limited
|
||||
- SCL
|
||||
- Strategic Communication Laboratories
|
||||
- Emerdata
|
||||
- Emerdata Limited
|
||||
- Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal
|
||||
summary: "Delaware political data company formed in December 2013 within the British SCL Group, with Robert Mercer as investor, paid $5.9 million by the Trump campaign and in Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings from May 2018."
|
||||
start: 2013-12
|
||||
end: 2018-05-17
|
||||
location: "New York, New York; London, England"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Mercer]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "investor holding 90 percent of the company for an initial 15 million dollars, per the account of Christopher Wylie"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Rebekah Mercer]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-03-06
|
||||
end: 2018-01-23
|
||||
role: "member of the board of managers and vice president"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jennifer Mercer]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-03-06
|
||||
end: 2018-01-23
|
||||
role: "member of the board of managers"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Alexander Nix]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2018-04-30
|
||||
role: "chief executive officer and board of managers member"
|
||||
fn: 16
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Brittany Kaiser]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015-02
|
||||
end: 2018-01-31
|
||||
role: "business development director; permanent position per her own interview"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.]]"
|
||||
start: 2016-07-29
|
||||
end: 2016-12-12
|
||||
role: "data management vendor, 5,912,500 dollars"
|
||||
fn: 21
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Cruz for President]]"
|
||||
start: 2015-07-02
|
||||
end: 2016-06-09
|
||||
role: "vendor, 5,805,552.23 dollars in itemized disbursements"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[John Bolton Super PAC]]"
|
||||
start: 2014-07-07
|
||||
end: 2016-09-29
|
||||
role: "research and survey research vendor, 1,152,300 dollars"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Make America Number 1]]"
|
||||
start: 2015-12-10
|
||||
end: 2016-12-07
|
||||
role: "media, survey research and consulting vendor, 1,476,484 dollars"
|
||||
fn: 25
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[State Department]]"
|
||||
start: 2017-02-20
|
||||
end: 2018-02-19
|
||||
role: "SCL Group Limited as vendor on contract SAQMMA17C0115, 456,500 dollars obligated"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: prosecuted
|
||||
with: "[[Federal Trade Commission]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019-07-24
|
||||
end: 2019-11-25
|
||||
role: "administrative complaint and opinion, Docket 9383"
|
||||
fn: 16
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Information Commissioner's Office]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2017-05
|
||||
end: 2020-10-02
|
||||
role: "formal investigation into data analytics in political campaigns"
|
||||
fn: 37
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]]"
|
||||
end: 2020-08-18
|
||||
role: "Volume 5 of the committee's Russia report examined the company"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Cambridge Analytica, formally Cambridge Analytica LLC, was a [[Delaware]] limited liability company formed in December 2013 with its principal office at 597 Fifth Avenue in [[New York City]], and part of the family of companies of the British firm [[SCL Group]].[^1] [[Robert Mercer]] capitalized the company, [[Steve Bannon]] served on its board, and its chief executive officer was [[Alexander Nix]].[^2] The company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in the [[United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York]] on May 17, 2018 ([[In re Cambridge Analytica LLC]], Case No. 18-11500-shl).[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### SCL Group and its predecessors
|
||||
|
||||
[[Companies House]] records Strategic Communication Laboratories Limited as incorporated on July 20, 2005, and renamed SCL Group Limited on August 19, 2015.[^4] The officers recorded for that company include [[Nigel Oakes]] (director from October 3, 2005 to June 5, 2018), Alexander Waddington Oakes (director from July 20, 2005 to January 28, 2016, and secretary from March 31, 2014 to January 28, 2016), Alexander James Ashburner Nix (director from July 20, 2005 to December 7, 2012, and again from January 28, 2016 to April 30, 2018), [[Julian Wheatland]] (director from November 10, 2005 to January 12, 2007, and from December 20, 2007 to June 26, 2020), Roger Michael Gabb (director from November 10, 2005 to March 28, 2018) and Geoffrey Edwin Pattie (director from November 10, 2005 to December 1, 2008).[^4] An earlier company, Behavioural Dynamics Holdings Limited, was incorporated on February 8, 1991 with Nigel Oakes as director and was dissolved on April 26, 2011.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Christopher Wylie]], who worked for SCL from June 2013 to November 2014, told the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] in a proffer on May 17, 2018 that SCL had evolved from a single company with Defense, Commercial, Elections and Social divisions into a holding company with subsidiaries, that Oakes was chief executive of the holding company, and that the defense division produced 80 percent of SCL Group's revenue.[^6] Nix, who the committee reported joined SCL in 2003, was described by Wylie as responsible for the non-defense divisions.[^6] Companies House lists Nix as director of SCL Elections Limited from October 17, 2012, SCL Social Limited from February 19, 2013, SCL Commercial Limited from January 10, 2014, and SCL Analytics Limited from October 23, 2015, all to April 30, 2018.[^7] Cambridge Analytica (UK) Limited was incorporated on January 6, 2015 as SCL USA Limited and took its later name on April 14, 2016.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee]] of the House of Commons wrote in its 2019 final report, repeating its 2018 interim report, that SCL had carried out work "for the British Government, the US Government and other allied Governments," that the [[Ministry of Defence]] had issued an approbation of SCL after it provided psychological operations training to ministry staff, and that Nix had told the committee that SCL "is a company that operates in the government and defence space, it acts as a company that has secret clearance."[^9] In evidence to the committee, [[Brittany Kaiser]] said that before 2015 the "target audience analysis" methodology was considered "weapons grade communications tactics" and that the British government had to be told if it was to be deployed in another country.[^9] Emma Briant of the [[University of Essex]] told the committee that SCL Group had delivered counter-Russian propaganda training for [[NATO]] at about the time Cambridge Analytica pitched to the Russian oil company [[Lukoil]].[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
USAspending.gov records a contract, SAQMMA17C0115, between the [[State Department]] and SCL Group Limited of 1 to 6 Yarmouth Place, Mayfair, London, signed on February 17, 2017, for "target audience research including designing communication and messaging strategy and monitoring its implementation." Performance ran from February 20, 2017 to February 19, 2018, the amount obligated was $456,500, the ceiling with all options was $496,232, and the extent-competed field reads "not competed."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Formation and ownership
|
||||
|
||||
According to Wylie, Steve Bannon introduced Nix to Robert Mercer and [[Rebekah Mercer]] as potential investors in SCL Group, and Mercer's lawyer advised that an investment should go through a [[United States]] entity rather than SCL itself. Wylie said the company was established with an initial $15 million investment by Mercer, who held 90 percent, with the remaining 10 percent held by SCL Elections in exchange for assignment of its intellectual property, and that Robert Mercer was president, Bannon vice president, [[Jennifer Mercer]] treasurer and Nix a board member.[^2] The committee wrote that Wylie suggested Bannon engaged SCL Group and became vice president of Cambridge Analytica in order to "build an arsenal of informational weapons [that] he could deploy on the American population."[^12] Wylie added that under this arrangement Cambridge Analytica had no employees of its own and that its clients were to be served by SCL Elections.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Bannon told the committee that he had met Nix between mid-2013 and 2014 while conducting investment due diligence for Mercer, that he described his role as that of a "typical investment banker," and that Cambridge Analytica was "totally independent" of SCL Group with its own workforce, the appearance of a shared workforce being a product of Nix and some data scientists doing work for both companies.[^2][^13] Kaiser, who opened the first United States office of the company in Alexandria, Virginia in October 2015, told the committee that at least initially the two companies "were one and the same company," and said the company at its largest had 130 employees, with about 40 in New York and 20 in Washington.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
The statement of financial affairs filed in the bankruptcy lists Nix as a member of the board of managers and chief executive officer, Rebekah Mercer as a member of the board of managers and vice president, and Jennifer Mercer as a member of the board of managers, each from March 6, 2014 through January 23, 2018.[^2] Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer signed the written consent authorizing the May 2018 petition as the board members.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Facebook data and Global Science Research
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Information Commissioner's Office]] reported in November 2018 that the company had sought to use [[Facebook]] friend data that was available to application developers under version 1 of the Facebook platform interface, that a collaboration with [[David Stillwell]] of the [[University of Cambridge]] Psychometrics Centre failed when he refused for data protection reasons, and that in May 2014 [[Aleksandr Kogan]], another academic with links to Cambridge, offered to do the work with his own application.[^15] The office reported evidence that Cambridge Analytica staff, including Wylie, helped Kogan set up his company [[Global Science Research]], that the application collected data from about 320,000 users who took a personality test, and that Facebook estimated the total number of users and friends whose data was accessed at about 87 million.[^15] Cambridge Analytica commissioned the survey company [[Qualtrics]] to pay members of the public less than a dollar to use the application.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Federal Trade Commission]] found, on the allegations in its complaint to which Cambridge Analytica filed no answer, that the application obtained profile data from approximately 250,000 to 270,000 users and from 50 to 65 million of their friends, at least 30 million of them identifiable United States consumers, and that users were told the application did not collect personally identifiable information.[^16] The commission issued its opinion on November 25, 2019 (Docket No. 9383) after Cambridge Analytica filed neither an answer nor an opposition to the motion for summary decision; its bankruptcy trustee did not object to the motion. The commission had accepted consent settlements with Nix and Kogan on July 24, 2019 requiring them to destroy the data and algorithms derived from it.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
The Senate committee wrote that, according to Kogan, the application ultimately collected approximately 30 million personality profiles "which were transferred to SCL Group," and noted in a footnote that his written testimony to a Senate subcommittee on June 19, 2018 states that the data was not transferred to SCL.[^17] The Information Commissioner's Office reported contrary evidence that Cambridge Analytica staff controlled "the manner and frequency" with which the data was harvested and that the harvested data was transferred to a "drop-zone" from which Cambridge Analytica extracted modeled data.[^18] Wylie told the committee that the Russian government sponsored some of Kogan's research and that Kogan traveled to Russia to present it; the committee quoted a March 15, 2014 email from an SCL employee to Nix, Wylie and a colleague referring to "the interesting work Alex Kogan has been doing for the Russians."[^17] Kogan denied awareness of any evidence the Trump campaign used the data.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### Clients and payments recorded by the Federal Election Commission
|
||||
|
||||
Itemized disbursements to Cambridge Analytica in [[Federal Election Commission]] Schedule B records total $16,111,196.81 across 19 committees between June 2014 and March 2018, a figure that includes one entry marked "VOIDED: TO BE REFUNDED" ($10,027) and one memo-coded entry ($20,000); without them the total is $16,081,169.81.[^19] The largest recipients of payment by committee were [[Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.]] ($5,912,500 in five payments between July 29 and December 12, 2016), [[Cruz for President]] ($5,805,552 in 19 payments from July 2015 to June 2016), [[Make America Number 1]] ($1,476,484 in 13 payments from December 2015 to December 2016), the [[John Bolton Super PAC]] ($1,152,300 in 13 payments from July 2014 to September 2016), [[Keep the Promise II]] ($570,000 in December 2015 and January 2016) and [[Carson America]] ($438,065 from May 2015 to January 2016).[^19] The [[North Carolina Republican Party]] paid $215,000 between July 2014 and June 2015, the [[Thom Tillis]] committee $130,000 between October 2014 and December 2015, and the [[Jobs Growth and Freedom Fund]] $133,333.33 in October 2014.[^19] Two committees named Restoring American Leadership PAC and Restore American Leadership are recorded at $117,100 and $38,625 between May and December 2016, and the committees of [[Tom Cotton]] ($20,000, October 2014), [[Monica Wehby]] ($20,000, August and October 2014) and [[Patrick McHenry]] ($15,000, October 2014) also appear.[^19] Art Robinson for Congress, a committee whose registered address is 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, Oregon, paid $20,000 in three payments between June 10 and November 5, 2014, and the committee Bob Huff for Congress reported the voided $10,027 entry on March 9, 2018.[^19][^20]
|
||||
|
||||
The Trump campaign payments were reported as "data management" and "data management services." The campaign's reports for July, August, September and October 1 to 19, 2016 and the year-end report that carry them are amendments filed on November 19, 2018, December 20, 2018, March 13, 2019, April 5, 2019 and June 28, 2019, each the last in a chain of four or five filings that began with an original report filed between August 2016 and January 2017.[^21] The single payment of $5,000,000 is dated September 1, 2016.[^21] The Senate committee recorded that the first disbursement was on July 29, 2016 and that the payments continued through December 12, 2016.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
The Bolton PAC's payments to the company began on July 7, 2014 with $25,000 for "research" and continued as "survey research" through September 29, 2016; over the same period the committee's receipts include ten contributions of $500,000 each from Robert Mercer, dated between April 28, 2014 and December 28, 2017.[^23] Make America Number 1, whose statement of organization of April 6, 2015 was submitted under a cover letter headed "Keep The Promise I" and whose amended statement signed on June 22, 2016 gives the name Make America Number 1, received $11,000,000 from Mercer on April 10, 2015, and $4,500,000 more in 2016.[^24][^25] The committee's disbursements in the same period include payments to Cambridge Analytica, $109,341.25 to Breitbart News Network LLC on November 25, 2015 for "list purchase expense," and $280,641 to Glittering Steel LLC for video production.[^25] The [[Mercer Family Foundation]] return for 2021 lists the [[Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine]] at 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, Oregon, and earlier returns list grants to an organization of that name at Cave Junction, including $965,000 in tax year 2011.[^26] The foundation and the family's other filings are described at [[Mercer family]].
|
||||
|
||||
### Contacts with the Trump campaign
|
||||
|
||||
Kaiser told the Senate committee that discussion of a commercial offer to the Trump campaign began in May 2015, that she and Nix met Bannon in Washington in September 2015, that [[Donald Trump]] telephoned Bannon during the meeting and directed that Nix and Kaiser come to New York to meet [[Corey Lewandowski]], and that "eight or ten weeks" of contract negotiations followed without result.[^27] Bannon told the committee he had no recollection of the call.[^27] Kaiser also said that almost every client meeting she had with a political figure was preceded by an introduction from Bannon, Rebekah Mercer or [[Kellyanne Conway]], whom the committee described as an advisor to the Mercers at the time, and that Conway was closely involved in moving the company from the Cruz campaign to the Trump campaign.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
The committee recorded that the Cruz campaign spent about $5.8 million on the company and the campaign of [[Ben Carson]] more than $430,000, citing a [[CNN]] report, and that within a week of Cruz leaving the race the employees working on his campaign began moving to the Trump campaign.[^27] [[Rick Gates]] told the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] that the campaign decided shortly after the Republican National Convention to use the company, that the [[Republican National Committee]] did not want to use it, that [[Brad Parscale]] was reluctant, that [[Jared Kushner]] wanted to use it and negotiated a package with payment at the end of the campaign.[^22] Kushner told the committee that the Mercers aggressively advocated use of the company and that the campaign engaged it to secure the Mercers' support.[^22] Parscale said he decided to hire the company in June 2016 after approval from [[Paul Manafort]] and Kushner, that he declined its offer of "psychographic profiling" services, and that he used Republican National Committee data rather than the company's data.[^22][^29]
|
||||
|
||||
The committee obtained a campaign data team presentation of August 22, 2016 with a slide depicting data flowing in both directions between the campaign and Cambridge Analytica, with the company's node titled "Digital Media Psychographic Analysis," and another slide showing arrows between its "Psychographic Analysis" and both the Republican National Committee's "GOP Data Center" and the campaign's San Antonio operation, which it called "Project Alamo."[^29] The committee wrote that documents it obtained suggested that the company's data may have been used in support of the campaign and that the campaign may have leveraged its psychographic analysis capabilities.[^29] Gates told the FBI that he later learned campaign data was transmitted to and analyzed in the [[United Kingdom]], which concerned him.[^29] Kaiser said that Project Alamo was "built completely from scratch" from the Republican National Committee's Data Trust database and purchased data sets.[^29]
|
||||
|
||||
### Russian and WikiLeaks contacts
|
||||
|
||||
Wylie said that from spring 2014 through 2015 Cambridge Analytica representatives met representatives of Lukoil, that Nix's presentations included discussion of rumor and disinformation campaigns, and that in May 2018 he told the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] that Lukoil "has formal information sharing agreements with the Russian Federal Security Service."[^30] Kaiser told the committee the discussions concerned a customer loyalty application for Lukoil's stations in Turkey, said she was told the data could also be useful for political activities there, and furnished a February 2015 presentation prepared by SCL Commercial; neither she nor Wylie believed that a contract resulted, and the committee stated that it did not independently corroborate the allegation that Lukoil intended to use the company to affect elections.[^30] The committee noted that the [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] had added Lukoil to its Sectoral Sanctions Identifications List on September 12, 2014.[^30]
|
||||
|
||||
Wylie also told the committee that in spring 2014 Bannon approved focus groups about [[Vladimir Putin]] and Russian expansionism preparatory to a predictive model, and that Bannon and [[Konstantin Kilimnik]] were two of three people likely responsible for the idea.[^31] [[Sam Patten]], a consultant who worked for the company in Nigeria, Mexico, Kosovo and the Czech Republic, told the committee there was "no connection" between Kilimnik and Cambridge Analytica; Kaiser said that on the Nigerian project the company may have assisted its client in retaining former Israeli intelligence officers working privately to conduct opposition research.[^31]
|
||||
|
||||
The committee reported open-source accounts that during the 2016 campaign Nix emailed [[Julian Assange]] about the possible release of [[Hillary Clinton]]'s deleted emails, and that Assange said in October 2017 that [[WikiLeaks]] had rejected an approach by Cambridge Analytica. The committee obtained no additional information, and Bannon and others close to the campaign said they had no prior awareness of the contact.[^32] The committee also recorded that it was unable to obtain the company's corporate communications, which were in the hands of United Kingdom authorities, and that Nix "generally disregarded the Committee's requests for an appearance."[^33] It found "no convincing evidence that Russia's government or intelligence services worked with or through" Cambridge Analytica, Psy Group or Colt Ventures in furtherance of the 2016 interference.[^33] Cambridge Analytica, LLC is named among the respondents in matters under review 7207, 7268, 7274 and 7623 before the Federal Election Commission, in which Commissioners Shana Broussard and Ellen Weintraub issued a statement of reasons citing Volume 5 after a certification dated April 22, 2021; the text of the statement concerns the Russian Federation, the Internet Research Agency and the Trump committee and does not mention Cambridge Analytica outside the caption.[^34]
|
||||
|
||||
### Regulatory and criminal proceedings in the United Kingdom
|
||||
|
||||
The Information Commissioner's Office issued a monetary penalty notice of £500,000 to Facebook on October 25, 2018, the highest fine permitted under the Data Protection Act 1998, citing lack of transparency and security failures relating to the harvesting of data.[^35] The office also executed a warrant at the company's premises at 8 p.m. on March 23, 2018, seized servers and other material, and reported that Cambridge Analytica and SCL Elections entered administration on May 3, 2018, that an enforcement notice of May 4, 2018 required it to answer a subject access request from the American academic [[David Carroll]] that had been made in January 2017, and that the deadline of June 3, 2018 passed without compliance.[^18] The office reported that Nix and Kogan had declined invitations to voluntary interviews under caution and that it would have issued a substantial fine had the company not been in administration.[^18] SCL Elections pleaded guilty at [[Hendon Magistrates' Court]] on January 9, 2019, the day set for trial, to failing to comply with the enforcement notice; press reports gave the penalty as a fine of £15,000 with £6,000 in costs and a victim surcharge of £170.[^36] The Information Commissioner's 2020 letter to Parliament gives the fine as £18,000.[^37]
|
||||
|
||||
On October 2, 2020 the Information Commissioner, [[Elizabeth Denham]], wrote to the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee that the office had concluded its investigation, that the company had purchased commercially available data amounting at one estimate to more than 130 billion data points, mostly about United States voters, to combine with Facebook-derived data from Kogan, that its models were mostly built from "off the shelf" tools, that the office found no further evidence to change its view that the company was not involved in the European Union referendum campaign beyond early inquiries about UK Independence Party data, and that it found no additional evidence of Russian involvement in the servers it obtained.[^37] The letter also reported evidence that in its last stages the company was drawing up plans to move its data offshore to avoid regulatory scrutiny, which it did not carry out before it ceased trading.[^37]
|
||||
|
||||
The Insolvency Service announced in September 2020 that Nix had given an undertaking disqualifying him from acting as a company director for seven years from October 5, 2020, having, in the service's words, caused or permitted SCL Elections or associated companies to act with a lack of commercial probity by marketing services including "bribery or honey trap stings, voter disengagement campaigns, obtaining information to discredit political opponents and spreading information anonymously in political campaigns." The service did not say whether any such services were performed, and Nix told Reuters he had made no admission of wrongdoing.[^38] The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee had recorded in February 2019 that the Insolvency Service was investigating the directors of SCL Elections, SCL Group, SCL Analytics, SCL Commercial, SCL Social and Cambridge Analytica (UK) under the [[Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986]].[^39]
|
||||
|
||||
### Emerdata and the end of the group
|
||||
|
||||
Emerdata Limited (Companies House number 10911848) was incorporated on August 11, 2017 with Wheatland as a director, and its persons with significant control from incorporation were Wheatland and Dr Alexander Bruce Tayler, each holding more than 25 percent and up to 50 percent until January 23, 2018.[^40] From January 23, 2018 the register shows Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, with an address on Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware, as holder of more than 50 percent and less than 75 percent of shares and votes until August 9, 2022; since that date the register carries a statement that there is no registrable person.[^40] The register records the officers appointed on January 23, 2018 as Nix (resigned March 28, 2018), Johnson Chun Shun Ko (resigned May 9, 2018), Cheng Peng (resigned May 8, 2018) and Ahmad Al Khatib (resigned May 7, 2018); Tayler was a director again from March 28 to April 18, 2018, Gary Ka Chun Tiu from June 12, 2018 to December 3, 2024, and Wheatland until May 22, 2019.[^40] Rebekah and Jennifer Mercer were appointed directors on March 16, 2018 and remained in office as of the register consulted on October 1, 2026, with [[Jacquelyn James-Varga]] (appointed May 22, 2019) and Bradley David Golub (appointed December 3, 2024).[^40]
|
||||
|
||||
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee reported in February 2019 that Emerdata had not gone into administration, was the largest creditor of SCL Elections and was paying the administration costs, and listed shareholders as of August 10, 2018 that included Cambridge Analytica Holdings LLC, Tayler, Wheatland, trusts for the benefit of Rebekah, Jennifer and Heather Mercer, Alexander and Catherine Nix, five members of the Marland family, Henry and Roger Gabb, Nigel and Alexander Oakes, and Reza Saddlou-Bundy.[^39] The committee recommended that the [[National Crime Agency]] investigate the connections between SCL Elections and Emerdata.[^39] The committee also reported that SCL Insight Limited, owned by Nigel Oakes, had been spun off in the 2017 reorganization.[^39]
|
||||
|
||||
Emerdata entered administration on December 9, 2024, the register names Benjamin Stanyon and Nedim Patrick Ailyan as practitioners, records a cessation to act on April 8, 2026, and gives the registered office as care of Opus Restructuring LLP, Milton Keynes.[^40] SCL Group Limited, SCL Elections Limited and Cambridge Analytica (UK) Limited were in administration from May 3, 2018 to April 17, 2019, then in compulsory liquidation on a petition of August 13, 2018, which concluded on September 1, 2025; the first two were dissolved on January 31, 2026 and the third on January 30, 2026.[^41]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Federal Trade Commission, *In the Matter of Cambridge Analytica, LLC*, Docket No. 9383, Opinion of the Commission, issued November 25, 2019, section I (Facts). https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/d09389_comm_final_opinionpublic.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 664 to 667 and notes 4294 to 4311 (section "SCL and Cambridge Analytica," subsection "Cambridge Analytica's Founding"), citing the proffer of Christopher Wylie of May 17, 2018, the transcript of Stephen Bannon (pp. 223 to 239), the voluntary petition and the Statement of Financial Affairs of May 31, 2018 in *In re Cambridge Analytica LLC*, Case No. 18-11500-shl (Bankr. S.D.N.Y.). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 679 (subsection "Declaration of Bankruptcy"), citing the letter from Lamonica to Burr and Warner of February 15, 2019. https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^4]: Companies House, SCL GROUP LIMITED (company number 05514098), overview and officers pages, viewed October 1, 2026; previous name Strategic Communication Laboratories Limited, July 20, 2005 to August 19, 2015. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05514098 and /officers
|
||||
[^5]: Companies House, BEHAVIOURAL DYNAMICS HOLDINGS LIMITED (company number 02580903), overview and officers pages, viewed October 1, 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02580903
|
||||
[^6]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 664 and notes 4294 to 4298, citing the proffer of Christopher Wylie of May 17, 2018 and the committee's interview of Brittany Kaiser of August 17, 2018 (pp. 21 to 25). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^7]: Companies House, personal appointments page for Alexander James Ashburner Nix, viewed October 1, 2026 (SCL Elections Limited 08256225, SCL Social Limited 08410560, SCL Commercial Limited 08840965, SCL Analytics Limited 09838667, SCL Digital Limited 09375055, SCL Sovereign Limited 09375809). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/YEplkqBMfc6Rp3dbPs57pN3aqO4/appointments
|
||||
[^8]: Companies House, CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA(UK) LIMITED (company number 09375920), overview, officers and insolvency pages, viewed October 1, 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09375920
|
||||
[^9]: House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, *Disinformation and "fake news": Final Report*, Eighth Report of Session 2017 to 2019, HC 1791, February 18, 2019, paragraphs 293 and 294 and note 332 (quoting the Interim Report, HC 363, July 29, 2018, paragraph 228) and note 333 (Q1560). https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf
|
||||
[^10]: House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, *Disinformation and "fake news": Final Report*, HC 1791, February 18, 2019, paragraph 295 and notes 334 and 335 (written evidence FKN0099). https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf
|
||||
[^11]: USAspending.gov, award CONT_AWD_SAQMMA17C0115_1900_-NONE-_-NONE-, recipient SCL GROUP LIMITED, Department of State, definitive contract; date signed February 17, 2017; total obligation $456,500; base and all options $496,232; extent competed "not competed"; product or service code R497. Retrieved through the USAspending API on October 1, 2026. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_AWD_SAQMMA17C0115_1900_-NONE-_-NONE-/
|
||||
[^12]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 672 and note 4347 (Wylie proffer). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^13]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 666 to 667 and notes 4306 and 4310 (Bannon transcript, pp. 221 to 231 and 223 to 231). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^14]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 666 and notes 4307 to 4309 (Kaiser transcript, pp. 5 to 12, 11 to 12 and 82 to 86). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^15]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns: A report to Parliament*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.1 (pp. 26 to 33). https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2018/nov/uk-ico-report-investigation-into-use-of-data-political-campaigns-6-11-18.pdf
|
||||
[^16]: Federal Trade Commission, *In the Matter of Cambridge Analytica, LLC*, Docket No. 9383, Opinion of the Commission, issued November 25, 2019, introduction, section I and note 1 (consent settlements with Alexander Nix and Aleksandr Kogan accepted July 24, 2019, matters 182-3106 and 182-3107); administrative complaint of July 24, 2019 (matter 182 3107). https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/d09389_comm_final_opinionpublic.pdf and https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/182_3107_cambridge_analytica_administrative_complaint_7-24-19.pdf
|
||||
[^17]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 668 to 670 and notes 4326 to 4333 (Kogan testimony of June 19, 2018 before the Senate Commerce Committee subcommittee; Wylie proffer; email Beltran to Nix, Ward and Wylie, March 15, 2014, WYL001009). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^18]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns: A report to Parliament*, November 6, 2018, sections 3.2.1 to 3.2.3 (pp. 31 to 37). https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2018/nov/uk-ico-report-investigation-into-use-of-data-political-campaigns-6-11-18.pdf
|
||||
[^19]: OpenFEC API (https://api.open.fec.gov/developers/), Schedule B itemized disbursements, recipient names "CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA," "CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA, LLC" and "CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA LLC" (90 unique line items, retrieved October 1, 2026); amounts summed by filing committee. Committee identifiers: Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. C00580100; Cruz for President C00574624; Make America Number 1 C00575373; John Bolton Super PAC C00542464; Keep the Promise II C00575431; Carson America C00573519; North Carolina Republican Party C00038505; Jobs Growth and Freedom Fund C00536540; Thom Tillis Committee C00545772; Art Robinson for Congress C00481341; Bob Huff for Congress C00665802. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_b/?recipient_name=Cambridge+Analytica
|
||||
[^20]: Federal Election Commission, committee record for ART ROBINSON FOR CONGRESS (C00481341), street address 2251 DICK GEORGE RD, Cave Junction, Oregon, treasurer Art Robinson, first filed April 17, 2010. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00481341/
|
||||
[^21]: Federal Election Commission, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (C00580100), Schedule B, payments to Cambridge Analytica, LLC dated July 29, 2016 ($100,000), August 18, 2016 ($250,000), September 1, 2016 ($5,000,000), October 19, 2016 ($250,000) and December 12, 2016 ($312,500); amended reports file numbers 1291697 (receipt date November 19, 2018), 1301972 (December 20, 2018), 1319157 (March 13, 2019), 1322657 (April 5, 2019) and 1335968 (June 28, 2019), with originals 1096341, 1111849, 1119574 and 1146165 in the amendment chains. https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/fecimg/?201903139145702446 (September 2016 payment)
|
||||
[^22]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 673 to 675 and notes 4358 to 4366 (FBI FD-302 of Rick Gates, October 29, 2018; Kushner transcript II, pp. 84 to 85; Parscale transcript, pp. 55 to 62), and note 4363 (FEC disbursements July 29 to December 12, 2016, totaling $5,912,500). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^23]: OpenFEC API (https://api.open.fec.gov/developers/), Schedule B itemized disbursements to Cambridge Analytica by John Bolton Super PAC (C00542464), July 7, 2014 to September 29, 2016; and OpenFEC Schedule A receipts of C00542464 from Robert Mercer of East Setauket, New York ($500,000 each on April 28, 2014, June 30, 2014, February 24, 2015, June 30, 2015, September 28, 2015, December 18, 2015, July 5, 2016, September 6, 2016, October 23, 2017 and December 28, 2017). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?committee_id=C00542464&contributor_name=MERCER
|
||||
[^24]: Federal Election Commission, Form 1 Statement of Organization of committee C00575373, original filed April 6, 2015 under cover letter headed "Keep The Promise I" signed by treasurer Jacquelyn James (https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/670/15031410670/15031410670.pdf), and amended Form 1 dated June 21, 2016, filed June 22, 2016, under the name "Make America Number 1" (https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/183/201606229020090183/201606229020090183.pdf).
|
||||
[^25]: OpenFEC API, Schedule A receipts and Schedule B disbursements of Make America Number 1 (C00575373), 2015 to 2016, including receipts from Robert Mercer of $11,000,000 (April 10, 2015, file 1027937), $500,000 (February 26, 2016), $2,000,000 (March 17, 2016) and $2,000,000 (July 14, 2016); disbursements to Cambridge Analytica ($842,748 and $633,736 under two spellings), to Breitbart News Network LLC ($109,341.25 on November 25, 2015, "list purchase expense," file 1071367, and $10,000 on January 27, 2016, "media prepaid"), and to Glittering Steel LLC (seven payments from July 17, 2015 to November 1, 2016 totaling $280,641). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00575373/
|
||||
[^26]: Mercer Family Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2011, Part XV (grant to OISM, P.O. Box 1279, Cave Junction, Oregon, $965,000) (https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/201/201982204/201982204_201112_990PF.pdf); Form 990-PF for 2021, Part XV (Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, 2251 Dick George Road, Cave Junction, Oregon, $250,000), ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer full text (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/201982204/202213199349104431/IRS990PF).
|
||||
[^27]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 673 to 674 and notes 4352 to 4357 (Kaiser transcript, pp. 144 to 156; Bannon transcript, p. 268; Maegan Vazquez and Paul Murphy, "Trump isn't the only Republican who gave Cambridge Analytica big bucks," CNN, March 21, 2018). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^28]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 672 and note 4348 (Kaiser transcript, pp. 40 to 43). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^29]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 675 to 678 and notes 4367 to 4379 (Parscale transcript, pp. 53 to 60; Trump Data Team Presentation, August 22, 2016, FLYNN_SSCI_00011770 and 00011773; FBI FD-302 of Rick Gates, October 29, 2018; Kaiser transcript, pp. 161 to 164). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^30]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 670 to 671 and notes 4334 to 4341 (Wylie proffer; Wylie written statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee, May 16, 2018; Kaiser transcript, pp. 66 to 67 and 121 to 123; SCL Commercial presentation for Lukoil, February 18, 2015; OFAC listing of September 12, 2014). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^31]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, p. 668 and notes 4318 to 4325 (Wylie proffer; Patten transcript, pp. 29 to 38; Kaiser transcript, pp. 67 to 68; Bannon transcript, pp. 253 to 256). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^32]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 678 to 679 and notes 4380 to 4383 (Betsy Swan, "Trump Data Guru Alexander Nix: I Tried To Team Up With Julian Assange," *The Daily Beast*, October 25, 2017; Kara Scannell, Dana Bash and Marshall Cohen, CNN, October 25, 2017). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^33]: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, *Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election, Volume 5: Counterintelligence Threats and Vulnerabilities*, report released August 18, 2020, pp. 663 to 664 (section introduction, "Committee did not examine the effectiveness of the work these companies may have conducted"; limitations including Nix's non-appearance and the seizure of the company's corporate communications by U.K. authorities). https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf
|
||||
[^34]: Federal Election Commission, Statement of Reasons of Commissioners Shana M. Broussard and Ellen L. Weintraub, MURs 7207, 7268, 7274 and 7623 (Russian Federation; Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.; Donald J. Trump; H. Russell Taub; Cambridge Analytica, LLC; Internet Research Agency; Paul Manafort), note 2 (certification dated April 22, 2021). https://www.fec.gov/files/legal/murs/7207/7207_47.pdf
|
||||
[^35]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns: A report to Parliament*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.4 (p. 38). https://www.statewatch.org/media/documents/news/2018/nov/uk-ico-report-investigation-into-use-of-data-political-campaigns-6-11-18.pdf
|
||||
[^36]: UK Information Commissioner's Office, *Investigation into the use of data analytics in political campaigns*, November 6, 2018, section 3.2.3 (trial set for January 9, 2019 at Hendon Magistrates' Court); "Cambridge Analytica Pleads Guilty In UK Data Access Case," *MediaPost*, January 9, 2019 (fine of £15,000, costs of £6,000, victim surcharge of £170, citing the ICO announcement) https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/330338/ ; Ellen Tannam, "Cambridge Analytica owner hit with £15,000 fine for disobeying UK ICO," *Silicon Republic*, January 2019 (District Judge Kenneth Grant: "wilful disregard of the enforcement notice") https://www.siliconrepublic.com/enterprise/cambridge-analytica-scl-fine
|
||||
[^37]: Elizabeth Denham, Information Commissioner, letter to Julian Knight MP, Chair, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, reference ICO/O/ED/L/RTL/0181, October 2, 2020, paragraphs 3 to 15. https://cy.ico.org.uk/media2/migrated/2618383/20201002_ico-o-ed-l-rtl-0181_to-julian-knight-mp.pdf
|
||||
[^38]: "Ex-Cambridge Analytica head banned from running firms in UK," Reuters, published by Al Jazeera, September 25, 2020 (statement of the Insolvency Service of September 24, 2020; Mark Bruce, chief investigator; disqualification from October 5, 2020). https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/9/25/uk-bans-ex-cambridge-analytica-boss-for-unethical-services
|
||||
[^39]: House of Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, *Disinformation and "fake news": Final Report*, HC 1791, February 18, 2019, paragraphs 285 to 290, 296 and notes 327 to 329 and 338. https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/1791/1791.pdf
|
||||
[^40]: Companies House, EMERDATA LIMITED (company number 10911848), overview, officers, persons with significant control and insolvency pages, viewed October 1, 2026; personal appointments pages for Jennifer Lynne Mercer, Rebekah Anne Mercer, Jacquelyn James-Varga and Bradley David Golub. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10911848
|
||||
[^41]: Companies House, insolvency pages for SCL GROUP LIMITED (05514098), SCL ELECTIONS LIMITED (08256225) and CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA(UK) LIMITED (09375920), viewed October 1, 2026 (administration May 3, 2018 to April 17, 2019; compulsory liquidation, petition August 13, 2018, winding up commenced April 17, 2019 and concluded September 1, 2025; dissolved January 31, 2026, January 31, 2026 and January 30, 2026). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/05514098/insolvency
|
||||
256
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Centre for Effective Altruism.md
Normal file
256
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Centre for Effective Altruism.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,256 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "AI & Effective Altruism"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- CentreForEffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- EffectiveVentures
|
||||
- EffectiveAltruism
|
||||
- OpenPhilanthropy
|
||||
- FTX
|
||||
- SamBankmanFried
|
||||
- CharityCommission
|
||||
- WythamAbbey
|
||||
- Longtermism
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Centre for Effective Altruism
|
||||
- Center for Effective Altruism
|
||||
- CEA
|
||||
- Centre for Effective Altruism USA
|
||||
- Centre for Effective Altruism USA Inc
|
||||
- Centre For Effective Altruism Inc
|
||||
- Centre for Effective Altruism UK
|
||||
summary: "Oxford charity company incorporated in 2012 under MacAskill, Ord and Beckstead, with a US twin that Bankman-Fried served as treasurer and director, renamed Effective Ventures in 2022 and investigated after FTX's collapse."
|
||||
start: 2012-02-23
|
||||
location: "Oxford, England; San Francisco, California"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[William MacAskill]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "cofounder"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[William MacAskill]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2012-02-23
|
||||
end: 2023-09-21
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company; chair of the US charity in its returns for 2016 to 2021"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Toby Ord]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2012-02-23
|
||||
end: 2022-07-29
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Nick Beckstead]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2012-02-23
|
||||
end: 2019-04-02
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Nick Beckstead]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2021-07-01
|
||||
end: 2023-08-23
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company; trustee of the US charity"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Sam Bankman-Fried]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2019
|
||||
role: "treasurer of the US charity in its returns for 2013 to 2015, board member in its returns for 2016 to 2018"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Peter Singer]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president of the US charity in its returns for 2013 to 2015"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Tara Mac Aulay]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015-07-01
|
||||
end: 2018-08-17
|
||||
role: "company secretary of the UK company; treasurer and secretary of the US charity"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Tara Mac Aulay]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chief executive, as reported by TIME"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Hilary Greaves]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019-04-02
|
||||
end: 2019-07-18
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Claire Zabel]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019-07-18
|
||||
end: 2024-03-28
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company while a program director at Open Philanthropy"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Owen Cotton-Barratt]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020-03-24
|
||||
end: 2023-02-11
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Tasha McCauley]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2021-07-01
|
||||
end: 2024-03-14
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Lincoln Quirk]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2023-05-23
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Eli Rose]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2024-02-09
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company while an Open Philanthropy program officer"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Patrick Gruban]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2024-03-20
|
||||
role: "director of the UK company"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Howie Lempel]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-11-16
|
||||
end: 2023-12
|
||||
role: "chief executive of Effective Ventures Foundation"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Zachary Robinson]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president and chief executive of the US charity in its returns for June 2024 and June 2025"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Jade Leung]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019-04
|
||||
role: "director of the Long-Term Incubator project"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Open Philanthropy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2017-03
|
||||
role: "largest funder of the UK charity, per its accounts"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[FTX Foundation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "donations of 1,478,708 pounds and 2,766,546 pounds to the UK charity in the years to June 2022 and June 2023"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Council on Strategic Risks]]"
|
||||
role: "grant of 1.6 million dollars from the US charity in the year to June 2022"
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Charity Commission]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-12-19
|
||||
end: 2024-05-22
|
||||
role: "statutory inquiry under section 46 of the Charities Act 2011 into the UK charity"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Centre for [[Effective Altruism]] (CEA) was the name of two affiliated charities and, later, of a project hosted by them. The English company now registered as Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), number 07962181, was incorporated as the Centre for Effective Altruism on 23 February 2012, took the name [[Effective Ventures|Effective Ventures Foundation]] on 25 August 2022 and became Effective Ventures Foundation (UK) on 27 February 2023.[^1] [[William MacAskill]], [[Toby Ord]] and [[Nick Beckstead]] were each appointed directors on the day of incorporation.[^2] [[Charlotte Alter]] of [[Time|TIME]] described MacAskill as having "co-founded the Centre for Effective Altruism."[^3] The American charity filed its tax returns for 2013 to 2021 as Centre for Effective Altruism USA Inc (EIN 47-1988398, [[San Francisco]], tax-exempt from February 2015) and has since been renamed Effective Ventures Foundation USA.[^4] After the 2022 renaming, CEA continued as one of the projects fiscally sponsored by the two charities, alongside [[80,000 Hours]], [[Giving What We Can]], EA Funds, the [[Forethought Foundation]], the [[Centre for the Governance of AI]] and [[Longview Philanthropy]].[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The English Company
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Charity Commission]] registered the company as charity number 1149828 on 20 November 2012. Its objects include improving "fundraising and planned giving to charities," "the advancement of education by providing sources of information about the ethics of career choices" (the object under which 80,000 Hours operated) and research into the relief of poverty.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The register of officers records Beckstead as a director from incorporation to 2 April 2019 and again from 1 July 2021 to 23 August 2023, MacAskill from incorporation to 21 September 2023, and Ord from incorporation to 29 July 2022. [[Hilary Greaves]] served from 2 April to 18 July 2019, [[Claire Zabel]] from 18 July 2019 to 28 March 2024, [[Owen Cotton-Barratt]] from 24 March 2020 to 11 February 2023 and [[Tasha McCauley]] from 1 July 2021 to 14 March 2024. [[Lincoln Quirk]] was appointed on 23 May 2023, [[Eli Rose]] and [[Johnstuart Winchell]] on 9 February 2024 and [[Patrick Gruban]] on 20 March 2024, the day Winchell resigned. The company secretaries were [[Tom Ash]] (19 February 2013 to 11 April 2014), [[Robert Wiblin]] (21 April 2014 to 1 July 2015), [[Tara Mac Aulay]] (1 July 2015 to 17 August 2018) and [[Zachary Robinson]] (11 February 2023 to 14 July 2023).[^2] The accounts for the year to June 2022 also name Joshua Axford as company secretary until 11 February 2023 and record that [[Howie Lempel]] was appointed chief executive on 16 November 2022.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
The register of persons with significant control records Mac Aulay, from 1 July 2016 to 17 August 2018, as having "significant influence or control" over the company. MacAskill, Ord and Beckstead were notified as holders of more than 25 percent of the voting rights on 31 October 2018; Beckstead's entry ceased on 2 April 2019 and those of MacAskill and Ord on 2 February 2022, when the company filed a statement that it had no registrable person. Zabel had held such an entry from 18 July 2019 and Cotton-Barratt from 24 March 2020, both ceasing on 2 February 2022. Zabel, McCauley and Quirk were notified on 21 September 2023, and the current controllers are Quirk, Rose (from 7 March 2024) and Gruban (from 20 March 2024).[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### The American Charity
|
||||
|
||||
The first returns of Centre for Effective Altruism USA Inc, two short-form returns for 2013 and 2014 filed in July 2015, listed [[Peter Singer]] as president, [[Peter Eckersley]] as vice president, [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] as treasurer, [[Ben Kuhn]] as secretary and [[Boris Yakubchik]] as a director, at 815 Eddy Street, San Francisco. The return for 2015 listed the same five, with [[Amy Labenz]] as principal officer. In the return for 2016 MacAskill was vice president and chair, Mac Aulay treasurer and secretary, Labenz president and [[Kerry Vaughan]] vice president, and Bankman-Fried, Kuhn, Yakubchik and Eckersley were board members. The return for 2017 listed the same board and paid Mac Aulay 51,273 dollars as treasurer and secretary. The return for 2018 listed MacAskill as chair and Bankman-Fried, Beckstead, Eckersley, Kuhn and Yakubchik as board members, with Mac Aulay paid 20,018 dollars as treasurer and secretary. The return for 2019 listed MacAskill, Beckstead and Greaves as board members and Bankman-Fried as "Former Board Member," and named [[Benjamin Todd]] as chief executive of the 80,000 Hours project.[^10] The register of the English company records no appointment for Bankman-Fried.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Alter reported that Bankman-Fried launched [[Alameda Research]] in the fall of 2017 with Mac Aulay, "who had been the CEO of the Centre for Effective Altruism," and that its initial funding came from two donors in the movement, [[Luke Ding]] and [[Jaan Tallinn]]. According to four people with knowledge of the discussions, Alter wrote, Mac Aulay and others warned MacAskill, Beckstead and [[Holden Karnofsky]] about Bankman-Fried's conduct in the weeks before and the months after an April 2018 confrontation at Alameda; by the end of 2018 senior figures were debating his presence on CEA's board, and "In 2019, Bankman-Fried left CEA's board." One person contacted during the investigation told Alter that CEA conducted an internal investigation relating to CEA and Alameda that year, "conducted in part by MacAskill." MacAskill and Beckstead declined to answer TIME's detailed questions, citing an independent investigation, and CEA did not respond to requests to explain the departure.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The American charity reported total revenue of 672,035 dollars for 2015, 1,548,370 dollars for 2016, 12,741,527 dollars for 2017, 10,524,715 dollars for 2018, 8,437,210 dollars for 2019 and 21,711,453 dollars for 2020. It then changed to a June year end, reporting 17,476,222 dollars for the six months to June 2021, 75,847,179 dollars for the year to June 2022, 74,969,377 dollars for June 2023, 42,384,700 dollars for June 2024 and 23,675,475 dollars for June 2025. Its returns for June 2024 and June 2025 list Robinson as president and chief executive, paid 339,903 dollars in the latter year.[^4] On 1 July 2021 the English company became the American charity's sole member, and the accounts for the year to June 2022 are consolidated; it ceased to be the sole member in December 2022, after which the two operated as independent charities under an affiliation agreement and the American one changed its name from Centre for Effective Altruism USA to Effective Ventures Foundation (US).[^5][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
The American return for the year to June 2022 listed Beckstead among its trustees. Its schedule of grants to domestic organizations began with 1,670,000 dollars to [[Pure Earth]] and 1,600,000 dollars to the [[Council on Strategic Risks]] in Washington, the latter for "growing the Council on Strategic Risks' nuclear security policy development and engagement with decision-makers," followed by [[Rethink Priorities]], the [[Players Philanthropy Fund]], the [[Center for Global Development]], the [[Against Malaria Foundation]] and [[Founders Pledge]].[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Open Philanthropy Funding
|
||||
|
||||
[[Open Philanthropy]] recommended a grant of 2,500,000 dollars to CEA for general support in March 2017, with Beckstead, then a director of the English company, as grant investigator; the page states that "CEA staff also reviewed this page prior to publication" and that the grant would allow CEA to "increase staff salaries (from what we see as previously low levels)." The page does not mention Beckstead's directorship.[^13] In June 2018 Open Philanthropy recommended a further 2,000,000 pounds (2,688,000 dollars), again with Beckstead as investigator.[^14] In March 2018, with Karnofsky as investigator, it awarded 5,000,000 dollars to "the Centre for Effective Altruism USA" to "create and seed a new discretionary fund that will be administered by [[Carl Shulman]]," a research associate at the [[Future of Humanity Institute]] and an adviser to Open Philanthropy; the work Shulman signaled he might fund included "economic modeling of the impacts of automating different aspects of AI development."[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
Grants recommended by a "Committee for Effective Altruism Support" followed: 2,756,250 dollars in February 2019, 1,755,921 dollars in September 2019, 4,146,795 dollars in January 2020 and 7,500,000 dollars in February 2021.[^15] Three grants in 2020 named Zabel, then a director, as investigator: 38,350 dollars in January to promote Ord's book The Precipice, 180,000 dollars in February and 48,736 dollars in September for a "longtermist project incubator," the last after 451,264 dollars were returned in March 2023.[^16] The accounts for the year to June 2021 name [[Jade Leung]] as director of the Long-Term Incubator project from April 2019.[^5] Leung later became chief technology officer of the British [[AI Security Institute]]; on 15 August 2025 the government appointed her the Prime Minister's adviser on AI, and on 23 September 2026 it announced that she would become vice-chair of the institute and take a part-time fellowship at the [[Hoover Institution]].[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
Later recommendations to CEA and its successors included 500,000 dollars for the Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund (October 2021); two grants totaling 26,000,000 dollars for general support (March 2022); 77,000 dollars for a research assistant to [[Jonas Sandbrink]], a biosecurity researcher at the Future of Humanity Institute (May 2022); 5,318,000 dollars over three years for a coworking space in Boston for biosecurity teams "including [[Kevin Esvelt]]'s lab" (August 2022); 8,875,000 dollars for a five-year lease on an office in Harvard Square and 250,000 dollars for a one-year office for the Harvard AI Safety Team (August 2022); 4,929,000 dollars for Infrastructure Fund regranting (September 2022); two grants totaling 11,425,000 dollars to Effective Ventures Foundation, "formerly known as the Centre for Effective Altruism," and 1,500,000 pounds for office space for the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford (December 2022); 4,700,000 dollars (January 2023) and 2,360,192 dollars (June 2023) to the American charity; 7,644,021 dollars for the Harvard Square space (April 2023); 11,000,000 dollars (June 2023); 288,000 dollars for an "AI Safety Communications Centre" that "connects journalists to AI safety experts and resources" (August 2023); 3,342,238 dollars and 3,543,240 dollars in simultaneous grants to the English and American charities (November 2023); and 14,201,781 dollars for CEA (May 2024).[^18] In January and March 2023 Open Philanthropy also granted 37,128 dollars and 75,617 dollars to reimburse student group organizers who bought copies of MacAskill's What We Owe the Future; the English charity earned 119,614 pounds in royalties on that book in the year to June 2023.[^18][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
The English charity's accounts for the year to June 2023 state that Zabel "is employed as a program director at Open Philanthropy, our largest funder," and that "Claire has significant influence over some of the funding decisions made by Open Philanthropy in relation to several of the charity's projects." The same note records grant income from Open Philanthropy of 39,037,949 pounds (38,285,688 pounds in the year to June 2022), and a liability of 3,352,129 pounds for grants to be returned to it.[^19] Open Philanthropy's biography of Zabel states that she joined in August 2015 and "went on to lead our Global Catastrophic Risks Capacity Building team"; its biography of Rose gives his title as program officer for the same program, the one under which its later CEA and 80,000 Hours grants are classed.[^20] The note for the year to June 2025 records that Rose, a current trustee, and Zabel are employed at Open Philanthropy with "significant influence" over its funding of the charity's projects, and that grant income from Open Philanthropy was 14,393,034 pounds in the year to June 2024 and 7,076,993 pounds in the year to June 2025, making 98,793,664 pounds over the four years. The trustees' report for that year describes the charity as "dependent on one major donor, Open Philanthropy" for a majority of its funding. The same note records grants of 425,508 pounds to Effective Altruism Germany, of which Gruban was formerly co-director, and states that he took no part in approving them.[^6] The 2022 and 2023 accounts describe a restricted fund named "Open Philanthropy" as "Income and expenses associated with projects supported by Good Ventures Foundation," a reference to [[Good Ventures]].[^11][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Oxford Institutes and Projects
|
||||
|
||||
The accounts for the year to June 2021 list among the senior management MacAskill (director of Forethought from October 2017), Todd (executive director of 80,000 Hours) and Leung (director of the Long-Term Incubator from April 2019). They describe the charity as affiliated with the Future of Humanity Institute and the [[Global Priorities Institute]] of the [[University of Oxford]], "with whom it shares office space," and record that both institutes' funds held by the charity were in deficit after their move to [[Trajan House]] cost more than expected, with both "expected to secure funds from a major donor."[^5] The 2025 accounts record that the two institutes "have since ceased operations."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The charity's projects in the 2022 accounts included Longview Philanthropy, a joint project of the English and American charities from January 2022, the Atlas Fellowship, the magazine Asterisk, the Centre for the Governance of AI and a fund for "projects supported by FTX Foundation."[^11] The 2025 accounts list among the year's grantees the [[Alignment Research Center]], FAR AI, [[Conjecture]] and the [[Nuclear Threat Initiative]], and a restricted fund to provide desk space at Trajan House for the [[Oxford AI Safety Initiative]].[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Wytham Abbey
|
||||
|
||||
In December 2021 Open Philanthropy recommended two grants totaling 17,324,697 pounds (about 23,212,677 dollars) to Effective Ventures Foundation "to support the purchase, renovation, and operation of [[Wytham Abbey]]," a venue near Oxford "modeled on similar venues funded by the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] and the Brocher Foundation." The page states that if the venue proved less cost-effective than alternatives, "proceeds from a sale will be used to support EVF's ongoing operations," and that the amount was updated in October 2024.[^21] The accounts record the purchase on 1 April 2022.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
In the year to June 2025 the trustees recorded an impairment of 8,593,798 pounds against a freehold cost of 16,536,782 pounds. They state that the property was marketed in summer 2024 "at the original purchase price," that valuers then advised a change of strategy "given significant reductions in market sentiment," and that "After the year ended, the Charity entered into a sales agreement and completed the sale of Wytham Abbey for £6m in November 2025." During the year 279,816 pounds were transferred from central funds to meet the running costs. The 2024 accounts record that Lakeside, an Oxford accommodation property carried at about 1.4 million pounds, was sold after the year end for about 1.2 million pounds.[^6][^22]
|
||||
|
||||
### FTX Foundation Funds and the Charity Commission Inquiry
|
||||
|
||||
The announcement of the [[FTX Future Fund]] on 1 March 2022, reposted by [[Tyler Cowen]], gave its team as Beckstead (chief executive), [[Leopold Aschenbrenner]], MacAskill and [[Ketan Ramakrishnan]].[^23] Alter reported that in less than nine months the fund gave 13.9 million dollars to CEA.[^3] The English charity's accounts record donations from the [[FTX Foundation]] of 1,478,708 pounds in the year to June 2022 and 2,766,546 pounds in the year to June 2023, and state in both years that one of the trustees was also chief executive of the FTX Foundation.[^19] The Future Fund team announced its resignation in a post dated 11 November 2022.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
[[FTX]] filed for bankruptcy on 11 November 2022. Five days later Lempel was appointed chief executive.[^8] On 19 November the charity filed a serious incident report with the Commission stating that it held 3.3 million pounds and 300,000 dollars from FTX or affiliated entities, that one trustee was chief executive of the FTX Foundation and another an unpaid adviser to the FTX Future Fund. On 2 December the trustees told the Commission that those trustees had been excluded from decisions on the bankruptcy as "non-participating" trustees. The Commission opened a statutory inquiry under section 46 of the [[Charities Act 2011]] on 19 December 2022. On 12 February 2023 the trustees filed a second serious incident report about a historic safeguarding incident involving a former trustee before that person's appointment.[^7] The accounts for the year to June 2022 state that an internal investigation was "ongoing in Q1 2023 in order to investigate concerns re past conduct of a former trustee."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
The inquiry report of 22 May 2024 records that the trustees ringfenced the funds and obtained a Defence Against Money Laundering from the [[National Crime Agency]], a consent sought where a reporter suspects that property may be criminal under the [[Proceeds of Crime Act 2002]]. The charity returned 4,246,503.16 dollars (3,340,021 pounds) under a settlement reached on independent legal advice, in which the Commission had no involvement. The Commission found that trustees were not required to disclose conflicts of interest on joining the board until October 2022, that no formal training or guidance on conflicts had been given, that the two FTX-connected trustees left a "lack of clarity as to whether they were acting for the charity or on behalf of FTX Foundation at any given time," and that financial procedures "were not adhered to or reviewed regularly as the charity's income grew," with a dedicated finance team only from 2022. It found "no evidence to suggest that there were any unmanaged conflicts of interest regarding funds the charity received from the FTX Foundation," concluded that the trustees "acted diligently and quickly," and recorded that the two FTX-connected trustees and the person named in the safeguarding report resigned during the inquiry. It gave advice under section 15(2) of the Act on 3 January 2024.[^7] The register records the resignations of Beckstead on 23 August 2023 and MacAskill on 21 September 2023.[^2] The 2023 accounts state that in November 2023 the charity reached a settlement with the FTX estate "which provided a general release from all possible claims from the FTX estate."[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Spin-out and Successor Entities
|
||||
|
||||
In November 2023 the trustees decided to spin all fiscally sponsored projects out into independent entities. The accounts for the year to June 2025 record the completion dates: the Centre for the Governance of AI on 15 November 2024, Forethought on 28 February 2025, 80,000 Hours on 31 March 2025 and the teenage fellowship Non-Trivial on 11 April 2025. CEA and EA Funds were to merge from 1 July 2025. The board "does not intend to fiscally sponsor new charitable projects" and expects the company to "wind down (in 2026 or beyond)," and the accounts were prepared on a basis other than going concern. In that year the charity spent 8,135,491 pounds on CEA, 5,454,605 pounds on 80,000 Hours and 9,982,687 pounds on EA Funds and Giving What We Can, against total income of 12,083,820 pounds (31,663,819 pounds in 2024), and net funds fell from 43,259,065 pounds to 17,808,025 pounds.[^6] Open Philanthropy recommended 460,000 dollars to the English charity and 990,000 dollars to the American one for CEA's spin-out costs in May 2024.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
Two new English companies, Centre for Effective Altruism UK (number 16360152, incorporated 2 April 2025) and Centre for Effective Altruism Community UK (number 16395613, incorporated 17 April 2025), are registered at Trajan House with a single director each and a statement that the company has no registrable controller.[^26] In the [[United States]], Centre For Effective Altruism Inc (EIN 33-3737390), at an address in Milton, Delaware, holds a tax exemption with a ruling date of 1 March 2025.[^27]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Companies House, "Effective Ventures Foundation (UK)," company number 07962181, company overview and previous names, retrieved 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181
|
||||
[^2]: Companies House, "Effective Ventures Foundation (UK)," register of officers (16 officers, 13 resignations), retrieved 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/officers
|
||||
[^3]: Alter, Charlotte. "Exclusive: Effective Altruist Leaders Were Repeatedly Warned About Sam Bankman-Fried Years Before FTX Collapsed." TIME, 15 March 2023. https://time.com/6262810/sam-bankman-fried-effective-altruism-alameda-ftx/
|
||||
[^4]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Effective Ventures Foundation Usa," EIN 47-1988398, organization page and API record with Form 990 data for 2013 to June 2025, retrieved 1 October 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/471988398 ; https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/471988398.json
|
||||
[^5]: Centre for Effective Altruism, Trustees' Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2021, filed at Companies House 5 April 2022: reference and administrative details, Trustees' Report ("Structure, Governance & Management," "Affiliations"), Strategic Report ("Financial review") and note 28 ("Post balance sheet events"). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/filing-history/MzMzNTExMDE2NGFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf
|
||||
[^6]: Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), Trustees' Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2025, filed at Companies House 13 February 2026: Trustees' Report ("Structure, Governance & Management," "Affiliations," "Objectives and Activities," "Wytham Abbey," "Financial review," "Loss of major donors"), notes 2.2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 14, 18 and 25. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/filing-history/MzUwNDQ3MTAxM2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf
|
||||
[^7]: Charity Commission for England and Wales, "Charity Inquiry: Effective Ventures Foundation UK," published 22 May 2024, sections "The charity," "Background," "Findings," "Conclusions" and "Regulatory Action Taken." https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/charity-inquiry-effective-ventures-foundation-uk/charity-inquiry-effective-ventures-foundation-uk
|
||||
[^8]: Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), accounts for the year ended 30 June 2022 (as in note 10): reference and administrative details (trustees, company secretaries, "Chief executive officer Mr H Lempel (appointed 16 November 2022)") and Trustees' Report, "Management of existing risks," "Safeguarding"; accounts for the year ended 30 June 2024, filed 1 April 2025, note 25 ("Howie Lempel was the Chief Executive Officer of the Charity until December 2023"). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/filing-history/MzM5MTI2OTUwNmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf ; https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/filing-history/MzQ2MDU2NjI0MmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf
|
||||
[^9]: Companies House, "Effective Ventures Foundation (UK)," persons with significant control and withdrawn statements, retrieved 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/persons-with-significant-control
|
||||
[^10]: Centre for Effective Altruism USA Inc, EIN 47-1988398: Forms 990-EZ for 2013 and 2014 (filed July 2015), Part IV; Forms 990 for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, Part VII, Section A, as rendered from IRS e-file data by ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, objects 201501979349200410, 201623209349318702, 201722829349300042, 201842929349300304, 201913209349301221 and 202003039349302045, retrieved 1 October 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201501979349200410/IRS990EZ ; https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201623209349318702/IRS990 ; https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201722829349300042/IRS990 ; https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201842929349300304/IRS990 ; https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201913209349301221/IRS990 ; https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202003039349302045/IRS990
|
||||
[^11]: Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), Trustees' and Strategic Report and consolidated Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2022, filed at Companies House 30 August 2023: "Wytham Abbey" and "Longview" in the Trustees' Report, statement of funds and fund descriptions, notes 29 to 31 ("Related party transactions," "Contingent liabilities," "Post balance sheet events"). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/filing-history/MzM5MTI2OTUwNmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf
|
||||
[^12]: Effective Ventures Foundation USA, Form 990 for the tax year beginning July 2021 (year ended June 2022), Part VII, Section A, and Schedule I, Part II, as rendered by ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, object 202311339349300516, retrieved 1 October 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202311339349300516/IRS990 ; https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202311339349300516/IRS990ScheduleI
|
||||
[^13]: Open Philanthropy, "Centre for Effective Altruism, General Support (2017)," award date March 2017, grant investigator Nick Beckstead, published August 2017, Wayback Machine capture of 14 November 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20251114154919/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-2017/
|
||||
[^14]: Open Philanthropy, "Centre for Effective Altruism, General Support (2018)," award date June 2018, grant investigator Nick Beckstead, Wayback capture of 15 November 2025; "Centre for Effective Altruism, New Discretionary Fund," award date March 2018, grant investigator Holden Karnofsky, Wayback capture of 5 January 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20251115051319/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-2018/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250105202534/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-new-discretionary-fund/
|
||||
[^15]: Open Philanthropy, "Centre for Effective Altruism, General Support (2019)" (February 2019), "General Support and Community-Building Grants (2019)" (September 2019), "General Support and Community-Building Grants (2020)" (January 2020) and "General Support (2021)" (February 2021), each with grant investigator "Committee for Effective Altruism Support," Wayback captures of December 2024 to October 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20241204090451/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-2019/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250106171008/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-and-community-building-grants-2019/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251030050944/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-and-community-building-grants-2020/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250105222027/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-2021/
|
||||
[^16]: Open Philanthropy, "Centre for Effective Altruism, Support for The Precipice" (January 2020), "Longtermist Project Incubator (February 2020)" and "Longtermist Project Incubator (September 2020)," grant investigator Claire Zabel, Wayback captures of 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20251028024853/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-support-for-the-precipice/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250716084228/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-longtermist-project-incubator-february-2020/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251024104819/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-longtermist-incubator-september-2020/
|
||||
[^17]: Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Prime Minister's Office, "Appointment of Jade Leung as the Prime Minister's AI adviser," GOV.UK, 15 August 2025; Cabinet Office, "Dr Jade Leung appointed Vice-Chair of the AI Security Institute and Security Advisor to the AI Taskforce," GOV.UK, 23 September 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/appointment-of-jade-leung-as-the-prime-ministers-ai-adviser ; https://www.gov.uk/government/news/dr-jade-leung-appointed-vice-chair-of-the-ai-security-institute-and-security-advisor-to-the-ai-taskforce
|
||||
[^18]: Open Philanthropy grant pages, Wayback captures of 2023 to 2025: "Centre for Effective Altruism, Effective Altruism Infrastructure Fund" (October 2021); "General Support (2022)" (March 2022); "Research Assistant for Jonas Sandbrink" (May 2022); "Biosecurity Coworking Space," "Harvard Square Coworking Space" and "Harvard AI Safety Office" (August 2022); "Infrastructure Fund Regranting" (September 2022); "Effective Ventures Foundation, General Support" and "Office Space" (December 2022); "General Support (EVF USA, January 2023)"; "Effective Ventures Foundation, Support for What We Owe The Future" (January 2023); "Effective Ventures Foundation USA, Support for What We Owe The Future" (March 2023); "Effective Ventures Foundation USA, Harvard Square Coworking Space (2023)" (April 2023); "General Support (EVF, June 2023)" and "(EVF USA, June 2023)"; "Effective Ventures Foundation, AI Safety Communications Centre" (August 2023); "General Support (EVF, November 2023)" and "(EVF USA, November 2023)"; "General Support (EVF, May 2024)." https://web.archive.org/web/20251117060703/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-effective-altruism-infrastructure-fund/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251103005418/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-2022/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250512185858/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-research-assistant-for-jonas-sandbrink/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251113075351/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-biosecurity-coworking-space/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251025192305/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-harvard-coworking-space/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251117005852/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-harvard-ai-safety-office/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20230710180030/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-infrastructure-fund-regranting/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250831045703/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/effective-ventures-foundation-uk-general-support/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250618023752/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/effective-ventures-foundation-office-space/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251031134905/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-january-2023/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250429042148/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/effective-ventures-foundation-support-for-what-we-owe-the-future/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20241110095505/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/effective-ventures-foundation-usa-support-for-what-we-owe-the-future/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250618024013/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-harvard-square-coworking-space-2023/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251023101706/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250711152100/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-june-2023/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250201041241/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/effective-ventures-foundation-ai-safety-communications-centre/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20251024141001/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-evf/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250518121930/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-evf-usa/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250123031744/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-general-support-evf-uk-may-2024/
|
||||
[^19]: Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), Trustees' Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2023, filed at Companies House 21 March 2024: Trustees' Report, "Management of existing risks" (FTX bankruptcy), fund descriptions, and note 27 ("Related party transactions"), page 48. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/filing-history/MzQxNDkzNjQ2NGFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf
|
||||
[^20]: Open Philanthropy, team biographies "Claire Zabel" (Wayback capture of 5 January 2025) and "Eli Rose" (Wayback capture of 6 January 2025). https://web.archive.org/web/20250105212156/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/team/claire-zabel/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250106073801/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/about/team/eli-rose/
|
||||
[^21]: Open Philanthropy, "Effective Ventures Foundation, Event Venue," award date December 2021, amount updated October 2024, Wayback capture of 4 November 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20251104150006/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/effective-ventures-foundation-uk-event-venue/
|
||||
[^22]: Effective Ventures Foundation (UK), Trustees' Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 30 June 2024, filed at Companies House 1 April 2025, note 26 ("Post balance sheet events"). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07962181/filing-history/MzQ2MDU2NjI0MmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf
|
||||
[^23]: Cowen, Tyler. "Announcing the Future Fund." Marginal Revolution, 1 March 2022. https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/03/announcing-the-future-fund.html
|
||||
[^24]: Beckstead, Nick, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Ketan Ramakrishnan and others. "The FTX Future Fund team has resigned." Effective Altruism Forum, 11 November 2022. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/xafpj3on76uRDoBja/the-ftx-future-fund-team-has-resigned-1
|
||||
[^25]: Open Philanthropy, "Centre for Effective Altruism, Spinout Costs (EVF UK, May 2024)" and "Spinout Costs (EVF USA, May 2024)," Wayback captures of 18 June 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20250618031521/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-spinout-costs-evf-uk-may-2024/ ; https://web.archive.org/web/20250618031718/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/centre-for-effective-altruism-spinout-costs-evf-usa-may-2024/
|
||||
[^26]: Companies House, "Centre for Effective Altruism UK," company number 16360152, and "Centre for Effective Altruism Community UK," company number 16395613, overviews, officers and persons with significant control, retrieved 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16360152 ; https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/16395613
|
||||
[^27]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, "Centre For Effective Altruism Inc," EIN 33-3737390, organization record, retrieved 1 October 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/333737390.json
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,224 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Skeptics & Critics"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Skeptic
|
||||
- CSICOP
|
||||
- SkepticalInquirer
|
||||
- CenterForInquiry
|
||||
- PaulKurtz
|
||||
- Parapsychology
|
||||
- Stargate
|
||||
- MarsEffect
|
||||
- JamesRandi
|
||||
- RayHyman
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
|
||||
- CSICOP
|
||||
- CSICOP, Inc.
|
||||
- Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
|
||||
- CSI
|
||||
- The Zetetic
|
||||
summary: "Skeptics' organization founded in 1976 by Paul Kurtz at an American Humanist Association conference in Buffalo, publisher of the Skeptical Inquirer, later renamed the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, now a Center for Inquiry program."
|
||||
start: 1976-05-01
|
||||
location: "Amherst, New York"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Paul Kurtz]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976-05-01
|
||||
role: "founder and chairman"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Paul Kurtz]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976-05-01
|
||||
role: "chairman (co-chairman in 1976)"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Marcello Truzzi]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976-05-01
|
||||
end: 1977-08
|
||||
role: "co-chairman and editor of The Zetetic"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Lee Nisbet]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
role: "first executive director"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Mark Plummer]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "executive director, lawyer"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Barry Karr]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2025-07-03
|
||||
role: "executive director"
|
||||
fn: 15
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Kendrick Frazier]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "editor of the Skeptical Inquirer"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Martin Gardner]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
role: "original Executive Council member"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Randi]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
role: "original Executive Council member"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Ray Hyman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
role: "original Executive Council member; chairman of the Parapsychology Subcommittee"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Philip J. Klass]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
role: "original Executive Council member; chairman of the UFO Subcommittee"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Dennis Rawlins]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
role: "original Executive Council member"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Alcock]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
role: "Fellow; Executive Council member"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Carl Sagan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
role: "Fellow"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Geller v. Randi]]"
|
||||
start: 1991
|
||||
role: "co-defendant; awarded Rule 11 sanctions of 149,000 dollars"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) was organized on May 1, 1976, at a meeting of the [[American Humanist Association]] at the [[State University of New York at Buffalo]], with [[Paul Kurtz]], then editor of [[The Humanist]], as co-chairman.[^1][^2] Its journal, The Zetetic, was renamed the [[Skeptical Inquirer]] after its first year and was published from Buffalo and later from Amherst, New York.[^1] CSICOP filed a complaint against [[NBC]] with the [[Federal Communications Commission]] in November 1977 and was a co-defendant in a libel suit brought by [[Uri Geller]] in 1991.[^1][^3] It became the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), a program of the [[Center for Inquiry]].[^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Founding
|
||||
|
||||
The Humanist published a statement, "Objections to Astrology," in its September/October 1975 issue under Kurtz's editorship. It carried 186 signatures of scientists, and [[Prometheus Books]], the publishing house Kurtz founded, issued it in 1975 with additional endorsers.[^6] [[Marcello Truzzi]], a sociologist at [[Eastern Michigan University]], had meanwhile proposed a group called Resources for the Scientific Evaluation of the Paranormal in his newsletter, and in late 1975 he told readers that The Humanist had started forming a similar body, the "Committee to Scientifically Investigate Claims of Alleged Paranormal and Other Phenomena."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The committee was organized on May 1, 1976, at an annual meeting of the American Humanist Association devoted to "The New Irrationalism: Antiscience and Pseudoscience," with some twenty-five sponsoring members.[^2] [[Kendrick Frazier]] gives the date as April 30, 1976, at an international symposium on the Amherst campus of SUNY Buffalo, sponsored initially by The Humanist, after which the committee "became an independent organization."[^1] Kurtz's founding statement said: "Many individuals now believe that there is considerable need to organize some strategy of refutation."[^1] The [[New York Times]] gave the founding 24 column inches on May 1, 1976.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Kurtz and Truzzi were co-chairmen. [[Lee Nisbet]], listed in the first issue also as executive director of The Humanist, was CSICOP's first executive director, according to Alcock.[^6] The first issue of The Zetetic listed Fellows who included [[Isaac Asimov]], [[Martin Gardner]], [[Sidney Hook]], [[Ray Hyman]], [[Leon Jaroff]], senior editor of Time, [[Philip J. Klass]], [[James Prescott]], a psychologist at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, [[James Randi]], [[Dennis Rawlins]], [[Carl Sagan]], [[B. F. Skinner]] and [[Marvin Zelen]]. Its address was Box 29, Kensington Station, Buffalo.[^2] [[James Alcock]] listed the original Executive Council as Kurtz, Truzzi, Gardner, Randi, Hyman, Klass, Rawlins and Nisbet, with thirty-five Fellows.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Truzzi's editorial in the first issue said: "Though it is likely that most of our results will prove negative, our central purpose is not one of debunking paranormal claims."[^2] Truzzi left the committee after the first year, resigned as editor of The Zetetic, which became the Skeptical Inquirer under a new editor, Frazier, and started Zetetic Scholar. He told the New York Times in June 1978: "I don't doubt that 99 percent of occultism is empirically false, but the approach to it has to be based on an examination of the evidence by people qualified to do that, not on outright condemnation." Kurtz replied that "we do believe it's important that, when claims of the paranormal get wide public attention and belief, the skeptical position also get media attention."[^7] A copy of the article is among the "Parapsychological Phenomena Open Source Literature" documents in the reading room of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]].[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Staff of the [[Office of Technology Assessment]] wrote in a 1989 workshop report that "few scientists were involved in the creation of CSICOP" and that "the organization has always been led and operated by non-scientists."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Fairness Doctrine Complaint Against NBC
|
||||
|
||||
CSICOP filed a complaint with the FCC under the Fairness Doctrine against the NBC program "Exploring the Unknown," narrated by [[Burt Lancaster]] and broadcast on November 8, 1977. After the commission rejected the complaint, CSICOP filed a petition on April 27, 1979, in the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]]. It was represented by [[David S. Lichtenstein]] and the law firm of [[Rothwell, Cappello and Berndtson]]. The brief argued that the program contained "controversial material of public importance" and that "NBC did not provide a reasonable opportunity to present contrasting views." It focused on segments in which psychic powers were said to cure illness and in which "psychic surgery" was shown.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Incorporation, Offices and Staff
|
||||
|
||||
CSICOP was incorporated in 1978, "with the Board of Directors and the Executive Council holding ultimate responsibility."[^10] Rawlins wrote in Fate in 1981 that CSICOP began as an offshoot of the American Humanist Association and that in 1978, "after a year of not telling AHA anything of the ongoing legal proceedings," it separately incorporated. He also wrote that Kurtz told him by telephone that he had been fired as editor of The Humanist "after 11 years at the post."[^11] The committee became independent of The Humanist shortly after its founding.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The executive office was at Box 29, Kensington Station, Buffalo in 1976, at 1203 Kensington Avenue, Buffalo, in 1979 and 1980, and at 3151 Bailey Avenue, Buffalo, with a mailing address at Box 229, Central Park Station, in 1984.[^12] By 1996 it was across from the Amherst campus of SUNY Buffalo.[^1] The chairman received no CSICOP salary, and the committee was "financed entirely through subscriptions and donations and is always severely pressed for funds," according to Frazier.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Nisbet was listed as executive director in 1980 and 1984. In the Fall 1988 masthead, [[Mark Plummer]], a lawyer, was executive director, Nisbet was special projects director and [[Barry Karr]] was public relations director.[^12][^13] The same issue listed seven subcommittees, with Hyman chairing Parapsychology, Klass chairing UFOs, and Plummer chairing Legal and Consumer Protection.[^13] Karr was executive director in July 1995.[^14] Karr's last day as executive director of CSI was July 3, 2025; he had begun at CSICOP as a SUNY Buffalo undergraduate during the committee's fifth year.[^15] [[Stephen Hupp]] is executive director, and Hyman and Alcock are on the Executive Council.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
On December 9, 1982, the Executive Council clarified that local, regional and national skeptics' groups sharing its goals were "autonomous, not officially or unofficially affiliated with CSICOP."[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Mars Effect
|
||||
|
||||
Kurtz, Zelen and the astronomer [[George Abell]] had proposed a test (the Zelen test) of the claim by [[Michel Gauquelin]] that sports champions are born more often than chance with Mars in particular sectors of the sky. Gauquelin carried it out and published it in The Humanist in November/December 1977, and the participants disagreed about its results.[^1] Four articles on a further test using American champions appeared in the Winter 1979-80 issue of the Skeptical Inquirer. Kurtz, Zelen and Abell reported that 55 of 408 champions, 13.5 percent, were born in a key sector. Rawlins, who was on the editorial board and had been retained to calculate the celestial positions, wrote in the same issue that the European rate was 21.65 percent against an expected 17.17 percent and that "I do not doubt the rates, analysis, or odds." The Gauquelins and the authors each answered in the issue.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
Rawlins published an account in Fate in October 1981, "sTARBABY." He wrote that Kurtz telephoned to ask for an advance look at the results, which were "to be strictly confidential"; that a CSICOP check for 100 dollars accompanied the first installment of 72 athletes' birth data and that Kurtz later mailed "unsolicited cash"; that when the key-sector score stood at 22 percent after 120 names Kurtz "groaned"; and that Kurtz and his co-authors had converted a test of nonchampions, who scored at the chance level, into an attack on a subsample of champions. Rawlins wrote that at the point of the later control-test report the handling of the Gauquelin problem "was transformed from mere bungling to deliberate cover-up."[^11] Frazier wrote that Rawlins "intensified his criticisms to a personal level, was eventually dropped from the Executive Council," and that the Skeptical Inquirer printed his commentary "Remus Extremus" with responses by the Executive Council, Kurtz and Abell in Winter 1981-82.[^1] Alcock wrote in 2026 that Rawlins left after a 1978 Executive Council meeting in [[Washington, D.C.]], following his criticism of "a further analysis of certain astrological claims by Kurtz and others."[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
In Spring 1983 Abell, Kurtz and Zelen published a reappraisal agreeing with four criticisms of their statement on the first test and three criticisms of the American test, and wrote: "We regret that at the outset we had not the foresight to exercise a great deal more care in our experiments and in reporting them." They maintained that the American test "gave results highly inconsistent with a Mars effect for athletes."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Parapsychology and Military Research
|
||||
|
||||
Hyman reviewed The Geller Papers in the first issue of The Zetetic, and on June 11, 1976, a subcommittee of the Fellows invited Geller to submit to tests, giving him 45 days to reply.[^2] [[David Marks]] and [[Richard Kammann]] published "The Nonpsychic Powers of Uri Geller" in The Zetetic, volume 1, number 2, Spring/Summer 1977, and Marks published "[[Remote Viewing]] Revisited" in the Skeptical Inquirer in Summer 1982.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
In 1979 the Army's Grill Flame review of remote viewing considered Hyman for its scientific evaluation panel. A memorandum of the Under Secretary of the Army's office of July 17, 1979, stated that "Dr. Snyder of VPI has been asked in place of Dr. Hyman," and a memorandum of conversation of January 17, 1980, recorded that Hyman "was rejected not because of any action by Gale, but because of a protest memo from MG Thompson to Dr LaBerge."[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Don Addis]] wrote in "The Lighter Side" of the Summer 1984 Skeptical Inquirer, in a column titled "Psychic Arms Race? Give Me a Break!": "We find the Pentagon reportedly has been doing psychic research for possible use in espionage and war, fearing an ESP arms gap between us and the [[Soviet Union]]." He named [[Russell Targ]] as one source of the news report.[^20] On November 9 and 10, 1984, CSICOP held a conference at [[Stanford University]], "Scientific Facts and Fiction." Sidney Hook, identified as a fellow of the [[Hoover Institution]], gave the keynote address. A panel titled "The Psychic Arms Race" was moderated by Kurtz and included Hyman, Klass, [[Martin Ebon]], author of a book of that title, and Jaroff.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
A fund-raising letter from CSICOP dated March 23, 1985, and co-signed by Hyman said, according to a report by [[John A. Palmer]], [[Charles Honorton]] and [[Jessica Utts]] for the board of the [[Parapsychological Association]]: "in these days of government budget-cutting the Defense Department may be spending millions of tax dollars on developing 'psychic arms.' . . . Please help us in this battle against the irrational."[^22] In 1984 the [[United States Army]]'s [[Army Research Institute]] had asked the [[National Academy of Sciences]] to form a committee on techniques for enhancing human performance. The [[National Research Council]] committee was chaired by [[John A. Swets]], and its parapsychology subcommittee by Hyman.[^23] Palmer, Honorton and Utts wrote, in a section headed "Anatomy of Prejudgment," that Hyman and Alcock "were members of the CSICOP Executive Council in 1985, when the NRC Committee was formed," that Hyman had been chairman of CSICOP's Parapsychology Subcommittee "since its inception," and that Alcock was the author of the only paper on parapsychological techniques the NRC committee commissioned.[^22] The fall 1988 masthead of the Skeptical Inquirer listed Hyman as chairman of that subcommittee.[^13] Frazier's summary of the report in the Skeptical Inquirer quotes its conclusion: "The committee finds no scientific justification from research conducted over a period of 130 years for the existence of parapsychological phenomena," and its statement that "there is no reason for direct involvement by the Army at this time."[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
In the Summer 1986 issue the Skeptical Inquirer printed "Some Remote-Viewing Recollections" by [[Elliot H. Weinberg]], identified as director of research of the [[Office of Naval Research]] from 1971 to 1979 and then director of the Navy Center for International Science and Technology. Weinberg wrote that "during a period when I had some governmental responsibility for keeping track of research trends and for recommending funding priorities, I was asked to review the field of paranormal research, particularly what was coming to be known as 'remote viewing,'" and described visits to [[Hal Puthoff]] and Targ at the [[Stanford Research Institute]], where, he wrote, [[Pat Price]] "claimed to be able to read the numbers on Soviet submarines currently in port in, say, Sebastopol."[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
Five members of the Executive Council, Kurtz, Alcock, Randi, Frazier and Klass, and a staff member spent two weeks in China, from March 21 to April 3, 1988, at the invitation of the newspaper Science and Technology Daily, whose editor-in-chief, [[Lin Zixin]], was their host. Kurtz wrote that "we were asked repeatedly if it was true that the CIA and the [[KGB]] are studying psychic phenomena for use by the military."[^25] [[Dolan M. McKelvy]], a lieutenant colonel in the [[United States Air Force]], quoted in an Air War College research report of May 1988 a February 1987 Omni article, which stated that Klass had telephoned the University of Nebraska about a forum on anomalies research, protested that CSICOP's views were not represented, and threatened legal action, after which the university cancelled its sponsorship of such conferences.[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
In the workshop report of February 22, 1989, on experimental parapsychology, Office of Technology Assessment staff described CSICOP as "a primary source of criticism and skepticism" and recorded that a participant "documented a long series of exchanges with the management of the journal Science."[^8] The [[Defense Intelligence Agency]]'s "Project Star Gate Research and Peer Review Plan" of June 1994, classified secret and not releasable to foreign nationals, contains in Appendix G a rejoinder by Utts printed in Statistical Science in 1991. In a section headed "Satisfying the Skeptics," Utts wrote: "Parapsychology is probably the only scientific discipline for which there is an organization of skeptics trying to discredit its work." She recounted CSICOP's founding by Kurtz and Truzzi and wrote: "While I believe that the skeptics, particularly some of the more knowledgeable members of CSICOP, have served a useful role in helping to improve experiments, their counter-advocacy stance is counterproductive."[^27]
|
||||
|
||||
In 1995 the [[American Institutes for Research]] engaged Hyman and Utts for the CIA's evaluation of the [[Stargate Project]]. The Skeptical Inquirer for March/April 1996 printed Hyman's "Evaluation of the Military's Twenty-Year Program on [[Psychic Spying]]" and a major portion of the AIR conclusions, by [[Michael D. Mumford]], [[Andrew M. Rose]] and [[David Goslin]], under the title "CIA Concludes No Value to the Program."[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
### Project Alpha and the Libel Suits
|
||||
|
||||
In the summer of 1983 Randi placed two young magicians, [[Steve Shaw]] and [[Michael Edwards]], in the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research at [[Washington University in St. Louis]]. Frazier wrote that the laboratory "eventually lost its private funding and shut down."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Eldon Byrd]] sued Randi in 1989 for 38 million dollars, and Geller sued him in 1991 for 15 million dollars, with CSICOP named as co-defendant in each. In the Byrd case, according to Frazier, CSICOP was found not to have libeled Byrd, while Randi was found liable and the jury set damages at zero. In the Geller case CSICOP moved on January 15, 1992, for summary judgment and for sanctions under Rule 11; Geller did not respond by April 29, 1992, and the district court granted the motions as unopposed on July 2, 1992. On July 27, 1993, it entered judgment against Geller for 149,000 dollars, the fees and costs incurred by CSICOP. On appeal CSICOP asserted that Geller had neither satisfied the judgment nor posted a bond and that "he has secreted his assets abroad." The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed on December 9, 1994.[^1][^3] CSICOP financed its defense in part through a Legal Defense Fund, and by early 1995 had not received any money from Geller.[^1] Randi separated from CSICOP, partly to protect it from further suits.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Finances and the Center for Inquiry
|
||||
|
||||
Kurtz left the American Humanist Association, founded the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism in 1980, and founded the Center for Inquiry in 1991, which the [[Internal Revenue Service]] classified as a supporting organization for CSICOP and the Council. [[Ronald A. Lindsay]], president and chief executive of the Center from 2008 to 2016, wrote that its bylaws provided for three directors chosen from the CSICOP board and three from the Council's board, along with at-large members, that in practice the at-large member was Kurtz, and that Kurtz "not infrequently remarked to me and Barry Karr, the executive director of CSI, that 'skeptics don't give money.'" Lindsay wrote that the original Center "had to be dissolved because it could not exist on its own as a supporting organization," that a unified organization followed in which CSICOP and the Council became programs of the Center, and that the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science merged with it.[^5][^29]
|
||||
|
||||
In November 1996 CSICOP announced a "Fund for the Future" campaign: "a ten-year effort to add 20 million dollars to the Center for Inquiry endowments," a combined goal for CSICOP and the Council for Secular Humanism, with Gardner and [[Steve Allen]] as honorary co-chairs.[^30]
|
||||
|
||||
The Center for Inquiry Inc. (EIN 22-2306795, Amherst) reported revenue of 2,344,993 dollars for 2011, 4,195,295 for 2014, 10,870,343 for 2017 and 5,443,648 for 2023.[^31] Its return for 2024 reports revenue of 6,992,396 dollars, contributions of 5,628,081 dollars, expenses of 6,474,802 dollars, assets of 6,706,828 dollars and 32 employees, and states its mission as "to sponsor programs and activities that advance humanism and skepticism." The return gives a formation year of 1980, the ProPublica record for the same employer identification number gives an IRS ruling date of April 2001, and Lindsay dates the founding of the Center to 1991.[^5][^31][^32] [[Edward Tabash]] was chairperson. The directors included [[Richard Dawkins]], [[Barry Kosmin]], [[Leonard Tramiel]] and [[Andy Thomson]]; [[Robyn Blumner]] was chief executive and president at 196,373 dollars plus 28,439 dollars in other compensation, Karr was chief financial officer and treasurer at 103,188 dollars, and [[Richard Conn Jr.]] was legal director.[^32] The Center for Inquiry Development Fund (EIN 16-1553194), formed in 1998 to support the Center, reported assets of 7,038,557 dollars for 2011, 14,515,096 for 2017 and 32,460,035 for 2023, and 34,857,998 dollars for 2024 against expenses of 92,880 dollars and no employees. The Center for Inquiry Holding Corporation (EIN 16-1403907) holds property leased to the Center.[^32][^33]
|
||||
|
||||
The Center for Inquiry Inc. reported total assets of 1,692,625 dollars for 2011, 4,403,716 for 2015, 10,588,408 for 2017, 8,546,778 for 2021 and 5,588,342 for 2023, against expenses of 2,125,311 dollars for 2011, 4,833,092 for 2017 and 6,126,775 for 2023. The Development Fund reported assets of 8,757,236 dollars for 2014, 8,819,443 for 2016, 21,038,435 for 2019 and 30,781,982 for 2021, with revenue of 300,138 dollars and expenses of 407,308 dollars for 2016 and expenses of 49,540 dollars for 2021.[^31][^33]
|
||||
|
||||
Frazier's January/February 2007 editorial in the Skeptical Inquirer was titled "It's CSI Now, Not CSICOP."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Frazier, Kendrick. "History of CSICOP," in Gordon Stein, ed., *The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal* (Prometheus Books, 1996), pp. 168-180, published at skepticalinquirer.org. https://skepticalinquirer.org/history-of-csicop/
|
||||
[^2]: *The Zetetic,* vol. 1, no. 1, Fall/Winter 1976: Truzzi, editorial, pp. 3-6; Kurtz, "The Aims of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal"; "Committee News Notes" and list of Fellows; Hyman, review of *The Geller Papers.* https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^3]: *Geller v. Randi,* 40 F.3d 1300 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (No. 93-7140). https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/040/40.F3d.1300.93-7140.html
|
||||
[^4]: Frazier, Kendrick. "It's CSI Now, Not CSICOP," *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 31, no. 1, January/February 2007 (title read; text is behind a subscription wall). https://skepticalinquirer.org/2007/01/its-csi-now-not-csicop/
|
||||
[^5]: Lindsay, Ronald A. "The Fourth Decade of CSI: Change, Renewal, and the Launch of CSICon," *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 50, no. 3, May/June 2026. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2026/04/the-fourth-decade-of-csi-change-renewal-and-the-launch-of-csicon/
|
||||
[^6]: Alcock, James E. "Fifty Years of the Modern Skeptical Movement," *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 50, no. 1, January/February 2026. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2025/12/fifty-years-of-the-modern-skeptical-movement/
|
||||
[^7]: "Skeptics Criticized on Paranormal Issue," *The New York Times,* June 25, 1978, copy in CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080024-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00787r000200080024-8
|
||||
[^8]: Office of Technology Assessment, International Security and Commerce Program, "Report of a Workshop on Experimental Parapsychology," February 22, 1989, note 3 and workshop discussion, CIA-RDP96-00789R002200450001-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r002200450001-8
|
||||
[^9]: "CSICP appeals ruling of FCC," News and Comment, *The Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 4, no. 1, Fall 1979, p. 2. https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/03/Issue-01-1.pdf
|
||||
[^10]: "CSICOP, Groups, and Spokespersons," *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 13, no. 2, Winter 1989, pp. 119-120. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^11]: Rawlins, Dennis. "sTARBABY," *Fate,* no. 34, October 1981, pp. 67-98, notes 1 and 2 and text, reproduced with the editor's permission. http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html
|
||||
[^12]: *The Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 4, nos. 1 and 2, Fall 1979 and Winter 1979-80; vol. 5, no. 1, Fall 1980; vol. 9, no. 1, Fall 1984, mastheads. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^13]: *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 13, no. 1, Fall 1988, masthead and list of subcommittees. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^14]: "A Skeptically Inquiring Mind" (profile of James Randi), *Scientific American,* July 1995, p. 34, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190022-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00791r000200190022-3
|
||||
[^15]: "Barry Karr Is Retiring, and That Is Not a Hoax," *Skeptical Inquirer,* August 2025. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2025/08/barry-karr-is-retiring-and-that-is-not-a-hoax/
|
||||
[^16]: "Fellows and Staff," Skeptical Inquirer (skepticalinquirer.org), read October 1, 2026. https://skepticalinquirer.org/fellows-and-staff/
|
||||
[^17]: *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 4, no. 2, Winter 1979-80: Kurtz, Zelen and Abell, "Results of the U.S. Test of the 'Mars Effect' Are Negative," p. 19; Rawlins, "Report on the U.S. Test of the Gauquelins' 'Mars Effect,'" p. 26; Gauquelin and Gauquelin, p. 31; Kurtz, Zelen and Abell, "Response to the Gauquelins," p. 44. https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/03/Issue-02-2.pdf
|
||||
[^18]: Marks, David, and Richard Kammann. "The Nonpsychic Powers of Uri Geller," *The Zetetic,* vol. 1, no. 2, Spring/Summer 1977, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1977/04/the-nonpsychic-powers-of-uri-geller/; Marks, David F. "Remote Viewing Revisited," *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 6, no. 4, Summer 1982, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1982/07/remote-viewing-revisited/
|
||||
[^19]: Office of the Under Secretary of the Army, memorandum for Mr. Manny Gale, July 17, 1979, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230004-1; Stoner, William L., Major, "Memorandum of Conversation, Subject: Gale Briefing to ZA, Science Evaluation Group Final Report on GRILL FLAME, 14 Jan 80," January 17, 1980, CIA-RDP96-00788R001200230017-7. Both in the archive.org mirror of the CIA Reading Room, e.g. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00788r001200230017-7
|
||||
[^20]: Addis, Don. "The Lighter Side: Psychic Arms Race? Give Me a Break!" *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 8, no. 4, Summer 1984. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^21]: "Scientific Facts and Fiction," conference program, Stanford University, November 9-10, 1984, *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 9, no. 1, Fall 1984. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^22]: Palmer, John A., Charles Honorton and Jessica Utts. *Reply to the National Research Council Study on Parapsychology,* special report prepared for the Board of Directors of the Parapsychological Association, section 2, "Anatomy of Prejudgment: Composition of the NRC Parapsychology Subcommittee," CIA-RDP96-00789R002200420001-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r002200420001-1
|
||||
[^23]: Frazier, Kendrick. "Improving Human Performance: What About Parapsychology?" *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 13, no. 1, Fall 1988, pp. 34-38. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^24]: Weinberg, Elliot H. "Some Remote-Viewing Recollections: Adventures in the Land of SRI," *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 10, no. 4, Summer 1986, pp. 353-358. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^25]: Kurtz, Paul, et al. "Testing Psi Claims in China: Visit by a CSICOP Delegation," *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 12, no. 4, Summer 1988, pp. 364 ff. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^26]: McKelvy, Dolan M., Lieutenant Colonel, USAF. *Psychic Warfare: Exploring the Mind Frontier,* research report, Air War College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, May 1988, quoting *Omni,* February 1987, CIA-RDP96-00789R001001420001-3. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r001001420001-3
|
||||
[^27]: Defense Intelligence Agency, "Project Star Gate Research and Peer Review Plan," June 1994, Appendix G, reproducing Utts, Jessica, "Rejoinder," *Statistical Science,* vol. 6, 1991, pp. 396-403, CIA-RDP96-00789R002700010001-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00789r002700010001-1
|
||||
[^28]: Hyman, Ray. "Evaluation of the Military's Twenty-Year Program on Psychic Spying," pp. 21-26, and Mumford, Michael D., Andrew M. Rose and David A. Goslin, "CIA Concludes No Value to the Program," p. 27, *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 20, no. 2, March/April 1996. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^29]: "Center for Inquiry and Richard Dawkins Foundation Now Formally Merged," *Skeptical Inquirer,* March 2017. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2017/03/center-for-inquiry-and-richard-dawkins-foundation-now-formally-merged/
|
||||
[^30]: "Fund for the Future," advertisement, *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 20, no. 6, November/December 1996, p. 9, and vol. 21, no. 1, January/February 1997. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^31]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, Center for Inquiry Inc., EIN 22-2306795, filings for 2011 to 2023. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/222306795.json
|
||||
[^32]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 for tax year 2024, Center for Inquiry Inc. (object ID 202512189349301641) and Center for Inquiry Development Fund (object ID 202532189349301858), IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search electronic filings. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_08A.zip
|
||||
[^33]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, Center for Inquiry Development Fund, EIN 16-1553194, filings for 2011 to 2023; Center for Inquiry Holding Corporation, EIN 16-1403907. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/161553194.json
|
||||
217
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Council on Foreign Relations.md
Normal file
217
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Council on Foreign Relations.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,217 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- CouncilOnForeignRelations
|
||||
- ThinkTank
|
||||
- ForeignPolicy
|
||||
- ForeignAffairs
|
||||
- RockefellerFamily
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- EstablishmentNetworks
|
||||
- CorporateProgram
|
||||
- WarAndPeaceStudies
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Council on Foreign Relations
|
||||
- Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
|
||||
- Council on Foreign Relations Inc
|
||||
- The Council on Foreign Relations
|
||||
- CFR
|
||||
- Harold Pratt House
|
||||
summary: "New York membership organization founded in 1921 that publishes Foreign Affairs, ran confidential wartime studies with the State, War and Navy Departments, and has drawn funding from foundations, member dues and corporate subscriptions."
|
||||
start: 1921
|
||||
location: "New York City"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Rockefeller Foundation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1939
|
||||
role: "grants for war and peace studies and the general research program, 44,500 dollars in 1939"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Carnegie Corporation of New York]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1946
|
||||
role: "regular research budget, newspaper fellowships and Committees on Foreign Relations; 500,000 dollars granted November 16, 1954"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Ford Foundation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1949
|
||||
role: "grant for aid to Europe studies, 30,000 dollars in 1949 to 1950"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Allen Dulles]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president until he joined the Central Intelligence Agency, addressed as president in January 1951; vice-chairman of the board, on leave, in 1952 to 1953"
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Allen Dulles]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the term retiring 1954 and member of the Committee on Studies in 1952 to 1953"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[David Rockefeller]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director and vice-president in 1952 to 1953, chairman of the Membership Committee, co-chairman of the Campaign for the Council from 1983; relinquished his leadership on the Board in 1985"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[George S. Franklin]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1953
|
||||
end: 1971
|
||||
role: "acting executive director in 1952 to 1953, then executive director"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Winston Lord]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1977
|
||||
end: 1985
|
||||
role: "president"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Bobby Ray Inman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the 1985 listing, term expiring 1988"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Richard Haass]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2023-06-30
|
||||
role: "president, 1,868,393 dollars reportable compensation in the return for the year to June 2023"
|
||||
fn: 27
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[David Rubenstein]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chairman in the return for the year to June 2023"
|
||||
fn: 27
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Council on Foreign Relations is a New York membership organization that publishes [[Foreign Affairs]] and runs study groups, a meetings program for members, affiliated Committees on Foreign Relations in other cities and a corporate subscription program.
|
||||
|
||||
### Origins
|
||||
|
||||
The Institute of International Affairs was founded in [[Paris]] in 1919 by twenty-one Americans and their British counterparts, a group that included [[Edward M. House]], [[Herbert Hoover]], [[Tasker H. Bliss]], [[Christian Herter]], [[Charles Seymour]], [[Archibald Cary Coolidge]] and [[James T. Shotwell]]. In 1921 its American branch merged with a larger existing group of New York business and professional men to form the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., under the honorary presidency of [[Elihu Root]], as a privately funded, nonprofit and nonpartisan body.[^1] The [[Internal Revenue Service]] records a ruling date of January 1927.[^2] [[Hamilton Fish Armstrong]] edited volumes 1 through 50 of Foreign Affairs (1922 to 1972), [[William P. Bundy]] volumes 51 through 62 (1973 to 1984) and [[William G. Hyland]] the volumes from 1984.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The charter limited membership in 1939 to 400 resident and 250 nonresident members.[^3] The first Committees on Foreign Relations, the affiliated groups in other cities, were established in 1938, and 25 cities had them by 1952.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### War and Peace Studies
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Rockefeller Foundation]] granted 44,500 dollars in 1939 toward the support of Council groups studying the problems of the war and the peace settlement to follow.[^3] The War and Peace Studies Project was organized shortly after the outbreak of hostilities to furnish scholarly contributions to the work of the government; by 1943 it had sent 541 memoranda to Washington on subjects selected by both the Council and the government, and the foundation appropriated 60,860 dollars for 1944.[^5] Three groups (economic, political and security) were functioning in 1945, and the foundation appropriated 60,000 dollars for that year.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The foundation's report for 1946 describes the program as a confidential one that the Council undertook from 1939 to 1945 "with the approval and participation of the State, War and Navy Departments," carried out "without formal assignment of responsibility and without restriction of independent action." The same report records a 1946 appropriation of 60,000 dollars for the general research program and 139,000 dollars over four years for a history of the Second World War, to be written by [[William L. Langer]] of [[Harvard University]], who had directed the Research and Analysis Section of the [[Office of Strategic Services]] "where he had exceptional access to materials bearing on foreign relations." The Council's Committee on Studies gave as its reason a concern that "the debunking journalistic campaign following World War I should not be repeated."[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Philip E. Mosely]], who had served during the war as research secretary of one of the Council's war and peace studies groups "organized to assist the [[State Department|Department of State]]," joined the Department of State as chief of its Division of Territorial Studies, then served as alternate to [[John Gilbert Winant]] on the [[European Advisory Commission]] and as adviser to the American delegations at Moscow, Potsdam and the Council of Foreign Ministers. In December 1954 the Council informed [[Allen Dulles]] that Mosely had agreed to accept the post of Director of Studies from July 1, 1955, subject to ratification by the Board.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Funding, 1946 to 1955
|
||||
|
||||
A Council table of November 1951, held in the files of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] and released in 2003, sets out the research budget receipts for 1946 to 1951. The regular budget totals were 93,336 dollars (1946 to 1947), 97,197 (1947 to 1948), 87,410 (1948 to 1949), 87,390 (1949 to 1950) and 117,005 (1950 to 1951), with 117,100 projected for 1951 to 1952, 110,000 of it marked "to be secured." The [[Carnegie Corporation of New York]] contributed 25,000 dollars a year to the regular budget from 1946 to 1950 and 35,000 in 1950 to 1951; the Rockefeller Foundation contributed 30,000, 30,000, 20,000, 10,000 and 45,000 (the last a "special terminal grant") over the same years. A 25th Anniversary Fund supplied 30,000 dollars a year for the first three years, 40,000 in 1949 to 1950 and 23,698 in 1950 to 1951.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
The special-studies grants in the same table include 25,000 to 30,000 dollars a year from Carnegie for the Committees on Foreign Relations, newspaper fellowships of 20,000 (1948 to 1950) and 15,000 (1950 to 1951) and 22,500 a year for democracy studies from 1950. The Rockefeller Foundation paid 34,750 dollars a year from 1946 to 1950 for the Langer History Project, 25,000 and 30,000 dollars for studies of aid to Europe in 1948 to 1950, and 16,000 for British-American studies in 1950 to 1951; the [[Ford Foundation]] gave 30,000 dollars for aid to Europe in 1949 to 1950, the [[Sloan Foundation]] 10,000 for the Langer history and the Viking Fund 1,500 for a fellowship. Total research receipts were 159,086 dollars (1946 to 1947), 167,941, 207,160, 244,640 and 200,505, with 194,600 projected for 1951 to 1952.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
Corporate contributions to the House Fund of 1945 totaled 34,000 dollars and to the 25th Anniversary Fund for 1946 to 1951 totaled 24,100, for 58,100 in all. The contributors were [[Chase National Bank]] (10,000), [[IBM]] (12,500), [[National City Bank]] (10,000), [[Standard Oil Company (New Jersey)]] (7,500), [[Westinghouse Electric]] (7,500), [[General Electric]] (2,500), [[Socony Vacuum Oil Company]] (2,000), General Motors Overseas Operations (1,500), the [[International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union]] (1,000), the [[National Cash Register Company]] (1,000), the Underwood Corporation (900), the Macmillan Company (500), National Dairy Products (500), the Texas Company (500), the International Nickel Company (400) and the American Hawaiian Steamship Company (100). A separate page lists forty-five individual contributions to the 25th Anniversary Fund for 1946 to 1950 totaling 95,479 dollars, among them [[Frank Altschul]] (5,000), [[E. Roland Harriman]] (4,500), Allen W. Dulles (3,500, "over 5 years"), [[John Foster Dulles]] (1,250, "over 5 years"), [[W. Averell Harriman]] (1,100), [[Henry R. Luce]] (1,000), [[Herbert H. Lehman]] (5,000), [[Caryl P. Haskins]] (8,500), [[Arthur H. Dean]] (10,000) and [[Stephen Clark]] (10,000); a continuation page lists further names including [[Arthur Hays Sulzberger]], [[Myron C. Taylor]] and [[Alfred P. Sloan]]. The totals on the continuation page are 114,175 dollars from individuals, 24,100 from corporations and 7,960 in contributions under 500, or 146,235 in all.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
The annual report of the executive director for 1951 to 1952 records that the Rockefeller Foundation, "in line with its policy of discontinuing support for the general budgets of organizations which it has helped for some years," did not renew a 45,000-dollar grant to the general research program, while continuing 18,500 dollars for a study of the Political Implications of Economic Development (directed by Eugene Staley of the [[Stanford Research Institute]]), 3,500 for a study of German unity and 4,000 for a bibliography. Carnegie gave 35,000 dollars to the general research program, 3,000 to the Committee on Policy and 30,000 to the Committees on Foreign Relations, and had granted 23,000 for three research fellowships in 1952 to 1953. Members and corporations gave 32,787 dollars to the general research program, and a gift of 17,030.86 dollars in memory of Edwin F. Gay, a director from 1921 to 1945, was added. The Board had voted a 10 percent cost-of-living salary increase on December 17, 1951. The combined deficit in the general and research accounts was "the only substantial deficit the Council has ever had."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
On November 16, 1954 the Carnegie Corporation granted 500,000 dollars to be spent over five years from the following August; a Ford Foundation grant had been reported earlier, and Frank Altschul had offered to pay for a new annex, estimated at about 200,000 dollars.[^8] [[George S. Franklin]], who served as acting executive director in 1952 and 1953, is described in the finding aid of the records of the [[Trilateral Commission]] as executive director of the Council from 1953 to 1971.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Corporations with officers who are members, 1951
|
||||
|
||||
The fourth page of the November 1951 table lists corporations with officers who are members of the Council, with an asterisk for those that had contributed in the past. The list includes the Chase National Bank ([[Winthrop Aldrich]] as chairman and [[David Rockefeller]]), [[Dillon, Read and Company]] ([[Clarence Dillon]]), [[Brown Brothers Harriman]] (E. Roland Harriman, Ray Morris, Knight Woolley and Thomas McCance), Kuhn Loeb and Company (Frederick M. Warburg and John M. Schiff), Lehman Brothers (Robert Lehman), the J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation (Gerald F. Beal), Schroder Rockefeller and Company (Mord M. Bogie), J. P. Morgan and Company (Arthur M. Anderson), the Arabian American Oil Company (James Terry Duce), Standard Oil Company of New Jersey, the [[United Fruit Company]] (T. Jefferson Coolidge), Pan American Airways ([[Juan Trippe]]), Time Inc. (Henry R. Luce), the Columbia Broadcasting System ([[William S. Paley]]), Newsweek (Malcolm Muir), Reader's Digest (Harry H. Harper), Look (Gardner Cowles), the [[RAND Corporation]] (W. Phillips Davison), Avco ([[Albert C. Wedemeyer]]), the Continental Can Company ([[Lucius D. Clay]] as chairman) and American International Underwriters ([[Cornelius Vander Starr|C. V. Starr]]).[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Officers and committees in 1952
|
||||
|
||||
For 1952 to 1953 the Council's officers were [[R. C. Leffingwell]] as chairman of the board, Allen W. Dulles as vice-chairman (on leave), [[Henry M. Wriston]] as president, David Rockefeller as vice-president, Frank Altschul as vice-president and secretary, [[Devereux C. Josephs]] as vice-president and treasurer, [[Walter H. Mallory]] as executive director (on leave) and George S. Franklin Jr. as acting executive director. The directors included W. Averell Harriman, [[William A. M. Burden]], [[John W. Davis]], [[Grayson Kirk]], [[Lewis W. Douglas]], [[Thomas K. Finletter]], [[Whitney H. Shepardson]] and Taylor. Rockefeller chaired the Membership Committee; Dulles sat on the Committee on Studies with Wriston, Armstrong, Dean, Mosely and others; Armstrong edited Foreign Affairs, whose Editorial Advisory Board comprised [[George H. Blakeslee]], Davis, Dulles, [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]], [[George Kennan]], Langer, [[Charles H. McIlwain]], Seymour and Wriston.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Membership stood at 927 on August 1, 1951 and 933 on August 1, 1952, in the classes resident (420 and 420), resident academic (164 and 167), junior (13 and 9), nonresident (160 and 160) and nonresident academic (170 and 177). The Committees on Foreign Relations held 191 meetings that year, and a grant from the Fund for Adult Education financed the reprinting of an article from Foreign Affairs nine times a year, with a discussion guide, for about 1,000 adult discussion groups.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Correspondence with Allen Dulles, 1950 to 1960
|
||||
|
||||
Several letters between the Council and Dulles are in Central Intelligence Agency files released between 2002 and 2012. On December 12, 1950, Armstrong sent Harriman, then at the [[White House]], a statement signed by members of a Council group that had studied military, economic and political problems of aid to Europe for about two years. His covering letter says the statement does not represent the views of the Council, which is precluded from taking a position on public matters, and is not for publication, and that Dulles had spoken to Harriman about it that morning.[^11] On January 2, 1951, [[Alan G. Kirk]], writing on Department of State letterhead to "Mr. Allen W. Dulles, President, Council on Foreign Relations," declined an invitation to address the Council on January 15 and proposed instead an hour with "four or five besides myself" at the Council's house on January 17 or 18, in a group whose conversations would be "kept within strictly classified lines." A note on the letter records that Dulles told Kirk's wife on January 11 that he would be away for a week.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
On February 13, 1952 Dulles wrote to [[Gordon Dean]], chairman of the [[Atomic Energy Commission]]: "the Council is one of my closest interests and I was President of it until I came down here, but as Director and Vice-Chairman of the Board, on leave, I still spend a good deal of time on its work." The letter also refers to "the matter we discussed when you and Gordon Gray and I were together." The distribution line shows the letter was filed with the papers of the Deputy [[Director of Central Intelligence]].[^13] Letters from Franklin of November 24, 1952, January 27, 1953 and June 19, 1953 sent Dulles Council memoranda, a report on Council activities and the agenda for a Committee on Studies luncheon on February 16, 1953, and the Finance Committee's budget and pension plan, with an announcement that a balanced budget for 1952 to 1953 was assured.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
On a letter to the Council's Membership Committee carrying a distribution notation of April 20, 1955, Dulles, as Director of Central Intelligence, endorsed a proposal by [[William H. Jackson]] to admit a person whose name is redacted in the release, writing that he had known the candidate "for a number of years, particularly during his tenure in this Agency."[^15] On February 16, 1956 Armstrong thanked Dulles for attending the Editorial Advisory Board meeting of the previous night and asked about his expenses so that Foreign Affairs could reimburse him. Dulles replied on March 4 to Mallory: "Don't worry about the expenses of my trip as I was able to combine this visit to New York with plenty of official business, so that it is a proper charge against my own official travel account," and added that he was suggesting the Agency "buy several copies" of the Council's ten-year Foreign Affairs Bibliography "for use here in the Agency."[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 25, 1958 Armstrong asked Dulles to second a candidate (name redacted) for membership, "particularly" for the study groups on Far Eastern problems.[^17] On May 2, 1958 Franklin, by then executive director, wrote that Secretary [[Neil McElroy]] had accepted an invitation to the June 6 dinner of the Committees on Foreign Relations: "Thank you a great deal for all you did. You obviously produced the bacon."[^18] On August 20, 1959 Dulles told a correspondent that "Foster consulted me at the time he delivered his original speech on this subject before the Council on Foreign Relations," a reference to the speech on massive retaliation by John Foster Dulles.[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 6, 1960 Franklin invited Dulles to a Council dinner for [[Adlai Stevenson]] on Friday, June 3 at 7:30, at which Stevenson would describe his recent trip through [[Latin America]], with [[John J. McCloy]] presiding and representatives of the affiliated Committees on Foreign Relations in twenty-nine cities present. Dulles declined, writing that he could not reach New York on "2 June." A memorandum to Dulles of May 16, 1960, filed with the reply (author redacted), states that the Agency had been in touch with William Benton, who accompanied Stevenson on the trip, that Benton "promised to furnish us with a complete set of the notes maintained during their trip," and that in view of this "no attempt was made to get in touch with Governor Stevenson."[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Discussion group on intelligence, 1968
|
||||
|
||||
The third meeting of the Council's Discussion Group on Intelligence and Foreign Policy was held at the Harold Pratt House at 5:00 p.m. on January 8, 1968. The minutes list [[Richard Bissell]] as discussion leader, [[C. Douglas Dillon]] as chairman, [[William J. Barnds]] as secretary and William R. Harris as rapporteur, with these others present: [[George Agree]], Frank Altschul, [[Robert Amory Jr.]], [[Meyer Bernstein]], Col. Sidney B. Berry Jr., Allen W. Dulles, George S. Franklin Jr., [[Eugene Fubini]], [[Julius C. Holmes]], [[Thomas L. Hughes]], [[Joseph Kraft]], [[David W. MacEachron]], [[Philip W. Quigg]], [[Harry Howe Ransom]], [[Theodore C. Sorensen]] and [[David B. Truman]]. Dillon stated that the series was off the record, that the subject of the evening was "especially sensitive," and that problems involving the Agency's relationships with private institutions would be examined at a later meeting.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
Bissell listed eight forms of covert action (political advice and counsel; subsidies to an individual; support of political parties; support of private organizations "including labor unions, business firms, cooperatives, etc."; covert propaganda; private training and exchange of persons; economic operations; and paramilitary or political action to overthrow or support a regime). On disclosures of private-institution support he said, "it is very clear that we should have had greater compartmenting of operations," that "if the Agency is to be effective, it will have to make use of private institutions on an expanding scale, though those relations which have 'blown' cannot be resurrected," and that "we need to operate under deeper cover, with increased attention to the use of 'cut-outs.'"[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Victor Marchetti]] and [[John D. Marks]] wrote that the minutes became public in 1971 when students occupying the Harvard Center for International Affairs found them in faculty files, that Harris later admitted privately that the text had been partially edited to remove particularly sensitive material, and that the African Research Group reprinted it. They wrote that Barnds had been with the Agency's Office of National Estimates until he joined the Council's staff in the mid-1960s, and quoted a January 1969 article by Barnds in Foreign Affairs: "The disclosure of intelligence activities in the press in recent years is a clear national liability." They also quoted Amory, in a television interview of February 26, 1967, calling press disclosures of Agency funding of the National Student Association and other private groups "a commentary on the immaturity of our society."[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
Of the participants named in the minutes, Altschul, Dulles and Franklin appear in the 1952 officer and committee lists above, and Hughes and Kraft appear in the 1981 membership list of the Trilateral Commission.[^4][^23]
|
||||
|
||||
### Central Intelligence Agency contacts, 1976 to 1979
|
||||
|
||||
A memorandum of July 26, 1976 from the National Intelligence Officer for China, routed via the Assistant to the Director, the Director of Security and the Chief of the Central Cover Staff, reported an invitation from the Council's program director, Rolland Bushner, to speak to the Nashville Committee on Foreign Relations and possibly to committees in Louisville, Indianapolis and St. Louis. It stated that "as is the custom with the Council my remarks will be on a not-for-attribution basis and there will not be publicity," and that the officer would "use some classified data through Confidential but will blend it in to my talk." A note on the memorandum states that the Director of Security "does not concur in the use of classified material." A memorandum of September 7, 1976 moved the second talk from Louisville to Tampa Bay on September 28.[^24] On September 12, 1979, [[Stansfield Turner]], as Director of Central Intelligence, nominated three associates of the National Foreign Assessment Center for the Council's International Affairs Fellowship for 1980 to 1981.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Corporate Program, the Campaign and the membership roster, 1984 to 1985
|
||||
|
||||
The annual report for July 1, 1984 to June 30, 1985 records 2,376 members, of whom 38 percent lived in the New York area, 24 percent in the Washington area and 6 percent in the Boston area. By profession 27 percent were business executives, 21 percent scholars or academic administrators, 15 percent administrators of nonprofit institutions, 11 percent government officials, 11 percent journalists and communications executives and 10 percent lawyers; women, admitted from 1970, numbered 250. Members are elected by the Board of Directors on nomination of the Membership Committee, and by tradition participants do not attribute statements made at meetings to speakers in public media.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The report's membership roster, which includes people invited at the Board's June 1985 meeting who had accepted by press time, lists among the names Richard M. Bissell Jr., [[William J. Casey]], [[William Colby]], [[Richard Helms]], Stansfield Turner, [[Robert M. Gates]], [[R. James Woolsey]], [[John Deutch]], [[Ray S. Cline]], [[Cord Meyer]], [[Frank G. Wisner II]], William J. Barnds and Rolland Bushner, together with [[Katharine Graham]], [[Hedley Donovan]], [[Dan Rather]], [[Jim Lehrer]], [[Flora Lewis]], [[James Reston]], William S. Paley and [[Roone Arledge]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Corporate Program subscriptions exceeded one million dollars for the fourth consecutive year, at 1,060,800 dollars net, and Foreign Affairs income was 2,095,300. Subscribers were offered a black-tie dinner for chairmen and presidents with an address by a prominent statesman, seminars, executive luncheons, a library of about 40,000 volumes with a clipping service, and the chance to nominate young executives for the International Affairs Fellowship.[^1] The Board approved a 14.5 million dollar Campaign for the Council in February 1983, with David Rockefeller and C. Douglas Dillon as co-chairmen and [[C. Peter McColough]] of [[Xerox]] as campaign chairman; in early August 1985, 14.1 million dollars in gifts and pledges had been received. The report's partial list of donors of 10,000 dollars or more to the Campaign names these corporations: Agip Petroleum, American Can, [[American Express]], the Arabian American Oil Company, AT&T, Atlantic Richfield, [[Bankers Trust]], Barclays Bank, the [[Bechtel Group]], Bristol-Myers, CBS, [[Chase Manhattan Bank]], Chemical Bank, [[Citibank]], Dillon Read, Dow Chemical, Dow Jones, Du Pont, [[Exxon]], Ford Motor, General Electric, General Motors, [[Goldman Sachs]], IBM, [[Lazard Freres]], [[Manufacturers Hanover]], [[Mobil]], [[Morgan Guaranty Trust]], Morgan Stanley, [[Northrop]], PaineWebber, Peat Marwick Mitchell, PepsiCo, [[Price Waterhouse]], Procter and Gamble, RCA, the Rockefeller Group, [[Salomon Brothers]], United Technologies and Xerox, among others. Foundation donors included the Ford Foundation, the German Marshall Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the [[Rockefeller Brothers Fund]], the [[Andrew W. Mellon Foundation]], the Starr Foundation and the Schlumberger Foundation.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The individual donors of 10,000 dollars or more included [[Giovanni Agnelli]], [[George W. Ball]], Michel David-Weill, Katharine Graham, [[John Gutfreund]], Pehr G. Gyllenhammar, Averell Harriman, [[Suliman S. Olayan]], [[Harry Oppenheimer]], [[Peter G. Peterson]], David Rockefeller, David Rockefeller Jr., [[Laurance Rockefeller]], [[Anton Rupert]], [[Maurice Tempelsman]], [[Cyrus Vance]], [[James D. Wolfensohn]] and [[Ezra K. Zilkha]]. Annual Giving patrons of 5,000 dollars or more were Arthur G. Altschul, Dillon, Franklin, H. J. Heinz II, McColough, the estate of Leo Model, Peterson and David Rockefeller.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
General fund expenditures were 6,778,300 dollars against total funding of 6,718,900. Nonrecurring grants made up 49.8 percent of funding in the fiscal year to June 1972 and 13.8 percent in 1984 to 1985; the International Affairs Fellowship Program, at 346,200 dollars, was paid for by the Ford, MacArthur and Mellon foundations and the National Endowment for the Humanities.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The report lists as directors, at press time, Harold Brown, Stanley Hoffmann, Nicholas Katzenbach, Lane Kirkland, Juanita Kreps, Robert Scalapino, [[Brent Scowcroft]], Stephen Stamas, Philip Geyelin, McColough, Donald McHenry, Peterson, William D. Rogers, Vance, Marina Whitman, Walter Wriston, Graham Allison, Warren Christopher, Richard Gelb, Alan Greenspan, [[Bobby Ray Inman]], Jeane Kirkpatrick, Lewis Preston and Clifton Wharton. Of these twenty-four, Brown, Allison, Christopher, Kirkland, Greenspan, Kreps and Whitman appear in the Trilateral Commission's North American roster of July 1981.[^1][^23] A letter from McCloy dated June 27, 1985, printed in the report, refers to David Rockefeller's "44 years of close and active association with the Council" and to his "relinquishment of his leadership on the Board."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Foreign Affairs
|
||||
|
||||
Foreign Affairs published "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" in July 1947 over the signature "X," credited by the journal to George F. Kennan; the article called for "a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies."[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
### Recent filings
|
||||
|
||||
The Council's Form 990 for the year ended June 30, 2023 reports revenue of 106,930,600 dollars, expenses of 83,166,400 dollars and year-end assets of 719,707,600 dollars; the same series of returns on the [[ProPublica]] Nonprofit Explorer shows revenue of 59,633,100 dollars and assets of 438,237,900 dollars for the year to June 2011.[^2] The 2023 return lists contributions of 63,113,857 dollars, Foreign Affairs revenue of 11,709,500, individual membership revenue of 9,036,200 and corporate membership revenue of 1,103,843, with 711 employees and 34 voting members of the governing body. It describes the membership as "over 5,000," states that the members elect all voting directors, and gives the year of founding as 1921.[^27]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Richard Haass]] is shown as president through June 30, 2023 with reportable compensation of 1,868,393 dollars and 59,851 dollars of other compensation; [[Michael Froman]] is named as principal officer. Other reported compensation includes 524,534 dollars to the chief investment officer, [[Giovanna Ban]], 519,740 to the executive vice president and chief financial officer, Keith Olson, 459,793 to the director of studies, [[James M. Lindsay]], 330,419 to the editor of Foreign Affairs, [[Daniel Kurtz-Phelan]], and 280,205 to the distinguished fellow [[Martin Indyk]]. [[David Rubenstein]] is chairman, [[Blair Effron]] and [[Jami Miscik]] vice-chairmen, and the directors include [[Thad Allen]], [[Ashton B. Carter]] (through October 2022), [[Kenneth I. Chenault]], [[Laurence D. Fink]] (through June 30, 2023), [[Timothy F. Geithner]] (through June 30, 2023), [[James P. Gorman]], [[Stephen J. Hadley]], [[Jeh Johnson]], [[William H. McRaven]], [[Janet Napolitano]], [[Meghan O'Sullivan]], [[Ruth Porat]], [[Laurene Powell Jobs]], [[Frances F. Townsend]], [[Daniel H. Yergin]] and [[Fareed Zakaria]]. Schedule O reports business relationships between Haass and directors Effron, [[Stephen C. Freidheim]] and [[Nicholas Beim]]; between Rubenstein and Carter and Yergin; between Miscik and Gorman; and between directors [[James Manyika]] and Porat. Schedule I lists fellowship payments including 596,458 dollars for nine International Affairs Fellows, 288,750 dollars for four fellows in national security, 119,350 dollars for six in Japan, 100,000 dollars for one Edward R. Murrow press fellow and 80,000 dollars for one Stanton nuclear security fellow. The donor schedule is redacted in the public copy.[^27]
|
||||
|
||||
Five of the directors named in the 2023 return (Rubenstein, Manyika, O'Sullivan, Townsend and Yergin) are members of the North American group in the Trilateral Commission's list of September 6, 2024, on which five Council fellows also appear.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
### Jeffrey Epstein
|
||||
|
||||
Two biographical statements in the [[Department of Justice]]'s [[Epstein Files|Epstein Library]], one headed "Biographical Information of Jeffrey E. Epstein" and one "About Jeffrey E. Epstein," neither dated on its face, describe [[Jeffrey Epstein]] as "a former member of the Trilateral Commission and a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations." No Council membership roll appears in the documents examined.[^29] An exchange of November 8 and 15, 2010 between Epstein and the Council's director of events concerns travel and a weekend event.[^30]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Council on Foreign Relations, Annual Report, July 1, 1984 to June 30, 1985 (New York, 1985): Summary Description, pp. 5 to 6; Staff, p. 7; Membership, p. 94; Corporate Program, p. 111; Development Activities, pp. 112 to 124 (The Campaign for the Council, pp. 119 to 123); Finances, pp. 133 to 135; Officers and Directors, pp. 2 and 148; Historical Roster, pp. 150 to 152; Membership Roster, pp. 154 ff.; letter of John J. McCloy, June 27, 1985; Foreign Affairs editors, Council Publications. Sanitized copy released by the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA-RDP90-00806R000100210066-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000100210066-5
|
||||
[^2]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Council on Foreign Relations Inc, EIN 13-1628168, API record of filings for tax years 2011 to 2023 (ruling date 1927-01), https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/131628168
|
||||
[^3]: The Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Report 1939 (New York, 1940): Social Sciences, International Relations, pp. 273 to 274, and appropriations table (RF 39110), https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1939
|
||||
[^4]: Council on Foreign Relations, Annual Report of the Executive Director, 1951-1952, with list of members and by-laws (New York, 1952): Officers and Standing Committees (front matter); Summary, p. 4; Committees on Foreign Relations, pp. 41 to 43; Foreign Affairs, pp. 42 to 43; Membership, pp. 45 to 46; Financial, pp. 48 to 49. Sanitized copy, CIA-RDP80R01731R001200010036-3, https://archive.org/details/CIA-RDP80R01731R001200010036-3
|
||||
[^5]: The Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Report 1943 (New York, 1944): The Social Sciences, International Studies, section Council on Foreign Relations, pp. 178 to 179, https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1943
|
||||
[^6]: The Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Report 1945 (New York, 1946): The Social Sciences, section Council on Foreign Relations, pp. 190 to 191, https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1945
|
||||
[^7]: The Rockefeller Foundation, Annual Report 1946 (New York, 1947): The Social Sciences, sections Council on Foreign Relations and Council on Foreign Relations, History of World War II, pp. 186 to 189, https://archive.org/details/the-rockefeller-foundation-annual-report-1946
|
||||
[^8]: Letter, Council on Foreign Relations (catalogued as from Walter H. Mallory, Executive Director) to Allen W. Dulles, December 17, 1954, CIA-RDP80R01731R001200030019-0, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001200030019-0
|
||||
[^9]: Council on Foreign Relations, Receipts (1946-1951), Research Budget, with Contributions of Corporations, Individual Contributions to the 25th Anniversary Fund and Corporations with Officers who are members of the Council on Foreign Relations, November 1951, 8 pages, CIA-RDP80R01731R001100170005-1, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001100170005-1
|
||||
[^10]: Rockefeller Archive Center, The Trilateral Commission (North America) Records, finding aid by Robert Battaly, April 2011, Institutional History, p. 2, https://dimes.rockarch.org/collections/2KaqPEr3JRZv5WBQsf9mKn (text read from the copy at https://archive.org/download/one-world-order-new-world-order/Trilateral%20Commission%20records%20%28Rockefeller%20Archives%29.pdf)
|
||||
[^11]: Letter, Hamilton Fish Armstrong to W. Averell Harriman, December 12, 1950, CIA-RDP80R01731R003100010004-7, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r003100010004-7
|
||||
[^12]: Letter, Alan G. Kirk (Department of State) to Allen W. Dulles, January 2, 1951, with note of January 11, CIA-RDP80R01731R001100170026-8, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001100170026-8
|
||||
[^13]: Letter, Allen W. Dulles to Gordon Dean, February 13, 1952, CIA-RDP80R01731R001200010035-4, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001200010035-4
|
||||
[^14]: Letters, George S. Franklin Jr. to Allen W. Dulles, November 24, 1952 (CIA-RDP80R01731R001200010002-0), January 27, 1953 (CIA-RDP80R01731R001200020051-5) and June 19, 1953 (CIA-RDP80R01731R001200020027-2), https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001200010002-0, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001200020051-5 and https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001200020027-2
|
||||
[^15]: Letter, Allen W. Dulles to the Membership Committee, Council on Foreign Relations, distribution notation 20 Apr 55 (ER 6-9539/A), CIA-RDP80R01731R001200030009-1, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r001200030009-1
|
||||
[^16]: Letter, Allen W. Dulles to Walter H. Mallory, March 4, 1956 (ER 7-9374/A), with letter of Hamilton Fish Armstrong to Dulles, February 16, 1956, CIA-RDP80B01676R004000060049-1, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r004000060049-1
|
||||
[^17]: Letter, Hamilton Fish Armstrong to Allen W. Dulles, April 25, 1958, CIA-RDP80B01676R004000060009-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r004000060009-5
|
||||
[^18]: Letter, George S. Franklin Jr. to Allen W. Dulles, May 2, 1958, CIA-RDP80B01676R004000060012-1, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r004000060012-1
|
||||
[^19]: Letter, Allen W. Dulles to Ferdinand Lathrop Mayer, August 20, 1959, CIA-RDP80R01731R000300010083-1, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80r01731r000300010083-1
|
||||
[^20]: Letter, George S. Franklin Jr. to Allen W. Dulles, May 6, 1960; reply of Allen W. Dulles to Franklin, May 1960; memorandum for Mr. Dulles, May 16, 1960, CIA-RDP80B01676R004100010066-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r004100010066-6
|
||||
[^21]: Minutes of the third meeting of the Discussion Group on Intelligence and Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations, Harold Pratt House, January 8, 1968 (reproduced by Public Intelligence as "Minutes of the 1968 Bissell Meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations"), https://info.publicintelligence.net/CFR-BissellMeeting.pdf
|
||||
[^22]: Victor Marchetti and John D. Marks, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence (Dell paperback ed., 1975), "Covert-Action Theory," pp. 55 to 56, and "Controlling the CIA," pp. 332 to 333 (note on p. 332), https://archive.org/details/ciacultofintelli00marc_1
|
||||
[^23]: The Trilateral Commission, membership list "As of July 1, 1981," reprinted in Congressional Research Service, The Trilateral Commission, Issue Packet IP0092 (Library of Congress, 1981), https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/19810501_IP0092_2d3ea09e2c6068af730f41d315f4ea490bc91878.pdf
|
||||
[^24]: Memoranda, National Intelligence Officer for China to Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for National Intelligence, July 26, 1976 (NIO 1215-76) and September 7, 1976 (NIO 1426-76), CIA-RDP83B00100R000100130019-2, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp83b00100r000100130019-2
|
||||
[^25]: Letter, Stansfield Turner to Alton Frye, Director, International Affairs Fellowships, Council on Foreign Relations, September 12, 1979, CIA-RDP80B01554R003300220008-8, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01554r003300220008-8
|
||||
[^26]: "X" (George F. Kennan), "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," Foreign Affairs, vol. 25, no. 4, July 1947, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russian-federation/1947-07-01/sources-soviet-conduct
|
||||
[^27]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of Council on Foreign Relations Inc for the year ended June 30, 2023 (tax year 2022), Parts I, III, VI, VII, VIII, Schedules B, I and O, IRS e-file XML object 202430169349300598, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_01A.zip (member 2024_TEOS_XML_01A/202430169349300598_public.xml)
|
||||
[^28]: The Trilateral Commission, membership list "Last updated September 6, 2024," North American Group, https://archive.org/details/tc-membership-list-sept-6-2024-1
|
||||
[^29]: Department of Justice, Epstein Library, "Biographical Information of Jeffrey E. Epstein," EFTA00725190, and "About Jeffrey E. Epstein," EFTA00725191, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00725190.pdf and https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00725191.pdf
|
||||
[^30]: Department of Justice, Epstein Library, emails of November 8 and 15, 2010 between Jeffrey Epstein and the Council on Foreign Relations director of events, EFTA00751793, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00751793.pdf
|
||||
213
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Counter Extremism Project.md
Normal file
213
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Counter Extremism Project.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,213 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- CounterExtremism
|
||||
- Section501c4
|
||||
- MarkWallace
|
||||
- ThomasKaplan
|
||||
- UANI
|
||||
- DonorsTrust
|
||||
- HanyFarid
|
||||
- ContentModeration
|
||||
- PoliticalFinance
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Counter Extremism Project
|
||||
- CEP
|
||||
- Counter Extremism Project United
|
||||
- Counter Extremism Project United Inc
|
||||
- CEPU
|
||||
- The Green Light Project
|
||||
- Green Light Project
|
||||
summary: "New York advocacy organisation launched in September 2014 by Mark Wallace, Frances Townsend and Joseph Lieberman on the model of United Against Nuclear Iran, whose 501(c)(4) granted millions to DonorsTrust and two charities."
|
||||
start: 2014-09-22
|
||||
location: "New York, United States"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Mark Wallace]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-09-22
|
||||
role: "chief executive officer"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Frances Townsend]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-09-22
|
||||
role: "board member at the launch"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Joseph Lieberman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-09-22
|
||||
role: "board member at the launch"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Thomas Kaplan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-09-22
|
||||
role: "the one backer Wallace named at the launch"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[DonorsTrust]]"
|
||||
start: 2020
|
||||
end: 2023
|
||||
role: "grants by Counter Extremism Project United Inc of 2,000,000, 5,160,900, 9,100,500 and 7,462,350 dollars for 2020 to 2023"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[United Against Nuclear Iran]]"
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
end: 2021
|
||||
role: "grants by Counter Extremism Project United Inc to ACANI Inc of 5,000,000 dollars (2017), 5,500,000 (2018), 2,220,000 (2020) and 250,000 (2021)"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Joseph Lieberman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2018
|
||||
end: 2023
|
||||
role: "strategic consulting, 140,005 dollars in the return for 2018 and 140,004 in the return for 2023"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[John Bolton]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
end: 2017
|
||||
role: "advisory board and consulting, 130,000 dollars"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Jeb Bush]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020
|
||||
end: 2023
|
||||
role: "Jeb Bush and Associates LLC, strategic consulting, 120,000 dollars (2020, 2022) and 109,000 (2023)"
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Hany Farid]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020
|
||||
end: 2022
|
||||
role: "paid by The Green Light Project Inc, 160,000 dollars (2020) and 120,000 (2022)"
|
||||
fn: 24
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Microsoft]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016-06
|
||||
role: "funding for the hash-matching software, per Defense One"
|
||||
fn: 31
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Homeland Security]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020
|
||||
role: "fiscal year 2020 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention grant"
|
||||
fn: 35
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Global Risk Advisors]]"
|
||||
start: 2017-03
|
||||
role: "named in the Project ENDGAME document, per Fox News Digital; the firm's lawyer denies wrongdoing"
|
||||
fn: 39
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) is a [[New York City]] advocacy organisation launched on 22 September 2014 by [[Mark Wallace]], a former [[United States]] ambassador to the [[United Nations]], with [[Frances Townsend]], a former Homeland Security adviser to [[George W. Bush]], and the former senator [[Joseph Lieberman]] as board members.[^1] It operates through [[Counter Extremism Project United Inc]] (CEPU), a 501(c)(4) social welfare organisation with the employer identification number 81-0878718, and through The Green Light Project Inc, a 501(c)(3) charity with the number 46-4631639, whose Form 990 describes it as "a non-partisan organization focused on countering extremism".[^2][^3] Its model was an earlier Wallace organisation, [[United Against Nuclear Iran]] (UANI): Wallace told a House subcommittee in January 2015 that CEP was modeled "in part on advocacy efforts to counter Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons".[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Launch and Board
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Jewish Telegraphic Agency]] reported on 22 September 2014 that Wallace was chief executive of both CEP and UANI, that Lieberman and Townsend sat on both boards, and that the project had opened offices in New York and [[Brussels]]. Other board members of both organisations named in the report were [[Gary Samore]], a former [[White House]] coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, [[August Hanning]], a former director of Germany's secret service, the [[Bundesnachrichtendienst]] (BND), [[Dennis Ross]], an adviser on [[Middle East]] affairs to Presidents [[Bill Clinton]] and [[Barack Obama]], and [[Irwin Cotler]], a former Canadian justice minister. The report states that Wallace "declined to identify the project's sources of funding except for [[Thomas Kaplan]], a billionaire commodities investor who also backs United Against Nuclear Iran and, along with Wallace, runs the [[Tigris Financial Group]]", and that the project was "backed by a host of pro-Israel stalwarts" while Wallace sought to distance it from Israel.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
CEP's website as captured on 30 September 2014 listed [[al-Qaeda]], [[Boko Haram]], [[Islamic State|ISIS]] and the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] under the heading "The Threat".[^5] The biography filed with Wallace's written testimony of 28 October 2015 records that he was Deputy Campaign Manager of the Bush campaign in 2004, a senior adviser to Senator [[John McCain]] in 2008, general counsel of the [[Federal Emergency Management Agency]] and of the [[Immigration and Naturalization Service]], and general counsel of the City of [[Miami]]'s Emergency Financial Oversight Board.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Corporate Structure
|
||||
|
||||
The Form 990 returns of the group show a layered structure. CEPU files as a 501(c)(4), and its returns list as related organisations CEPUMedia Inc (media production, Delaware, controlled by CEPU), Counter Extremism Project Germany gGmbH (Berlin) and CEPU Cayman LLC, a disregarded entity in the [[Cayman Islands]] whose stated activity is "provides a platform for international activities". The return for 2021 gives the Cayman entity a total income of 2,999,950 dollars and end-of-year assets of zero; the return for 2023 gives it zero for both. The German entity reported total income of 60,519 dollars and end-of-year assets of 117,126 dollars in 2021, and 59,653 and 194,436 in 2023.[^2][^7] The Green Light Project's return for 2023 lists an "investment in CEP UK".[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
CEPU, The Green Light Project, UANI's charity ACANI Inc (formerly the American Coalition Against a Nuclear Iran, EIN 26-2387657) and its sister 501(c)(4) United Against a Nuclear Iran Action Inc use the same New York post box addresses, PO Box 3980 and PO Box 1028, on their returns. ACANI Inc's return for 2018 describes its purpose as informing the public about the nature of the Iranian regime and names United Against a Nuclear Iran as its project.[^8][^9][^10][^11] The returns of CEPU for 2020 to 2023 list Wallace as chief executive officer and director, [[Robert Benton]] as secretary, whose compensation in the return for 2023 was recorded as payment for legal services rather than service as secretary, [[David Ibsen]] as executive director (to December 2023), and [[Jolie J. Davis]] and [[Henley Old]] as directors.[^2][^12] The directors of The Green Light Project in the returns for 2016 to 2023 include [[Michael Neifach]] and [[Brian Stack]].[^3][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Revenue and Grant Flows
|
||||
|
||||
CEPU's Form 990 for 2017 reports contributions and total revenue of 22,230,000 dollars, expenses of 14,702,134 dollars, grants paid of 12,230,000 dollars and year-end assets of 14,567,076 dollars. The grants were 5,000,000 dollars to ACANI Inc and 7,230,000 dollars to The Green Light Project.[^8] For 2018 revenue was 15,568,814 dollars, with grants of 5,500,000 dollars to ACANI Inc, 7,500,000 dollars to The Green Light Project and 5,353 dollars to the UANI action organisation.[^13] For 2020 revenue was 6,058,608 dollars and expenses 8,774,302 dollars, with grants of 2,220,000 dollars to ACANI Inc, 2,350,000 dollars to The Green Light Project and 2,000,000 dollars to [[DonorsTrust]].[^12] For 2021 revenue was 8,068,313 dollars, with grants of 250,000 dollars to ACANI Inc, 462,159 dollars to The Green Light Project and 5,160,900 dollars to DonorsTrust.[^7] For 2022 revenue was 11,034,793 dollars, with grants of 9,100,500 dollars to DonorsTrust and 49,500 dollars to the UANI action organisation.[^14] For 2023 revenue was 8,080,751 dollars and expenses 9,100,195 dollars, with a grant of 7,462,350 dollars to DonorsTrust, which the return describes as "general support to carry out educational and charitable purposes".[^2] The returns for 2019 and 2016 were not retrieved for this entry. Schedule B, which lists donors, is not part of the public copy of a 501(c)(4) return.
|
||||
|
||||
The Form 990 returns of DonorsTrust list grants for general operations to the same two recipients. For 2020 the return lists 1,980,000 dollars to ACANI Inc. For 2021 it lists 1,950,000 dollars to ACANI Inc and 3,150,000 dollars to The Green Light Project; for 2022, 4,300,000 and 4,650,000 dollars; for 2023, 3,685,000 and 3,680,000 dollars; and for 2024, 2,770,000 and 2,600,000 dollars.[^15][^16][^17][^18][^19] The DonorsTrust returns do not identify the source of any grant. The 7,462,350 dollars that CEPU granted to DonorsTrust in 2023 compares with 7,365,000 dollars that DonorsTrust's return for that year lists for ACANI Inc and The Green Light Project together.[^2][^18]
|
||||
|
||||
The Green Light Project's own revenue, as published by ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer, was 5,490,979 dollars for 2014, 7,513,809 for 2016, 7,807,428 for 2017, 8,573,629 for 2018, 2,374,043 for 2020, 3,668,086 for 2021, 5,436,774 for 2022 and 4,173,499 for 2023. ACANI Inc reported 5,788,478 dollars for 2016 and 3,704,564 for 2023.[^20][^21] [[The Intercept]] reported that the network of organisations brought in "over $101 million between 2009 and 2019", according to its review of tax filings.[^22] CEPU's grants to ACANI Inc and The Green Light Project are of a similar size to the contributions reported by the recipients for the same years: The Green Light Project reported 7,807,428 dollars for 2017, against 7,230,000 dollars granted to it by CEPU.[^8][^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Compensation and Contractors
|
||||
|
||||
CEPU's returns report Wallace's compensation from the organisation at 165,000 dollars for 2017, 355,000 for 2018, 390,000 for 2020 and 2021, 331,500 for 2022 and 356,500 for 2023. The Green Light Project's returns report 455,000 dollars for 2016, 475,000 for 2017, 250,000 for 2020 and 2021 and 212,500 for 2022 and 2023.[^2][^3][^7][^8][^9][^12][^13][^14][^23][^24][^25][^26]
|
||||
|
||||
The independent contractors paid more than 100,000 dollars and listed on CEPU's returns include, for 2017, [[Vulcan Consulting|Vulcan Consulting Ltd]] of [[Dublin]] (supervision of European operations, 170,005 dollars), [[Darlink]] of [[Bnei Brak]], Israel ("strategic consulting/security advisor", 162,500), [[Beacon Global Strategies|Beacon Global Strategies LLC]] of Washington ("strategic political and media services", 130,000), [[DDC Advocacy]] (130,000) and [[John Bolton]] ("advisory board/consulting", 130,000).[^8] For 2018 they include [[Pharos Strategic Consulting|Pharos Strategic Consulting LLC]] (366,000), Vulcan (280,157), Darlink (242,990), Joseph Lieberman ("strategic consulting", 140,005) and Dennis Ross (130,000).[^13] For 2020 they include Jeb Bush and Associates LLC of [[Coral Gables, Florida]] ("strategic consulting", 120,000), and for 2022 and 2023 Jeb Bush and Associates at 120,000 and 109,000 dollars. Lieberman is listed at 140,004 dollars for 2020, 128,337 for 2021 and 2022, and 140,004 for 2023.[^2][^7][^12][^14]
|
||||
|
||||
The Green Light Project's returns list contractors including, for 2016, [[Mercury Public Strategies]] (761,383 dollars), [[FP1 Public Affairs]] (300,000), [[Concord Strategic Solutions]] of [[Tel Aviv]] (299,920) and Beacon Global Strategies (120,000); for 2017, [[Wiley Rein|Wiley Rein LLP]] for legal services (286,834); and for 2020 to 2023 [[Plus Communications]], [[Red Flag Consulting]] of Dublin, [[The Brick Factory]] (website hosting), Frances Fragos Townsend ("strategic consulting", 240,000 dollars for 2020, 200,000 for 2021, 260,000 for 2022 and 170,000 for 2023) and [[Hany Farid]] (160,000 dollars for 2020 and 120,000 for 2022).[^3][^9][^23][^24][^25][^26] ACANI Inc's returns list as a contractor the Miami law firm [[Stack Fernandez Anderson and Harris]] for legal services at 436,002 dollars for 2016 and 197,233 dollars for 2017; Brian Stack is listed as a director of The Green Light Project in its returns for the same years.[^9][^10][^23][^27]
|
||||
|
||||
### Statements on Donors
|
||||
|
||||
On 22 September 2014 Wallace named Thomas Kaplan as the one backer he would identify.[^1] In September 2015 [[Rosie Gray]] reported in [[BuzzFeed News]] that a [[Twitter]] spokesperson had said the company declined to partner with CEP because of "undisclosed funding", and that Wallace called it "irresponsible" for Twitter to push for donor disclosure, saying "We keep our donors confidential for security reasons". Wallace described a "multi-million dollar budget" and "over 35 people".[^28] [[Eli Clifton]] and [[Murtaza Hussain]] wrote in The Intercept in November 2021 that Wallace filed a "truth in testimony" disclosure with the [[House Committee on Foreign Affairs|House Foreign Affairs Committee]] in 2015 stating "We have only received to date individual and private contributions. CEP has received no monies from foreign governments."[^22] The only truth-in-testimony form located for this entry is a House Foreign Affairs Committee form for a hearing on 25 November 2017 that lists the represented organisation as United Against Nuclear Iran.[^29]
|
||||
|
||||
Clifton wrote that UANI donor rolls published in 2015 showed trusts controlled by Kaplan contributing 843,000 dollars to UANI in 2013, about half of that year's revenue, and that Kaplan employs Wallace as a senior adviser at the [[Electrum Group]].[^22] The Intercept also reported that the United States government quashed a 2013 lawsuit against Kaplan and UANI that claimed they were financed by undisclosed foreign interests, intervening as a third party in a civil suit and invoking state secrets.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
### Online Takedown Advocacy and Hany Farid
|
||||
|
||||
Wallace testified on 27 January 2015 before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade on the use of social media by extremist groups, and on 28 October 2015 before the House Oversight Subcommittee on National Security, chaired by [[Ron DeSantis]], in a hearing titled "Radicalization: Social Media and the Rise of Terrorism". In the second statement he said CEP had written three letters to Twitter requesting a meeting, that Twitter had ignored all but one, and that its reply "was indifferent at best".[^4][^6][^30]
|
||||
|
||||
In June 2016 CEP, "working with [[Dartmouth College|Dartmouth University]] computer scientist Hany Farid and funding from Microsoft", announced software to match known extremist images and videos by robust hashing, an approach Farid had invented in 2008 for child sexual abuse imagery with Microsoft.[^31] CEP's website lists Farid as a senior adviser.[^32] The Green Light Project's returns list Farid as a contractor for "strategic and policy analysis" at 160,000 dollars for 2020 and for "strategic consulting" at 120,000 dollars for 2022.[^24][^26]
|
||||
|
||||
CEP and Farid filed a brief as amici curiae in support of the petitioners in [[Gonzalez v. Google LLC]] (No. 21-1333) on 7 December 2022, represented by [[Kimberly Lambert Adams]] of the Pensacola firm [[Levin Papantonio|Levin, Papantonio, Rafferty, Proctor, Buchanan, O'Brien, Barr and Mougey]]. The brief states that no counsel for a party authored it and that no person other than the amici and their counsel made a monetary contribution to fund it. It describes Farid as a [[University of California, Berkeley|Berkeley]] professor who "has testified before Congress five times", advises "many of the largest tech companies on content moderation" and is a member of [[TikTok]]'s Content Advisory Council and [[Snap Inc.|Snap]]'s Safety Advisory Board, and states that CEP "has advocated against broad Section 230 immunity for tech companies that algorithmically amplify terrorist content".[^33]
|
||||
|
||||
CEP states that it reports weekly on the methods extremists and terrorist groups use on the Internet to spread propaganda. Its press release of 21 January 2025 is titled "Extremist Content Online: White Supremacist Telegram Channels Identify Need for Alternative Platform After [[United States Department of State|State Department]]'s Terrorgram Collective Designation", concerning channels on [[Telegram]] and the [[Terrorgram Collective]].[^34]
|
||||
|
||||
### Government Grants
|
||||
|
||||
A report prepared for the [[Department of Homeland Security]] by [[RTI International]] evaluated CEP's fiscal year 2020 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention grant. It records that CEP developed a curriculum called Alternative Pathways with [[Parallel Networks]] and [[John Horgan|Dr John Horgan]], that CEP "was unable to identify a prison or other correctional institution willing to pilot its in-person AP course", and that ten incarcerated people completed a written version.[^35] The Green Light Project's return for 2020 lists a grant of 88,384 dollars to Parallel Networks of Alexandria, Virginia, for "combat extremism in respective communities".[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
### Gulf States and Turkey
|
||||
|
||||
[[LobeLog]] published on 21 July 2017 emails that it attributed to the account of the [[United Arab Emirates]] ambassador to Washington, [[Yousef Al Otaiba]], released by the group GlobalLeaks. Its author, Eli Clifton, wrote that on 3 September 2014 Wallace sent Otaiba cost estimates for a forum and wrote "Believe that this will be self-funding in short order with donors"; that on 8 January 2015 Townsend thanked Otaiba and [[Richard Mintz]] for "ongoing support of the CEP effort"; and that on 8 August 2016 the former senator [[Norm Coleman]] wrote to Otaiba at the suggestion of the [[Saudi Arabia|Saudi]] foreign minister, "The Counter Extremism Project is a 501c4".[^36] Clifton wrote that UANI, CEP, Townsend, the embassy and Coleman did not respond to written requests for comment. The authenticity of the emails was not established in the article.[^37]
|
||||
|
||||
CEP's report "Qatar, Money, and Terror" and its QATAR-HARBORS campaign called on [[Qatar]] to arrest, expel or cut off support to sanction-designated or wanted individuals domiciled there and to halt support to [[Hamas]], the Muslim Brotherhood and other groups.[^38] Fox News Digital reported on 20 January 2024 that a March 2017 document titled "Project ENDGAME", prepared for Qatar by the firm [[Global Risk Advisors]], founded by the former [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] employee [[Kevin Chalker]], also focused on CEP in an effort to "Mitigate Attacks" against Qatar. Wallace told Fox News Digital that after the Qatari operation "hacked accounts that contained email correspondence with members of CEP leadership, they engaged in a PR campaign to destroy us and paid Americans to do their bidding". Chalker's lawyer told Fox News Digital that no indictment was pending against Chalker or the firm and that allegations of wrongdoing were "just false".[^39]
|
||||
|
||||
The Intercept reported in November 2021 that Wallace also headed the [[Turkish Democracy Project]], launched in summer 2021, which had no Turkish members on its leadership board, and that eight of its eleven senior leaders and advisers held positions with UANI, CEP or both. It reported that Kaplan has "extensive business and philanthropic ties to the United Arab Emirates" and, in the [[Responsible Statecraft]] version of the article, that none of the groups had registered under the [[Foreign Agents Registration Act]].[^22][^36]
|
||||
|
||||
### Databases and Reports on Far-Right Groups
|
||||
|
||||
CEP's website lists research databases titled "White Supremacy Groups in the United States", "White Supremacy Groups in Europe" and "Far-Left Extremist Groups in the United States", a program named "ARCHER at House 88", and a German branch, CEP Germany.[^34] The Green Light Project's return for 2023 describes its program as countering support for extremist groups "by pressuring their financial support networks, building a best-in-class clearinghouse and database of extremist groups and their supporters, countering the narrative of extremists and their online recruitment, and advocating for strong laws, policies and regulations".[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Uriel Heilman, "Backers of anti-Iran group create mirror group against violent Islamists", Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 22 September 2014, as published by the AZ Jewish Post. https://azjewishpost.com/2014/backers-of-anti-iran-group-create-mirror-group-against-violent-islamists/
|
||||
[^2]: Form 990 of Counter Extremism Project United Inc (EIN 81-0878718) for the tax year ended 31 December 2023 (IRS e-file object 202433269349301433; Part I, Part VII, Schedule I, Schedule R), IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search bulk XML, 2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip; index at https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810878718
|
||||
[^3]: Form 990 of The Green Light Project Inc (EIN 46-4631639) for the tax year ended 31 December 2023 (IRS e-file object 202413269349301351; Part III program description, Part VII, Part VII Section B, Schedule R), IRS bulk XML, 2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
|
||||
[^4]: Mark D. Wallace, written testimony, House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, hearing of 27 January 2015, docs.house.gov. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA18/20150127/102855/HHRG-114-FA18-Wstate-WallaceM-20150127.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: Counter Extremism Project, home page, Internet Archive capture of 30 September 2014 (menu "The Threat": al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, ISIS, Muslim Brotherhood; joint statement of Wallace, Townsend and Lieberman). https://web.archive.org/web/20140930092602/http://www.counterextremism.com:80/
|
||||
[^6]: Mark D. Wallace, written testimony, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, hearing of 28 October 2015, with biography. https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/10-28-2015-Natl-Security-Subcommittee-Hearing-on-Radicalization-Wallace-CEP-Testimony.pdf
|
||||
[^7]: Form 990 of Counter Extremism Project United Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2021 (IRS e-file object 202233199349331448; Part VII, Part IX, Schedule I, Schedule R), IRS bulk XML, 2022 cycles. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip
|
||||
[^8]: Form 990-O of Counter Extremism Project United Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2017 (IRS e-file object 201823199349316562; Part I, Part VII, Schedule I), IRS bulk XML. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810878718
|
||||
[^9]: Form 990 of The Green Light Project Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2016 (IRS e-file object 201703459349300950), IRS bulk XML. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/464631639
|
||||
[^10]: Form 990 of ACANI Inc, then American Coalition Against a Nuclear Iran Inc (EIN 26-2387657), for the tax year ended 31 December 2016 (IRS e-file object 201713459349300326; Part VII contractors), IRS bulk XML. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/262387657
|
||||
[^11]: Form 990 of ACANI Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2018 (IRS e-file object 201923089349301112; Part III: "To inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime"; "UANI publishes research and daily news summaries"), IRS bulk XML. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/262387657
|
||||
[^12]: Form 990 of Counter Extremism Project United Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2020 (IRS e-file object 202113199349328996; Part VII, Schedule I), IRS bulk XML, 2021 "Redo" cycles. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip
|
||||
[^13]: Form 990 of Counter Extremism Project United Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2018 (IRS e-file object 201933089349301113; Part VII, Schedule I, Schedule R), IRS bulk XML. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/810878718
|
||||
[^14]: Form 990 of Counter Extremism Project United Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2022 (IRS e-file object 202343199349331654; Part I, Part VII, Schedule I), IRS bulk XML, 2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2023/2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
|
||||
[^15]: Form 990 of Donors Trust Inc (EIN 52-2166327) for the tax year ended 31 December 2020 (IRS e-file object 202133199349305758; Schedule I: ACANI Inc 1,980,000 dollars), IRS bulk XML, 2021 cycles. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip
|
||||
[^16]: Form 990 of Donors Trust Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2021 (IRS e-file object 202243199349308799; Schedule I: ACANI Inc 1,950,000 and Green Light Project 3,150,000 dollars), IRS bulk XML, 2022 cycles. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip
|
||||
[^17]: Form 990 of Donors Trust Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2022 (IRS e-file object 202323049349300742; Schedule I: ACANI Inc 4,300,000 and Green Light Project 4,650,000 dollars), IRS bulk XML, 2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2023/2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
|
||||
[^18]: Form 990 of Donors Trust Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2023 (IRS e-file object 202423189349304787; Schedule I: ACANI Inc 3,685,000 and Green Light Project 3,680,000 dollars), IRS bulk XML, 2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
|
||||
[^19]: Form 990 of Donors Trust Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2024 (IRS e-file object 202513179349312256; Schedule I: ACANI Inc 2,770,000 and Green Light Project 2,600,000 dollars), IRS bulk XML, 2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11D.zip
|
||||
[^20]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, API record for The Green Light Project Inc (EIN 46-4631639), filings 2014 to 2023, queried 1 October 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/464631639.json
|
||||
[^21]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, API record for ACANI Inc (EIN 26-2387657), filings 2011 to 2023, queried 1 October 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/262387657.json
|
||||
[^22]: Eli Clifton and Murtaza Hussain, "Dark-Money Group Linked to Anti-Iran, Pro-Israel Network Targets Turkey but Has No Turks", The Intercept, 26 November 2021 (also published by Responsible Statecraft as "Dark money network pushes pro-UAE/Saudi policies from New York"). https://theintercept.com/2021/11/26/turkish-democracy-project-mark-wallace-thomas-kaplan/
|
||||
[^23]: Form 990 of The Green Light Project Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2017 (IRS e-file object 201803199349316560), IRS bulk XML. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/464631639
|
||||
[^24]: Form 990 of The Green Light Project Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2020 (IRS e-file object 202133199349329703; Part VII Section B: Hany Farid 160,000 dollars, Frances Fragos Townsend 240,000; Schedule I: Parallel Networks 88,384 dollars), IRS bulk XML, 2021 cycles. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip
|
||||
[^25]: Form 990 of The Green Light Project Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2021 (IRS e-file object 202233199349331048), IRS bulk XML, 2022 cycles. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip
|
||||
[^26]: Form 990 of The Green Light Project Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2022 (IRS e-file object 202343199349328544; Part VII Section B: Hany Farid 120,000 dollars), IRS bulk XML, 2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2023/2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
|
||||
[^27]: Form 990 of ACANI Inc for the tax year ended 31 December 2017 (IRS e-file object 201813199349315096), IRS bulk XML. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/262387657
|
||||
[^28]: Rosie Gray, "Anti-Extremism Group Gets State Department Support, But Twitter Remains Wary", BuzzFeed News, 27 September 2015. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/rosiegray/anti-extremism-group-gets-state-department-support-but-twitt
|
||||
[^29]: House Committee on Foreign Affairs, "Truth in Testimony" disclosure form of Mark Wallace for a hearing dated 25 November 2017, organisation represented "United Against Nuclear Iran", file HHRG-115-FA13-TTF-WallaceM-20171025, docs.house.gov. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/FA/FA13/20171025/106544/HHRG-115-FA13-TTF-WallaceM-20171025.pdf
|
||||
[^30]: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security, "Radicalization: Social Media and the Rise of Terrorism", hearing of 28 October 2015, official transcript. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-114hhrg97977/html/CHRG-114hhrg97977.htm
|
||||
[^31]: Patrick Tucker, "How to Stop the Next Viral Jihadi Video", Defense One, 17 June 2016. http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/06/how-stop-next-viral-jihadi-video/129210/
|
||||
[^32]: Counter Extremism Project, tag page "eGLYPH" (items describing "CEP Senior Advisor Dr. Hany Farid"), counterextremism.com, accessed 1 October 2026. https://www.counterextremism.com/news-free-tags/eglyph
|
||||
[^33]: Brief of Amici Curiae Counter Extremism Project (CEP) and Hany Farid in Support of Petitioners, Gonzalez v. Google LLC, No. 21-1333 (U.S. Supreme Court), filed 7 December 2022, Interest of Amici Curiae and footnote 1. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/249378/20221207151224344_No.%2021-1333_Brief%20of%20Amici%20Curiae.pdf
|
||||
[^34]: Counter Extremism Project, press release "Extremist Content Online: White Supremacist Telegram Channels Identify Need for Alternative Platform After State Department's Terrorgram Collective Designation", 21 January 2025, with site navigation listing databases and programs. https://www.counterextremism.com/press/extremist-content-online-white-supremacist-telegram-channels-identify-need-alternative
|
||||
[^35]: RTI International for the Department of Homeland Security, "Counter Extremism Project Site Profile: FY2020 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grantee Evaluation", November 2023. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2023-11/23_1108_st_CEP_SiteProfile.pdf
|
||||
[^36]: Eli Clifton and Murtaza Hussain, "Dark money network pushes pro-UAE/Saudi policies from New York", Responsible Statecraft, 26 November 2021 (quotes the 2015 truth-in-testimony statement of Wallace, the August 2016 Coleman email to Otaiba, and the statement that none of the groups had registered under FARA). https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/11/26/dark-money-network-pushes-pro-uae-saudi-policies-from-new-york/
|
||||
[^37]: Eli Clifton, "Hacked Emails Reveal Close Ties Between UAE and Anti-Iran/Qatar Advocacy Groups", LobeLog, 21 July 2017. https://lobelog.com/hacked-emails-reveal-close-ties-between-uae-and-anti-iranqatar-advocacy-groups/
|
||||
[^38]: Counter Extremism Project, "Qatar, Money, and Terror" (key findings; "CEP's QATAR-HARBORS Campaign"), counterextremism.com, accessed 1 October 2026. https://www.counterextremism.com/content/qatar-money-and-terror
|
||||
[^39]: Benjamin Weinthal, "Exclusive: Alleged Qatar spy operation said to have targeted GOP lawmakers opposed to Muslim Brotherhood", Fox News Digital, 20 January 2024. https://www.foxnews.com/world/exclusive-alleged-qatar-spy-operation-said-to-have-targeted-gop-lawmakers-opposed-to-muslim-brotherhood
|
||||
300
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Credit Suisse.md
Normal file
300
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Credit Suisse.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,300 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- CreditSuisse
|
||||
- SwissBanking
|
||||
- NaziEra
|
||||
- TaxEvasion
|
||||
- SuisseSecrets
|
||||
- IranContra
|
||||
- MozambiqueTunaBonds
|
||||
- Archegos
|
||||
- Greensill
|
||||
- UBS
|
||||
- BankSecrecy
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Credit Suisse
|
||||
- Credit Suisse Group
|
||||
- Credit Suisse Group AG
|
||||
- Credit Suisse AG
|
||||
- Credit Suisse (Schweiz) AG
|
||||
- Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC
|
||||
- Schweizerische Kreditanstalt
|
||||
- SKA
|
||||
- Swiss Credit Bank
|
||||
- Crédit Suisse
|
||||
- CSFB
|
||||
summary: "Zurich bank incorporated in 1856 that held Nazi-era and Iran-Contra accounts, pleaded guilty to US tax conspiracy in 2014, settled Mozambique kickback charges in 2021, and was taken over by UBS in 2023."
|
||||
start: 1856-07-05
|
||||
end: 2023-06-12
|
||||
location: "Zurich, Switzerland"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[UBS]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2023-06-12
|
||||
role: "acquirer of Credit Suisse Group AG"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[The Enterprise (Iran-Contra)]]"
|
||||
role: "Geneva bank of the Lake Resources account that received the proceeds of the Iran arms sales"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: prosecuted
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-05-19
|
||||
end: 2014-11-21
|
||||
role: "guilty plea by Credit Suisse AG to conspiracy to assist US customers in filing false tax returns; sentencing on 2014-11-21"
|
||||
fn: 18
|
||||
- type: prosecuted
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2021-10-19
|
||||
role: "three-year deferred prosecution agreement over Mozambique financings"
|
||||
fn: 15
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2014-02-26
|
||||
role: "inquiry into Swiss accounts of US customers; hearing on 2014-02-26"
|
||||
fn: 17
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2021-03
|
||||
end: 2023-07-24
|
||||
role: "enforcement proceedings over Greensill (concluded 2023-02-28) and Archegos (concluded 2023-07-24)"
|
||||
fn: 29
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Senate Budget Committee]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "inquiry into Nazi-linked accounts, subpoena to Neil Barofsky; reports released 2023-04-18 and 2023-08-17"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Neil Barofsky]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2021
|
||||
role: "independent ombudsperson over the bank's inquiry into Nazi-linked accounts; terminated in 2022 and rehired after the UBS takeover"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Ulrich Körner]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-08-01
|
||||
role: "group chief executive officer"
|
||||
fn: 21
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Thomas Gottstein]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020-02
|
||||
role: "group chief executive officer, appointed after Tidjane Thiam stepped down"
|
||||
fn: 27
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Tidjane Thiam]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2020-02
|
||||
role: "group chief executive officer; appointed in 2015 to succeed Brady Dougan"
|
||||
fn: 27
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Brady Dougan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2015-06
|
||||
role: "group chief executive officer for eight years"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Urs Rohner]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chairman of the board of directors in the annual report for 2014"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[The Olayan Group]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2013-02-25
|
||||
role: "6.7 percent shareholder through Crescent Holding GmbH, per notification"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Qatar Investment Authority]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2013-10-23
|
||||
role: "5.2 percent shareholder through Qatar Holding LLC, per notification"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Saudi National Bank]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-12-10
|
||||
role: "9.88 percent shareholder, per notification"
|
||||
fn: 21
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Proindicus]]"
|
||||
start: 2013
|
||||
role: "provided 504 million dollars of a 622 million dollar syndicated loan"
|
||||
fn: 23
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Empresa Moçambicana de Atum]]"
|
||||
start: 2013
|
||||
role: "provided 500 million dollars of financing and underwrote an 850 million dollar loan participation note issue"
|
||||
fn: 23
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Andrew Pearse]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "banker; pleaded guilty in 2019 to accepting improper personal benefits in the Mozambique financings"
|
||||
fn: 25
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Detelina Subeva]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "banker; pleaded guilty in 2019 to accepting improper personal benefits in the Mozambique financings"
|
||||
fn: 25
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Surjan Singh]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "banker; pleaded guilty in 2019 to accepting improper personal benefits in the Mozambique financings"
|
||||
fn: 25
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Podesta Group]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2013
|
||||
end: 2015
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist for Credit Suisse Securities (USA)"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Covington & Burling]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2013
|
||||
end: 2014
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist for Credit Suisse Securities (USA)"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Suisse Secrets]]"
|
||||
start: 2022-02-20
|
||||
role: "leaked records of more than 18,000 accounts published by OCCRP and partners"
|
||||
fn: 28
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Credit Suisse Group AG was the parent of Credit Suisse AG, a bank incorporated on July 5, 1856, with its seat in [[Zurich]]; the group was incorporated on March 3, 1982.[^1] [[UBS]] completed its takeover of the group on June 12, 2023.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Chiasso affair of 1977
|
||||
|
||||
*[[Time]]* reported on July 18, 1977 that [[Ernst Kuhrmeier]], manager of the bank's branch at Chiasso in [[Switzerland]], was in jail awaiting trial on a charge of "disloyal management" for allegedly manipulating more than 800 million dollars. The magazine reported that over the years Kuhrmeier had funneled 868 million dollars of the branch's deposits to [[Texon Finanzanstalt]], a Liechtenstein holding company he had founded in 1961, which bought stakes in more than 150 Italian companies, and that he concealed the dealings from superiors in Zurich. It reported that the newly elected board chairman, [[Oswald Aeppli]], told about 3,000 shareholders that a team of 100 had not yet sorted out the losses, and that other bankers estimated the cost at 400 million dollars.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Accounts of the Nazi period
|
||||
|
||||
The Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland and the Second World War, chaired by [[Jean-François Bergier]], reported in 2002 that during the war the Swiss banks lent to a large variety of German companies, that Credit Suisse (the Schweizerische Kreditanstalt) worked closely with [[Deutsche Bank]], a cooperation that extended to dealings in looted gold, and that from 1943 Credit Suisse provided most of the loans to the [[Bank der Deutschen Luftfahrt]], a bank founded in 1939 to expand the Luftwaffe. It reported that in December 1938 Credit Suisse considered buying the New York bank [[Speyer & Co.]], which a senior manager described as still considered Jewish, with "an odour not easily effaced," and that in 1940 it opened its own New York agency on the basis of assets purchased from Speyer. It reported that there was some indication that documents were destroyed, since the bank had engaged in business transactions with the [[SS]] in 1944 and 1945 arranged by Deutsche Bank's Swiss representative, [[Alfred Kurzmeyer]]. A search of its records against a list of 460 known Nazis and persons tried at Nuremberg found fourteen matches with suspicious accounts at predecessor banks. In the registration of dormant accounts under the decree of 1962, the commission reported, Credit Suisse, [[Volksbank]] and [[Bank Leu]] held that accounts below 100 francs should not be reported; the Swiss banks collectively ordered 14,186 blank forms and submitted 1,184 completed ones, and Credit Suisse disclosed one fifth of the assets originally identified as problematic.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Class actions against Credit Suisse and another Swiss bank were filed in October 1996 in the [[Eastern District of New York]]. A global settlement was agreed in January 1999 and approved on July 26, 2000, under which the Swiss banks committed to pay 1.25 billion dollars. Credit Suisse committed to pay up to one third, and made its final payment into escrow on November 23, 2000.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Nazi-linked accounts, 2020 to 2026
|
||||
|
||||
In March 2020 the [[Simon Wiesenthal Center]] notified Credit Suisse that it had credible information that the bank held Nazi-linked accounts that had not been disclosed in the investigations of the 1990s. The bank retained the forensic firm [[AlixPartners]] and, with the Center's support, retained [[Neil Barofsky]] of [[Jenner & Block]] in June 2021 as Independent Ombudsperson to oversee that review. In February 2023 the ranking member of the [[Senate Budget Committee]], [[Chuck Grassley]], received allegations about the removal of Barofsky in late 2022, and he and the chairman, [[Sheldon Whitehouse]], issued the committee's first subpoena since 1991 to obtain Barofsky's report. On April 18, 2023 the committee released that report and AlixPartners' initial report. It stated that the reports showed nearly 100 previously undisclosed Nazi-linked accounts, some open until as recently as 2020, that the bank had maintained accounts for at least 99 individuals who were senior Nazi officials in Germany or members of Nazi-affiliated groups in Argentina, that seventy Argentine accounts with plausible links to Nazis were opened after 1945 and at least fourteen remained open into the twenty-first century, and that the bank's investigation had been limited by scoping restrictions. The committee stated that, as a result of its inquiry, the bank had committed to investigate further its apparent role in supporting Nazis fleeing justice.[^6] On August 17, 2023 the committee released the unredacted report. It stated that 64,000 sets of potentially relevant records were not part of the bank's investigation and that the bank had blocked Barofsky and a historian from materials.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Barofsky, a former Special Inspector General for the [[Troubled Asset Relief Program]], testified before the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] on February 3, 2026, after UBS had taken over the investigation and rehired him. He stated that the investigation had so far determined that 628 individuals and 262 legal entities within its scope had account relationships with Credit Suisse. The accounts he described included four wartime accounts of the [[German Foreign Office]] held under a pseudonym, an account used by SS officer [[Leo Volk]] on behalf of the SS economic enterprises, an account of the Shanghai office of the arms maker [[Rheinmetall]]-Borsig, and accounts of the [[German Red Cross]]. He stated that the registry card for the Volk account, which showed that as of 1944 it was controlled by Volk and by Kurzmeyer, remained in the bank's files, and that when the Bergier commission asked in 2001 whether the bank had evidence of a business relationship with the SS enterprises the bank answered that there were no such indications; he stated that the bank's own research team had found a document confirming the account in the late 1990s. He stated that the bank executed forced transfers of Jewish clients' assets into accounts of Nazi-affiliated banks. He stated that in 1997 the bank cancelled publication of a history of its predecessor [[Bank Hofmann]] out of concern about "damages claims by former concentration camp prisoners." He stated that the bank provided banking services and acted as landlord for the [[Argentine Immigration Office]] in Bern, which ran an escape route for Nazis to [[Argentina]] supported by at least one million Swiss francs from the government of [[Juan Perón]], and he cited a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] description of the company [[Carlos Fuldner]] founded in 1950 as a group of former Wehrmacht and Nazi technicians. He stated that UBS provided full access to the archives until November 2025, when, shortly after he told UBS that the committee was considering a hearing, it informed him that it would conduct a privilege review and withhold some materials. He also wrote that UBS "deserves credit" for its commitment to supplementing the historical record.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
In his opening statement at that hearing, Grassley stated that UBS had taken legal action in New York against the Simon Wiesenthal Center before Judge [[Edward Korman]], and that its outside counsel, [[Gibson Dunn]], was reviewing and filtering the material available to Barofsky.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Geneva accounts of the Enterprise
|
||||
|
||||
The Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters, by [[Lawrence Walsh]], records that [[Albert Hakim]] was the principal shareholder of Lake Resources, Inc., a Panamanian shell corporation established in May 1985, and that the corporation owned the account at Credit Suisse in Geneva that was the Enterprise account receiving the proceeds of the Iran arms sales. On November 21, 1989, when Hakim pleaded guilty, Lake Resources pleaded guilty to a corporate felony charge of illegally diverting 16.2 million dollars of those proceeds from the [[United States]] government.[^10] A memorandum of July 8, 1985 by the Enterprise's Swiss fiduciary agent, quoted in the report, refers to debit advices "on the Credit Suisse account of Energy" for transfers to a Liberian company, Defex S.A., created to conceal the Enterprise's mark-ups from the contras.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
The report records that [[Elliott Abrams]] gave a Bruneian official an account number for a 10 million dollar contribution to the contras that was meant to be the Lake Resources account at Credit Suisse in Geneva (386.430.22.1) but had two digits transposed (368.430.22.1) in the number that [[Oliver North]] provided to Abrams on a card typed by his secretary; that on August 19, 1986 the Sultan of Brunei ordered the transfer of 10 million dollars to Credit Suisse, Eaux Vives branch, Geneva, account 368430-22-1; and that Swiss authorities said the money was returned to Brunei. It records that in late 1989 the Independent Counsel obtained information that the deposit had passed through an account or accounts controlled by or on behalf of [[Bruce Rappaport]], a Swiss businessman, and that in August 1989 Rappaport's lawyers received a letter from the bank stating: "Credit Suisse knows the identity of the person in whose account the Sultan of Brunei's $10 million was placed. Neither Bruce Rappaport, nor any entity directly or indirectly controlled by Bruce Rappaport was the recipient of the Sultan of Brunei's $10 million." Rappaport told the Independent Counsel in October 1990, under an immunity agreement, that the account was not his and that he did not know whose it was; the Independent Counsel was unable to determine the recipient.[^12] The report also records that [[Michael Ledeen]] said he asked the Israeli arms brokers [[Al Schwimmer]] and [[Yaakov Nimrodi]] in October 1985 to open a bank account to cover Iran arms sales expenses, that an account was opened in Switzerland, and that he later received a letter from Credit Suisse dated April 23, 1987 stating that the account was never used and no money was ever deposited in it.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### PROMIS and the Israel Desk
|
||||
|
||||
[[Ari Ben-Menashe]] wrote in *Profits of War* (1992) that an abridged version of the [[PROMIS]] software with a trap door was sold by [[Degem]] to Credit Suisse in 1985, and that the [[Likud Party]], which controlled Israel's intelligence network, was interested in learning which Israelis had opened accounts there and might approach account holders for a "donation" or threaten exposure. He also wrote of an arrangement in which 450 million dollars was to be transferred from Credit Suisse to the [[Bank of Budapest]] in [[Hungary]], with [[Robert Maxwell]]'s [[Berlitz]] language schools as the conduit. Ben-Menashe is the only source cited here for these accounts.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
The annual reports of Credit Suisse for 2021 and 2022 state that it received governmental and regulatory inquiries concerning cross-border services provided by its Switzerland-based Israel Desk, and that it was conducting a review and cooperating with the authorities.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### United States sanctions, 2009
|
||||
|
||||
In December 2009 the bank announced a settlement with the [[New York County District Attorney's Office]], the [[Department of Justice]], the [[Federal Reserve Board]], the [[Federal Reserve Bank of New York]] and the [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] over United States dollar payments between April 2002 and 2007 involving parties subject to United States economic sanctions. It entered deferred prosecution agreements and an agreement with the Office of Foreign Assets Control and agreed to pay 536 million dollars. It stated that it had terminated business with sanctioned parties by 2007 and closed its representative office in [[Tehran]].[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Cross-border tax evasion and the 2014 plea
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations]] reported on February 26, 2014 that, as of 2006, Credit Suisse had over 22,000 United States customers with Swiss accounts whose assets, at their peak, exceeded 12 billion Swiss francs. It reported that from at least 2001 to 2008 the bank recruited United States clients, that by 2008 over 1,800 bankers were opening and servicing accounts for them, and that the United States had obtained the names of only about 230 clients with hidden accounts at the bank. It described a banker who handed a customer bank statements hidden in a *[[Sports Illustrated]]* magazine at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and recruiting at the annual "Swiss Ball" in New York. The subcommittee collected about 100,000 documents and conducted 23 interviews. It noted that, aside from UBS, the Justice Department had prosecuted only one of the Swiss banks suspected of misconduct. At the hearing the witnesses were the chief executive, [[Brady Dougan]], the general counsel, [[Romeo Cerutti]], and the Swiss private banking co-heads [[Hans-Ulrich Meister]] and [[Robert Shafir]], followed by Deputy Attorney General [[James Cole]] and Assistant Attorney General [[Kathryn Keneally]] of the Tax Division.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
The bank's annual report for 2014 records that it received a grand jury target letter from the Justice Department in July 2011, that on February 21, 2014 it agreed to pay about 196 million dollars to the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]], and that on May 19, 2014 it pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to assist United States customers in presenting false income tax returns. The settlement totaled 2,815 million dollars: 2,000 million dollars for the Justice Department, including 666.5 million dollars in restitution to the [[Internal Revenue Service]] and a fine of 1,333.5 million dollars that included the SEC's 196 million dollars, 715 million dollars for the [[New York State Department of Financial Services]], and 100 million dollars for the Federal Reserve. The sentencing hearing took place on November 21, 2014, and the bank engaged an independent monitor reporting to the Department of Financial Services.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings list outside registrants for Credit Suisse Securities (USA) in 2013 to 2015 including the [[Podesta Group]], [[Covington & Burling]], [[ACG Advocacy]], [[Hogan Lovells]] and Peter Blocklin. The Podesta Group's quarterly filings for 2014 list the issues for the first quarter as "Banking capital requirements. Corporate tax reform.", for the second and third quarters as "Banking capital requirements.", and for the fourth quarter as "Pension policy."[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Officers and shareholders
|
||||
|
||||
The annual report for 2014 shows [[Urs Rohner]] as Chairman of the Board and Brady Dougan as Chief Executive Officer, and records that the board appointed [[Tidjane Thiam]], then Group Chief Executive of [[Prudential plc]], to succeed Dougan, who was to step down at the end of June 2015 after eight years in the post. The same report lists indirect shareholders by disclosure notification: [[The Olayan Group]], through Crescent Holding GmbH, 88.5 million shares or 6.7 percent as of February 25, 2013; the [[Qatar Investment Authority]], through Qatar Holding LLC, 82.0 million shares or 5.2 percent as of October 23, 2013; and Harris Associates L.P., 81.5 million shares or 5.2 percent as of November 4, 2013. The table as of December 31, 2014 also lists purchase rights of 8.0 percent for the Olayan Group, relating to 1.725 billion dollars of 9.5 percent tier 1 capital instruments it held, and of 16.5 percent for the Qatar Investment Authority, relating to 1.72 billion dollars and 2.5 billion Swiss francs of such instruments and to options.[^20] The annual report for 2022 lists the [[Saudi National Bank]] at 395.5 million shares or 9.88 percent in a notification of December 10, 2022, the Qatar Investment Authority at 5.03 percent (November 17, 2021) and the Olayan Group, through Competrol Establishment, at 4.93 percent (December 12, 2018).[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
Employees listing "Credit Suisse" as employer gave 256,403.03 dollars in 485 itemized contributions to [[Obama for America]] in the 2008 cycle, and employees listing "UBS" gave 267,344.97 dollars in 518 contributions, according to the [[Federal Election Commission]]'s employer totals for the committee.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
### Mozambique financings
|
||||
|
||||
The SEC's order of October 19, 2021 found that between 2013 and 2016 three former Credit Suisse bankers, identified only as Banker 1, Banker 2 and Banker 3, took kickbacks of at least 50 million dollars in connection with three transactions: a 622 million dollar syndicated loan in 2013 to [[Proindicus]], a state-owned company of [[Mozambique]], of which the bank provided 504 million dollars; an 850 million dollar issue of loan participation notes for [[Empresa Moçambicana de Atum]] (EMATUM), to which the bank also provided 500 million dollars of financing; and a 2016 exchange offer of those notes for sovereign bonds. It found that the improper payments to the bankers, intermediaries and Mozambican officials totaled at least 200 million dollars, that the bankers hid the scheme and their kickbacks from other members of management, that offering materials falsely stated the proceeds would be used for tuna fishing, and that the bank did not disclose its conflict as a creditor of Proindicus. It stated that Mozambique disclosed the Proindicus and Mozambique Asset Management transactions in April 2016, that the [[International Monetary Fund]] and donors halted support, and that Mozambique defaulted. The order records that Mozambique has disputed the validity of the guarantees.[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
The bank's annual report for 2021 states that the Eastern District of New York unsealed an indictment on January 3, 2019, that three former employees pleaded guilty on May 20, July 19 and September 6, 2019, and that on October 19, 2021 Credit Suisse Group AG entered a three-year deferred prosecution agreement on a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, with a net penalty to the Justice Department of about 175.5 million dollars. Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Limited pleaded guilty to one count of the same conspiracy. The SEC penalty was 65 million dollars with about 34 million dollars of disgorgement and interest, and the [[Financial Conduct Authority]] penalty about 200 million dollars with forgiveness of 200 million dollars of Mozambique's debt. The Swiss regulator [[Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority]] found that the bank violated its duty to file a suspicious activity report.[^15] The regulator's own release stated that the two 2013 loans, guaranteed by the state and together about one billion dollars, made up almost 6 percent of Mozambique's gross domestic product; that before the 2016 conversion of the EMATUM notes the parent company had information indicating that several hundred million dollars may have been misused and approved the restructuring regardless; and that a suspicious payment of about 8 million dollars to an adviser of Mozambique went through the bank, which terminated the relationship and did not file a suspicious activity report until 2019, after the Justice Department had indicted three former employees.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
The three former bankers, [[Andrew Pearse]], [[Detelina Subeva]] and [[Surjan Singh]], testified against [[Jean Boustani]], an employee of the shipbuilder [[Privinvest]], which is controlled by [[Iskandar Safa]]. Katharina Bart reported in *finews.com* on December 2, 2019 that a United States court found Boustani not guilty of three conspiracy charges, and that Pearse told investigators that Privinvest had also funneled money to the son of Mozambique's leader at the time. She reported that Credit Suisse had said that the three disguised their dealings from management.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
### Observation of executives and employees, 2016 to 2019
|
||||
|
||||
The Swiss regulator stated on October 19, 2021 that between 2016 and 2019 Credit Suisse planned seven "observations," most of which were carried out; that in two cases members of the executive board were observed in Switzerland, together with other former employees and third parties abroad; that decisions were taken informally, the bank's security service was significantly involved, text messaging services were used contrary to internal policy, and in one case an invoice was altered to conceal the cost; and that several members of the former executive board were informed in August 2019 of the planned observation of an employee in Asia. It found that statements made by the bank to the public and to the regulator proved partially incomplete or inaccurate, reprimanded two individuals, and opened enforcement proceedings against three others.[^26] The annual report for 2019 records that [[Iqbal Khan]] left the bank in July 2019 as head of International Wealth Management, succeeded by [[Philipp Wehle]]; that [[Pierre-Olivier Bouée]] was succeeded as Chief Operating Officer by [[James B. Walker]] in October 2019; and that the board accepted the resignation of Tidjane Thiam, announced on February 7, 2020 after a discussion with him of the reputational impact of media coverage of the observation incidents of 2019, and appointed [[Thomas Gottstein]] as Group Chief Executive Officer in his place effective February 14, 2020.[^27]
|
||||
|
||||
### Suisse Secrets
|
||||
|
||||
On February 20, 2022 the [[Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project]] and *[[Süddeutsche Zeitung]]* published reports from leaked records of more than 18,000 Credit Suisse accounts, opened from the 1940s until well into the last decade and holding more than 100 billion dollars. The unnamed source of the data said in a statement that Swiss banking secrecy laws are "immoral." The project reported that 15 intelligence figures or their close relatives held accounts, among them [[Sa'ad Khair]], head of Jordan's General Intelligence Directorate from 2000 to 2005, whose account opened in 2003 and reached 28.3 million Swiss francs; the sons of Pakistan's [[Akhtar Abdur Rahman]], head of the [[Inter-Services Intelligence]] during the Afghan war, whose accounts were opened on July 1, 1985 and in January 1986; [[Ghaleb Al-Qamish]], head of Yemen's Political Security Office, whose account opened in 1999 and held almost 5 million Swiss francs by 2006; and the family of Egypt's intelligence chief [[Omar Suleiman]], whose account opened in February 2003 and was worth 63 million Swiss francs by 2007. It reported that the data contained no evidence that the Suleiman account was closed after the fall of [[Hosni Mubarak]]. It reported that at Mubarak's trial a judge cited testimony from Suleiman and other officials that the intelligence agency set up front firms using the tycoon [[Hussein Salem]], and that Salem held accounts at the bank, one worth 105 million Swiss francs by 2003. It quoted a South Asian intelligence source with knowledge of Afghanistan operations, who spoke to it anonymously, as saying of Akhtar: "A lot of money was siphoned off from the Afghan war and into his bank accounts." Ghazi Khan, one of the Pakistani brothers, called the information on the family's accounts "not correct" and said it was "denied." Credit Suisse declined to comment on individual cases and said it operated in compliance with applicable laws and had strengthened its risk management framework.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
At the 2022 annual general meeting the [[Ethos Foundation]] and other shareholders proposed a special audit concerning the supply chain finance funds and Suisse Secrets, and on April 29, 2022 the shareholders rejected the proposal.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### Greensill and Archegos
|
||||
|
||||
On March 1, 2021 the boards of four supply chain finance funds managed by Credit Suisse subsidiaries suspended redemptions, citing valuation uncertainty over assets originated by [[Greensill Capital]], which became insolvent in the [[United Kingdom]] on March 8, 2021. The last net asset value was about 10 billion dollars. The bank stated that expected losses were concentrated in positions with a net asset value of about 2.3 billion dollars relating to the [[GFG Alliance]], [[Katerra]] and Bluestone.[^15] In June 2022 the asset manager reached an agreement with [[Bluestone Resources]] and its shareholders that included recurring payments from Bluestone and from its owners, described in the annual report as the family of Bluestone chief executive [[James C. Justice III]], of up to 320 million dollars to all noteholders.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
The Swiss regulator concluded its Greensill proceedings on February 28, 2023. It found that a Credit Suisse risk manager recommended against a bridging loan to Greensill and that a senior manager overruled him, that the bank used employees responsible for the Greensill relationship to answer critical questions and relied on answers from [[Lex Greensill]] himself, and that the bank made partly false and overly positive statements to the regulator. It opened proceedings against four former managers.[^29]
|
||||
|
||||
The bank's annual report for 2021 records an aggregate loss of 4,798 million Swiss francs from the failure of the hedge fund [[Archegos Capital Management]] and a recovery of compensation awards from certain individuals.[^15] The regulator concluded its Archegos proceedings on July 24, 2023. It found that the bank's position was 24 billion dollars in March 2021, four times that of the next largest hedge fund client and more than half of the group's equity, that the executive board was not informed, that limit overruns were met by raising limits, and that the bank paid out 2.4 billion dollars two weeks before the collapse. The release stated that the United States Federal Reserve fined the bank 268.5 million dollars and the [[Prudential Regulation Authority]] 87 million pounds.[^30]
|
||||
|
||||
### The UBS takeover
|
||||
|
||||
On March 19, 2023 the Swiss regulator approved the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS. It stated that the group faced a crisis of confidence with considerable outflows of client funds, that the extraordinary government support triggered a write-down of the nominal value of all additional tier 1 debt of about 16 billion Swiss francs, and that the [[Swiss National Bank]] would provide liquidity assistance backed by a default guarantee of the Confederation.[^31] The Federal Department of Finance records a federal loss protection guarantee for UBS of 9 billion Swiss francs and a guarantee of 100 billion Swiss francs in favor of the National Bank, completion of the takeover on June 12, 2023, termination of both guarantees by August 11, 2023, and a partial decision of the [[Federal Administrative Court]] of October 1, 2025 revoking the write-down decree.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The regulator's report of December 19, 2023 states that since 2012 it conducted 43 preliminary investigations of the bank, issued nine reprimands, filed sixteen criminal charges, and completed eleven enforcement proceedings against the bank and three against individuals.[^32] The Parliamentary Investigation Committee of the Swiss parliament stated on December 20, 2024 that responsibility for the loss of confidence lay with the bank's board of directors and executive board, who had defied numerous interventions by the regulator, criticized the regulator's relaxation of capital requirements in 2017, and found no causal misconduct by the authorities.[^33]
|
||||
|
||||
### Bulgarian clients
|
||||
|
||||
The bank's annual report for 2021 states that the Swiss Office of the Attorney General charged Credit Suisse AG on December 17, 2020 over its diligence and controls applied to Bulgarian former clients who, the office alleged, laundered funds through its accounts, that the trial took place in the Swiss Federal Criminal Court in the first quarter of 2022, and that the bank believed its diligence and controls complied with applicable legal requirements.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Epstein files
|
||||
|
||||
A single page of a statement in the Justice Department's Epstein library, bearing the Bates number JPM-SDNY-00061899 and the legend "Confidential Treatment Requested by JPMorgan Chase," is headed "CS SEC EUR LTD: F/B/0 FINANCIAL TRUST" and states that it is a Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC statement whose positions are carried by Credit Suisse Securities (Europe) Limited. Its multi-currency portfolio summary shows a cash balance of 89,880 dollars, a short market value of 421,343.97 dollars and a total portfolio value of negative 340,451.64 dollars; the page does not state the statement period.[^34]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Credit Suisse Group AG, Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2013, filed April 3, 2014 ("incorporated on March 3, 1982 and July 5, 1856, respectively"). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159510/000137036814000030/a140403ar20f.htm
|
||||
[^2]: Federal Department of Finance (Switzerland), "UBS takeover of Credit Suisse," published December 20, 2024 (completion of the takeover on June 12, 2023; guarantees; partial decision of October 1, 2025). https://www.efd.admin.ch/en/credit-suisse-en
|
||||
[^3]: "Banking: Less Go-Go in Switzerland," *Time*, July 18, 1977. https://time.com/archive/6848888/banking-less-go-go-in-switzerland/
|
||||
[^4]: Independent Commission of Experts Switzerland, Second World War, *Switzerland, National Socialism and the Second World War: Final Report* (Zurich: Pendo, 2002), pp. 265, 269 to 270, 379 to 380 and 452 to 453. https://www.lootedart.com/web_images/pdf/Bergier%20Final%20Report%20ueke.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: Credit Suisse Group, Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2002, filed March 27, 2003, "World War II settlement," pp. 85 to 86. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159510/000104746903010549/a2104752z20-f.htm
|
||||
[^6]: Senate Committee on the Budget, press release "Credit Suisse Maintained Nazi-Linked Accounts into 21st Century, Subpoenaed Records Show," April 18, 2023. https://www.budget.senate.gov/chairman/newsroom/press/credit-suisse-maintained-nazi-linked-accounts-into-21st-century-subpoenaed-records-show
|
||||
[^7]: Senate Committee on the Budget, press release "Credit Suisse Failed to Fully Investigate Nazi-Linked Accounts, Full Report Confirms," August 17, 2023. https://www.budget.senate.gov/ranking-member/newsroom/press/credit-suisse-failed-to-fully-investigate-nazi-linked-accounts-full-report-confirms
|
||||
[^8]: Testimony of Neil M. Barofsky, Independent Ombudsperson for Credit Suisse AG, before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, "The Truth Revealed: Hidden Facts Regarding Nazis and Swiss Banks," February 3, 2026, pp. 1 to 9, 15 to 16, 26 to 27 and 48 to 50. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/95317009-9c96-3e8f-f63d-04b7f29ef02f/2026-02-03_Testimony_Barofsky.pdf
|
||||
[^9]: Senator Chuck Grassley, opening statement, Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Swiss banks and Nazi ties, February 3, 2026. https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/grassley-opens-judiciary-hearing-on-swiss-banks-hidden-nazi-ties
|
||||
[^10]: Lawrence E. Walsh, *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters* (Washington, D.C., 1993), Chapter 10, "United States v. Albert Hakim," section "The Lake Resources Plea." https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_10.htm
|
||||
[^11]: Walsh, *Final Report*, Chapter 8, "The Enterprise and Its Finances," on the creation of Defex S.A. in July 1985. https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_08.htm
|
||||
[^12]: Walsh, *Final Report*, Chapter 14, "Other Money Matters," section "Third-Country Funding and the Missing Brunei Funds" and notes 38 to 42; Chapter 25, "United States v. Elliott Abrams" (transfer of August 19, 1986). https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_14.htm and https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_25.htm
|
||||
[^13]: Walsh, *Final Report*, Chapter 1, "United States v. Robert C. McFarlane," discussing Michael Ledeen (Ledeen, grand jury testimony, September 18, 1987, pp. 125 to 127, and letter from Credit Suisse to Ledeen, April 23, 1987). https://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/chap_01.htm
|
||||
[^14]: Ari Ben-Menashe, *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network* (1992 edition), pp. 140 and 153 (index entries "Credit Suisse"). https://archive.org/details/profits-of-war-1992-ari-ben-menashe
|
||||
[^15]: Credit Suisse Group AG, Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2021, filed March 10, 2022, Note on litigation ("Israel Desk matters," "Mozambique matter," "Bulgarian former clients matter," "SCFF," "Archegos"), and "Significant events in 2021." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159510/000137036822000019/cs-20211231.htm
|
||||
[^16]: Credit Suisse Group, Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2009, filed March 26, 2010, "US economic sanctions matter." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159510/000137036810000015/a100326ar20f.htm
|
||||
[^17]: *Offshore Tax Evasion: The Effort to Collect Unpaid Taxes on Billions in Hidden Offshore Accounts*, hearing before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, S. Hrg. 113-397, February 26, 2014, vol. 1, witness list and staff report, Executive Summary. https://archive.org/details/gov.gpo.fdsys.CHRG-113shrg88276
|
||||
[^18]: Credit Suisse Group AG, Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2014, filed March 20, 2015, "Tax and securities law matters." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159510/000137036815000028/a140320ar20f.htm
|
||||
[^19]: U.S. Senate lobbying disclosure database, filings for client names beginning "Credit Suisse," filing years 2013 to 2015, including quarterly reports of the Podesta Group for 2014. https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=credit+suisse&filing_year=2014
|
||||
[^20]: Credit Suisse Group AG, Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2014, filed March 20, 2015, executive changes and "Significant shareholders." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159510/000137036815000028/a140320ar20f.htm
|
||||
[^21]: Credit Suisse Group AG, Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2022, filed March 14, 2023, "Significant shareholders" and discussion of the supply chain finance funds and the 2022 annual general meeting. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159510/000137036823000026/cs-20221231.htm
|
||||
[^22]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API, schedule A contributions by employer, committee C00431445 (Obama for America), two-year period 2008; employer names as reported in the filings. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/by_employer/?committee_id=C00431445&cycle=2008
|
||||
[^23]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, *In the Matter of Credit Suisse Group AG*, Securities Act Release No. 11001, October 19, 2021, paragraphs 1 to 7. https://www.sec.gov/files/litigation/admin/2021/33-11001.pdf
|
||||
[^24]: FINMA, "Mozambique loans: FINMA concludes proceedings against Credit Suisse," October 19, 2021. https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2021/10/20211019-mm-cs-mosambik/
|
||||
[^25]: Katharina Bart, "Key Figure in Mozambique Trial Acquitted," finews.com, December 2, 2019. https://www.finews.com/news/english-news/39071-jean-boustani-acquitted-mozambique-andrew-pearse-detelina-subeva-surjan-singh-iskandar-safa
|
||||
[^26]: FINMA, "Credit Suisse observation activities: FINMA identifies serious breaches of supervisory law," October 19, 2021. https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2021/10/20211019---mm---obs/
|
||||
[^27]: Credit Suisse Group AG, Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2019, filed March 30, 2020, executive board changes, Board of Directors activities and interview with the Chairman and the Chief Executive Officer. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1159510/000137036820000045/cs-20191231.htm
|
||||
[^28]: Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, "Suisse Secrets" project page (February 20, 2022) and "Bank of Spies: Credit Suisse Catered to Global Intelligence Figures," February 20, 2022. https://www.occrp.org/en/project/suisse-secrets/bank-of-spies-credit-suisse-catered-to-global-intelligence-figures
|
||||
[^29]: FINMA, "FINMA concludes 'Greensill' proceedings against Credit Suisse," February 28, 2023. https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2023/02/20230228-mm-greensill/
|
||||
[^30]: FINMA, "Archegos: FINMA concludes proceedings against Credit Suisse," July 24, 2023. https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2023/07/20230724-mm-archegos/
|
||||
[^31]: FINMA, "FINMA approves merger of UBS and Credit Suisse," March 19, 2023. https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2023/03/20230319-mm-cs-ubs/
|
||||
[^32]: FINMA, "FINMA publishes report and lessons learned from the Credit Suisse crisis," December 19, 2023. https://www.finma.ch/en/news/2023/12/20231219-mm-cs-bericht/
|
||||
[^33]: Swiss Federal Assembly, Parliamentary Investigation Committee, press release "Lessons from the Credit Suisse crisis: PInC identifies need for action," December 20, 2024. https://www.parlament.ch/press-releases/Pages/mm-puk-2024-20-12.aspx?lang=1033
|
||||
[^34]: Statement page, "CS SEC EUR LTD: F/B/0 FINANCIAL TRUST," Bates JPM-SDNY-00061899, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein library, EFTA01582369 (DataSet 10). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01582369.pdf
|
||||
243
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Discord.md
Normal file
243
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Discord.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,243 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Discord
|
||||
- Platform
|
||||
- ChildSafety
|
||||
- CSAM
|
||||
- SextortionNetworks
|
||||
- UniteTheRight
|
||||
- PentagonLeaks
|
||||
- SenateJudiciary
|
||||
- StateAttorneysGeneral
|
||||
- Lobbying
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Discord
|
||||
- Discord Inc.
|
||||
- Discord Inc
|
||||
- Discord, Inc.
|
||||
summary: "Voice and text chat service launched in 2015 whose servers figure in the Sines v. Kessler subpoena, the Teixeira leak case, the CVLT and 764 prosecutions, a Senate subpoena, and three state suits."
|
||||
start: 2015
|
||||
location: "San Francisco, California"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Jason Citron]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015
|
||||
role: "co-founder"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Stanislav Vishnevskiy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015
|
||||
role: "co-founder; chief technology officer"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jason Citron]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2025-04-28
|
||||
role: "chief executive officer from the company's inception"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Humam Sakhnini]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-04-28
|
||||
role: "chief executive officer"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Mitch Lasky]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director named in Form D filings of 2020-07, 2020-12, 2021-07, 2021-09 and 2023-03"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Josh Elman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director named in Form D filings of 2019-01 and 2020-07"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[David Sze]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director named in Form D filings of 2020-12, 2021-07, 2021-09 and 2023-03"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Danny Rimer]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director named in Form D filings of 2021-07, 2021-09 and 2023-03"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Stephen Gillett]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director named in Form D filings of 2020-07 through 2023-03"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Amrita Ahuja]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director named in the Form D filing of 2023-03"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Leslie Kilgore]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director named in the Form D filing of 2023-03"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Sentropy]]"
|
||||
start: 2021
|
||||
role: "acquirer of the moderation technology company"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Internet Watch Foundation]]"
|
||||
start: 2023-11
|
||||
role: "member in the over 25,000 pound tier"
|
||||
fn: 18
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Tech Coalition]]"
|
||||
start: 2023
|
||||
role: "founding member of the Lantern signal-sharing program"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[National PTA]]"
|
||||
start: 2022
|
||||
role: "sponsor"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Monument Advocacy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-05-01
|
||||
end: 2025-02-28
|
||||
role: "registered lobbying firm"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-04-01
|
||||
role: "registered lobbying firm"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Sines v. Kessler]]"
|
||||
role: "nonparty recipient of a subpoena for Unite the Right records"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[United States v. Teixeira]]"
|
||||
start: 2023-04-12
|
||||
end: 2023-04-12
|
||||
role: "produced subscriber records to the FBI on legal process"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Senate Judiciary Committee]]"
|
||||
start: 2023-11-20
|
||||
end: 2024-01-31
|
||||
role: "subpoena to its chief executive; hearing on January 31, 2024"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[State of New Jersey]]"
|
||||
start: 2025-04-17
|
||||
role: "defendant in a Consumer Fraud Act suit"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[State of Indiana]]"
|
||||
start: 2026-05-06
|
||||
role: "defendant with Roblox in a Deceptive Consumer Sales Act suit"
|
||||
fn: 21
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[State of Texas]]"
|
||||
start: 2026-05-22
|
||||
role: "defendant in a Deceptive Trade Practices Act suit"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Discord Inc. is a [[Delaware]] corporation with its business address in [[San Francisco, California]], and operates a voice, video and text communications service organized into servers, channels and direct messages.[^1] In his Senate testimony of January 31, 2024, [[Jason Citron]] stated that he had co-founded Discord in 2015, that he had previously founded and served as chief executive of [[OpenFeint]], that more than 150 million people used the service each month, more than 75 percent of them outside the [[United States]], and that Discord sold no advertising and charged for subscriptions (Nitro) and Server Boosts.[^2] A company press release of April 23, 2025 stated that Citron had served as chief executive since the company's inception and that [[Stanislav Vishnevskiy]] co-founded it with him; the release named [[Humam Sakhnini]], formerly vice chairman of [[Activision Blizzard]], as chief executive effective April 28, 2025, placed him on the board, kept Citron on the board as Advisor to the CEO, kept Vishnevskiy as chief technology officer, and gave the service more than 200 million monthly active users.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Securities Filings
|
||||
|
||||
Discord has filed six Notices of Exempt Offering of Securities (Form D) with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] under Rule 506(b), between January 2019 and March 2023. None names a purchaser.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The first, filed January 8, 2019, reported a first sale on December 21, 2018, an offering of $150,000,085 with $94,000,000 sold to 11 investors, and named Citron (executive officer and director), [[Josh Elman]] (director), A. Relan (director) and Les Wright (executive officer, who signed the filing). The filing of July 2, 2020 (first sale June 30, 2020; $100,049,866 sold of $101,322,695; 14 investors) named Citron, [[Mitch Lasky]], Elman, Vishnevskiy and [[Stephen Gillett]] as directors and Wright as an executive officer. The filing of December 21, 2020 (first sale December 11, 2020; $100,045,423 sold of $139,999,359; 9 investors) named [[David Sze]] as a director and Clint Smith as an executive officer and signatory, and no longer listed Elman or Wright. The filing of July 13, 2021 (first sale June 28, 2021; $104,078,000 sold of $128,832,976; 71 investors) added [[Danny Rimer]] as a director. The filing of September 17, 2021 (first sale September 9, 2021; $499,999,442 sold, the full offering; 41 investors) added Tomasz Marcinkowski as an executive officer. The filing of March 15, 2023 (first sale January 17, 2023; $15,749,250; 3 investors) added [[Amrita Ahuja]] and [[Leslie Kilgore]] as directors. The amounts reported as sold across the six filings add to $913,921,981.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Unite the Right
|
||||
|
||||
In [[Sines v. Kessler]], filed in the [[Western District of Virginia]], the plaintiffs alleged that the organizers of the [[Unite the Right rally]] held in [[Charlottesville, Virginia]] on August 11 and 12, 2017 had used a Discord server named "Charlottesville 2.0," with at least forty-three channels, to plan and direct illegal acts. The plaintiffs relied on chat logs leaked by [[Unicorn Riot]], which they believed omitted the channel used by the rally's leadership. The [[Northern District of California]] order recites, from a declaration of the plaintiffs' counsel, that Discord shut down the servers connected to Unite the Right on August 14, 2017 and kept backup tapes of them.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The plaintiffs subpoenaed Discord for all documents and communications related to Unite the Right. Document Request 7 named the defendants and more than thirty anonymous nonparties. The holder of the account "kristall.night," represented by [[Marc Randazza]] and [[Alex Shepard]] of [[Randazza Legal Group]], moved to quash in that court; the plaintiffs were represented by [[Boies Schiller Flexner]]. On August 6, 2018, Magistrate Judge [[Joseph C. Spero]] denied the motion for lack of standing as to all information other than the "kristall.night" account, granted it in part by quashing the subpoena to the extent it sought the content of communications without the consent of a party (a limit the plaintiffs acknowledged under the [[Stored Communications Act]]), and denied it as to non-content account information, which the order directed be treated as "highly confidential" under the protective order.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Pentagon Document Leak
|
||||
|
||||
The affidavit that supported the April 14, 2023 criminal complaint against [[Jack Teixeira]] does not name the platform; it calls it "Social Media Platform 1," a messaging service with communities called servers. According to the affidavit by Special Agent [[Patrick M. Lueckenhoff]] of the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]], a user of the platform interviewed on or about April 10, 2023 ("User 1") said that the administrator of a server about geopolitics and wars had begun posting what appeared to be classified information in or about December 2022, first as text and from about January 2023 as photographs of documents. On April 12, 2023 the platform provided the FBI, on legal process, records that included the administrator's subscriber information; the billing name was "Jack Teixeira," with an address in [[North Dighton, Massachusetts]], where the FBI arrested him on April 13, 2023.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The government's sentencing memorandum of October 29, 2024 named Discord and stated that Teixeira began removing classified information from the sensitive compartmented information facility at [[Otis Air National Guard Base]] and posting it on Discord in January 2022, that he disclosed it to "hundreds of individuals on Discord, including foreign nationals," that after the story became public he told associates on Discord to delete evidence, changed his username and deleted the contents of at least one server, and that a friend saw the disclosures circulating on a pro-Russian [[Telegram]] channel.[^6] The defense sentencing memorandum stated that the overwhelming majority of his conduct took place on private servers or in direct messages.[^7] A grand jury indicted Teixeira on six counts under [[18 U.S.C. § 793]] on June 15, 2023; he pleaded guilty on March 4, 2024; and on November 12, 2024 Judge [[Indira Talwani]] sentenced him to 180 months.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Buffalo Shooting
|
||||
|
||||
The [[New York Attorney General]]'s October 18, 2022 investigative report on the role of online platforms in the May 14, 2022 mass shooting in [[Buffalo, New York]] stated that the shooter kept a private Discord server as a diary, an edited transcript of about 700 pages, with access restricted to himself until shortly before the attack, when he invited users and used the server to rebroadcast his [[Twitch]] livestream. The report stated that without other users or moderators there could be no reports to Discord's Trust and Safety team, and that Discord's automatic tools "either did not scan his writing, or else were not calibrated to develop any assessment" of it. It identified a server named Plate Land in which he posted at least 83 messages between August 1, 2020 and January 1, 2021 about protective gear. The Attorney General's office stated that it had not assessed the full extent of his Discord use, in part because the Stored Communications Act may restrict disclosure by providers, and that it took no position on the Act's applicability.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Senate Subpoena and Hearing
|
||||
|
||||
On November 20, 2023, [[Dick Durbin]] and [[Lindsey Graham]], chair and ranking member of the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]], announced subpoenas to the chief executives of Discord (Citron), [[Snap Inc.]] ([[Evan Spiegel]]) and [[X Corp.]] ([[Linda Yaccarino]]) to testify at a December 6 hearing, "after repeated refusals to appear." The announcement stated that Discord and X had also refused to accept service of the subpoenas on behalf of their chief executives, "requiring the Committee to enlist the assistance of the U.S. Marshals Service to personally serve the subpoenas," which it called "a remarkable departure from typical practice."[^10] The hearing, titled "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis," was held on January 31, 2024.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Citron's written testimony stated that Discord had a zero-tolerance policy for content or conduct that endangers or sexualizes children; that it used [[PhotoDNA]] hash matching and internally developed tools; that it scanned more than 47 billion images in 2023; that in the fourth quarter of 2023 it reported 55,955 accounts to the [[National Center for Missing and Exploited Children]] (55,638 for media and 317 for grooming or endangerment), disabled 116,219 accounts and removed 29,128 servers for child safety; and that more than 15 percent of its employees worked on safety. It stated that Discord had open-sourced a visual safety technology in October 2023, built a text-based exploitation detection model with [[Thorn]], was a founding member of the [[Tech Coalition]]'s Lantern program in 2023, and worked with NCMEC, [[INHOPE]], Thorn, the [[Family Online Safety Institute]], the [[Internet Watch Foundation]] and the Tech Coalition. It stated that Discord received 1,326 pieces of legal process from United States authorities in the fourth quarter of 2023, of which 1,073 were valid, and 203 valid emergency disclosure requests, of which it answered 159.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
In answers to questions for the record, Citron stated that Discord was "aligned with the goals" of the [[EARN IT Act]] (S. 1207) but "concerned that the imposition of broad liability could inadvertently result in the over-moderation of content." He stated that Discord had bought [[Sentropy]], a moderation technology company, in 2021; that its payments to an outside content moderation contractor for minor safety and exploitative content work were $0 in 2021, $217,600 in 2022 and $1.4 million in 2023; that it had met with the [[National PTA]] nearly every other week since late 2021 and had sponsored the organization since 2022; and that its reduction in force had left the safety share of employees above 15 percent. In response to a question from Senator [[Chris Coons]] about his testimony that Discord discloses estimates of the total amount of self-harm content and views, he wrote: "I misunderstood the question posed during the hearing and misspoke," and stated that Discord does not track views.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
|
||||
|
||||
NCMEC publishes an annual table of [[CyberTipline]] reports by electronic service provider. The Discord row reads 19,480 reports in 2019 (all providers: 16,836,694), 15,324 in 2020 (21,447,786), 29,606 in 2021 (29,157,083), 169,800 in 2022 (31,802,525), 339,412 in 2023 (35,944,826), 241,354 in 2024 (20,348,306) and 489,782 in 2025.[^12] [[NBC News]] reported in July 2023, citing an analysis of NCMEC reports, that reports of child sexual abuse material on Discord rose 474 percent from 2021 to 2022; it quoted [[John Shehan]], senior vice president of NCMEC, saying "There is a child exploitation issue on the platform. That's undeniable," and reported that NCMEC had rescinded an invitation to Discord to join its CyberTipline Roundtable after the company failed to "identify a senior child safety representative to attend." The article stated that NBC News had identified 35 cases over the previous six years in which adults were prosecuted on charges of kidnapping, grooming or sexual assault that allegedly involved communications on Discord, and quoted Discord's vice president of trust and safety, [[John Redgrave]], whose company Sentropy Discord acquired in 2021.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
In the same answers to questions for the record, Citron stated: "In 2022, Discord submitted 58,179 reports to NCMEC. In 2023, we submitted 165,478 reports to NCMEC," and gave a total of 211,426 for "All CSAM Reported to NCMEC (2021-2023)," of which 1,519 reports from January 2023 were self-generated material.[^11] NCMEC's tables give 29,606, 169,800 and 339,412 for 2021, 2022 and 2023, which add to 538,818.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
NCMEC also publishes the number of takedown notifications it sent to each provider and the average days to respond or remove. For Discord the figures are 68 notifications and 3.21 days in 2021, 1,533 and 4.7 days in 2022, 2,756 and 2.46 days in 2023, and 417 and 1.16 days in 2024.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 29, 2025, Senator [[Marsha Blackburn]] wrote to "Mr. Jason Citron, CEO, Discord," citing the fall from 339,412 reports in 2023 to 241,354 in 2024, a decrease of 28 percent, in the year the [[REPORT Act]] (Public Law 118-59) was enacted. The letter described the drop as "puzzling and deeply troubling," recalled that the Act raised the maximum fine for a first knowing and willful failure to report from $150,000 to as much as $850,000, and asked four questions with a response date of May 6, 2025. Discord's press release had made Sakhnini chief executive effective April 28, 2025.[^3][^15] Federal law sets the $850,000 maximum for a first failure at providers with at least 100,000,000 monthly active users and $600,000 for smaller providers; Citron had testified that more than 150 million people used Discord each month.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 9, 2026, Senator [[Chuck Grassley]], chair of the Judiciary Committee, released data that NCMEC had given his office on March 16, 2026 about eight companies, among them Discord. The release stated that Discord "submitted nearly 490,000 reports involving suspected online child exploitation to NCMEC's CyberTipline in 2025," and listed as its most significant reporting issues "Failures to provide location or account information for individuals involved in reported chat logs, making these reports inactionable" and "Routine reports of adult and graphic gore content unrelated to child sexual exploitation, causing major workflow issues for NCMEC staff."[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
The member list of the Internet Watch Foundation shows Discord as a member since November 1, 2023, in the tier of members contributing over 25,000 pounds; [[Microsoft]] (since 2001), [[Google]] (2004) and [[Meta Platforms|Meta]] (2009) are in the over 90,000 pound tier.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Lobbying
|
||||
|
||||
Under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, [[Monument Advocacy]] registered for Discord with an effective date of May 1, 2022, listing the issues as privacy and content moderation. Its filings report income of $50,000 for each of the second, third and fourth quarters of 2022; $60,000 for each quarter of 2023 and of 2024; and $40,000 for the first quarter of 2025, in a report giving a termination date of February 28, 2025. The issue descriptions in the fourth quarter of 2022 and first quarter of 2023 included anti-swatting; the third and fourth quarters of 2024 listed S. 1409 ([[Kids Online Safety Act]]), S. 1418 and H.R. 7890 ([[Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act]]). The lobbyists named included [[E. Ashley Hoy]] (previously Director of Coalitions in the Senate Republican Conference and in the office of Senator [[Roy Blunt]], as the Minority Whip), [[Jeffrey Gary]] (previously a law clerk to Senator [[Ron Wyden]]), [[Charles Verdery]] (previously Assistant Secretary at the [[Department of Homeland Security]]), [[Troy Stock]] (previously counsel to Representative [[Jason Chaffetz]]) and [[Kathryn Mills]] (previously Assistant Director for Congressional Relations at [[Immigration and Customs Enforcement]]).[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid]] registered for Discord effective April 1, 2025, listing privacy, content modernization, AI and online safety. Its registration names [[MJ Kenny]], whose covered positions are Deputy Floor Director and Floor Assistant in the Office of the Senate Democratic Whip and Legislative Aide and Legislative Correspondent to Senator Durbin; [[David Peluso]], a former chief of staff to Representative [[Cathy McMorris Rodgers]]; [[Adam Hechavarria]], a former legislative director to Senators [[Todd Young]] and [[Kelly Ayotte]]; and [[Lisa Kountoupes]]. The firm reported $100,000 for the second quarter of 2025, amended to $80,000, and $80,000 for each of the third and fourth quarters of 2025 and the first and second quarters of 2026, with issues including H.R. 6265 (Safer GAMING Act) and H.R. 7757 (KIDS Act).[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### State Actions
|
||||
|
||||
On April 17, 2025 the State of [[New Jersey]], through Attorney General [[Matthew Platkin]] and the Division of Consumer Affairs, sued Discord in the Superior Court, Chancery Division, Essex County (ESX-C-000084-25) in a 45-page complaint, partly sealed, with four counts under the Consumer Fraud Act. New Jersey alleged that a "Safe Direct Messaging" setting offered from March 28, 2017 until April 22, 2023 defaulted to the option "My friends are nice," under which messages from friends were not scanned; that age verification relied on a self-reported birth date; that banned users could register again with a new account; and that the service was used by [[764 Network|764]], citing the sentencing of one member to thirty years. It sought an injunction, civil penalties and disgorgement.[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 6, 2026 the State of Indiana, through Attorney General [[Todd Rokita]], sued [[Roblox]] and Discord in Hamilton Superior Court 1 under the Deceptive Consumer Sales Act (29D01-2605-PL-005581). Its complaint alleged that Citron "refused to accept service of a subpoena" from the Senate and appeared only after the [[United States Marshals Service|Marshals Service]] was enlisted, and that NCMEC had rescinded the Roundtable invitation, citing the NBC News report.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 22, 2026 the State of Texas, through Attorney General [[Ken Paxton]], sued Discord in Collin County District Court under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Texas's petition stated that a network called 764 "originated in a Discord community titled '764'," that the Texas Attorney General had opened an investigation of Discord's practices toward minors in December 2024, that the [[Federal Trade Commission]] had issued orders to Discord and eight other companies in 2020, that federal prosecutors in the [[Southern District of New York]] had described Discord in open court in April 2025 as "a hunting ground to find, manipulate and sextort our most vulnerable," and that Discord relied on unpaid volunteer moderators. The petition cited suits by the State of Nevada and the State of Indiana. Texas sought maximum default safety settings for new accounts, age verification under the SCOPE Act, repayment of revenue and civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
### Networks Prosecuted
|
||||
|
||||
The January 17, 2025 indictment in [[United States v. Rane et al. (2-25-cr-00040)|United States v. Rane]] in the [[Central District of California]] charged [[Rohan Rane]], [[Kaleb Merritt]], [[Clint Borge]] and [[Collin Walker]] with engaging in a child exploitation enterprise under 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(g) from at least 2019 through about 2022. It alleges that members of [[CVLT]] worked to entice and coerce children to produce [[Child sexual abuse material|child pornography]] "on servers associated with and run by CVLT on a platform known as 'Platform D' and elsewhere online." The indictment does not name the platform.[^23] [[Marc-André Argentino]] wrote in a January 31, 2025 threat assessment that CVLT emerged as an online group between about 2017 and 2019, "organized primarily on platforms such as Kik Messenger (initially), Instagram, and later Discord and Telegram," and that one administrator turned a Discord server into a "no-rules" hub.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
The FBI's public service announcement of March 6, 2025 warned of a sharp increase in the activity of 764 and other violent online networks that "exist on publicly available online platforms, such as social media sites, gaming platforms, and mobile applications"; it names no platform.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Discord Inc. (CIK 0001763840), SEC Form D filings: accession 0001763840-19-000001 (filed 2019-01-08), 0001567619-20-012853 (2020-07-02), 0001567619-20-021412 (2020-12-21), 0001567619-21-013309 (2021-07-13), 0001567619-21-017292 (2021-09-17), 0001567619-23-005083 (2023-03-15), each at https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1763840/<accession without hyphens>/primary_doc.xml; state of incorporation Delaware, business address San Francisco, exemption item 06b (Rule 506(b)); related persons, amounts and investor counts as listed in each filing.
|
||||
[^2]: Jason Citron, Testimony, "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis," hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, January 31, 2024, pp. 1-9. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/2024-01-31-testimony-citron
|
||||
[^3]: Discord, "Discord Appoints Humam Sakhnini as Chief Executive Officer," press release, San Francisco, April 23, 2025. https://discord.com/press-releases/discord-appoints-new-ceo-humam-sakhnini
|
||||
[^4]: Sines et al. v. Kessler et al., No. 18-mc-80080-JCS (N.D. Cal. Aug. 6, 2018) (Spero, M.J.), Order Regarding Motion to Quash Subpoena (Dkt. 16), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-mc-80080/pdf/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-mc-80080-2.pdf ; Dkt. 7 (May 24, 2018), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-mc-80080/pdf/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-mc-80080-0.pdf ; underlying action Sines v. Kessler, No. 3:17-cv-00072 (W.D. Va.).
|
||||
[^5]: United States v. Teixeira, No. 1:23-cr-10159-IT (D. Mass.), Doc. 3-1, Affidavit of Special Agent Patrick M. Lueckenhoff in Support of an Application for a Criminal Complaint and Arrest Warrant (filed April 14, 2023), paras. 14-22 and n.1. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.258389/gov.uscourts.mad.258389.3.1.pdf
|
||||
[^6]: United States v. Teixeira, No. 1:23-cr-10159-IT (D. Mass.), Doc. 144, Government's Sentencing Memorandum (October 29, 2024), pp. 1-5, 15-16. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.258389/gov.uscourts.mad.258389.144.0.pdf
|
||||
[^7]: United States v. Teixeira, No. 1:23-cr-10159-IT (D. Mass.), Doc. 142, Defendant's [Redacted] Sentencing Memorandum (October 29, 2024), p. 30. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.258389/gov.uscourts.mad.258389.142.0.pdf
|
||||
[^8]: United States v. Teixeira, No. 1:23-cr-10159-IT (D. Mass.), docket entries 48 (indictment, June 15, 2023), 130 and 131 (plea agreement and Rule 11 hearing, March 4, 2024), 152 and 154 (sentencing, November 12, 2024, and judgment, November 18, 2024). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67505240/united-states-v-teixeira/
|
||||
[^9]: Office of the New York State Attorney General, Investigative Report on the role of online platforms in the tragic mass shooting in Buffalo on May 14, 2022, October 18, 2022, pp. 27-29 and nn.83-90. https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/buffaloshooting-onlineplatformsreport.pdf
|
||||
[^10]: Senate Judiciary Committee, "Durbin, Graham Announce Subpoenas to Big Tech CEOs to Testify About Their Failure to Protect Children Online," press release, November 20, 2023. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/releases/durbin-graham-announce-subpoenas-to-big-tech-ceos-to-testify-about-their-failure-to-protect-children-online
|
||||
[^11]: Jason Citron, Responses to Questions for the Record, hearing of January 31, 2024, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary (questions of Senators Durbin, Coons and others; answers on EARN IT Act S. 1207, on NCMEC reports for 2021 to 2023, on vendor costs, on National PTA, on Sentropy and on the reduction in force). https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/download/2024-01-31-qfr-responses-citron
|
||||
[^12]: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "CyberTipline Reports by Electronic Service Providers (ESPs)," annual tables for 2019 to 2025, https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/2019-reports-by-esp.pdf (and the corresponding files for 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025); 2024 table at http://ncmec.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/cybertiplinedata2024/2024-reports-by-esp.pdf. Rows "Discord" (2020, 2021) and "Discord Inc." (2019, 2022 to 2025).
|
||||
[^13]: Ben Goggin, "Child predators are using Discord, a popular app among teens, for sextortion and abductions," NBC News, July 21, 2023. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/discord-child-safety-social-platform-challenges-rcna89769
|
||||
[^14]: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, annual tables of notifications sent to electronic service providers: https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/2021-notifications-by-ncmec-per-esp.pdf ; .../2022-notifications-by-ncmec-per-esp.pdf ; .../2023-notifications-by-ncmec-to-responsive-esp.pdf ; .../2024-notifications-by-ncmec-to-responsive-esp.pdf.
|
||||
[^15]: Marsha Blackburn, letter to Jason Citron, CEO, Discord, April 29, 2025. https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/services/files/2DCCC15A-5004-4640-9F08-B56C98F6D3E6
|
||||
[^16]: 18 U.S.C. § 2258A(e), as amended by Pub. L. 118-59 (May 7, 2024). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A
|
||||
[^17]: Senate Judiciary Committee, "Grassley Releases New and Disturbing Information on Online Child Exploitation, Presses Tech Giants for Answers," press release, April 9, 2026. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/grassley-releases-new-and-disturbing-information-on-online-child-exploitation-presses-tech-giants-for-answers
|
||||
[^18]: Internet Watch Foundation, "Our Members" (Discord, "Member since 01/11/2023," under "Members contributing over £25,000"), accessed October 2026. https://www.iwf.org.uk/membership/our-members/
|
||||
[^19]: Senate Office of Public Records, Lobbying Disclosure Act database, client "Discord": Monument Advocacy registration effective 5/1/2022 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/08e564b6-55cc-46f8-8f64-41074c3b1ec4/print/) and quarterly reports 2022 Q2 to 2025 Q1, including the 2025 Q1 report with termination date 2/28/2025 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/988d20b0-7769-4aeb-b7c7-761c49a8ee2b/print/); Kountoupes Denham Carr & Reid registration effective 4/1/2025 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/0b9f0085-3d56-4769-b7f4-ffcaf08025ed/print/) and reports for 2025 Q2 to 2026 Q2. Listing: https://lda.senate.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=discord
|
||||
[^20]: State of New Jersey v. Discord, Inc., ESX-C-000084-25 (N.J. Super. Ct., Ch. Div., Essex County, filed April 17, 2025), Complaint, paras. 28-93 and Counts I to IV. https://www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases25/2025-0417_Discord_Complaint.pdf ; New Jersey Office of the Attorney General, press release, April 17, 2025, https://www.njoag.gov/ag-platkin-sues-messaging-app-discord-for-unlawful-practices-that-expose-nj-kids-to-child-predators-and-violent-sexual-content/
|
||||
[^21]: State of Indiana v. Roblox Corporation and Discord, Inc., No. 29D01-2605-PL-005581 (Hamilton Super. Ct. 1, filed May 6, 2026), Complaint (public redacted), paras. 233-234. https://image.subscription.in.gov/lib/fe2e11747364047b721071/m/1/9a278bec-f19f-4bac-adcd-eb7847688ff3.pdf
|
||||
[^22]: State of Texas v. Discord, Inc. (Collin County District Court), Texas' Original Verified Petition and Application for Temporary and Permanent Injunctions, paras. 73-92, https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/press/Petition_22.pdf ; Texas Attorney General, "Attorney General Ken Paxton Files Landmark Lawsuit Against Discord for Deceiving Parents and Exposing Texas Children to Predators," May 22, 2026, https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-files-landmark-lawsuit-against-discord-deceiving-parents-and-exposing
|
||||
[^23]: United States v. Rane et al., No. 2:25-cr-00040-HDV (C.D. Cal.), Doc. 1, Indictment (January 17, 2025), paras. 1-3 and Count One. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.954681/gov.uscourts.cacd.954681.1.0.pdf
|
||||
[^24]: Marc-André Argentino, "CVLT Historical Threat Assessment of the Precursor to 764," From The Depths, January 31, 2025, sections 2.1 and 3. https://www.maargentino.com/cvlt-historical-threat-assessment-of-the-precursor-to-764
|
||||
[^25]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Internet Crime Complaint Center, Alert I-030625-PSA, "Violent Online Networks Target Vulnerable and Underage Populations Across the United States and Around the Globe," March 6, 2025. https://www.ic3.gov/PSA/2025/PSA250306
|
||||
140
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Fairness in Media.md
Normal file
140
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Fairness in Media.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,140 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "New Right"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- FairnessInMedia
|
||||
- JesseHelms
|
||||
- ThomasEllis
|
||||
- NationalCongressionalClub
|
||||
- CBS
|
||||
- TedTurner
|
||||
- HostileTakeover
|
||||
- FCC
|
||||
- NewRight
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Fairness in Media
|
||||
- Fairness In Media
|
||||
- Fairness in Media, Inc.
|
||||
- FIM
|
||||
summary: "Raleigh committee of three Jesse Helms associates that mailed nearly a million letters in January 1985 urging conservatives to buy CBS stock, was sued by CBS, and petitioned the FCC over Laurence Tisch to 1988."
|
||||
start: 1984-11-13
|
||||
location: "Raleigh, North Carolina"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Thomas F. Ellis]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director; conceived the campaign"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Carter Wrenn]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director; executive director of the National Congressional Club"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[James Palmer Cain]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director and deposed spokesman"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Jesse Helms]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1984-11
|
||||
role: "agreed the plan with Ellis and Wrenn in November 1984 and signed the mailings; not formally a member"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Claude Allen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "spokesman"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Olwine, Connelly, Chase, O'Donnell & Weyher]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "counsel in CBS Inc. v. Fairness in Media (S.D.N.Y.)"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Bruce Fein]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "counsel of record on the 1988 petition for certiorari"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Fairness in Media (FIM) was a committee based in [[Raleigh, North Carolina]], organized by [[Thomas F. Ellis]], [[Carter Wrenn]] and [[James Palmer Cain]], political associates of Senator [[Jesse Helms]], to urge conservatives to buy stock in [[CBS]]. Its first mailing, signed by Helms, said the committee was "launching a nationwide campaign, very much like a presidential campaign, to end the liberal bias at CBS by urging conservatives to purchase enough CBS stock" and, "if necessary," to control the network.[^1] CBS sued the committee in federal court in New York in February 1985, [[Ted Turner]] filed an exchange offer for CBS in April, and CBS announced in July an offer to repurchase about a fifth of its own shares.[^2] The committee later petitioned the [[Federal Communications Commission]] over [[Laurence Tisch]]'s purchases of CBS stock, and the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] denied its petition for certiorari in October 1988.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Formation and Officers
|
||||
|
||||
On January 10, 1985, FIM filed a document with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] stating its intent, and the Raleigh News and Observer reported the planned mailing that morning. Three political associates of Helms formed the group. Ellis was "president and director of the [[National Congressional Club]]," a political action committee that "has helped finance Helms' campaigns."[^5] The three founding directors were Ellis, Wrenn, who was executive director of the Congressional Club, and Cain, a Raleigh lawyer then twenty-eight years old. The committee was headquartered in the suburban Raleigh office building that housed the Congressional Club and other Helms-related groups.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Ellis said that he, Wrenn and Helms had agreed on the plan a few days after [[Ronald Reagan]]'s reelection and Helms's reelection in November 1984.[^6] Cain said in March 1985 that "it was actually Tom Ellis who came up with the idea of trying to do something about the media," and that Ellis and Wrenn had decided the three major networks were the target. Cain had been senior director of the National Congressional Club in 1980 and 1981.[^7] FIM decided to press its campaign "on or about Nov 13," after the November 15 deadline for submitting shareholder proposals for CBS's spring proxy statement.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
Broadcasting's "Cronies" item of February 11, 1985, said that the impression that FIM was at arm's length from Helms "may be misleading," because Ellis had been a key adviser to Helms's reelection campaign and had been pushed by Helms the previous year for appointment to the [[Board for International Broadcasting]], from which he withdrew his name after opposition from the [[NAACP]] and some senators. The item added that FIM's spokesman, [[Claude Allen]], had been hired as press spokesman for the [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]], on which Helms was the ranking member.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Mailing
|
||||
|
||||
The mailing began on January 21, 1985, to nearly one million people described as conservatives. Broadcasting wrote that the letter was signed by Helms "on what has the look of official Senate stationery." It asked recipients to "switch a portion of your savings or investments into stock in CBS Inc." and gave as reasons a 1983 [[TV Guide]] article finding CBS "the most anti-Reagan network," a 1982 [[Bill Moyers]] documentary, and CBS coverage of the [[Tet Offensive]].[^10] The letter opened: "For years good Americans like you have asked President Reagan and me what can be done to combat the flagrant bias in the liberal news media. At last there's an answer to that question." Recipients were to vote the CBS stock they bought or already owned "to take control of that network . . . to elect a new Board of Directors . . . committed to ending liberal media bias."[^11] Another passage read: "FIM is counting on you to become [[Dan Rather]]'s boss," followed by the request that recipients switch "a portion of your investments to CBS stock."[^1] Helms signed three mass mailings.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
CBS's reply, issued by [[Mary Boies]], vice president for corporate information, read: "CBS News reports the news as accurately and fairly as it can, independent of any political point of view. Its sole purpose is journalism; its goal is total objectivity. To seek control of a corporation for the sole purpose of subjecting its news operations to political influence contradicts the traditions of a free and independent press."[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
A majority of CBS's 29.7 million shares would cost slightly over one billion dollars, by Broadcasting's estimate.[^5] Broadcasting reported that CBS stock closed at 75 on Friday, January 11.[^5] [[Thomas B. Edsall]] and [[David A. Vise]] of the [[Washington Post]] reported that CBS stock closed at 72 on January 10, the day of FIM's first SEC filing, and at 109 3/4 on the Friday before March 31 (the clipping prints the fractions imperfectly; the 1,450 dollar cost and 745 dollar gain it states for twenty shares imply 72 1/2 and 109 3/4), a gain of 745 dollars, or 51 percent, excluding brokerage fees, for an investor who bought the twenty shares the letter recommended on January 10. They attributed part of the rise to speculation after the March 18 announcement that [[American Broadcasting Companies]] had agreed to be acquired by [[Capital Cities Communications]].[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Securities Filings
|
||||
|
||||
The January 10 filing stated that FIM was "not presently soliciting proxies or requesting the withholding of proxies." It listed possible actions that included having FIM's nominees appointed to the board, encouraging a tender offer for CBS stock, selling CBS assets or subsidiaries, and "substantial changes in the company's personnel."[^5] A filing received by the SEC on February 8 stated that CBS chairman [[Thomas Wyman]] had proposed that FIM meet other CBS officers instead of himself, which FIM called "unacceptable." The filing continued: "FIM has concluded that the company does not intend to respond satisfactorily to FIM's concerns. Accordingly, FIM has decided to seek to affect a change in control of the company." It named a possible proxy campaign for "either one or two directors" and stated that FIM was "conducting discussions" with an unidentified "third person" about proxy solicitations and tender offers.[^13] In March, FIM filed a lengthy preliminary proxy statement with the SEC while stating that it was not committed to mailing it.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### CBS Inc. v. Fairness in Media
|
||||
|
||||
CBS filed suit in the [[United States District Court for the Southern District of New York]] on February 14, 1985, and amended the complaint on February 27. The complaint alleged that FIM's SEC filings were false and misleading, did not disclose lawsuits filed against Cain by the [[Federal Election Commission]] and by the Democratic Committee of [[North Carolina]] over allegedly unlawful campaign contributions, and did not disclose that other organizations at FIM's address, including the National Congressional Club and the [[Educational Support Foundation]], had contributed to the campaign. It also alleged that the defendants had not registered as investment advisers and had not told recipients of the January 21 letter that FCC policy prohibits willful distortion of news.[^13][^14] CBS charged in the suit that FIM was "attempting to manipulate the market in CBS stock."[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
Edsall and Vise wrote that the confrontation was "providing a look at some legal liabilities within the conservative political machine now under scrutiny by both government prosecutors and CBS lawyers."[^12] Wrenn called the suit "intimidation."[^13] FIM's counsel was the New York firm of Olwine, Connelly, Chase, O'Donnell & Weyher; [[Jack O'Donnell]], a partner, argued before Judge Conner at pretrial hearings in March. The same firm represented [[Hoover Adams]], a CBS shareholder and FIM supporter who published a newspaper in Dunn, North Carolina, in a motion filed in New York state court on February 22 to compel CBS to give him its list of shareholders. Adams had requested the list on February 8.[^6][^7][^14] The firm's name includes that of [[Harry Weyher]]. CBS was represented by [[Cravath, Swaine & Moore]], through [[Paul M. Dodyk]].[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
CBS's requests for pretrial discovery, which O'Donnell described as covering "89 categories of documents," included FIM's financial statements, communications with the FCC and other agencies, communications with reporters and securities analysts, and "records of any visits by defendants to the Republic of [[South Africa]], or funds received from that government." Broadcasting wrote that the last two requests "seem to point to some business that FIM director Thomas Ellis may have had with the South African government." Judge Conner limited discovery for the time being to depositions of Adams and Ellis on the intended use of the list.[^14] Cain was deposed in New York on March 14.[^7] CBS later extended its requests to the trading records of six brokerage firms for February 28 and March 1, when CBS stock rose four dollars on heavy volume after news of a Turner inquiry at the FCC. CBS reported its direct costs of responding to FIM as 175,000 dollars as of March 11.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Wyman wrote to shareholders that FIM's "campaign is but an attempt to change the content of CBS News reporting to reflect FIM's own partisan views." At a meeting with financial analysts on March 13 he said CBS had "not identified any stock in their [FIM] hands."[^7] In the last week of March CBS gave its shareholder list to FIM after FIM agreed to restrict its use, and FIM said it would not use the list to mail stockholders or begin a proxy fight before the April 17 annual meeting.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Ted Turner
|
||||
|
||||
Turner told Broadcasting in late January 1985: "I have not talked to Jesse Helms about this, have not offered any support, nor have I been asked." On February 28 it became known that [[Charles Ferris]], a former chairman of the FCC and Turner Broadcasting System's communications counsel, had asked the commissioners about the procedural requirements for a hostile bid for a company holding broadcast licenses. A spokesman for FIM declined to confirm or deny that Turner had been talking with the group.[^15] CBS served Turner with a deposition notice in its suit against FIM.[^14] Turner indicated that he met a FIM representative on Friday, March 1, and the Atlanta Journal, quoting his deposition, reported that he told FIM he would consider joining the group, with his support conditioned on an option to run the network and its news operation.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
Turner had given Helms and [[Philip Crane]] two and a half hours of broadcast time on his superstation on August 28, 1982, for a documentary, "KGB: The Lie and the Truth," produced by the [[Coalition for Freedom]].[^12] In June 1984 he was the keynote speaker at a Washington conference, "The Conservative Movement and the Media," sponsored by the National Conservative Foundation, an offshoot of the [[National Conservative Political Action Committee]], where he told the audience that the networks were "the greatest enemies America ever had" and called broadcast executives "guilty of treason."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
Charles Babington of the Raleigh News and Observer wrote in July 1985 that the investor [[Ivan Boesky]] had bought 2.6 million CBS shares since the campaign began and that Helms and Ellis had both met recently with Turner; Ellis, he wrote, had praised Turner for donating prime time on his Atlanta superstation in 1982 for the documentary.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Turner Broadcasting System]] filed a registration statement with the SEC on April 18, 1985, for an exchange offer for all CBS common stock and sued CBS the same day in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Outcome in 1985
|
||||
|
||||
Judge [[Robert L. Vining Jr.]] found that CBS's board had removed, on April 4, 1985, a by-law allowing holders of ten percent of the stock to call a special meeting "in response to an effort by Ivan Boesky, an arbitrager," who had obtained 8.7 percent of the outstanding shares and "had approached CBS about purchasing his shares at a premium." On July 3 CBS announced an offer to repurchase about 21 percent of its stock at 150 dollars a share, 40 dollars in cash and a senior note with a face value of 110 dollars due in 1995. Turner Broadcasting alleged in its second amended complaint that the offer included a private placement of preferred stock with five institutional investors and a right for [[William S. Paley]] to sell part of his shares to CBS for 150 dollars in cash. Vining announced on July 30 that he was denying Turner's motion for a preliminary injunction and filed his opinion on August 16.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
According to CBS, [[Loews Corporation]] bought about 9.9 percent of CBS common stock after the July 3 announcement. The exchange offer was completed on August 1, and Turner withdrew soon afterward. In October Loews's chairman Laurence Tisch told Wyman that Loews intended to buy up to 25 percent of CBS stock, and Tisch was invited to join the CBS board on October 16, 1985.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### The FCC Petitions
|
||||
|
||||
FIM filed several programming complaints against WTVD, the CBS affiliate in Durham, North Carolina, and complained to the FCC about CBS news.[^4] On September 12, 1986, after Loews had bought about 25 percent of CBS stock, FIM asked the FCC to investigate whether Tisch had acquired de facto control of CBS without approval under section 310(d) of the Communications Act. The FCC wrote to CBS on September 17, CBS answered on October 1 with a letter from Paley denying a transfer of control, and the commission ruled on October 20, 1986, that none had occurred.[^4] According to FIM's petition for certiorari, three CBS officers, including [[Newton Minow]], and the former FCC chairman [[Richard E. Wiley]], a CBS lawyer, lobbied the full commission ex parte against an investigation before CBS responded. The petition cites the [[The Wall Street Journal|Wall Street Journal]] of September 25, 1986, and quotes [[Lawrence Secrest]], a CBS lawyer: "it would be astounding if the Commission found anything other than that there was no transfer of control." Tisch became president and chief executive officer of CBS on January 14, 1987.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The commission denied reconsideration in 1987. FIM petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on May 18, 1987 (No. 87-1217), and the court affirmed the commission in an unpublished per curiam opinion on June 8, 1988, assuming without deciding that FIM was positioned to seek review.[^17] The petition for certiorari was filed through [[Bruce Fein]] of Great Falls, Virginia, and described FIM as "supported by 15,000 active contributors who are automatic members."[^4] CBS's opposition, filed on October 3, 1988, by [[George Vradenburg III]], [[Ellen Oran Kaden]] and Wiley of [[Wiley, Rein & Fielding]], described FIM as "a group led by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms."[^17] The Supreme Court denied certiorari on October 11, 1988.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Federal Election Commission Records
|
||||
|
||||
The OpenFEC committee, schedule A and schedule B searches return no record for the name Fairness in Media. The commission lists the National Congressional Club, under its later name National Conservative Club, with Wrenn as treasurer, an address at 8305 Falls of Neuse Road in Raleigh, and the Jesse Helms Legal Defense Fund as an affiliated committee. It records receipts and disbursements, by election cycle, of 7,873,974 and 7,212,754 dollars for 1980, 9,742,494 and 10,404,521 for 1982, 17,473,546 and 16,924,987 for 1984, 16,587,485 and 17,053,138 for 1986, and 4,150,677 and 4,140,237 for 1988. The committee's first filing was dated June 1, 1979, and its last September 29, 2006.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Kemper, Vicki. "Fairness in Media?" *Sojourners,* May 1985, quoting the letter signed by Jesse Helms. https://sojo.net/magazine/may-1985/fairness-media
|
||||
[^2]: *Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. v. CBS, Inc.,* 627 F. Supp. 901 (N.D. Ga. 1985) (No. C85-2617A) (Vining, J.), memorandum opinion of August 16, 1985. https://static.case.law/f-supp/627/cases/0901-01.json
|
||||
[^3]: *Fairness in Media v. Federal Communications Commission,* 488 U.S. 893 (1988) (No. 88-388), certiorari denied October 11, 1988. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/9081419/fairness-in-media-v-federal-communications-commission/
|
||||
[^4]: Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, *Fairness in Media v. Federal Communications Commission,* No. 88-388 (September 1988), pp. 1-9, quoting *Letter to William S. Paley,* 1 F.C.C. Rcd. 1025 (1986), reconsideration denied, 2 F.C.C. Rcd. 2274 (1987). https://archive.org/details/micro_IA40385002_0072
|
||||
[^5]: "Helms leads conservative push for CBS stock," *Broadcasting,* January 14, 1985, p. 65. https://archive.org/details/bc-1985-01-14
|
||||
[^6]: Babington, Charles. "Helms & Co.: Plotting to Unseat Dan Rather," *Columbia Journalism Review,* vol. 24, no. 2, July/August 1985 (Babington was a reporter for the Raleigh *News and Observer*). https://archive.org/details/sim_columbia-journalism-review_july-august-1985_24_2
|
||||
[^7]: "CBS versus FIM: Legal sparring occupies week," and interview "On the media as enemy," *Broadcasting,* March 18, 1985, pp. 31-32. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-BC/Broadcasting-Magazine/BC-1985/BC-1985-03-18.pdf
|
||||
[^8]: "Too late," *Broadcasting,* February 4, 1985, p. 7. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-BC/Broadcasting-Magazine/BC-1985/BC-1985-02-04.pdf
|
||||
[^9]: "Cronies," *Broadcasting,* February 11, 1985, p. 7. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-BC/Broadcasting-Magazine/BC-1985/BC-1985-02-11.pdf
|
||||
[^10]: "Helms moves forward with CBS takeover attempt," *Broadcasting,* January 21, 1985. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-BC/Broadcasting-Magazine/BC-1985/BC-1985-01-21.pdf
|
||||
[^11]: Schneir, Walter, and Miriam Schneir. "The Right's Attack on the Press," *The Nation,* March 30, 1985, as clipped for the Central Intelligence Agency, CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740025-6. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000605740025-6
|
||||
[^12]: Edsall, Thomas B., and David A. Vise. "CBS Fight a Litmus Test for Conservatives," *The Washington Post,* March 31, 1985 (excerpted clippings, CIA-RDP90-00806R000100210008-9 and CIA-RDP90-00965R000201740003-8). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000100210008-9
|
||||
[^13]: "Targeting CBS" and "In Brief" (CBS suit), p. 104, and editorial "Southern discomfort," *Broadcasting,* February 18, 1985. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-BC/Broadcasting-Magazine/BC-1985/BC-1985-02-18.pdf
|
||||
[^14]: "CBS on offensive in takeover challenges," *Broadcasting,* March 11, 1985. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-BC/Broadcasting-Magazine/BC-1985/BC-1985-03-11.pdf
|
||||
[^15]: "CBS gleam in Ted Turner's eye," *Broadcasting,* March 4, 1985. https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-BC/Broadcasting-Magazine/BC-1985/BC-1985-03-04.pdf
|
||||
[^16]: *Broadcasting,* March 25, 1985, "In Brief" item on the Turner deposition, citing the *Atlanta Journal.* https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-BC/Broadcasting-Magazine/BC-1985/BC-1985-03-25.pdf
|
||||
[^17]: Brief of Respondent CBS Inc. in Opposition, *Fairness in Media v. Federal Communications Commission,* No. 88-388 (October 3, 1988), pp. 1-3, 7-8. https://archive.org/details/micro_IA40385002_0072
|
||||
[^18]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API: committee search for "Fairness in Media" (no results); schedule A and schedule B searches for the name (no results); committee C00119370 and its totals by cycle, queried October 1, 2026. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00119370/
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,256 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- FAIR
|
||||
- JohnTanton
|
||||
- PioneerFund
|
||||
- ColcomFoundation
|
||||
- CordeliaScaifeMay
|
||||
- ImmigrationReformLawInstitute
|
||||
- ImmigrationRestriction
|
||||
- Section501c3
|
||||
- LobbyingDisclosure
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Federation for American Immigration Reform
|
||||
- Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)
|
||||
- FAIR
|
||||
summary: "Washington nonprofit founded in 1979 by John Tanton with seed money from Cordelia Scaife May, funded by the Pioneer Fund from 1982 to 1994 and by the Colcom Foundation through 2025."
|
||||
start: 1979-01-02
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[John Tanton]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1979-01-02
|
||||
role: "founder and chairman of the board"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Cordelia Scaife May]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1978
|
||||
role: "seed money of 50,000 dollars, per the New York Times"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Pioneer Fund]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1982
|
||||
end: 1994
|
||||
role: "grants totaling 1,289,000 dollars in the ledger compiled from the fund's returns"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Colcom Foundation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "3,350,000 dollars paid in the year to June 2021 and 1,950,000 dollars in the year to June 2025, with 650,000 dollars approved for later payment"
|
||||
fn: 27
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Roger Conner]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1979
|
||||
end: 1988
|
||||
role: "executive director"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Dan Stein]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1988
|
||||
end: 2025-04
|
||||
role: "executive director from 1988, president from 2003"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Julie Kirchner]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2007
|
||||
end: 2015-08
|
||||
role: "executive director"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Julie Kirchner]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2023-01
|
||||
end: 2025-06
|
||||
role: "executive director"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Dane]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015
|
||||
end: 2022
|
||||
role: "executive director"
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Dale Wilcox]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-07-16
|
||||
role: "executive director and general counsel"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Don Collins Jr.]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chairman in the returns for 2016 through 2025"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Law]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2013
|
||||
end: 2017
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist"
|
||||
fn: 40
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Matthew O'Brien]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016
|
||||
end: 2020
|
||||
role: "director of research"
|
||||
fn: 43
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a [[Washington, D.C.]], nonprofit organization that advocates reductions in legal and illegal immigration. The [[Michigan]] ophthalmologist [[John Tanton]] founded it in 1979. Its legal affiliate is the [[Immigration Reform Law Institute]], and its returns list the [[FAIR Congressional Task Force Inc.]], a 501(c)(4), as a related organization. The [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] has listed it as a hate group since 2007.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Founding and Seed Money
|
||||
|
||||
Tanton founded FAIR on January 2, 1979, in Washington, with the environmental lawyer [[Roger Conner]] as executive director and himself as chairman of the board. Tanton had been national president of [[Zero Population Growth]] from 1975 to 1977.[^2] The [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruling date recorded for the organization is July 1979.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Nicholas Kulish]] and [[Mike McIntire]] of [[The New York Times]], writing from Tanton's papers and internal FAIR documents, reported that Tanton met the Mellon heiress [[Cordelia Scaife May]] in 1978, sent her a nine-page funding proposal that November, and received 50,000 dollars from her to start the group. They quoted a later Tanton memorandum: "Mrs. May has been our single biggest supporter. She just gave us another $400,000. That relationship is pretty well under control." Conner told the reporters: "Without Cordy May, there's no FAIR. There was no money without her."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The same article reported that Mrs. May's adviser [[Gregory Curtis]] urged separating FAIR's research function, which became the [[Center for Immigration Studies]] in 1986, and that Tanton also separated FAIR's litigation arm. [[Charles Kamasaki]] of the [[Migration Policy Institute]] told the reporters that the divisions kept Tanton's groups within the Internal Revenue Service public support test and concealed the source of their money.[^4] Publication 78, the Internal Revenue Service list of organizations eligible to receive deductible gifts, carried FAIR in its editions revised to October 31, 1982 and October 31, 1985. The 1985 edition also lists [[US Inc.]], Petoskey, Michigan, which the Times described as a group once run by Tanton and funded largely with Mrs. May's money.[^4][^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Pioneer Fund Grants
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Pioneer Fund]] made these nominal-dollar payments to FAIR, according to the ledger of its grants that [[Barry Mehler]] compiled from the fund's Internal Revenue Service returns: 60,000 dollars in 1982, 60,000 in 1983, 65,000 in 1984, 105,000 in 1985, 80,000 in 1986, 110,000 in 1987, 150,000 in 1988, 50,000 in 1989, 150,000 in 1990, 100,000 in 1991, 150,000 in 1992, 108,500 in 1993 and 100,500 in 1994, with none in 1995 or 1996. The total is 1,289,000 dollars, 12.1 percent of the 10,670,040.55 dollars the ledger shows the fund paying to all grantees from 1971 to 1996. The ledger shows the [[American Immigration Control Foundation]] receiving 183,000 dollars over the same period and the [[Coalition for Freedom]] 195,000 dollars.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The Southern Poverty Law Center dates the grants from 1985 to 1994 and puts them at about 1.2 million dollars.[^7] The Times wrote that FAIR "had secretly accepted more than $1 million from the Pioneer Fund."[^4] The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that [[Dan Stein]] said in 1993, before the fund's background became public, that his "job [was] to get every dime of Pioneer's money." It also reported that Stein wrote to the fund's president, [[Harry Weyher]], on March 16, 1994, enclosing a draft statement titled "Why the Pioneer Fund Supports the Immigration Reform Movement," written as though by Weyher, one line of which read: "We are pleased and proud that through financial support, we've made FAIR's important work possible." According to the same account, FAIR denied that the money had influenced its programs, and the grants ended in 1994 while FAIR was supporting [[California]]'s [[Proposition 187]].[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The Southern Poverty Law Center further reported that in early 1997 Tanton organized a gathering at the [[New York Racquet and Tennis Club]] at which three members of FAIR's board, [[Henry Buhl]], [[Sharon Barnes]] and [[Alan Weeden]], met Weyher, and that in the late 1990s Tanton vacationed with the Pioneer Fund director [[John Trevor Jr.]], who gave FAIR private financial support.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### The WITAN Memoranda and the 1988 Disclosure
|
||||
|
||||
On October 10, 1986, Tanton sent attendees of a WITAN IV meeting a memorandum of questions on the non-economic consequences of immigration to California. It asked: "Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile?" and "Will Blacks be able to improve (or even maintain) their position in the face of the Latin onslaught?"[^8] The [[Arizona Republic]] published excerpts on October 9, 1988. [[Linda Chavez]], then executive director of [[U.S. English]], resigned, calling the memoranda "repugnant and not excusable"; [[Walter Cronkite]] and [[Arnold Schwarzenegger]] left that organization's board and Tanton resigned its presidency. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that FAIR supported Tanton and formed a committee to prepare his defense.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
In 1988 Dan Stein replaced Conner as executive director. The Southern Poverty Law Center states that Conner became FAIR's president and concentrated on fundraising, while FAIR's own biography of Stein states that the board appointed him its first president in 2003.[^2][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Leadership
|
||||
|
||||
Stein has been part of the organization since 1982, first as press secretary and from 1988 as executive director. Before leading FAIR he was executive director of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, and in 2003 the board appointed him its first president.[^9] FAIR's biography of Stein says he has testified before Congress more than 50 times; the Southern Poverty Law Center quoted him in August 2009 saying that FAIR leaders had testified about 100 times.[^2][^9]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Julie Kirchner]] joined FAIR in 2005 as deputy director of government relations and became executive director in 2007. She left in August 2015 to advise the [[Donald Trump]] presidential campaign.[^10][^11] [[Robert Dane]] served as executive director from 2015 until he retired late in 2022. In January 2023 the board announced Kirchner's return.[^12] In 2023 Stein told the board he planned to step down in early 2025, and the board began a succession plan by hiring Kirchner.[^9] The return for 2025 lists Stein as president until April 2025 and Kirchner as executive director until June 2025.[^13] [[Dale Wilcox]], for 11 years executive director and general counsel of the Immigration Reform Law Institute, became executive director and general counsel of FAIR on July 16, 2025, the fifth person to lead the organization in its 46-year history.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Board and Compensation
|
||||
|
||||
The returns for 2016 through 2025 list [[Don Collins Jr.]] as chairman. The 2016 return lists [[Frank Morris]] as vice chairman, [[Douglas E. Caton]] as treasurer, [[Dale M. Herder]] as secretary, and [[Duane Austin]], Sharon Barnes, [[James Dorcy]], [[Sarah G. Epstein]] and [[S. Blake Swensrud II]] as directors.[^15] By 2025 the board consisted of Collins, Herder as vice chairman, [[Cynthia Matthews]] as secretary, Swensrud as treasurer, Austin and [[Kevin Donaleski]].[^13] The 2017 return describes a Swensrud Endowment Fund and a Swensrud Memorial Internship Fund, the latter established in 1996 in memory of [[Sidney Swensrud]].[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
Stein's reportable compensation was 305,343 dollars plus 66,809 dollars of other compensation in 2016, 452,343 dollars plus 69,339 dollars in 2018, 368,324 dollars plus 79,428 dollars in 2024, and 135,546 dollars plus 25,059 dollars in 2025.[^13][^15][^17][^18] Kirchner's reportable compensation as executive director was 351,164 dollars in 2024.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Finances
|
||||
|
||||
Revenue, expenses and total assets at year end, in dollars, from the returns for each calendar year:
|
||||
|
||||
- 2016: revenue 11,157,713; expenses 11,246,727; assets 14,425,691.
|
||||
- 2017: revenue 27,442,035; expenses 8,575,890; assets 36,100,872.
|
||||
- 2018: revenue 12,125,677; expenses 10,902,278; assets 36,062,018.
|
||||
- 2019: revenue 6,064,444; expenses 10,599,974; assets 34,744,418 (ProPublica's extracted totals).
|
||||
- 2020: revenue 7,316,658; expenses 11,364,268; assets 31,671,070.
|
||||
- 2021: revenue 7,177,636; expenses 9,291,438; assets 30,645,621.
|
||||
- 2022: revenue 8,269,482; expenses 8,114,597; assets 30,055,523.
|
||||
- 2023: revenue 5,201,170; expenses 7,453,094; assets 27,845,838.
|
||||
- 2024: revenue 7,026,289; expenses 7,649,217; assets 27,946,658.
|
||||
- 2025: revenue 8,578,324; expenses 8,195,051; assets 39,388,568.
|
||||
|
||||
ProPublica's extracted totals give revenue of 6,202,879 dollars for 2011 and 8,594,856 dollars for 2015.[^3][^13][^15][^16][^17][^18][^19][^20][^21][^22]
|
||||
|
||||
Contributions and grants were 10,714,758 dollars in 2016 and 26,522,520 dollars in 2017, and the 2017 return's description of government relations work begins: "With the election of President Trump, 2017 presented a unique opportunity to enact many of the immigration reforms FAIR has long fought for."[^16] The public copy of the return lists 26,516,901 dollars as all other contributions and does not itemize donors. In 2016 the largest contractors were [[Davis & Company]] of [[Virginia Beach]], paid 1,848,355 dollars for advertising, and [[Stamp Idea Group LLC]] of [[Montgomery, Alabama]], paid 1,446,530 dollars for advertising.[^15] [[Google]] was paid 1,713,143 dollars for advertising in 2021 and 1,105,067 dollars in 2022.[^20][^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### Colcom Foundation
|
||||
|
||||
Mrs. May died in 2005. The Times reported that in 2005 the [[Colcom Foundation]], which she created in 1996, received 215 million dollars from her family trust and 30 million dollars from her personal estate, and another 176 million dollars from the estate in 2006. Using Colcom's tax filings for fiscal years 2005 to 2017, the Times counted 179.9 million dollars in grants to immigration and population-control groups, of which 56.7 million went to FAIR and 17.6 million to the Center for Immigration Studies.[^4] John Rohe, the foundation's vice president for philanthropy, who previously worked with Tanton, told the Times: "We should have a pro-immigrant, nonracial immigration policy. It should not be based on race. It's only based on the numbers."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Colcom's returns for the fiscal years ended June 2021 through June 2025 list these grants in dollars, paid during each year in that order:
|
||||
|
||||
- FAIR: 3,350,000 in FY2021; 2,600,000 in FY2022, FY2023 and FY2024; 1,950,000 in FY2025.
|
||||
- Immigration Reform Law Institute: 2,500,000; 2,125,000; 2,300,000; 2,300,000; 3,725,000.
|
||||
- [[NumbersUSA]] Education & Research Foundation: 2,894,485; 2,620,000; 2,730,000; 2,870,000; 2,210,000.
|
||||
- Center for Immigration Studies: 1,992,800; 1,940,000; 2,100,000; 1,975,000; 1,200,000.
|
||||
- [[Immigration Research Fund]]: 577,800; 500,000; 1,070,000; 1,070,000; 825,000.
|
||||
|
||||
The grants are drawn from the five returns.[^23][^24][^25][^26][^27] In the year to June 2025 the return also shows 650,000 dollars approved for later payment to FAIR and 575,000 dollars to the Immigration Reform Law Institute, and 850,000 dollars paid to the [[Immigration Accountability Project]] and 105,000 dollars to [[ProEnglish]].[^27] In the year to June 2021 it lists 810,000 dollars to US Inc., 454,300 dollars to [[Progressives for Immigration Reform]], 330,000 dollars to [[Californians for Population Stabilization]] and 400,000 dollars to [[Keeping Identities Safe]].[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
Colcom's total grants paid were 24,583,765 dollars in the year to June 2021, 21,209,788 in 2022, 23,101,275 in 2023, 22,125,313 in 2024 and 21,037,846 in 2025; its assets at fair market value were 578,878,320 dollars in 2021, 467,132,459 in 2022, 487,808,412 in 2023, 523,265,697 in 2024 and 538,384,400 in 2025.[^23][^24][^25][^26][^27] ProPublica's extracted figures show grants paid of 20,733,376 dollars in the year to June 2011, 25,028,319 in 2015, 32,219,776 in 2019 and 39,673,258 in 2020.[^28] The 2024 return lists [[J. S. Barsotti]] as director, president and chief investment officer at 441,000 dollars in compensation.[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
### Immigration Reform Law Institute
|
||||
|
||||
The Southern Poverty Law Center states that the institute was incorporated under FAIR's tax exemption and serves as FAIR's legal arm.[^2] FAIR's returns list the institute as a related 501(c)(3) organization, EIN 52-1469956, with the stated purpose "support FAIR's legal program," and list FAIR Congressional Task Force Inc., EIN 52-1258403, a 501(c)(4), as a related organization "developing immigration policies."[^22] The institute's returns list Stein as chairman, [[Jeffrey R. Parkin]] as secretary, Dale Wilcox as executive director and [[Michael Hethmon]] as senior counsel; Wilcox was paid 175,950 dollars in 2016 and 272,416 dollars in 2024.[^29][^30] Kirchner became a director of the institute on January 1, 2023.[^31]
|
||||
|
||||
The institute paid [[The Bopp Law Firm PC]] of [[Terre Haute]], Indiana, 214,387 dollars for legal services in 2017 and 476,168 dollars in 2018.[^32][^33] Its returns list FAIR itself as a contractor paid for management services, 116,301 dollars in 2022 and 167,556 dollars in 2024.[^30][^34] Its revenue was 1,485,311 dollars in 2016 and 6,328,648 dollars in 2017, and 1,449,287 dollars in 2018.[^29][^32][^33]
|
||||
|
||||
The institute's return for 2025 reports a "transfer of litigation program to FAIR including assets and liabilities" of 9,730,386 dollars, and FAIR's return for the same year reports the matching "transfer of litigation program from IRLI including assets and liabilities" of 9,730,386 dollars. The institute's total assets fell from 6,891,450 dollars at the end of 2024 to 574,316 dollars at the end of 2025, and FAIR's rose from 27,946,658 dollars to 39,388,568 dollars.[^13][^18][^30][^35] The institute's 2025 return lists Wilcox as executive director and general counsel until July 2025 and then as chairman; Stein as chairman until July 2025; Parkin, [[John Rooney]] and Kirchner as officers or directors until July 2025; and [[Brian Lonergan]] as director of communications until July 2025 and then secretary, with [[Shari Rendall]] as a director from July 2025.[^35]
|
||||
|
||||
### Kris Kobach
|
||||
|
||||
[[Kris Kobach]] joined the Immigration Reform Law Institute in 2004 as senior counsel and was by 2011 listed as of counsel.[^1][^36] The [[Associated Press]] called him in 2010 "the architect behind many of the nation's most controversial immigration laws," and quoted the institute's director, Michael Hethmon, on his role in drafting laws and training officers.[^37]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Federal Election Commission]] records show that Kobach's 2004 campaign for [[Kansas]]'s third congressional district, [[Kobach for Congress]], reported receipts from [[U.S. Immigration Reform PAC]] of 1,500 dollars on August 25, 2003, 1,000 dollars on October 11, 2003, 1,000 dollars on December 20, 2003, 1,000 dollars twice on February 14, 2004, 2,500 dollars on September 13, 2004, and 2,500 dollars on October 25, 2004, a total of 10,500 dollars. The PAC's own disbursement records list seven payments to the campaign totaling 10,000 dollars, including 500 dollars on November 7, 2003. Cordelia Scaife May, listed as retired and of [[Pittsburgh]], gave the campaign 2,000 dollars on August 3, 2004, and 2,000 dollars on October 28, 2004. She gave the PAC itself 10,000 dollars in the 2002 cycle and 10,000 dollars in the 2004 cycle, and "Tanton, John Dr. & Mrs." appear among its donors with 4,000 dollars in the 2004 cycle. The committee's filings name William W. Chip as treasurer from 2002 to 2012. The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that a "U.S. Immigration PAC," which it described as operated by Tanton's wife, gave Kobach 10,000 dollars in campaign contributions for his 2004 race, without giving a committee number. A second committee, [[United States]] Immigration Political Action Committee (formerly Michigan Immigration PAC) of Shelby Township, Michigan, with William D. Shull as treasurer and filings from 1999 to 2003, made no payment to Kobach for Congress in the records searched.[^1][^38]
|
||||
|
||||
The institute's returns for 2016 through 2025 do not list Kobach among officers, key employees, the highest-compensated employees, or independent contractors paid more than 100,000 dollars.[^29][^30][^31][^32][^33][^35][^39]
|
||||
|
||||
### Lobbying Disclosure
|
||||
|
||||
FAIR has filed [[Lobbying Disclosure Act]] reports since 1999. Reported lobbying expenses were 80,000 dollars in 2011, 278,073 in 2017, 227,778 in 2018, 306,477 in 2019, 288,544 in 2020, 283,571 in 2021, 254,982 in 2022, 228,005 in 2023 and 145,746 in 2024.[^40] Registered lobbyists include Stein from 1999 to 2023 and Kirchner from 2005 to 2025, whose reports list as covered positions senior advisor at [[Customs and Border Protection]], [[U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services|USCIS]] ombudsman, and senior advisor at the [[Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman]]. [[Robert Law]] appears as a lobbyist from 2013 to 2017. Other reports list former congressional staff: [[Carl Little]], chief of staff to Representative [[John Hostettler]] until January 2007; [[RJ Hauman]], aide to Representative [[Elton Gallegly]]; [[Heather Ham-Warren]], legislative director to Representative [[Matt Gaetz]]; [[Joe Chatham]], chief counsel to Representative [[Ken Buck]]; and [[William Riley]], legislative correspondent to Representative [[Marjorie Taylor Greene]].[^40]
|
||||
|
||||
### Staff in the Trump Administration
|
||||
|
||||
The Times reported in 2019 that Attorney General [[Jeff Sessions]] and the [[White House]] adviser [[Stephen Miller]] were longtime FAIR allies, and that Kirchner had become USCIS ombudsman.[^4] Kirchner spent four years at the [[Department of Homeland Security]]: senior advisor to the Customs and Border Protection commissioner, USCIS ombudsman from 2017 to 2019, and from January 2020 senior advisor at the Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman.[^41] She resigned the ombudsman post in October 2019; the Southern Poverty Law Center reported that a source told CNN she was moving away from Washington and that Politico quoted a senior Homeland Security official saying she was leaving "voluntarily for family reasons."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
Robert Law was FAIR's director of government relations, then chief of the USCIS Office of Policy and Strategy, then director of the Center for Homeland Security and Immigration at the [[America First Policy Institute]], then senior counselor to Homeland Security Secretary [[Kristi Noem]]. The [[Senate]] confirmed him as Under Secretary for Strategy, Policy, and Plans by a vote of 49 to 46.[^42]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Matthew O'Brien]] was FAIR's director of research from 2016 to 2020, an immigration judge in Arlington, Virginia, and then the institute's director of investigations.[^43] His most recent judicial post was assistant chief immigration judge at Annandale, Virginia, and he is FAIR's deputy executive director.[^44] The returns for 2025 list O'Brien as deputy executive director as of July 2025 and [[Christopher Hajec]] of the institute as deputy general counsel as of August 2025.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
The Times reported that groups Mrs. May funded "sent key staff members to join" the Trump administration, and that the main restrictionist groups she funded reject any contention that prejudice or xenophobia motivates them.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "Kris Kobach: Lawyer for America's Nativist Movement," SPLC Report, on Kobach joining the Immigration Reform Law Institute in 2004, his 2004 congressional campaign, and the SPLC listing of FAIR as a hate group since 2007. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/kris-kobach-lawyer-americas-nativist-movement/
|
||||
[^2]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "Federation for American Immigration Reform," Extremist Files (sections "Background," "FAIR and the Pioneer Fund," and "In Their Own Words"), read October 1, 2026. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/federation-american-immigration-reform/
|
||||
[^3]: ProPublica, Nonprofit Explorer, API record for Federation For American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126 (ruling date July 1979; revenue, expense and asset totals for tax years 2011 to 2023). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521136126 and https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/521136126.json
|
||||
[^4]: Kulish, Nicholas, and Mike McIntire. "Why an Heiress Spent Her Fortune Trying to Keep Immigrants Out," *The New York Times,* August 14, 2019 (article text and the accompanying "The Daily" transcript). https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html (read through the capture at https://web.archive.org/web/20260127154925id_/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/anti-immigration-cordelia-scaife-may.html)
|
||||
[^5]: Internal Revenue Service, *Cumulative List of Organizations Described in Section 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954* (Publication 78), revised to October 31, 1982 (https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152660_0032) and revised to October 31, 1985 (https://archive.org/details/micro_IA41152806_0979), entries for Federation for American Immigration Reform, Washington, D.C., and US Inc., Petoskey, Mi.
|
||||
[^6]: Mehler, Barry, comp. "Pioneer Fund Grants, 1971-1996," Institute for the Study of Academic Racism, compiled from the fund's Internal Revenue Service returns; nominal-dollar tables in Part III (1981-1985, http://www.ferris.edu/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfspread/pfp3.htm, capture of February 2, 2002), Part IV (1986-1990, pfp4.htm, capture of January 29, 2002), Part V (1991-1996, pfp5.htm, capture of January 29, 2002) and Part VI (totals, pfp6.htm, capture of March 9, 2002), read at https://web.archive.org/web/20020202045118id_/http://www.ferris.edu:80/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfspread/pfp3.htm, https://web.archive.org/web/20020129112308id_/http://www.ferris.edu:80/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfspread/pfp4.htm, https://web.archive.org/web/20020129113141id_/http://www.ferris.edu:80/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfspread/pfp5.htm and https://web.archive.org/web/20020309164506id_/http://www.ferris.edu:80/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfspread/pfp6.htm
|
||||
[^7]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "Federation for American Immigration Reform's Hate Filled Track Record," SPLC Report (section "The Eugenics Connection"). https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/federation-american-immigration-reforms-hate-filled-track-record/
|
||||
[^8]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "'WITAN Memo' III," January 29, 2010, reproducing John Tanton to WITAN IV attendees, October 10, 1986. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/witan-memo-iii/
|
||||
[^9]: Federation for American Immigration Reform, "Dan Stein," staff biography, with the letter of FAIR's Board of Directors on his retirement. https://www.fairus.org/danstein
|
||||
[^10]: Piggott, Stephen. "Julie Kirchner, Former FAIR ED Named New Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman," Southern Poverty Law Center, Hatewatch, May 1, 2017. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/05/01/julie-kirchner-former-fair-ed-named-new-citizenship-and-immigration-services-ombudsman
|
||||
[^11]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "Trump Official Who Once Led Hate Group Resigns Ombudsman Role," Hatewatch, October 31, 2019. https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/10/31/trump-official-who-once-led-hate-group-resigns-ombudsman-role
|
||||
[^12]: Federation for American Immigration Reform, "FAIR Announces Julie Kirchner as the New Executive Director," FAIR Newsletter, February 2023. https://www.fairus.org/fair-announces-julie-kirchner-new-executive-director
|
||||
[^13]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2025, object ID 202621839349300527 (filed 2026); Parts I, VII and Schedule O (transfer of litigation program). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521136126
|
||||
[^14]: Mehlman, Ira. "Meet FAIR's New Executive Director and General Counsel: Dale Wilcox," FAIR Newsletter, July 2025. https://www.fairus.org/meet-fairs-new-executive-director-and-general-counsel-dale-wilcox
|
||||
[^15]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2016, object ID 201721819349300442 (filed 2017); Parts VII, VIII, IX and Schedule R. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521136126
|
||||
[^16]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2017, object ID 201801669349301105 (filed 2018); Parts I, III, VII, VIII and Schedule O. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521136126
|
||||
[^17]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2018, object ID 201921589349300347 (filed 2019); Part VII. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521136126
|
||||
[^18]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2024, object ID 202521959349301457 (filed 2025); Parts I, VII and Schedule R. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521136126
|
||||
[^19]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2020, object ID 202111749349300546 (filed 2021); Parts I and VII. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521136126
|
||||
[^20]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2021, object ID 202221729349300737 (filed 2022); Part VII independent contractors. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521136126
|
||||
[^21]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2022, object ID 202301799349301560 (filed 2023; a second return for the same period carries object ID 202322589349301102). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521136126
|
||||
[^22]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Federation for American Immigration Reform, EIN 52-1136126, tax period December 2023, object ID 202441659349301024 (filed 2024); Parts VII and Schedule R. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521136126
|
||||
[^23]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-PF, Colcom Foundation, EIN 31-1479839, tax year July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021, object ID 202241329349103649 (filed 2022); Part XV grants paid. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/311479839
|
||||
[^24]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-PF, Colcom Foundation, EIN 31-1479839, tax year July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022, object ID 202341189349100634 (filed 2023); Part XV grants paid. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/311479839
|
||||
[^25]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-PF, Colcom Foundation, EIN 31-1479839, tax year July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2023, object ID 202401239349101030 (filed 2024); Part XV grants paid. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/311479839
|
||||
[^26]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-PF, Colcom Foundation, EIN 31-1479839, tax year July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024, object ID 202521299349102272 (filed 2025); Part VII officers and Part XV grants. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/311479839
|
||||
[^27]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-PF, Colcom Foundation, EIN 31-1479839, tax year July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025, object ID 202601279349100640 (filed 2026); Part XV grants paid and approved for future payment. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/311479839
|
||||
[^28]: ProPublica, Nonprofit Explorer, API record for Colcom Foundation, EIN 31-1479839 (ruling date February 1997; extracted grants-paid and fair-market-value figures for fiscal years ended June 2011 through 2015 and 2019 through 2023). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/311479839.json
|
||||
[^29]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Immigration Reform Law Institute Inc., EIN 52-1469956, tax period December 2016, object ID 201721819349300742; Parts I and VII. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521469956
|
||||
[^30]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Immigration Reform Law Institute Inc., EIN 52-1469956, tax period December 2024, object ID 202511969349302106; Parts I and VII. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521469956
|
||||
[^31]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Immigration Reform Law Institute Inc., EIN 52-1469956, tax period December 2023, object ID 202431669349300123; Part VII (Julie Kirchner as director from January 1, 2023). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521469956
|
||||
[^32]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Immigration Reform Law Institute Inc., EIN 52-1469956, tax period December 2017, object ID 201821669349300532; Parts I, VII and independent contractors. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521469956
|
||||
[^33]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Immigration Reform Law Institute Inc., EIN 52-1469956, tax period December 2018, object ID 201911589349300851; Part VII and independent contractors. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521469956
|
||||
[^34]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Immigration Reform Law Institute Inc., EIN 52-1469956, tax period December 2022, object ID 202341799349301474; independent contractors. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521469956
|
||||
[^35]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Immigration Reform Law Institute Inc., EIN 52-1469956, tax period December 2025, object ID 202601839349300630; Part I, Part VII and Schedule O (transfer of litigation program to FAIR, 9,730,386 dollars). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521469956
|
||||
[^36]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "When Mr. Kobach Comes to Town: Nativist Laws and the Communities They Damage," SPLC Report, 2011. https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/when-mr-kobach-comes-town-nativist-laws-and-communities-they-damage/
|
||||
[^37]: Hanna, John. "Kan. lawyer is architect of many immigration laws," Associated Press, May 10, 2010, via NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/wbna37070355
|
||||
[^38]: Federal Election Commission, openFEC API: Kobach for Congress (committee C00389346; candidate H4KS03105), Schedule A receipts, 2003-2004; U.S. Immigration Reform PAC (committee C00253906; treasurer William W. Chip, 2002 to 2012 filings), Schedule A receipts and Schedule B disbursements, 2002-2004 and 2014-2019. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?committee_id=C00389346 and https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_b/?committee_id=C00253906
|
||||
[^39]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990, Immigration Reform Law Institute Inc., EIN 52-1469956, tax period December 2021, object ID 202221729349300122; independent contractors. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/521469956
|
||||
[^40]: U.S. Senate Office of Public Records, Lobbying Disclosure Act database (lda.gov), registrant Federation for American Immigration Reform (registrant ID 14256; House registrant ID 30053), 102 filings from 1999 to 2026, reports LD-1 and LD-2 (expenses, lobbyists, covered positions). https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?registrant_id=14256
|
||||
[^41]: Federation for American Immigration Reform, "Julie Kirchner," staff biography. https://www.fairus.org/staff/julie-kirchner
|
||||
[^42]: Canaan, Gabriel. "Senate Confirms Former FAIR Staffer Rob Law to Key DHS Position," FAIR Take, September 16, 2025. https://www.fairus.org/news/executive/senate-confirms-former-fair-staffer-rob-law-key-dhs-position
|
||||
[^43]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Accountability, hearing of February 15, 2024, witness biography, "Matt O'Brien, IRLI Director of Investigations." https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO06/20240215/116859/HHRG-118-GO06-Bio-OBrienM-20240215.pdf
|
||||
[^44]: Federation for American Immigration Reform, "Matt O'Brien," staff biography. https://www.fairus.org/staff/matt-obrien
|
||||
122
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/GWU Program on Extremism.md
Normal file
122
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/GWU Program on Extremism.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,122 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- GWUProgramOnExtremism
|
||||
- GeorgeWashingtonUniversity
|
||||
- LorenzoVidino
|
||||
- SeamusHughes
|
||||
- CounterTerrorism
|
||||
- MuslimBrotherhood
|
||||
- AlpServices
|
||||
- CourtRecords
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- GWU Program on Extremism
|
||||
- Program on Extremism
|
||||
- George Washington University Program on Extremism
|
||||
- GW Program on Extremism
|
||||
- PoE
|
||||
- Program for Extremism at The George Washington University
|
||||
summary: "George Washington University research program founded in June 2015 inside a homeland security center with a board of former officials, led by Lorenzo Vidino, who consulted for the Swiss firm Alp Services in 2018."
|
||||
start: 2015-06
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Center for Cyber and Homeland Security]]"
|
||||
start: 2015-06
|
||||
role: "program within the George Washington University center"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Lorenzo Vidino]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015-06
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Seamus Hughes]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015-06
|
||||
role: "deputy director"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Hafez v. Vidino (1-24-cv-00873)]]"
|
||||
start: 2024-03-27
|
||||
end: 2025-09-30
|
||||
role: "named defendant with Vidino and the university; amended complaint dismissed without prejudice"
|
||||
fn: 18
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Program on Extremism is a research unit of [[George Washington University]] in [[Washington, D.C.]], established in June 2015 and led since then by [[Lorenzo Vidino]]. It publishes reports and databases drawn from court records, conducts training for law enforcement, and runs an antisemitism research initiative. Its director has acknowledged consulting in 2018 for the Swiss private intelligence firm [[Alp Services]], and the Program was a named defendant in a [[Hafez v. Vidino (1-24-cv-00873)|2024 racketeering suit]] arising from the firm's work.
|
||||
|
||||
### Establishment inside the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security
|
||||
|
||||
GW Today reported on June 22, 2015 that the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security had announced that it would establish the Program on Extremism as an initiative on violent and non-violent extremism. [[Frank Cilluffo]], the center's director, was quoted, and Vidino and [[Seamus Hughes]] were named director and deputy director. Vidino was described as an expert on terrorist networks in the West and author of "The New Muslim Brotherhood in the West" (2010), and Hughes as a former staff member of the [[National Counterterrorism Center]] and the [[Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee]]. The center had been formed from the Homeland Security Policy Institute and the GW Cybersecurity Initiative, and GW Today stated that it was governed by a board of directors and a policy and research advisory committee.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Records of the [[Department of Homeland Security]]'s National Protection and Programs Directorate, released and hosted by the American Civil Liberties Union, contain the center's e-mail announcement of June 24, 2015 of its new board of directors, chaired by [[J. Richard Knop]], founder and co-manager of [[FedCap Partners]] and a member of the university's board of trustees. The announcement listed the following members with the affiliations printed in it: [[Richard V. Allen]], former national security adviser; [[Michael Balboni]] of [[RedLand Strategies]]; Ambassador [[Cofer Black]], former coordinator for counter-terrorism at the [[State Department]] and former director of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]'s Counterterrorism Center; [[Lieutenant General]] [[Ronald L. Burgess Jr.]], former director of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]]; [[Michael Chertoff]] of [[The Chertoff Group]]; [[Michael Downing]] of the [[Los Angeles Police Department]]; [[Amr Elsawy]], chief executive of [[Noblis]]; [[Martin Faga]], former chief executive of [[MITRE]] and former director of the [[National Reconnaissance Office]]; [[Alberto Fernandez]], vice president of [[MEMRI]]; [[Leon Fuerth]]; [[Tom Korologos]] of [[DLA Piper]]; [[John Lainhart]] of [[IBM Global Business Services]]; [[Cathy Lanier]], chief of the [[Metropolitan Police Department]]; [[Jane Holl Lute]] of the [[Center for Internet Security]]; [[Ronald Marks]] of [[Intelligence Enterprises]], formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency; [[Cheri McGuire]] of [[Symantec]]; [[Paul McHale]]; [[Edwin Meese]] of the [[Heritage Foundation]]; [[Robert Nichols]] of [[Covington and Burling]]; [[Michael Papay]] of [[Northrop Grumman]]; [[R. David Paulison]]; [[Tom Ridge]] of [[Ridge Global]]; [[Andrew Robinson]] of [[ICF International]]; [[Howard Schmidt]] of [[Ridge-Schmidt Cyber]]; [[William Sessions]] of [[Holland and Knight]]; [[Paul Stockton]] of [[Sonecon]]; [[Douglas Stone]] of [[STAC Solutions]]; [[Frances Townsend]] of [[MacAndrews and Forbes]]; [[Jim Turner]] of [[Arnold and Porter]]; [[Kenneth Wainstein]] of [[Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft]]; and [[William Webster]], former [[Director of Central Intelligence]]. The announcement named the board as the body that would "help to sustain and grow" the center's policy and research activities.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Early programs, 2015 and 2016
|
||||
|
||||
The Program's newsletter of December 17, 2015, in the same release, reported its first report, "Countering Violent Extremism in America" (June 2015), and "ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa" by Vidino and Hughes (December 1, 2015). It reported events with the [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] on October 14, 2015, at which Assistant Attorney General [[John Carlin]] announced the creation of a Domestic Terrorism Counsel at the [[Department of Justice]], and with the [[Brookings Institution]] and the [[Institute for Strategic Dialogue]] on November 9, 2015. It stated that Hughes had testified before the [[House Committee on Homeland Security]] on July 15, 2015 and had been named to the [[Homeland Security Advisory Council]] of the DHS Secretary, and that Vidino had given lectures and briefings to the [[Canadian Senate]], the [[Swiss Federal Police]], British government entities, the "United Arab Emirates National Defense College," and academic institutions in the [[United Kingdom]], Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and [[Austria]]. It also stated that the Program had launched "one of the largest online libraries of U.S. ISIS-related legal documents."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The acknowledgments of "ISIS in America" name the Program's research associates and research assistants and do not name a funder.[^3] In August 2016 Vidino told GW Today that the Program had added [[Jesse Morton]] as a fellow, describing him as "a reformed, former extremist who subsequently actively assisted the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Court-record research
|
||||
|
||||
The Program's report of March 2021 on the [[January 6, 2021 Capitol breach|January 6 attack]], "This is Our House!", was written by Vidino, Hughes, [[Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens]], [[Devorah Margolin]], [[Bennett Clifford]], [[Jon Lewis]], [[Andrew Mines]] and [[Haroro Ingram]]. It counted 257 individuals charged in federal court as of February 25, 2021, identified 33 with military backgrounds, and stated that its data came from hundreds of court documents, Department of Justice press releases, [[Freedom of Information Act]] requests, interviews with [[U.S. government]] officials and news articles. The report stated that the Program had hosted an annual talk by the Domestic Terrorism Counsel since 2015.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
On December 18, 2025 the Program held an online panel, "Holding 764 Accountable," moderated by its senior research fellow [[Barry Jonas]], with [[Justin Sher]] of the [[Counterterrorism Section]] and [[Steve Grocki]], chief of the [[Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section]], both of the Department of Justice, [[Kavitha Babu]] of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois, and [[James Kitchen]] of [[Jones Day]].[^6] Earlier that month [[Luke Baumgartner]] and Barry Jonas wrote in [[Just Security]] that by charging a member of [[764 Network]] under [[18 U.S.C. § 2339A]], the Department of Justice "has signaled that NVE networks like 764 are terrorist enterprises."[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Training and staff
|
||||
|
||||
The Program's training page states that it offers modules for law enforcement, community organizations and university leaders on domestic violent extremism, homegrown jihadism, and "Campus Extremism and [[Hamas]] in the US," the last using "internal Hamas documents and evidence used in a federal prosecution." It lists [[Lara Burns]], a retired FBI special agent who, according to the page, led the Justice Department's terrorism financing investigation and prosecution in [[United States v. Holy Land Foundation]]; [[Jeff Parsons]] and [[David Collins]], also retired FBI special agents; and the historian [[Omar Mohammed]].[^8] The team page lists non-resident fellows including [[Hazel Blears]], [[Rukmini Callimachi]], [[Aimen Dean]], [[Mary McCord]], [[Graeme Wood]] and Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens.[^9] The Program's Antisemitism Research Initiative lists among its projects a Mosul Jewish heritage initiative, 2021 to 2022, that "received funding from the [[International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas]] (ALIPH)."[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
Hughes later became a senior research faculty member at [[NCITE]], the Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska Omaha, and was principal investigator of its December 2025 report on prosecutions of 764.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Muslim Brotherhood in Austria and Operation Luxor
|
||||
|
||||
In 2017 Vidino published "The Muslim Brotherhood in Austria." The Austrian weekly [[profil]] reported on April 2, 2023 that the study was commissioned by the [[Integration Fund]], which belonged to the Foreign Ministry then headed by [[Sebastian Kurz]], and by the [[Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism]], for a "high five-figure" fee, and that it was presented in September 2017, shortly before the national election. profil also reported that Vidino sat on the scientific advisory board of the [[Documentation Center for Political Islam]], and that his name appeared in the team of the [[Abu Dhabi]] think tank [[Hedayah]].[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
Austrian police carried out [[Operation Luxor]] on November 9, 2020.[^12] The court's opinion in Hafez's suit states that the operation "targeted the homes of 70 Austrian Muslims." In his amended complaint, [[Farid Hafez]] alleged that Vidino's 2017 report was "mentioned 14 times in the search warrant" and that Vidino testified to Austrian intelligence services in January 2020, March 2022 and December 2022; the court summarized these allegations in its opinion.[^13] [[David D. Kirkpatrick]] wrote in [[The New Yorker]] that no one targeted in the raids had been arrested, much less convicted, and that an Austrian appellate court ruled the raids unlawful.[^14] profil reported that the prosecutor in Graz had named two experts, [[Heiko Heinisch]] and [[Nina Scholz]], in April 2020, that the investigation rested on Vidino's study and two reports of the domestic intelligence service, and that the Higher Regional Court in Graz later dismissed the two experts for apparent bias.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Consulting for Alp Services
|
||||
|
||||
Kirkpatrick reported that [[Mario Brero]], founder of the Swiss private intelligence firm Alp Services, sought out Vidino early after signing the [[United Arab Emirates]] as a client, and that Brero treated him to a dinner of about 1,000 dollars at the [[Beau Rivage]] hotel in [[Geneva]] on January 12, 2018. Kirkpatrick wrote that Brero's prepared talking points indicated that he planned to lie about working for the U.A.E. and to tell Vidino instead that a "London-based law firm" had hired Alp. Two weeks later Vidino signed a contract paying 3,000 euros for "interesting leads/rumours" about the [[Muslim Brotherhood]] and a "list of alleged members of the first tier organisations in European countries." Kirkpatrick reported that, according to partial records in the hacked files, Brero had paid Vidino more than 13,000 euros by April 2020, and that an internal Alp accounting showed the UAE paying Brero at least 5.7 million euros between August 21, 2017 and June 30, 2020.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
Vidino told Kirkpatrick that he had worked for Alp, that "It's the same research I do no matter what, so it does not really matter who the final client is," and that "I am a one-trick pony. I have been researching the Muslim Brotherhood in Europe for almost twenty-five years." Asked whether he must have realized that only the UAE had the means and the motive to pay for such work, he answered, "They were the most realistic client," and added that "it wasn't clear cut whether it was the Emiratis, the Saudis, the Israelis, or some private entity in the States." Kirkpatrick quoted Vidino writing to an Alp operative in February 2020 that German authorities had invited him to Berlin and that his memo would be "juicier" after the visit, and in March 2020 that "many of the names on the list come indeed straight from various meetings with German intel"; Vidino told Kirkpatrick that he did not remember meeting the Germans around that time but considered such official interactions "field work."[^14] Vidino told profil that he had received about 3,000 euros, and told the French outlet [[Mediapart]], as quoted by profil, that he often advises law firms, consultancies and PR firms and that he did not know the identity of Alp's clients.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
Kirkpatrick reported that Brero pitched a campaign against [[Islamic Relief Worldwide]] to the Emiratis in 2019 and wrote to the Emiratis that Alp had "channeled our findings to the academic expert Lorenzo Vidino and to the Times to be sure to remain completely confidential"; the reporter at [[The Times]] told Kirkpatrick that Vidino had not disclosed that he had received the information from Alp. Kirkpatrick also reported that the [[Georgetown University Bridge Initiative]] has described Vidino as someone who "promotes conspiracy theories about the Muslim Brotherhood," and that Farid Hafez said Vidino "is like a fox."[^14] [[The Intercept]] reported in April 2024 that Vidino maintained public connections with Hedayah and had earlier been a senior analyst at the [[Investigative Project on Terrorism]].[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Nada v. United Arab Emirates
|
||||
|
||||
In January 2024 [[Hazim Nada]] and his company [[Lord Energy SA]] sued the UAE, Alp and its principals, a Swiss journalist and Vidino in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ([[Nada v. United Arab Emirates (1-24-cv-00206)|Nada v. United Arab Emirates]], 1:24-cv-00206), seeking more than a billion dollars. [[The GW Hatchet]] reported that the 87-page complaint, filed through the firm [[Clare Locke]], sought more than 2.8 billion dollars in treble damages, and that a university spokesperson did not return a request for comment.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
In a memorandum opinion of September 15, 2026, Judge [[Amy Berman Jackson]] granted the UAE's motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the [[Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act]], granted the Alp defendants' and the journalist's motions for lack of personal jurisdiction, and granted Vidino's motion on the ground that "the complaint does not include facts to give rise to a plausible inference that Vidino was a member of whatever alleged conspiracy there may have been." The opinion described the complaint's allegations that Alp hired Vidino to provide leads, paid him 2,000 to 4,000 dollars per assignment and relied on his academic credentials, and stated that they "may say something about Alp's state of mind, but they do not reveal anything about Vidino's." It treated as an allegation that Alp told the UAE it had channeled its findings to Vidino, who shared them with a journalist at The Times. The court did not reach Vidino's First Amendment argument. The opinion stated: "Nothing in this opinion is meant to suggest, though, that the knowing dissemination of false accusations of connections to the Muslim Brotherhood or other terrorist organizations could not cause real harm or that would be an appropriate tactic."[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### Hafez v. Vidino
|
||||
|
||||
On March 27, 2024 Hafez, formerly a senior researcher at the [[University of Salzburg]] and then a visiting scholar at [[Williams College]], sued Vidino, George Washington University, the "Program for Extremism at the George Washington University," Alp Services, [[Diligence SARL]], Brero, [[Muriel Cavin]], [[Lionel Badal]] and [[Ariaf Studies and Research LLC]] in the same court (Hafez v. Vidino, 1:24-cv-00873), demanding 10 million dollars under the [[Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act]] and District of Columbia law. The Intercept reported that Vidino and the university had not responded to requests for comment.[^15][^18]
|
||||
|
||||
On September 30, 2025 Judge [[Amir H. Ali]] granted the motions to dismiss. He held that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over the Swiss, Italian and Luxembourg defendants, that the amended complaint did not plead a domestic injury to business or property as RICO requires, because the injuries described arose from events in Austria, and that the District of Columbia consumer protection and prima facie tort claims failed. The amended complaint was dismissed without prejudice. The opinion stated that the court accepted the complaint's allegations as true for purposes of the motion.[^13] Hafez filed a notice of appeal on October 29, 2025 (D.C. Circuit No. 25-7172); the court of appeals issued its mandate on June 10, 2026, referring to an order of May 11, 2026 whose text is not reproduced in the district docket entry.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Program on Extremism Launches at GW," GW Today, June 22, 2015. https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/program-extremism-launches-gw
|
||||
[^2]: Program on Extremism Newsletter, December 17, 2015, and "CCHS Announces New Board of Directors," e-mail of June 24, 2015, in a DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate records release (NPPD 001896 to 001939). https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/Emails-re-GWU-Program-on-Extremism-1896-1939.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: Lorenzo Vidino and Seamus Hughes, "ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa," Program on Extremism, December 2015, acknowledgments. https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/downloads/ISIS%20in%20America%20-%20Full%20Report.pdf
|
||||
[^4]: "Program on Extremism Expands Research, Expertise," GW Today, August 29, 2016. https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/program-extremism-expands-research-expertise
|
||||
[^5]: Program on Extremism, "'This is Our House!': A Preliminary Assessment of the Capitol Hill Siege Participants," March 2021, introduction and findings. https://extremism.gwu.edu/sites/g/files/zaxdzs5746/files/This-Is-Our-House.pdf
|
||||
[^6]: Program on Extremism, "Holding 764 Accountable," event page, December 18, 2025. https://extremism.gwu.edu/holding-764-accountable
|
||||
[^7]: Luke Baumgartner and Barry Jonas, "How the DOJ is Prosecuting Nihilistic Violent Extremism as Domestic Terrorism," Just Security, December 9, 2025. https://www.justsecurity.org/126226/prosecuting-nihilistic-violent-extremism-domestic-terrorism/
|
||||
[^8]: Program on Extremism, "Trainings." https://extremism.gwu.edu/trainings
|
||||
[^9]: Program on Extremism, "Our Team." https://extremism.gwu.edu/our-team
|
||||
[^10]: Program on Extremism, "Antisemitism Research Initiative." https://extremism.gwu.edu/antisemitism-research-initiative
|
||||
[^11]: NCITE, "Seamus Hughes," staff biography, University of Nebraska Omaha, https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/about-ncite/staff-directory/seamus-hughes.php ; NCITE, "Prosecuting Nihilistic Violent Extremism," December 20, 2025, https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/news/2025/12/img/prosecuting-nve-report.pdf
|
||||
[^12]: Anna Thalhammer, "Operation Luxor: Nehammers Debakel," profil, April 2, 2023 (publication metadata of the page). https://www.profil.at/oesterreich/operation-luxor-nehammers-debakel/402385727
|
||||
[^13]: Hafez v. Vidino, No. 1:24-cv-00873-AHA (D.D.C.), Memorandum Opinion, Doc. 55, September 30, 2025 (Ali, J.), and Order, Doc. 56. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.266644/gov.uscourts.dcd.266644.55.0.pdf
|
||||
[^14]: David D. Kirkpatrick, "The Dirty Secrets of a Smear Campaign," The New Yorker, published online March 27, 2023 (April 3, 2023 issue). https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/04/03/the-dirty-secrets-of-a-smear-campaign
|
||||
[^15]: "Lawsuit Links Wild UAE-Financed Smear Campaign to George Washington University," The Intercept, April 20, 2024. https://theintercept.com/2024/04/20/farid-hafez-muslim-lorenzo-vidino-gwu-uae/
|
||||
[^16]: Rachel Moon and Fiona Riley, "Program on Extremism director named in lawsuit for alleged involvement in smear campaign," The GW Hatchet, February 1, 2024. https://gwhatchet.com/2024/02/01/program-on-extremism-director-named-in-lawsuit-for-alleged-involvement-in-smear-campaign/
|
||||
[^17]: Nada v. United Arab Emirates, No. 1:24-cv-00206-ABJ (D.D.C.), Memorandum Opinion, Doc. 108, September 15, 2026 (Jackson, J.). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.264225/gov.uscourts.dcd.264225.108.0.pdf
|
||||
[^18]: Hafez v. Vidino, No. 1:24-cv-00873-AHA (D.D.C.), Notice of Appeal, Doc. 57 (October 29, 2025); civil docket, Doc. 58; USCA Mandate in No. 25-7172, Doc. 59 (June 10, 2026). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.266644/gov.uscourts.dcd.266644.59.0.pdf
|
||||
167
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Gawker Media.md
Normal file
167
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Gawker Media.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,167 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- GawkerMedia
|
||||
- NickDenton
|
||||
- PeterThiel
|
||||
- BolleaVGawker
|
||||
- Valleywag
|
||||
- Kinja
|
||||
- Chapter11
|
||||
- LitigationFinance
|
||||
- Univision
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Gawker Media
|
||||
- Gawker Media LLC
|
||||
- Gawker Media Group
|
||||
- Gawker Media Group, Inc.
|
||||
- Gawker (website)
|
||||
- Gawker.com
|
||||
- Gawker
|
||||
- Valleywag
|
||||
- Kinja
|
||||
- Gawker Hungary
|
||||
summary: "New York online publisher of Gawker, Gizmodo and five other sites that filed Chapter 11 in June 2016 after a $140.1 million verdict in Bollea v. Gawker, a suit funded by Peter Thiel."
|
||||
location: "114 Fifth Avenue, New York City"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Nick Denton]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "founder and largest shareholder at the June 2016 petition date"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Silicon Valley Bank]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2012-09-24
|
||||
role: "first lien lender"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[US VC Partners]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016-01-21
|
||||
role: "second lien lender, $15,000,000 term loan"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[Bollea v. Gawker]]"
|
||||
role: "defendant"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Peter Thiel]]"
|
||||
start: 2016-10-11
|
||||
end: 2018-05-17
|
||||
role: "Plan Administrator Rule 2004 investigation of the financing of litigation against the company"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Gizmodo Media Group]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016-09-09
|
||||
role: "purchaser of the operating assets excluding gawker.com, $135,000,000 in cash plus non-cash consideration"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Bustle Digital Group]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "purchaser of the gawker.com assets at the July 12, 2018 auction"
|
||||
fn: 17
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Ropes & Gray]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "counsel to the Plan Administrator for the Debtors"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[William D. Holden]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chief restructuring officer"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Gawker Media LLC was a Delaware limited liability company at 114 Fifth Avenue in [[New York City]] that published seven websites, [[Gawker (website)|Gawker]], [[Deadspin]], [[Lifehacker]], [[Gizmodo]], [[Kotaku]], [[Jalopnik]] and [[Jezebel]], on a publishing platform owned by its Hungarian sister company [[Kinja]] Kft. Its parent, Gawker Media Group, Inc., was a [[Cayman Islands]] corporation. All three entities filed petitions under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code in the [[U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York]] on June 10 and June 12, 2016, after a [[Florida]] jury returned a verdict against Gawker Media in [[Bollea v. Gawker]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Corporate Structure and Finances
|
||||
|
||||
[[William D. Holden]] of [[Opportune LLP]], the chief restructuring officer, stated in his first-day declaration that the six brands other than Gawker accounted for approximately 85 percent of revenue, that the sites had a global readership above 90 million (approximately 50 million in the [[United States]]), and that the company had revenue of approximately $49.9 million in 2015, most of it from advertising. Kinja Kft., at Andrassy ut 66 in [[Budapest]], owned the platform and the intellectual property that Gawker Media licensed, and employed approximately two dozen people in [[Hungary]]. The heads of the five departments (sales, technology, editorial, legal and operations) reported to [[Nick Denton]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Denton was the single largest shareholder of Gawker Media Group as of the petition date. The declaration named the other shareholders as US VC Partners LP, a family trust, current and former executives and employees, and other members of the founding team, and referred to a list of equity holders attached to the chapter 11 petition. The company had issued Series A and Series B preferred shares and common shares.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Funded debt of approximately $21.2 million consisted of two secured loans. On September 24, 2012, Gawker Media entered a loan and security agreement with [[Silicon Valley Bank]] for a term loan of $7,666,666.67 and a letter of credit of $5,302,066.00; about $6,222,222 of the term loan was outstanding at the petition date. On January 21, 2016, Gawker Media Group entered a second lien credit agreement with US VC Partners LP, a Delaware limited partnership, for a term loan of $15,000,000, all of which remained outstanding. Denton executed security, pledge and guaranty agreements for both facilities. Gawker Media also owed Kinja $13 million on two promissory notes dated January 10, 2014 ($8 million) and January 10, 2015 ($5 million), and owed its parent $250,000 on a note dated October 7, 2015.[^1] The plan supplement later listed claims on a $200,000 promissory note for funds that Gawker Media Group had lent Denton on June 7, 2016 among the causes of action reserved against him.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The declaration listed pending suits over published articles with aggregate damages alleged or awarded of more than $250,000,000: *Bollea v. Gawker* ($140.1 million awarded); [[Huon v. Denton]], No. 11-cv-03054 (N.D. Ill.) (at least $100 million sought); [[Terrill v. Gawker Media]], No. 16-CV-00411 (S.D.N.Y.) (at least $10 million); a defamation suit in Multnomah County, Oregon ($74,000); [[Ayyadurai v. Gawker Media]], No. 16-CV-10853 (D. Mass.) (at least $35 million); and a suit in Fresno County, California. The company maintained nine insurance policies, including errors and omissions and directors and officers coverage, at annual premiums of approximately $342,000.[^1] The [[U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit]] decided *Huon v. Denton*, No. 15-3049, on November 14, 2016, in an opinion by Judge [[Ann Claire Williams]]. It held the defamation claim over the title and content of the Jezebel article properly dismissed, and reversed the dismissal of the claim over third-party user comments, finding that Meanith Huon had adequately alleged that Gawker employees helped create at least some of the comments, and reinstated his false-light and intentional-infliction claims, which had been dismissed only because the defamation claim failed.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Valleywag and Peter Thiel
|
||||
|
||||
On December 19, 2007, [[Valleywag]], the company's [[Silicon Valley]] blog, published an item by [[Owen Thomas]] titled "[[Peter Thiel]] is totally gay, people."[^4] In an open letter to Peter Thiel published on Gawker on May 26, 2016, Denton quoted Thomas's text as "Peter Thiel, the smartest VC in the world, is gay. More power to him." Denton wrote that [[Max Levchin]] had told him in 2007 that Thiel was concerned about the reaction not in Silicon Valley but among investors in his hedge fund from places such as [[Saudi Arabia]], and had warned of the retribution Thiel would exact if a story about his personal life was published.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
[[BuzzFeed News]] reported in February 2018, citing two sources for the Sicha meeting and quoting Denton, that Thiel met the former Gawker editor [[Choire Sicha]] in May 2008, having been introduced by the lawyer [[Eddie Hayes]], that Thiel pledged $250,000 to the [[Committee to Protect Journalists]] in late June 2008 (the report quoted the committee's 2008 annual report), and that he met the Gawker editor [[Ryan Tate]] in August 2009. The same report stated that [[Aron D'Souza]], an Oxford-educated Australian lawyer whom Thiel's inner circle called "Mr. A," proposed to Thiel in the spring of 2011 that lawyers be hired to sue Gawker, and that D'Souza then acted as a middleman between Thiel and the law firm of [[Charles Harder]]. BuzzFeed reported that Harder had no direct contact with Thiel before the 2016 trial, citing earlier [[Forbes]] reporting and a source close to a founding partner of the firm. A Thiel spokesperson declined an interview request and D'Souza did not return calls, emails or a message sent by the reporter.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Hogan Publication and the Florida Litigation
|
||||
|
||||
On October 4, 2012, Gawker.com published an item by [[A.J. Daulerio]] under the title "Even for a Minute, Watching Hulk Hogan Have Sex in a Canopy Bed is Not Safe for Work but Watch it Anyway," with a video excerpt of one minute and 41 seconds from a recording of [[Hulk Hogan|Terry Bollea]] in the bedroom of the radio host [[Bubba the Love Sponge|Bubba Clem]]. A 30-minute video had been delivered to Daulerio at Gawker in September 2012. Bollea sued Denton, Daulerio and the Gawker entities in the Sixth Judicial Circuit in [[Pinellas County]], Florida, No. 12012447-CI-011, for invasion of privacy by intrusion upon seclusion, publication of private facts, violation of the Florida common law right of publicity, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and violation of section 934.10 of the Florida Statutes.[^7] A federal action, *Bollea v. Gawker Media, LLC*, No. 8:12-cv-02348 (M.D. Fla.), carries a filing date of October 15, 2012 on the CourtListener docket.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
Charles Harder, then at the [[Los Angeles]] firm of [[Wolf, Rifkin, Shapiro, Schulman & Rabkin]], filed the suit for Bollea in October 2012 and moved his client to a new firm, [[Harder Mirell & Abrams]], formed at the beginning of 2013, according to BuzzFeed News.[^6] Gawker Media and its affiliates, as debtors, asserted in October 2016 that Gawker had disclosed the terms of its insurance coverage during the Bollea case and that Bollea then voluntarily dismissed his claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress, the claim that would have required Gawker's insurer to pay for its defense and any judgment, a sequence the Debtors cited to a May 23, 2016 *[[New York Times]]* report.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 19, 2015, Gawker Media and its counsel [[Gregg Thomas]] sued the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] and the [[Executive Office for United States Attorneys]], No. 8:15-cv-01202 (M.D. Fla.), for records under the [[Freedom of Information Act]] related to the Bollea suit. The action produced documents, transcripts and audio and video recordings generated or obtained by the FBI during its investigation of an extortion attempt against Bollea; DVDs seized by the FBI of Bollea in the Clem bedroom were held under seal by the state court judge. On October 21, 2015, that court ordered discovery into whether Gawker Media, Denton or Daulerio had given sealed transcripts or recordings to [[The National Enquirer]] or [[Radar Online]], which published articles in July and August 2015 describing sealed discovery. Denton, Daulerio and Gawker Media appealed that order to the [[Florida Second District Court of Appeal]] (No. 2D15-5035); the appeal was stayed by the bankruptcy.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Trial began on March 1, 2016. On March 18 the jury returned a verdict of liability and compensatory damages of $115 million against Denton, Daulerio and Gawker Media, jointly and severally; on March 21 it awarded punitive damages of $15 million against Gawker Media, $10 million against Denton and $100,000 against Daulerio. The court entered judgment with a permanent injunction on June 7, 2016, and Denton, Daulerio and Gawker Media noticed an appeal on June 10 (No. 2D16-2535).[^7] The bond to stay execution pending appeal was $50 million for each defendant. The Holden declaration stated that the trial court refused to reduce the cash bond or accept stock or other collateral in its place, and that the judgments became available for execution on June 10, 2016.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 24, 2016, *Forbes* published a report by [[Ryan Mac]] titled "This Silicon Valley Billionaire Has Been Secretly Funding Hulk Hogan's Lawsuits Against Gawker,"[^4] which [[CNBC]] summarized as reporting, citing unnamed sources, that Thiel had funded Bollea's litigation.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Chapter 11 and the Sale of the Operating Assets
|
||||
|
||||
Gawker Media LLC filed on June 10, 2016, and Gawker Media Group and Kinja Kft. (later styled Gawker Hungary Kft.) on June 12, in No. 16-11700 (SMB) before Judge [[Stuart M. Bernstein]]. Holden served as chief restructuring officer and, under the plan confirmed on December 22, 2016, as Plan Administrator.[^10] The Plan Administrator for the Debtors was represented by [[Ropes & Gray]].[^11] On August 1, 2016, Denton filed a personal petition (No. 16-12239), and Bollea began collection proceedings against Daulerio, obtaining an order on August 17, 2016 that transferred to Bollea Daulerio's rights of indemnity against Gawker Media and Gawker Media Group.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
At an auction on August 16, 2016, [[Ziff Davis]], LLC opened with a stalking horse bid of $90 million. [[Gizmodo Media Group|UniModa]], a division of [[Univision]], submitted the highest bid, $135 million in cash plus non-cash consideration. The court approved the sale by order of August 22, 2016, and it closed on September 9, 2016. The buyer excluded the gawker.com content, domain name, trademark and related intellectual property, which remained in the estates.[^7] On September 15, 2016, UniModa, LLC filed a certificate of amendment changing its name to Gizmodo Media Group, LLC.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Settlements and the Harder Trust Account
|
||||
|
||||
The Debtors and Bollea signed a term sheet on October 27, 2016 and a settlement agreement on December 9, 2016. Gawker Media, Gawker Hungary and Gawker Media Group agreed to pay Bollea $31,000,000 within three business days of the effective date, by wire to the Harder Mirell & Abrams LLP Attorney Client Trust Account at [[City National Bank]] in Beverly Hills. Bollea's allowed claim for distributions from a "Gawker Media Contingent Proceeds Creditor Account" was set at $84,000,000; the account was to be funded with 45 percent of the net proceeds of any sale of the gawker.com assets and 45 percent of the net proceeds of third-party claims prosecuted by the Plan Administrator.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The agreement barred sale of the gawker.com assets to Denton or any insider without Bollea's written consent and barred new gawker.com content mentioning Bollea, his family or his attorneys while the assets remained unsold. It required removal of the October 4, 2012 post and the delivery and deletion of the 1:41 video, the 30-minute video and all other recordings and transcripts of the Clem bedroom recordings, with deletion confirmed at Bollea's expense by [[ATX Forensics|ATX Forensics, LLC]]. The Debtors undertook to support stipulations and requests directing the FBI, the [[Tampa Police Department]], the United States Attorney's Office, the [[Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office]] and the retired Judge [[James R. Case]] to deliver or destroy their copies. Punitive damages against Denton and Daulerio were excluded from the settled claims. If the Debtors pursued their pending Rule 2004 motion, paragraph 18 barred them from seeking from Bollea or any third party discovery about Bollea, including discovery about litigation funding or finance.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
The agreement also described a second Bollea suit, filed May 2, 2016 in Pinellas County (No. 16-002861-CI) against Gawker Media, the talent agency [[Don Buchwald & Associates]], [[Cox Radio]], [[Keith M. Davidson]] and his firm Keith M. Davidson & Associates, P.L.C., and five other defendants named in the agreement, for intentional interference with contractual relations and advantageous business relationships and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The agreement stated that the settlement payment was not compensation for the damages Bollea sought from those defendants in that suit.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The plan supplement filed on November 30, 2016 included settlement agreements with [[Shiva Ayyadurai]] for $750,000 and with [[Ashley Terrill]] for $500,000. Each directs payment to the plaintiff in care of Charles J. Harder, to the same Harder Mirell & Abrams LLP Attorney Client Trust Account at City National Bank, with the same routing number and account number given in the Bollea agreement. The three payments total $32,250,000.[^2] Under the Ayyadurai and Terrill agreements the Gawker entities could seek discovery only of litigation financing agreements and non-privileged Harder retainer agreements relating to those plaintiffs' suits.[^10] The court confirmed the plan on December 22, 2016, and it became effective on March 17, 2017.[^10][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Rule 2004 Investigation of Peter Thiel
|
||||
|
||||
On October 11, 2016, the Debtors moved under [[Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 2004|Bankruptcy Rule 2004]] for discovery from Thiel, Harder and his firm. The motion asserted that Thiel had reportedly provided more than $10 million for the litigation; that the *New York Times* of May 26, 2016 had quoted him as saying his course was "less about revenge and more about specific deterrence," as calling the effort "one of my greater philanthropic things that I've done," and as saying he did not "expect to make any money from this. This is not a business venture"; and that Harder's firm represented Bollea, Terrill and Ayyadurai. It added that the plaintiff in *Huon v. Denton* had told a federal court on June 17, 2015 that he was "getting support from Hulk Hogan's lawyers in California," and that Ayyadurai had told *Forbes* that "to the best of [his] knowledge" he was not receiving financial support from Thiel.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The motion also recited the timing of demand letters from Harder's firm: one on June 9, 2016 to Gawker Media seeking removal of a story about [[Donald Trump]]'s hair treatments, sent for one client; four on August 22, 2016 to Univision, the day of the sale order, for four separate clients; one on September 1, 2016 about stories on Ayyadurai; and two on September 7, 2016, two days before closing. It stated that Thiel had published a *New York Times* opinion piece on August 15, 2016, the day before the auction, saying he would "support [Mr. Bollea] until his final victory."[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Thiel and [[Thiel Capital]] LLC, represented by [[Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom]],[^10] objected on April 18, 2017 that the motion rested on supposition drawn from press reports and was brought to harass, and stated that settlement discussions between Thiel and Denton had been productive.[^13] Harder, represented by [[Chadbourne & Parke]], objected that he was opposing litigation counsel, that the discovery threatened attorney-client privilege and work product, and that the Plan Administrator was invoking Rule 2004 to pressure Thiel; Bollea objected that the settlement agreements limited the discovery.[^10] In a memorandum decision of June 28, 2017, Judge Bernstein wrote that "Thiel has acknowledged that he financed the Bollea Litigation," granted the Plan Administrator discovery from Thiel and Harder on Thiel's relationship with Harder and potential causes of action including prima facie tort, held that the objections based on the viability of a prima facie tort claim were premature, and noted that Harder "did not represent Thiel; he represented Bollea, Ayyadurai and Terrill." He denied without prejudice a second request for discovery about [[Scott Sonnenblick]], whom the Debtors had described as hired by an "unidentified Silicon Valley billionaire," presumably Thiel, "in an attempt to purchase Gawker Media in January 2016"; the court found that Thiel's connection was speculative. The decision recorded that the Bollea, Ayyadurai and Terrill settlements limited the discovery obtainable.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
The order authorizing subpoenas was entered on December 4, 2017, and the Plan Administrator served subpoenas on Thiel, Thiel Capital, Harder and his firm on December 14, 2017.[^11][^14] On January 10, 2018, Thiel submitted a bid for the gawker.com assets. On February 9, 2018, the Thiel parties moved to extend the discovery deadlines, and on February 13 the Harder parties joined that motion, stating that their document production and privilege log would not be completed by the dates in the order.[^11][^14]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 24, 2018, Thiel, Thiel Capital, the Debtors and the Plan Administrator signed a release agreement. Thiel and Thiel Capital agreed not to pursue or fund actions against any buyer or licensee of the gawker.com assets, or against the Debtors or their current or former employees and contractors over those assets, and not to take part in or fund any participant in the sale process, "except that the Thiel Parties may continue to fund Mr. Bollea." They also agreed not to fund actions to remove the Gawker web archives from the internet. The parties exchanged general releases, the gawker.com assets were to be sold without the claims against the Thiel parties, and the Plan Administrator was to terminate the 2004 investigation and withdraw the subpoenas with prejudice. The Plan Administrator stated that Thiel's participation in an auction might have a chilling effect on bidding.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
Gizmodo Media Group responded on May 10, 2018, through [[Williams & Connolly]], that it did not oppose a resolution but that the covenant covered only the gawker.com assets, leaving the Thiel parties free to fund claims against Gizmodo Media Group and against three former Gawker writers and contractors over articles published before the September 9, 2016 closing, litigation it described as pending.[^12] Judge Bernstein approved the release agreement on May 17, 2018.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Denton's Bankruptcy and Settlement with Bollea
|
||||
|
||||
On October 24, 2016, Bollea filed a complaint in Denton's personal bankruptcy seeking a determination that the judgment against him was not dischargeable (No. 16-ap-01248).[^7] *[[Fortune]]* reported on March 23, 2017 that a settlement filed the previous Wednesday provided for Bollea to drop the $10 million punitive damages claim against Denton, on condition that the deal would be off if Denton turned out to have been involved in the leak of recordings to The National Enquirer and Radar Online, which Denton had sworn he was not. According to the report, Denton represented that he held no copies of the original tape, agreed not to ask anyone tied to Bollea about "litigation financing," and was poised to emerge with $15.4 million based on court documents listing the value of his share of Gawker Media. *Fortune* quoted Denton telling the *[[New York Post]]*: "As far as I'm concerned, my decade-long involvement with Peter Thiel is over. Other journalists can pick up that particular chalice."[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### The gawker.com Assets After the Estate
|
||||
|
||||
At an auction on July 12, 2018 at the New York offices of Ropes & Gray, [[Bryan Goldberg]] of [[Bustle Digital Group]] bought the gawker.com assets; [[Reuters]] reported the price as $1.35 million.[^17] Bustle Digital Group relaunched Gawker in July 2021 with [[Leah Finnegan]], who had worked at the original Gawker, as editor in chief. In February 2023, the company announced that it was suspending operations of Gawker, with Goldberg writing in a staff memo that "we have to prioritize our better-monetized sites."[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Declaration of William D. Holden in Support of First Day Motions, *In re Gawker Media LLC*, No. 16-11700 (SMB) (Bankr. S.D.N.Y. filed June 12, 2016), ECF No. 7, paragraphs 1, 9 to 15, 21 to 31, 110 to 111 (corporate structure, brands, revenue, debt, equity, pending suits, insurance). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146.7.0.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: Notice of Filing of Plan Supplement, *In re Gawker Media LLC*, No. 16-11700 (SMB), ECF No. 516 (filed Nov. 30, 2016), Exhibit B (Schedule of Retained Causes of Action), Exhibit D (Settlement Agreement with Shiva Ayyadurai, paragraph 3), Exhibit E (Settlement Agreement with Ashley Terrill, paragraph 3). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146.516.0.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: *Huon v. Denton*, 841 F.3d 733, No. 15-3049 (7th Cir. Nov. 14, 2016) (Williams, J.; argued May 31, 2016). http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2016%2FD11-14%2FC%3A15-3049%3AJ%3AWilliams%3Aaut%3AT%3AfnOp%3AN%3A1862727%3AS%3A0
|
||||
[^4]: Motion of the Debtors for Leave Pursuant to Rule 2004 of the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure to Conduct Discovery Concerning Potential Plan Issues and Potential Causes of Action, *In re Gawker Media LLC*, No. 16-11700 (SMB), ECF No. 341 (filed Oct. 11, 2016), table of authorities and paragraphs 1 to 13. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146.341.0.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: Nick Denton, "An Open Letter to Peter Thiel," Gawker, May 26, 2016. https://www.gawkerarchives.com/an-open-letter-to-peter-thiel-1778991227
|
||||
[^6]: Ryan Mac, "This Man Helped Peter Thiel Demolish Gawker," BuzzFeed News, Feb. 23, 2018. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/this-is-the-man-who-helped-peter-thiel-demolish-gawker-mr-a
|
||||
[^7]: Executed Settlement Agreement with Terry Gene Bollea dated Dec. 9, 2016, Exhibit C to Notice of Filing of Revised Plan Supplement, *In re Gawker Media LLC*, No. 16-11700 (SMB), ECF No. 590-1 (filed Dec. 12, 2016), recitals A.1 to A.15 and paragraphs 4 to 13 and 18. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146.590.1.pdf
|
||||
[^8]: CourtListener docket listing, *Bollea v. Gawker Media, LLC*, No. 8:12-cv-02348 (M.D. Fla.), date filed Oct. 15, 2012. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4226588/bollea-v-gawker-media-llc/
|
||||
[^9]: "PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel financing Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker: Report," CNBC, May 25, 2016 (summarizing Forbes report of May 24, 2016). https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/24/paypal-billionaire-peter-thiel-financing-hulk-hogans-lawsuit-against-gawker-forbes-reports.html
|
||||
[^10]: Corrected Memorandum Decision Granting in Part and Denying in Part Plan Administrator's Motion for Leave to Conduct a Rule 2004 Examination (Bernstein, J.), *In re Gawker Media LLC*, No. 16-11700 (SMB), ECF No. 936 (June 28, 2017). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146.936.0.pdf
|
||||
[^11]: Plan Administrator's Motion for Entry of an Order Pursuant to Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9019 Approving Release Agreement with Thiel Parties, *In re Gawker Media LLC*, No. 16-11700 (SMB), ECF No. 1105 (filed Apr. 25, 2018), paragraphs 3 to 9. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146.1105.0.pdf
|
||||
[^12]: Response of Gizmodo Media Group, LLC to Plan Administrator's Motion for Entry of an Order Pursuant to Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9019, *In re Gawker Media LLC*, No. 16-11700 (SMB), ECF No. 1119 (filed May 10, 2018), paragraphs 1 to 4 and footnote 3. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146.1119.0.pdf
|
||||
[^13]: Objection of Peter Thiel and Thiel Capital LLC to Motion of the Debtors for Leave Pursuant to Rule 2004, *In re Gawker Media LLC*, No. 16-11700 (SMB), ECF No. 870 (filed Apr. 18, 2017), preliminary statement. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146.870.0.pdf
|
||||
[^14]: Joinder of Charles J. Harder Esq. and Harder Mirell & Abrams LLP to Thiel Parties' Motion to Extend Certain Deadlines Under Rule 2004 Order, *In re Gawker Media LLC*, No. 16-11700 (SMB), ECF No. 1082 (filed Feb. 13, 2018). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146.1082.0.pdf
|
||||
[^15]: Order Pursuant to Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9019 Approving Release Agreement with Thiel Parties, *In re Gawker Media LLC*, No. 16-11700 (SMB), ECF No. 1127 (dated May 17, 2018; entered May 18, 2018). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146/gov.uscourts.nysb.267146.1127.0.pdf
|
||||
[^16]: Jeff John Roberts, "Gawker's Nick Denton Is Set to Exit Bankruptcy," Fortune, Mar. 23, 2017. https://fortune.com/2017/03/23/gawker-nick-denton-peter-thiel-2
|
||||
[^17]: Jon Levine, "Gawker Media Sold to Bustle Founder Bryan Goldberg in Bankruptcy Auction," TheWrap, July 12, 2018. https://www.thewrap.com/gawker-media-sold-bustle-chief-bryan-goldberg-bankruptcy-auction/
|
||||
[^18]: Todd Spangler, "Gawker Is Shutting Down (Again)," Variety, Feb. 1, 2023. https://variety.com/2023/digital/news/gawker-shutting-down-1235509262/
|
||||
311
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Goldman Sachs.md
Normal file
311
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Goldman Sachs.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,311 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- GoldmanSachs
|
||||
- InvestmentBank
|
||||
- WallStreet
|
||||
- RevolvingDoor
|
||||
- FinancialCrisis
|
||||
- Abacus
|
||||
- AIGBailout
|
||||
- OneMDB
|
||||
- TreasuryDepartment
|
||||
- Lobbying
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Goldman Sachs
|
||||
- Goldman
|
||||
- The Goldman Sachs Group
|
||||
- The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
|
||||
- Goldman Sachs Group
|
||||
- Goldman Sachs Group Inc
|
||||
- Goldman, Sachs & Co.
|
||||
- Goldman Sachs & Co.
|
||||
- Goldman Sachs and Co.
|
||||
- Goldman Sachs International
|
||||
- GS&Co
|
||||
summary: "New York investment bank founded in 1869 whose former executives became Treasury officials, which paid 550 million dollars in 2010 over a mortgage CDO and entered a 2020 deferred prosecution agreement over 1MDB bribery."
|
||||
start: 1869
|
||||
location: "New York, New York"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Rubin]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "co-chairman"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Henry Paulson]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1999-05
|
||||
role: "chairman and chief executive officer; resignation effective on confirmation as Treasury Secretary"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Lloyd Blankfein]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chairman and chief executive officer, named successor to Paulson on 2006-06-02"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Steven Mnuchin]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "partner; chief information officer"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Stephen Friedman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2002-05
|
||||
end: 2002-12-12
|
||||
role: "director; resigned on becoming Director of the National Economic Council"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Stephen Friedman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2005-04
|
||||
role: "director; chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York from January 2008"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Rajat Gupta]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2006-11
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[James A. Johnson]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1999-05
|
||||
role: "director; vice chairman of Perseus"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[William Dudley]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2007-01
|
||||
role: "partner and managing director; chief U.S. economist for a decade"
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Gary Gensler]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "partner; co-head of Finance"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Gary Cohn]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2016-12-31
|
||||
role: "president and chief operating officer; director"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Fabrice Tourre]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "executive director, Structured Products Group Trading (as of April 2010)"
|
||||
fn: 21
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2011-04-13
|
||||
role: "mortgage-related inquiry; hearing on 2010-04-27 and staff report"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: prosecuted
|
||||
with: "[[Securities and Exchange Commission]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2010-04-16
|
||||
end: 2010-07-15
|
||||
role: "civil fraud action over ABACUS 2007-AC1, settled for 550 million dollars"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2012-08-09
|
||||
role: "criminal inquiry into the mortgage allegations in the Senate report; closed without charges"
|
||||
fn: 25
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Libyan Investment Authority]]"
|
||||
start: 2007-09
|
||||
end: 2008-04
|
||||
role: "counterparty to nine derivative trades; the authority's claim to set them aside was dismissed on 2016-10-14"
|
||||
fn: 29
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Youssef Kabbaj]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "employee seconded to work alongside Libyan Investment Authority staff from autumn 2007"
|
||||
fn: 29
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[1Malaysia Development Berhad]]"
|
||||
start: 2012-05
|
||||
end: 2013-03-19
|
||||
role: "underwriter of three bond issues"
|
||||
fn: 35
|
||||
- type: prosecuted
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Justice]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020-10-22
|
||||
role: "three-year deferred prosecution agreement over 1MDB; subsidiary guilty plea"
|
||||
fn: 35
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Tim Leissner]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1998
|
||||
end: 2016-02
|
||||
role: "participating managing director; vice chairman of Investment Banking in Asia ex-Japan"
|
||||
fn: 35
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Roger Ng]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "managing director and agent"
|
||||
fn: 35
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Breaux Lott Leadership Group]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist, 2010 filings"
|
||||
fn: 30
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[The Duberstein Group]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist, 2009 and 2010 filings"
|
||||
fn: 30
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Gephardt Group Government Affairs]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist, 2009 and 2010 filings"
|
||||
fn: 30
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Kathryn Ruemmler]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020
|
||||
end: 2026-06-30
|
||||
role: "general counsel; co-chair of the reputational risk committee"
|
||||
fn: 39
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Goldman Sachs is an investment bank founded in 1869 and headquartered in New York.[^1] Its chairmen, chief executives and executives have moved into the [[United States Department of the Treasury]], the [[White House]] and the [[Federal Reserve Bank of New York]], and the firm has been the subject of a [[United States Senate]] inquiry, a [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] fraud action, a criminal inquiry that ended without charges, a civil suit by the [[Libyan Investment Authority]] that failed, and a corporate criminal resolution over bribery in [[Malaysia]].
|
||||
|
||||
### Executives in the Treasury and the White House
|
||||
|
||||
The Treasury's departmental history states that [[Robert Rubin]] worked twenty-six years at Goldman Sachs, where he rose to Co-Chairman, before serving as the first director of the [[National Economic Council]] from 1993 to 1995 and as Secretary of the Treasury from 1995 to 1999.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Henry Paulson]] was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs from May 1999 and had been its Chief Operating Officer from December 1994 to June 1998.[^3] On May 30, 2006, President [[George W. Bush]] announced his intention to nominate Paulson as Secretary of the Treasury. On June 2, 2006, Paulson submitted a letter resigning from his positions at the firm effective on his confirmation, and the firm announced that its board intended to elect [[Lloyd Blankfein]], then President and Chief Operating Officer, as his successor.[^4] On June 19, 2006, the firm announced that [[Gary Cohn]] and [[Jon Winkelried]] would become presidents and co-chief operating officers, and [[John S. Weinberg]] a vice chairman, if the Senate confirmed Paulson.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
On June 22, 2006, the [[Office of Legal Counsel]] advised the General Counsel of the [[Office of Government Ethics]] that an incoming Secretary of the Treasury could buy government bonds with the proceeds of a stock sale under a certificate of divestiture issued under 26 U.S.C. section 1043, provided that he purchased the bonds after the President signed his commission and before he took the oath of office.[^6] A prospectus filed by Goldman Sachs on June 29, 2006 registered 3,230,024 shares of common stock for resale by Paulson as selling shareholder, "confirmed by the United States Senate as the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States." The filing stated that he also held vested restricted stock units for 494,054 shares and exercisable options for 680,474 shares, and that the three holdings together were about 1.02 percent of the outstanding shares.[^7] The Treasury's history records that Paulson arrived in July 2006 after a 32-year career in finance with the firm, eight years of it as chairman and chief executive.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Steven Mnuchin]], Secretary of the Treasury from 2017 to 2021, worked earlier at Goldman Sachs, where he was a partner and chief information officer.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Stephen Friedman]] retired from the firm as Senior Partner and Chairman of the Management Committee in 1994. The proxy statement of 2003 records that he was appointed to the board in May 2002 and resigned on December 12, 2002 on becoming Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of the National Economic Council.[^3] The proxy statement filed on April 6, 2009 lists him as a director since April 2005. In the same biography the firm recorded that he had been Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York since January 2008, Chairman of the [[President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board]] and of the [[Intelligence Oversight Board]] from January 2006 to January 2009, Chairman of the private equity firm [[Stone Point Capital]] since June 2006, and a board member of the [[Council on Foreign Relations]].[^10] On May 7, 2009, the New York Fed announced that Friedman had resigned as chairman of its board. Its general counsel, [[Thomas C. Baxter Jr.]], stated in the announcement that Friedman's purchases of Goldman shares in December 2008 and January 2009 "did not violate any Federal Reserve statute, rule or policy."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
On January 27, 2009 the New York Fed named [[William Dudley]] its president and chief executive officer, succeeding [[Timothy Geithner]]. The announcement identified Friedman as chairman of the bank's board and of the search committee that selected him, and recorded that before joining the New York Fed in January 2007 Dudley had been a partner and managing director at Goldman, Sachs & Co. and for a decade the firm's chief U.S. economist.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Gary Gensler]] worked for eighteen years at Goldman Sachs, where he became a partner and, in his last role, co-head of Finance. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Markets from 1997 to 1999 and Under Secretary for Domestic Finance from 1999 to 2001, and Chairman of the [[Commodity Futures Trading Commission]] from May 26, 2009 to January 3, 2014.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Gary Cohn, President and Chief Operating Officer and a director, resigned from the firm effective December 31, 2016 on President-elect [[Donald Trump]]'s announcement that he would be Director of the National Economic Council. The firm's report stated that he would remain affiliated as a senior director until joining the administration.[^14] A second report, dated January 24, 2017, recorded that Cohn's 2016 compensation was 20 million dollars, that restricted stock units held for later delivery were delivered on January 23, 2017 under a "Conflicted Employment" provision of the equity plan, and that he received cash of about 47 million dollars for long-term performance awards and about 18 million dollars for performance-based restricted stock units after a special committee shortened their performance periods to end on December 31, 2016 and settled them on January 23, 2017.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Waivers and calls in September 2008
|
||||
|
||||
[[Gretchen Morgenson]] and [[Don Van Natta Jr.]] reported in *[[The New York Times]]* on August 9, 2009, from Paulson's calendars obtained under the [[Freedom of Information Act]], that before taking office he had agreed to avoid substantive interaction with Goldman executives unless he first obtained an ethics waiver. They reported that copies of two waivers, one from the White House counsel's office and one from the Treasury, showed that both were issued on the afternoon of September 17, 2008, the day after the government agreed to lend 85 billion dollars to [[American International Group]]; that Paulson and Blankfein spoke five times that day, two of the calls before the waivers were granted; and that the two spoke two dozen times during the week of the AIG rescue. At a House hearing on July 16, 2009, Paulson said, "I operated very consistently within the ethic guidelines I had as secretary of the Treasury," and that he had asked for a waiver "when it became clear that we had some very significant issues with Goldman Sachs." His spokeswoman, Michele Davis, told the newspaper that the ethics agreement did not prevent him from talking to Goldman executives to keep abreast of market developments and that Federal Reserve officials, not Paulson, played the lead role in the AIG rescue.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Nomi Prins]] reported in *[[The Daily Beast]]* on October 12, 2009 on her review of 415 pages of Paulson's calendar covering March 2008 and August 2008 to January 2009. She counted 19 calls in total between Blankfein and Paulson from September 18 to 21, 2008, which she identified as the days on which bank holding company status was approved for Goldman Sachs and [[Morgan Stanley]], against nine in total between Paulson and Morgan Stanley's [[John Mack]], and 26 calls between Paulson and Rubin, then at [[Citigroup]], against eight with Citigroup's chief executive [[Vikram Pandit]].[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Federal Reserve Board]] announced on the evening of Sunday, September 21, 2008 that it had approved, pending a five-day antitrust waiting period, the applications of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies, and that it had authorized the New York Fed to extend credit to their U.S. broker-dealer subsidiaries against all types of collateral that could be pledged at its primary credit facility or at the Primary Dealer Credit Facility.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Directors in 2009
|
||||
|
||||
The proxy statement filed on April 6, 2009 named as non-employee directors [[John H. Bryan]], [[Claes Dahlbäck]], Friedman, [[William W. George]], [[Rajat Gupta]], [[James A. Johnson]], [[Lois D. Juliber]], [[Lakshmi Mittal]] and [[Ruth J. Simmons]]. Johnson, a vice chairman of the private equity firm [[Perseus]] and from 1991 to 1998 chairman and chief executive of [[Fannie Mae]], was listed as a member of the American Friends of [[Bilderberg]], the Council on Foreign Relations and the [[Trilateral Commission]]. Dahlbäck was senior advisor to [[Investor AB]] and to [[Foundation Asset Management]], which is owned by three [[Wallenberg]] foundations. Gupta, Senior Partner Emeritus of [[McKinsey & Company]], was an independent director of the Qatar Financial Authority and sat on the boards of [[AMR Corporation]], [[Genpact]], [[Harman International]] and [[Procter & Gamble]].[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
The same proxy statement described Goldman's dealings with two directors' companies. Mittal, chairman and chief executive of [[ArcelorMittal]] and owner of about 43 percent of its shares, was the counterparty to a credit facility of about 17 billion euros begun in December 2006 in which Goldman agreed to lend up to 500 million euros (the largest loan outstanding in fiscal 2008 was about 135 million euros, and ArcelorMittal paid about 12.6 million euros in interest). The firm was joint book-runner on a 3 billion dollar ArcelorMittal bond offering in May 2008, participated in a second facility of about 4 billion dollars, and advised on a tender offer of about 1.66 billion dollars for ArcelorMittal Inox Brasil. Dahlbäck served on the investment committees of funds managed by the private equity firm EQT and received less than one percent of their profits; funds managed by a Goldman subsidiary had invested 18.7 million euros in one EQT fund and 30.0 million euros in another. The board deemed these transactions immaterial to the directors' independence.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
The Second Circuit's opinion in *United States v. Gupta* records that Goldman Sachs held a special board meeting at 3:15 p.m. on September 23, 2008 to approve an investment of 5 billion dollars in the firm by [[Warren Buffett]]; that Gupta took part by telephone from a McKinsey conference room from 3:13 to 3:53 p.m.; and that at about 3:54 p.m. his assistant dialed the direct line of [[Raj Rajaratnam]], founder of the [[Galleon Group]], and connected Gupta's line to it for 30 to 35 seconds. Gupta was convicted by a jury before Judge [[Jed Rakoff]], in a judgment entered on November 9, 2012, of one count of conspiracy and three counts of securities fraud for trades in Goldman stock by Rajaratnam in the fall of 2008, and was sentenced to 24 months and a fine of 5 million dollars. The court noted that the evidence of disclosure was circumstantial, and affirmed the judgment.[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Mortgage positions and the Senate inquiry
|
||||
|
||||
The staff report of the [[Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations]], issued on April 13, 2011 under Chairman [[Carl Levin]] and Ranking Member [[Tom Coburn]], stated that in 2006 and 2007 Goldman Sachs designed and underwrote 93 residential mortgage-backed securitizations and 27 mortgage-related collateralized debt obligations totaling about 100 billion dollars. It stated that in December 2006 the firm reversed course, sold or wrote down most of its subprime inventory, and built a net short position that peaked at 13.9 billion dollars and produced record profits of 3.7 billion dollars for its Structured Products Group in 2007, which combined with other mortgage losses left the Mortgage Department with net revenues of 1.2 billion dollars. It examined four CDOs, Hudson 1, Anderson, Timberwolf and Abacus 2007-AC1, and stated that in Hudson 1 the firm took the whole short side of a 2 billion dollar CDO and made a gain of 1.7 billion dollars. It reported that a senior executive, [[Thomas Montag]], wrote to the Mortgage Department head, [[Daniel Sparks]], "boy that timeberwof was one shitty deal." It stated that Timberwolf securities lost 80 percent of their value within five months of issue, and that Goldman held 36 percent of the short position and lost money overall when it could not sell all of the securities.[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
The subcommittee held a hearing on April 27, 2010. The witnesses were Sparks, [[Joshua Birnbaum]], [[Michael Swenson]], [[Fabrice Tourre]], the chief financial officer [[David Viniar]], the chief risk officer [[Craig Broderick]], and Blankfein. Blankfein told the subcommittee that the firm had received an investment from the government in 2008, held it for about eight months, and repaid it with a 23 percent annualized return. He also said: "We didn't have a massive short against the housing market and we certainly did not bet against our clients."[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
The SEC filed suit against Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Tourre on April 16, 2010 in the [[Southern District of New York]] (10 Civ. 3229). The complaint alleged that the marketing materials for ABACUS 2007-AC1 stated that the portfolio had been selected by [[ACA Management LLC]] without disclosing that the hedge fund [[Paulson & Co.]] had taken part in the selection and had taken a short position through credit default swaps with Goldman.[^22] On July 15, 2010, the SEC announced that Goldman had agreed to pay 550 million dollars. In the settlement papers the firm acknowledged that the marketing materials "contained incomplete information" and that it "was a mistake" to state that ACA had selected the portfolio without disclosing the role of Paulson & Co.[^23] A jury found Tourre liable on August 1, 2013, and the final judgment filed on March 27, 2014 imposed disgorgement of 175,463 dollars, interest of 31,150.91 dollars and a civil penalty of 650,000 dollars.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
On August 9, 2012, the Justice Department stated that its investigators and prosecutors, including those in its Criminal Division and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, had "determined that, based on the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution with respect to Goldman Sachs or its employees in regard to the allegations set forth in the report" from Levin's subcommittee. [[David Ingram]] of [[Reuters]] reported that Levin had asked for a criminal investigation in April 2011.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
### AIG counterparty payments
|
||||
|
||||
The Special Inspector General for the [[Troubled Asset Relief Program]], [[Neil Barofsky]], testified on January 27, 2010 that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York had telephoned eight of the largest counterparties of American International Group's financial products unit over two days to seek concessions, that only [[UBS]] had offered a 2 percent concession if the others did so, and that the New York Fed then paid the counterparties the market value of the underlying CDOs while they kept collateral already posted, so that they were effectively paid par. According to his statement, the decision was brought before the board of directors of the New York Fed and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and each approved it.[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
A staff memorandum of the [[Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission]] dated September 17, 2010, marked as a draft, stated that Goldman bought 33 credit default swaps from AIG's financial products unit, covering 21 billion dollars, or 27 percent of AIG's 78 billion dollar portfolio of such swaps at the end of 2007. It recorded that AIG's collateral postings to Goldman rose from 2.4 billion dollars at the end of 2007 to 7.6 billion dollars on September 16, 2008 and 11.9 billion dollars on November 24, 2008. In the [[Maiden Lane III]] transaction of November 24, 2008, Goldman retained 8.4 billion dollars of collateral and received 5.6 billion dollars. The memorandum added 3.4 billion dollars received through July 6, 2010 on ten swaps outside Maiden Lane III, 1.9 billion dollars of it after the New York Fed's 85 billion dollar loan to AIG on September 16, 2008, and stated that 2.9 billion dollars of that amount arose from proprietary positions on seven ABACUS CDOs and commercial mortgage securities, not from the firm's matched book. It recorded day-one revenues of 24.8 million dollars, about 3.25 basis points, on the matched book of 16.9 billion dollars notional.[^27]
|
||||
|
||||
Goldman Sachs told the inspector general that it had sold equivalent protection to clients and bought protection from AIG to hedge, that a concession to the New York Fed would have produced a loss, and that with 8.4 billion dollars of collateral, more than 1.2 billion dollars of protection bought from third parties at a cost of over 100 million dollars, and an underlying value it calculated at 4.3 billion dollars, it "did not consider itself materially at risk if AIG in fact defaulted." The inspector general's report added that Goldman and the market as a whole had benefited from Maiden Lane III and the continued viability of AIG, and that if AIG had defaulted Goldman would have borne the risk of further declines in the value of the 4.3 billion dollars of CDOs and of about 5.5 billion dollars of swaps outside Maiden Lane III.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
### Libyan Investment Authority
|
||||
|
||||
In *The Libyan Investment Authority v Goldman Sachs International*, [[Mrs Justice Rose]] of the [[High Court of Justice]] (Chancery Division) recorded that the authority, set up as a sovereign wealth fund, had at least 30 billion dollars of assets in late 2007 and early 2008, that Goldman Sachs Asset Management first contacted it in November 2006, and that between September 2007 and April 2008 the two entered into transactions including nine leveraged derivative trades concluded from January to April 2008. The premiums paid by the authority were equivalent to about 1.2 billion dollars and the exposure it gained was about 5.2 billion dollars, with maturities in 2011. The authority sought to rescind the trades for undue influence, including an allegation that Goldman had influenced its deputy chairman, [[Mustafa Zarti]], to agree the April trades by offering his younger brother, [[Haitem Zarti]], an internship at the bank.[^29]
|
||||
|
||||
The judge found that Goldman's employee [[Youssef Kabbaj]] took Haitem Zarti on trips to Marrakesh and Dubai and paid for meals and hotels, and that the entertainment "was inappropriate and in flagrant breach of Goldman Sachs' policy on entertaining clients," but that there was no evidence that Mustafa Zarti knew of its extent. She found that the main motivation for the internship was Goldman's belief that Haitem might lead the authority's planned London office, that Mustafa Zarti was keen for his brother to work as an intern, and that the offer "did not have a material influence on the decision" to enter the April trades. She dismissed the claim on October 14, 2016, finding no protected relationship of trust and confidence and no excessive profit given the nature of the trades. The judgment records that Mustafa Zarti was not cooperating with either party, and that in separate proceedings against [[Société Générale]] the authority alleged that payments were made to influence its decisions and named Zarti among those alleged to have been paid or threatened, allegations the Société Générale defendants denied and on which the judge formed no view.[^29]
|
||||
|
||||
### Lobbying and political giving
|
||||
|
||||
Filings under the [[Lobbying Disclosure Act]] list expenses of 2.83 million dollars in 2009 and 4.61 million dollars in 2010 for the firm's own registrations under the client name Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Summing the latest filing for each client name, registrant and period, the filings under Goldman client names total about 4.47 million dollars in 2009 and 6.74 million dollars in 2010. Outside registrants in 2010 included [[Breaux Lott Leadership Group]] (450,000 dollars), [[The Duberstein Group]] (400,000), [[Avoq]] (320,000), [[Capitol Tax Partners]] (240,000), [[Gephardt Group Government Affairs]] (200,000) and [[The Harold Ford Group]] (100,000), and in 2009 and 2010 the [[McKinnon Group]] (80,000 each year).[^30]
|
||||
|
||||
The firm's political action committee, The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Political Action Committee (committee C00350744), reported receipts to the [[Federal Election Commission]] of 1,048,335 dollars in the 2008 cycle and 1,513,111 dollars in the 2010 cycle.[^31] In the same database, itemized contributions to [[Obama for America]] in the 2008 cycle from individuals listing "Goldman Sachs" as employer totaled 553,638.39 dollars in 764 contributions, the fourth largest total among named employers after [[IBM]], Microsoft and [[Harvard University]]; "Morgan Stanley" employees gave 481,158.46 dollars and "Citigroup" employees 414,444.70 dollars.[^32]
|
||||
|
||||
### Greek swaps
|
||||
|
||||
[[The Bureau of Investigative Journalism]] reported on February 21, 2012, from a *[[BBC Newsnight]]* film by [[Nick Dunbar]], that in 2001 Goldman Sachs arranged a swap with [[Greece]] that kept 2.8 billion euros of debt out of the national accounts, a sum that had grown to 5.7 billion euros. The head of the Greek [[Public Debt Management Agency]] at the time, [[Christoforos Sardelis]], was interviewed. Dunbar had described the deal in *[[Risk]]* magazine in 2003. Goldman Sachs told *Newsnight* that the swaps "were one of several techniques that many European governments used to meet the terms of the [Maastricht] treaty" and supplied an email showing that it had discussed the deal with [[Eurostat]]. Eurostat described the discussion as concerning "general clarifications" and said it learned of the deal in 2010.[^33]
|
||||
|
||||
### Mirror Group pension shares
|
||||
|
||||
A case study published in February 2023 by the Global Capitalism Project at the [[University of Oxford]] states that Goldman Sachs sold 25 million shares of [[Mirror Group Newspapers]] on the instruction of [[Robert Maxwell]], shares clearly marked as owned by the Maxwell pension funds, and that the pension scheme lost 55 million pounds. It quotes the report of the [[Department of Trade and Industry]] inspectors on Mirror Group Newspapers as stating that Goldman Sachs "bear a substantial responsibility in respect of the manipulation that occurred in the market." The study states that Goldman Sachs has consistently pointed to the Maxwells as the sole bearers of responsibility for the fraud, and that [[Kevin Maxwell]] has said in talks that the firm enabled and was aware of the crimes.[^34]
|
||||
|
||||
### 1MDB
|
||||
|
||||
The SEC's order of October 22, 2020 (Release No. 90243) found that former senior employees of Goldman Sachs used a third-party intermediary to bribe officials in Malaysia and [[Abu Dhabi]] to obtain business from 1Malaysia Development Berhad, a Malaysian state-owned fund. Between 2012 and 2013 the firm underwrote three bond issues for 1MDB that raised about 6.5 billion dollars, from which it earned about 600 million dollars. Project Magnolia closed in May 2012 and yielded about 193 million dollars to the firm, Project Maximus closed on October 19, 2012 and yielded about 188 million dollars, and Project Catalyze was issued on March 19, 2013 and yielded about 186 million dollars. The order identified [[Tim Leissner]], employed from 1998 to February 2016 and at the end a participating managing director, vice chairman of Investment Banking in Asia ex-Japan and chairman of South East Asia, and [[Roger Ng]], a Malaysian national employed as a managing director from about 2009 to May 2014. It described [[Jho Low]] as a Malaysian national who held no formal position at 1MDB but exercised significant control over it, and [[Najib Razak]] as Prime Minister from 2009 to 2018 with authority over 1MDB. The order found that Leissner told a meeting of the firm's Capital Committee in April 2012 that Low was not involved in Project Magnolia although he and other senior employees knew he was, and that in October 2013 the firm's Intelligence Group told Leissner it could not advise Low's business entity as a client. The firm closed the related Project Condor transaction in January 2014 with Low's entity as a minority co-investor, for about 10 million dollars. Goldman Sachs agreed to a cease-and-desist order, disgorgement of 606.3 million dollars, deemed satisfied by a payment to the Government of Malaysia and 1MDB under an agreement of August 18, 2020, and a civil penalty of 400 million dollars. The order records that the firm entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice and a civil settlement with the Federal Reserve Board.[^35]
|
||||
|
||||
The firm's annual report for 2020 states that on November 1, 2018 the Department of Justice unsealed a criminal information and guilty plea by Leissner and an indictment of Ng and Low, that the August 2020 agreement with the Government of Malaysia included a guarantee that Malaysia would receive at least 1.4 billion dollars in assets and proceeds of seized assets, that on October 22, 2020 the firm entered a three-year deferred prosecution agreement on one count of conspiracy to violate the [[Foreign Corrupt Practices Act]], and that its subsidiary Goldman Sachs (Malaysia) pleaded guilty to one count of the same conspiracy.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The firm's board stated on October 22, 2020 that none of the past or current members of senior management had been involved in or aware of the firm's participation in any illicit activity at the time of the bond transactions, and that it viewed the 1MDB matter as an institutional failure. It stated that it was seeking to claw back about 76 million dollars from Leissner, Ng and [[Andrea Vella]], of which it held about 24 million dollars, that five former senior executive officers (the former chief executive, the former chief operating officer, a former chief financial officer, a former vice chairman who was chief executive of Goldman Sachs International, and a former vice chairman who was global head of growth markets) would forfeit awards totaling about 67 million dollars, and that current leaders' 2020 compensation would be reduced by 31 million dollars, for a total of about 174 million dollars.[^36] A report dated January 26, 2021 recorded reductions of 10 million dollars for [[David Solomon]], 7 million for [[John Waldron]] and 7 million for [[Stephen Scherr]].[^37]
|
||||
|
||||
Leissner was sentenced on May 29, 2025 by Chief Judge [[Margo Brodie]] of the Eastern District of New York to 24 months on each of two counts, to run concurrently, and was ordered to forfeit 43.7 million dollars. [[Nina Pullano]] of *[[Courthouse News Service]]* reported that Ng, the only banker tried, received a ten-year sentence and that Low remained at large, and quoted Leissner's attorney, Henry Mazurek, who said after the sentencing that Goldman's role as a messenger calling for sanctions against Leissner "lacked all credibility."[^38]
|
||||
|
||||
### Epstein files and the general counsel
|
||||
|
||||
[[Kathryn Ruemmler]] became general counsel of Goldman Sachs in 2020 and co-chaired its reputational risk committee. In February 2026 she announced that she would leave the firm effective June 30, after the Justice Department's release of files on [[Jeffrey Epstein]] that included emails mentioning her from 2014 to 2019. [[CBS News]] reported that Solomon said, "I accepted her resignation, and I respect her decision," and that a December 2015 email quoted her as saying, "I adore him. It's like having another older brother!" CBS also reported her statement in a 2023 interview with *[[The Wall Street Journal]]*, "I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein."[^39]
|
||||
|
||||
The Justice Department's Epstein library contains an email from Ruemmler to Epstein sent on December 20, 2017 at 12:18 p.m., whose full text reads: "I totally called it! Goldman picked Karen Seymour from [[Sullivan & Cromwell]], which I predicted from the very beginning."[^40] A scheduling email from Epstein's assistant [[Lesley Groff]] dated May 12, 2014, headed "Possible Dinner Party Mon. May 19th?", is a planning note for a possible dinner on a date still to be determined ("May 19? June 1?") and lists under "Guests" fifteen names that include Lloyd Blankfein, [[Jes Staley]], [[Larry Summers]], [[Ehud Barak]], [[Leon Black]] and [[Henry Kissinger]][^41]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020, filed February 22, 2021 (business description, "Founded in 1869"; Note on legal proceedings, "1MDB-Related Matters"; guarantees note, "at least $1.4 billion"). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312521049380/d39654d10k.htm
|
||||
[^2]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Robert E. Rubin (1995 - 1999)," Prior Secretaries, history pages. https://home.treasury.gov/about/history/prior-secretaries/robert-e-rubin-1995-1999
|
||||
[^3]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Definitive Proxy Statement (Schedule 14A), filed February 27, 2003 (letter signed by Henry M. Paulson, Jr.; director biography of Paulson; notice of changes in directors regarding Stephen Friedman). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000095012303002098/y82715def14a.htm
|
||||
[^4]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed June 2, 2006, Items 5.02 and 8.01. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000095012306007325/y21951e8vk.htm
|
||||
[^5]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed June 19, 2006, Exhibit 99.1, press release "Gary Cohn and Jon Winkelried Named Presidents and Co-Chief Operating Officers; John S. Weinberg Named a Vice Chairman." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000095012306007831/y22438exv99w1.htm
|
||||
[^6]: Office of Legal Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice, "Divestiture of Stock and Purchase of Government Bonds by an Incoming Secretary of the Treasury," memorandum opinion for the General Counsel, Office of Government Ethics, June 22, 2006. https://www.justice.gov/opinion/file/786181/dl
|
||||
[^7]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form S-3ASR prospectus relating to 3,230,024 shares offered by the selling shareholder Henry M. Paulson, Jr., filed June 29, 2006, "Selling Shareholder." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000886982/000095012306008368/y22661srsv3asr.htm
|
||||
[^8]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Henry M. Paulson, Jr. (2006 - 2009)," Prior Secretaries, history pages. https://home.treasury.gov/about/history/prior-secretaries/henry-m-paulson-jr-2006-2009
|
||||
[^9]: U.S. Department of the Treasury, "Steven T. Mnuchin (2017 - 2021)," Prior Secretaries, history pages. https://home.treasury.gov/about/history/prior-secretaries/steven-t-mnuchin-2017-2021
|
||||
[^10]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Definitive Proxy Statement (Schedule 14A), filed April 6, 2009, director biographies ("Stephen Friedman, Director since April 2005"), director independence discussion and "Certain Relationships and Related Transactions." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312509073816/ddef14a.htm
|
||||
[^11]: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, press release "Stephen Friedman Resigns as Chairman of the New York Fed's Board of Directors," May 7, 2009. https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/aboutthefed/2009/oa090507.html
|
||||
[^12]: Federal Reserve Bank of New York, press release "New York Fed Names William C. Dudley President," January 27, 2009. https://www.newyorkfed.org/newsevents/news/aboutthefed/2009/oa090127
|
||||
[^13]: Commodity Futures Trading Commission, "Chairman Gary Gensler," former commissioners page. https://www.cftc.gov/About/Commissioners/FormerCommissioners/ggensler.html
|
||||
[^14]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed December 15, 2016, Item 5.02. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312516794516/d290095d8k.htm
|
||||
[^15]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed January 24, 2017, Item 5.02(e). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312517016853/d294950d8k.htm
|
||||
[^16]: Gretchen Morgenson and Don Van Natta Jr., "Paulson's Calls to Goldman Tested Ethics," *The New York Times*, August 9, 2009, as published by CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2009/08/09/paulsons-calls-to-goldman-tested-ethics.html
|
||||
[^17]: Nomi Prins, "Paulson's Revealing Phone Records," *The Daily Beast*, October 12, 2009. https://www.thedailybeast.com/paulsons-revealing-phone-records/
|
||||
[^18]: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, press release "Board approves, pending a statutory five-day antitrust waiting period, the applications of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become bank holding companies," September 21, 2008. https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/bcreg20080921a.htm
|
||||
[^19]: *United States v. Gupta*, 747 F.3d 111 (2d Cir. 2014), paragraphs 5 to 14 and 28. https://openjurist.org/747/f3d/111/united-states-v-gupta
|
||||
[^20]: U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, *Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: Anatomy of a Financial Collapse*, Majority and Minority Staff Report, April 13, 2011, Executive Summary, pp. 9 to 11, and Goldman Sachs case study (Timberwolf). https://archive.org/details/355839-wall-street-and-the-financial-crisis-apr-2011
|
||||
[^21]: *Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: The Role of Investment Banks*, hearing before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, S. Hrg. 111-674, April 27, 2010 (witness list; prepared statement and testimony of Lloyd C. Blankfein, p. 130 and following). https://archive.org/details/gov.gpo.fdsys.CHRG-111shrg57322
|
||||
[^22]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Litigation Release No. 21489, "Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Fabrice Tourre," April 16, 2010, *SEC v. Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Fabrice Tourre*, 10 Civ. 3229 (S.D.N.Y.). https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2010/lr21489.htm
|
||||
[^23]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, press release 2010-123, "Goldman Sachs to Pay Record $550 Million to Settle SEC Charges Related to Subprime Mortgage CDO," July 15, 2010. https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-123.htm
|
||||
[^24]: *SEC v. Fabrice Tourre*, 10 Civ. 3229 (KBF) (S.D.N.Y.), Document 5198, Final Judgment as to Defendant Fabrice Tourre, filed March 27, 2014 (the copy at the cited address is captioned "[Proposed] Final Judgment"). https://www.sec.gov/files/Judg10-cv-03229Tourre.pdf
|
||||
[^25]: David Ingram, Reuters, "Feds won't charge Goldman for infamous trades," NBC News, August 9, 2012, quoting the Justice Department statement. https://www.nbcnews.com/business/markets/feds-wont-charge-goldman-infamous-trades-flna933554
|
||||
[^26]: Statement of Neil Barofsky, Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, January 27, 2010, concerning SIGTARP's audit "Factors Affecting Efforts to Limit Payments to AIG Counterparties" (November 17, 2009). https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20100127barofsky.pdf
|
||||
[^27]: Chris Seefer and Carl McCarden, memorandum to all Commissioners, Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, "Goldman Sachs Exposure to AIG from Transactions Excluded from Maiden Lane III and Collateral Posting Agreements with AIG and Other Counterparties," draft, September 17, 2010, pp. 1 to 3. https://fcic-static.law.stanford.edu/cdn_media/fcic-docs/2010-09-17_FCIC_Staff_Memo_re_Goldman_Sachs_Exposure_to_AIG.pdf
|
||||
[^28]: "Section of SIGTARP Report Related to Goldman Sachs," November 17, 2009, as published by Goldman Sachs (including note 24 of the report). https://www.goldmansachs.com/pressroom/announcements/2009/sigtarp
|
||||
[^29]: *The Libyan Investment Authority v Goldman Sachs International* [2016] EWHC 2530 (Ch), case HC-2014-000197, judgment of Mrs Justice Rose, October 14, 2016, paragraphs 1 to 12 (introduction), the sections on the Haitem Zarti internship, on missing witnesses and on the Société Générale proceedings, and section XI (conclusions). https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2016/2530.html
|
||||
[^30]: U.S. Senate lobbying disclosure database, filings with client names containing "Goldman," filing years 2009 and 2010; totals computed by summing the latest-posted filing for each client name, registrant and period. https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=goldman&filing_year=2010
|
||||
[^31]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API, committee C00350744, totals by cycle. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00350744/totals/
|
||||
[^32]: Federal Election Commission, OpenFEC API, schedule A contributions by employer, committee C00431445 (Obama for America), two-year period 2008; employer names as reported in the filings. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/by_employer/?committee_id=C00431445&cycle=2008
|
||||
[^33]: Henry Richards, "How Goldman Sachs helped mask Greece's debt," The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, February 21, 2012. https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2012-02-21/how-goldman-sachs-helped-mask-greeces-debt
|
||||
[^34]: "Robert Maxwell's Expectations Gap: Regulation and Reputation in the British Communications Industry, 1981-91," Case Study #29, Global Capitalism Project, University of Oxford, February 2023, quoting the Department of Trade and Industry inspectors' report. https://globalcapitalism.history.ox.ac.uk/files/case29-robertmaxwellsexpectationsgappdf
|
||||
[^35]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, *In the Matter of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.*, Release No. 90243, Administrative Proceeding File No. 3-20132, October 22, 2020, paragraphs 1 to 14, 20 to 46 and 54 to 55; see also press release 2020-265. https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2020/34-90243.pdf
|
||||
[^36]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed October 22, 2020, Exhibit 99.1, "Statement from the Board of Directors." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312520274226/d73654dex991.htm
|
||||
[^37]: The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., Form 8-K, filed January 26, 2021. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/886982/000119312521017826/d112881d8k.htm
|
||||
[^38]: Nina Pullano, "Goldman Sachs banker gets two years for international bribery scheme," Courthouse News Service, May 29, 2025. https://www.courthousenews.com/goldman-sachs-banker-gets-two-years-for-international-bribery-scheme/
|
||||
[^39]: Jacob Rosen and Faris Tanyos, "Kathryn Ruemmler resigning as Goldman Sachs' general counsel after her appearances in the Epstein files," CBS News, February 12, 2026. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kathryn-ruemmler-resigning-from-goldman-sachs-epstein-files/
|
||||
[^40]: Email, Kathy Ruemmler to jeevacation@gmail.com, December 20, 2017, U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein library, EFTA02611782 (DataSet 11). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2011/EFTA02611782.pdf
|
||||
[^41]: Email, Lesley Groff to Jeffrey Epstein, May 12, 2014, "Reminder: Possible Dinner Party Mon. May 19th?", U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein library, EFTA01924576 (DataSet 10); the list also appears in EFTA00284908 (DataSet 9). https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01924576.pdf
|
||||
250
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/HOPE not hate.md
Normal file
250
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/HOPE not hate.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,250 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Extremism & Violent Networks"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- UK
|
||||
- AntiFascist
|
||||
- CampaignGroup
|
||||
- Searchlight
|
||||
- Charity
|
||||
- NationalAction
|
||||
- Informants
|
||||
- PoliticalFinance
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- HOPE not hate
|
||||
- Hope not Hate
|
||||
- Hope Not Hate
|
||||
- HOPE Not Hate
|
||||
- Hope Not Hate Limited
|
||||
- HOPE not hate Ltd
|
||||
- HOPE not hate Charitable Trust
|
||||
- Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust
|
||||
- HOPE Unlimited Charitable Trust
|
||||
- Hope Unlimited Charitable Trust
|
||||
- Searchlight Educational Trust
|
||||
- Searchlight Information Services
|
||||
summary: "British anti-fascist research and campaign organisation that renamed Searchlight's information company and educational charity in 2012, separated from Gerry Gable's magazine, and ran an informant inside National Action in 2017."
|
||||
start: 2004
|
||||
location: "London, United Kingdom"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Nick Lowles]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2004
|
||||
role: "founder; chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Nick Lowles]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2012-08-22
|
||||
end: 2020-02-18
|
||||
role: "director of Hope Not Hate Limited; reappointed director 2026-09-01"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Gerry Gable]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2011-12-04
|
||||
role: "director of Searchlight Information Services Limited, later renamed Hope Not Hate (1986) Limited"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Simon Tuttle]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2012-09-25
|
||||
end: 2026-09-02
|
||||
role: "director of Hope Not Hate Limited"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Cormac Hollingsworth]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-12-09
|
||||
end: 2019-07-30
|
||||
role: "director of Hope Not Hate Limited"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Anna Turley]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-04-08
|
||||
end: 2024-07-11
|
||||
role: "director of Hope Not Hate Limited"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jon Cruddas]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-03-24
|
||||
role: "director of Hope Not Hate Limited"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Matthew Collins]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "head of intelligence"
|
||||
fn: 15
|
||||
- type: informant_for
|
||||
with: "[[Robbie Mullen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2017-04
|
||||
role: "source inside National Action"
|
||||
fn: 15
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2004-04-05
|
||||
end: 2009-12-14
|
||||
role: "donations of 9,750, 11,025 and 42,500 pounds recorded by the Electoral Commission"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[UNISON]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2005-04-05
|
||||
end: 2010-03-12
|
||||
role: "donations of 19,500, 80,000 and 70,000 pounds recorded by the Electoral Commission"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Unite the Union]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2009-05-21
|
||||
end: 2010-03-01
|
||||
role: "donations of 13,250, 65,000 and 10,000 pounds recorded by the Electoral Commission"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[David Sainsbury]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019-11-04
|
||||
end: 2019-11-04
|
||||
role: "donation of 200,000 pounds recorded by the Electoral Commission"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Sigrid Rausing Trust]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2013
|
||||
role: "grantee; 1,615,000 pounds of previous grants and 250,000 pounds from February 2026"
|
||||
fn: 33
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Charity Commission]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2002-06-28
|
||||
end: 2002-09-09
|
||||
role: "statutory inquiry into Searchlight Educational Trust"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Charity Commission]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-07
|
||||
end: 2026-01-22
|
||||
role: "compliance case on HOPE Unlimited Charitable Trust"
|
||||
fn: 34
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
HOPE not hate is a British anti-fascist research and campaign organisation based in [[London]]. It operates through Hope Not Hate Limited, a private company limited by guarantee incorporated on 22 August 2012 ([[Companies House]] number 08188502), and through a registered charity, number 1013880, which was named the Searchlight Educational Trust from 1992 to 2012, Hope Not Hate Educational Limited from 2012 to 2016, Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust from 2016 to 2025 and HOPE Unlimited Charitable Trust from 24 October 2025.[^1][^2] The charity is the former Searchlight Educational Trust of the [[Searchlight Magazine]] organisation run by [[Gerry Gable]]. In 2011 [[Nick Lowles]] and a group of trustees and directors separated from Gable's magazine, and in October 2012 the company Searchlight Information Services Limited was renamed Hope Not Hate (1986) Limited.[^3][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Searchlight Units Before 2004
|
||||
|
||||
Three bodies shared the Searchlight name before the separation. Searchlight Information Services Limited (company 02055070) was incorporated on 12 September 1986 with Gerry Gable as a director appointed before 31 December 1990 and [[Sonia Gable]] as secretary from 1 November 1992.[^4][^5] The Searchlight Educational Trust (company 02738367) was incorporated on 7 August 1992 and registered as a charity in August 1992.[^2][^6] Searchlight Magazine Limited (company 02516837) was incorporated on 29 June 1990, with Gerry Gable as a director until 1 June 2025 and Sonia Gable as secretary.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
In May 2002 the [[Charity Commission]] received a complaint that the Educational Trust was carrying out political activities incompatible with its charitable status, and opened a statutory inquiry under section 8 of the [[Charities Act 1993]] on 28 June 2002. The Commission's report records that the Trust's annual income was approximately 140,000 pounds, that its publication When Hate Comes to Town encouraged members of the public to carry out direct action "by, for example, disrupting political meetings", and that the Trust, the magazine company and Searchlight Information Services shared a telephone number and a postal address. The Commission advised the trustees not to use the general label "Searchlight" when referring to the charity. The inquiry closed on 9 September 2002.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2004 Campaign
|
||||
|
||||
Later HOPE not hate publications and its founder's award nomination give 2004 as the year of founding, in response to the rise of the [[British National Party]].[^8][^9] The [[Electoral Commission]] register of donations lists a regulated third party named HOPE not hate Ltd from April 2004, with a donation of 9,750 pounds from the [[Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust]] accepted on 5 April 2004 for the European Parliament election of 10 June 2004.[^10] Nick Lowles was appointed a director of Searchlight Information Services Limited on 25 June 2005.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
In the July to August 2012 issue of its magazine, HOPE not hate described itself as having been founded in 2004, with over 165,000 online supporters, and stated that it "comprises Searchlight Information Services and our charitable wing, the Searchlight Educational Trust".[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### The 2011 Separation
|
||||
|
||||
[[Larry O'Hara]]'s Notes From The Borderland published a timeline of the dispute that states that in March 2011 Lowles and [[Cormac Hollingsworth]] asked the Gables for the Searchlight magazine shares and for Gerry Gable to resign from Searchlight Information Services and the Educational Trust by the end of June 2011, and that Gable was offered an honorary presidency. The timeline further states that on 23 September 2011 Lowles resigned as editor of the magazine, that on 24 and 25 September the Gables removed about twenty filing cabinets of archive material from the Trust's offices, which the timeline describes as "liberate" in the Gables' term and "steal" in the term used by HOPE not hate, and that on 27 September the Trust's trustees met and removed both Gables and contacted the police. The timeline's author opposes both sides.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
Companies House records agree with several dates in that timeline. A company named Hope Not Hate Ltd (number 07719229) was incorporated on 27 July 2011 with Gerry Gable and Sonia Gable as its directors, and they resigned from it on 25 September 2012, when Lowles was appointed director and [[Ruth Smeeth]] secretary.[^13][^14] On 4 December 2011 Gerry Gable resigned as director of Searchlight Information Services Limited and Sonia Gable as its secretary; [[Simon Tuttle]] was appointed director and Ruth Smeeth secretary on the same date, with the new officers' correspondence address at the solicitors [[Gallant Macmillan]], 3 Greek Street, London.[^5] Hope Not Hate Limited (08188502) was incorporated on 22 August 2012 as HOPE NOT HATE (LBG) LIMITED. On 25 October 2012 Searchlight Information Services Limited was renamed Hope Not Hate (1986) Limited and the Searchlight Educational Trust became Hope Not Hate Educational Limited.[^1][^2][^4]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Martin Bright]] wrote in the [[The Jewish Chronicle|Jewish Chronicle]] on 9 August 2012 that Gable "has retained control of Searchlight magazine and its website" and that Lowles, described as Gable's heir apparent, "has effectively spun off Hope Not Hate as a separate organisation"; Bright declined to take a side and called the dispute "genuinely Oedipal".[^3] [[Ed Caesar]] reported in [[The New Yorker]] in 2019 that [[Matthew Collins]] began collaborating with Lowles on HOPE not hate in 2007, that the campaign "split from the magazine in 2011", that Collins believed Gable had been cavalier about his safety while he was a Searchlight informant, and that Gable denied this.[^15] The HOPE not hate magazine continued to describe the organisation as comprising Searchlight Information Services and the Searchlight Educational Trust in its September to October and November to December 2012 issues, after the Companies House renaming of 25 October 2012; the May to July 2017 issue describes it as comprising HOPE not hate Ltd and HOPE not hate Charitable Trust.[^16][^17][^18]
|
||||
|
||||
Searchlight's obituary of Gable, who died in January 2026, states that the split was "eventually healed when Gerry publicly offered the hand of friendship" to Lowles at an anti-fascist anniversary event in 2023.[^19] Companies House records Gable's resignation as secretary of Taxinform Limited on 3 January 2026.[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Companies and Directors After 2012
|
||||
|
||||
Hope Not Hate Limited files accounts consisting of a balance sheet only. At 31 December 2024 it reported current assets of 720,485 pounds, including 702,053 pounds in cash, creditors due within one year of 544,621 pounds and members' funds of 175,864 pounds, against 136,556 pounds a year earlier.[^21] Its directors have included Lowles (22 August 2012 to 18 February 2020, and again from 1 September 2026), Simon Tuttle (25 September 2012 to 2 September 2026), Hollingsworth (9 December 2014 to 30 July 2019), [[Anthony Painter]] and [[Peter Jacobs]] (both from 9 December 2014), [[Matthew McGregor]] (19 January 2020 to 29 April 2022), [[Anna Turley]] (8 April 2022 to 11 July 2024), [[Jon Cruddas]] and [[Simon Gallant]] (both from 24 March 2025). Lowles was the company's secretary from 31 August 2023 to 1 September 2026.[^22][^23] The Parliament members register records Anna Turley as the [[Labour Party]] (Co-operative) member for Redcar, with her latest House of Commons membership beginning on 4 July 2024.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
The charity's directors have included [[Peter Adams]] (from 1 February 2011), [[Gurinder Singh Josan]] (from 9 December 2014), Imam [[Qari Muhammad Asim]] and [[Ros Wynne-Jones]] (both from 5 February 2018), and, in its 2023 accounts, Simon Tuttle. Lowles was its secretary from 31 August 2023 to 30 June 2025, and Kelly-Anne Duffill from 1 July 2025.[^25][^26]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Charity as Grant-Maker
|
||||
|
||||
The charity's annual report for 2022 records that after a strategic review in 2021 its trustees changed its focus to fundraising and grant-giving with effect from 31 December 2021.[^27] Its grants to Hope Not Hate Limited were 625,000 pounds in 2022, 650,000 pounds in 2023 and 787,858 pounds in 2024; at the end of 2024 the company owed the charity 48,102 pounds.[^26][^27][^28] Employment costs in the charity fell from 608,595 pounds in 2021 to 132,259 pounds in 2022.[^27][^29] The Charity Commission register gives gross income of 1.16 million pounds in 2020, 1.08 million in 2021, 792,940 pounds in 2022, 418,240 pounds in 2023 and 984,870 pounds in 2024, with government grants of 55,980 pounds in 2020 and none in later years.[^30]
|
||||
|
||||
Restricted funds itemised in the charity's accounts include the following. For 2020, grants described as [[Home Office]] Counter Extremism Unit funds received through the [[Bedfordshire and Luton Community Foundation]] and the [[London Community Foundation]], grants from the [[Trust for London]] (49,679 pounds), the [[Paul Hamlyn Foundation]] and the [[Barrow Cadbury Trust]], and an unrestricted grant of 46,000 pounds from the [[Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust]] in each of 2019 and 2020.[^31] For 2021, Home Office Counter Extremism Unit funds received through the London Community Foundation, 125,750 pounds from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, and restricted funds from [[Google]], the [[Sam and Bella Sebba Charitable Trust]], an anonymous family trust, Community Union and the [[Network for Social Change]].[^29] For 2023, 45,000 pounds from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, 18,000 pounds from the [[Aziz Charitable Foundation]], 10,000 pounds from [[Stonewall]] and 20,000 pounds from [[Toms Trust]].[^26] For 2024, 208,000 pounds from [[NPT Transatlantic|NPT Transatlantic Ltd]], 50,667 pounds from the AB Charitable Trust, 40,000 pounds from the [[Esmée Fairbairn Foundation|Esmee Fairbairn Foundation]], 63,000 pounds from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and 60,000 pounds from This Day.[^28] NPT Transatlantic describes itself as offering donor-advised funds.[^32]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Sigrid Rausing Trust]] lists HOPE Not Hate as a grantee supported since 2013, with previous grants totalling 1,615,000 pounds and a current grant of 250,000 pounds starting in February 2026.[^33] The charity's accounts for 2020 to 2024 do not itemise a Sigrid Rausing Trust grant, and Hope Not Hate Limited does not publish an income statement.[^21][^26][^27][^28][^29][^31]
|
||||
|
||||
### Electoral Commission Donations
|
||||
|
||||
The Electoral Commission register of donations lists HOPE not hate Ltd as a permitted third party receiving the following donations accepted between 2004 and 2019, in pounds: the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust 9,750 (5 April 2004), 11,025 (5 April 2005) and 42,500 (14 December 2009); the [[Trades Union Congress|Trades Union Congress South and East Region]] 9,000 (5 April 2005); [[UNISON]] 19,500 (5 April 2005), 80,000 (14 May 2009) and 70,000 (12 March 2010); [[Amicus (trade union)|Amicus]] 10,000 (30 May 2005); the [[Fire Brigades Union]] 8,500 (21 May 2009); [[Unite the Union]] 13,250 (21 May 2009), 65,000 (14 December 2009) and 10,000 (1 March 2010); the [[GMB (trade union)|GMB]] 8,000 (28 August 2009); the [[National Union of Teachers]] 60,000 (17 February 2010); and individuals recorded as [[Henry Tinsley]] 10,250 (31 December 2009) and Mailk Karim 27,500 (31 March 2010).[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
For the general election of 12 December 2019 the register lists 200,000 pounds from an individual recorded as [[David Sainsbury]] (4 November 2019), 15,000 and 60,000 pounds from [[Open Britain|Open Britain Ltd]] (28 November and 5 December 2019) and 100,000 pounds from Mr [[Greg Nasmyth]] (12 December 2019), together with 17,000 pounds of donations not reported individually. The register also lists a donation of 5,000 pounds in cash from an unincorporated association named HOPE not hate (Yorkshire Region) to the Labour Party's accounting unit [[Morley and Outwood|Morley and Outwood CLP]], accepted on 19 January 2010.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Regulatory Scrutiny, 2024 to 2026
|
||||
|
||||
The Charity Commission stated on 22 January 2026 that it had closed a compliance case on HOPE Unlimited Charitable Trust, formerly Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust. It stated that the action arose from repeated complaints across several years that it was not clear whether the activities of Hope Not Hate Limited, a separate non-charitable organisation, were connected to or endorsed by the charity; that it gave the trustees regulatory advice and guidance in 2024; that it opened its latest case in July 2025 and was critical that limited action had been taken by then; and that the charity had changed its name, recruited three new independent trustees, appointed a new secretary and assured the regulator of its intention to appoint a paid administrator and a paid grants manager with no existing role at Hope Not Hate Limited. The Commission set an expectation that the charity could evidence its grant-making decisions, noting that its new grant criteria were limited in detail.[^34]
|
||||
|
||||
The Conservative member of Parliament [[Jack Rankin]] wrote to the Commission's chief executive [[David Holdsworth]] in September 2025, describing Hope Not Hate Limited as "a purely political operation" and stating that he believed the charity's status was being used for funnelling taxpayer funds into the company; the Commission said it was assessing the concerns as part of the existing compliance case.[^35] In 2026 [[Nigel Farage]] wrote to the Commission alleging that the charity had breached charity law by distributing leaflets supporting the Labour candidate [[Andy Burnham]] in the Makerfield by-election, and that Hope Not Hate Limited "continues to be funded almost entirely by grants from the HUCT". The charity said the claims had "absolutely no basis in fact". The Commission stated that it was provided with evidence that the charity's funds were not used in producing or circulating the materials and that the company had appealed to the public for funds, and it took no further regulatory action. A spokesperson for Hope not Hate said that Hope not Hate Limited "is a non-party campaigner registered with the Electoral Commission".[^36]
|
||||
|
||||
### Informants and the National Action Investigation
|
||||
|
||||
Matthew Collins, HOPE not hate's head of intelligence, had been active in the British National Party and the [[National Front]] and took part in a 1989 British National Party attack on an anti-fascist meeting at [[Welling Library]] in south London. The New Yorker reported that he afterwards telephoned Searchlight anonymously and became a Searchlight informant, that he then associated with [[Combat 18]] and the [[Ulster Defence Association]] with the organisation's blessing, that in 1991 a senior Combat 18 figure ordered his murder, and that [[Scotland Yard]]'s [[Special Branch]] expedited a passport and visa for him to leave for Australia, where he stayed for ten years. A [[BBC]] film about his return to Britain, [[Dead Man Walking (BBC film)|Dead Man Walking]], aired in 2004, and since 2010 Collins has coordinated an intelligence network for HOPE not hate. Collins told the magazine that he ran about a dozen regular informants, and Lowles told it that he also ran several, one of whom had gone undercover nearly twenty-five years earlier. The magazine added that the British government treats infiltration of extremist networks as the domain of the Security Service ([[MI5]]) and the [[Counter Terrorism Command|Metropolitan Police Counter-Terror Command]], that Collins considers HOPE not hate's work a provocation to those bodies, and that a [[Metropolitan Police]] spokesperson declined to comment on its intelligence-gathering. Gable told the magazine that Collins "bottled it" in a libel case in which he declined to identify himself as Searchlight's mole: "He was no hero."[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Robbie Mullen]], a member of [[National Action]] and deputy to its leader [[Christopher Lythgoe]] from April 2016, e-mailed HOPE not hate in April 2017. On 1 July 2017 at the [[Friar Penketh]] pub in [[Warrington]], [[Jack Renshaw]] told the group that he planned to murder the Labour member of Parliament [[Rosie Cooper]] and a police detective, [[Victoria Henderson]]. Mullen texted Collins, who was on holiday in Portugal, "Ring me ASAP". In an extract from his 2019 book published by HuffPost UK, Collins wrote that police had no knowledge of the plan before Mullen contacted HOPE not hate.[^15][^37] Before the arrests the government offered Mullen witness protection and two years of his current salary, which he declined. Eleven suspected members were arrested on 27 September 2017, police issued Mullen the first of five [[Osman warning|Osman warnings]] that evening, and HOPE not hate helped him relocate. Collins paid many of Mullen's expenses in advance himself, and Lowles later found him work as a researcher for the organisation.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
At the [[Old Bailey]] the barrister [[Crispin Aylett]], who represented Lythgoe, put to Mullen that he had "exaggerated aspects of your evidence, told lies, all to get Christopher Lythgoe and others convicted and to bolster your credibility with your paymaster, HOPE Not Hate." On 18 July 2018 the jury convicted Lythgoe of membership of National Action and acquitted him of encouraging Renshaw; Renshaw pleaded guilty to preparing an act of terrorism, and was sentenced on 17 May 2019 to life imprisonment with a minimum term of twenty years.[^15][^38] The jury at the first trial could not reach a decision on Renshaw's membership of the group, and at the retrial a jury was unable to reach a majority verdict on any of the charges.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
The HOPE not hate magazine for September to October 2018 stated that its previous issue made no mention of the trial because "our evidence will also be used in another trial", and referred to "two leading members of National Action jailed based on information from a source inside the organisation".[^39] Collins published an account of the case with Mullen in 2019 under the title Nazi Terrorist: The Story of National Action.[^37][^40] The September to October 2017 issue of the magazine carried an interview with Patrik Hermansson, a Swedish volunteer who had spent a year inside the alt-right under the name Erik.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Litigation
|
||||
|
||||
In December 2016 Nigel Farage wrote after the Berlin Christmas market lorry attack that "Events like these will be the Merkel legacy"; after a reply from [[Brendan Cox]] the exchange moved to the radio station [[LBC]], where Farage said that HOPE not hate pursued "violent and undemocratic means". HOPE not hate began a crowdfunded libel action. On 14 November 2017 it announced that Farage had filed a statement in the [[High Court of Justice|High Court]] which, in the group's account of the text, said he was "happy to acknowledge that Hope Not Hate does not tolerate or pursue violent or undemocratic behaviour" and would not repeat the claim. Farage said he was "perfectly happy to accept that the organisation doesn't pursue violent or undemocratic means", that the case had been "a complete waste of their donors' money", and that he had paid no damages and no apology; the group said Farage was left with costs of around 100,000 pounds.[^41]
|
||||
|
||||
### Personnel and the Labour Party
|
||||
|
||||
Ruth Smeeth was secretary of Searchlight Information Services Limited from 4 December 2011 and of Hope Not Hate (Services) Limited from 25 September 2012.[^5][^14] Hollingsworth, a director of Hope Not Hate Limited from 2014 to 2019, was described by the Borderland timeline as becoming chair of the Educational Trust's trustees in February 2011.[^12][^22] Anna Turley became a director of Hope Not Hate Limited on 8 April 2022 and resigned on 11 July 2024, seven days after the start of her latest membership of the House of Commons.[^22][^24] Lowles was appointed MBE in the New Year Honours of 2017 as "Founder, Hope Not Hate", for services to community cohesion and combating extremism.[^42]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Companies House, "HOPE NOT HATE LIMITED, company number 08188502", overview (incorporated 22 August 2012; previous name HOPE NOT HATE (LBG) LIMITED, 22 August to 18 October 2012), accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08188502
|
||||
[^2]: Companies House, "HOPE UNLIMITED CHARITABLE TRUST, company number 02738367", overview (incorporated 7 August 1992; previous names SEARCHLIGHT EDUCATIONAL TRUST to 25 October 2012, HOPE NOT HATE EDUCATIONAL LIMITED to 12 May 2016, HOPE NOT HATE CHARITABLE TRUST to 24 October 2025), accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02738367
|
||||
[^3]: Martin Bright, "Tragedy of a serious split between anti-fascists", The Jewish Chronicle, 9 August 2012. https://www.thejc.com/opinion/analysis/tragedy-of-a-serious-split-between-anti-fascists-p843rzof
|
||||
[^4]: Companies House, "HOPE NOT HATE (1986) LIMITED, company number 02055070", overview (incorporated 12 September 1986; previous name SEARCHLIGHT INFORMATION SERVICES LIMITED to 25 October 2012; dissolved 14 July 2015), accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02055070
|
||||
[^5]: Companies House, officers of HOPE NOT HATE (1986) LIMITED (02055070): Gerry Gable (director, resigned 4 December 2011), Sonia Kathleen Emma Gable (secretary from 1 November 1992, resigned 4 December 2011), Nick Lowles (director, appointed 25 June 2005), Simon Anthony Tuttle (director, appointed 4 December 2011), Ruth Smeeth (secretary, appointed 4 December 2011), accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02055070/officers
|
||||
[^6]: Charity Commission for England and Wales, "Charity Commission Report on the Searchlight Educational Trust" (inquiry under section 8 of the Charities Act 1993, opened 28 June 2002, closed 9 September 2002), reproduced at https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/searchlightarchive/s_a_charity_commission_report.html (page last updated 20 August 2003).
|
||||
[^7]: Companies House, "SEARCHLIGHT MAGAZINE LIMITED, company number 02516837", overview and officers (incorporated 29 June 1990; Gerry Gable, director, resigned 1 June 2025; Sonia Kathleen Emma Gable, secretary, and director from 1 June 2025), accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02516837/officers
|
||||
[^8]: Sheila McKechnie Foundation, "Nick Lowles", Long Term Achievement Award 2024 nomination page (states that Lowles founded HOPE not hate "back in 2004 in response to the rise of the far-right British National Party"). https://smk.org.uk/awards_nominations/nick-lowles/
|
||||
[^9]: HOPE not hate magazine, no. 33, September to October 2017 (boilerplate: "Initially established to counter the electoral rise of the BNP"; "Going undercover", interview with Patrik Hermansson by Safya Khan-Ruf), Internet Archive item hope_not_hate_33. https://archive.org/details/hope_not_hate_33
|
||||
[^10]: Electoral Commission, Political Finance Online, donations search for "hope not hate" (33 records returned; recipients HOPE not hate Ltd and Labour Party), queried 1 October 2026. https://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/
|
||||
[^11]: HOPE not hate magazine, no. 3, July to August 2012, contributors panel, Internet Archive item hope_not_hate_03. https://archive.org/details/hope_not_hate_03
|
||||
[^12]: Larry O'Hara, "Exclusive: Introduction and Time-line to Hope Not Hate versus Searchlight Civil War Article NFB 10", Notes From The Borderland, borderland.co.uk (partisan source, hostile to both sides). https://borderland.co.uk/exclusive-introduction-time-line-to-hope-not-hate-versus-searchlight-civil-war-article-nfb-10/
|
||||
[^13]: Companies House, "HOPE NOT HATE (SERVICES) LIMITED, company number 07719229", overview (incorporated 27 July 2011 as HOPE NOT HATE LTD; renamed 16 October 2012; dissolved 10 September 2013), accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07719229
|
||||
[^14]: Companies House, officers of HOPE NOT HATE (SERVICES) LIMITED (07719229): Gerry Gable and Sonia Gable (appointed 27 July 2011, resigned 25 September 2012), Nick Lowles (director) and Ruth Smeeth (secretary) (appointed 25 September 2012), accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07719229/officers
|
||||
[^15]: Ed Caesar, "The Undercover Fascist" (print title "Hate and Love"), The New Yorker, 27 May 2019. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/27/the-undercover-fascist
|
||||
[^16]: HOPE not hate magazine, no. 4, September to October 2012, contributors panel, Internet Archive item hope_not_hate_04. https://archive.org/details/hope_not_hate_04
|
||||
[^17]: HOPE not hate magazine, no. 5, November to December 2012, contributors panel, Internet Archive item hope_not_hate_05. https://archive.org/details/hope_not_hate_05
|
||||
[^18]: HOPE not hate magazine, no. 32, May to July 2017, contributors panel, Internet Archive item hope_not_hate_32. https://archive.org/details/hope_not_hate_32
|
||||
[^19]: Searchlight, "Obituary: Gerry Gable (1937-2026), architect of modern British anti-fascism", searchlightmagazine.com, January 2026. https://searchlightmagazine.com/2026/01/obituary-gerry-gable-1937-2026-architect-of-modern-british-anti-fascism/
|
||||
[^20]: Companies House, appointments of Gerry Gable (born January 1937), including Taxinform Limited (04431212), secretary, resigned 3 January 2026, accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/qRYa5TN8Ohow88__Y_b4QHr98Aw/appointments
|
||||
[^21]: Hope Not Hate Limited, unaudited financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2024 (balance sheet and notes), filed 26 September 2025, Companies House filing MzQ4MjgxNzE4OWFkaXF6a2N4. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08188502/filing-history/MzQ4MjgxNzE4OWFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1
|
||||
[^22]: Companies House, officers of HOPE NOT HATE LIMITED (08188502), 21 officers and 14 resignations, accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08188502/officers
|
||||
[^23]: Companies House, appointments of Nick Lowles as secretary of HOPE NOT HATE LIMITED (31 August 2023 to 1 September 2026) and director (22 August 2012 to 18 February 2020), accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/jk99RhE3ohSWf-QgztVYEGaMHUU/appointments
|
||||
[^24]: UK Parliament, Members API, search "Anna Turley" (Labour (Co-op), Redcar, latest House of Commons membership start 4 July 2024), queried 1 October 2026. https://members-api.parliament.uk/api/Members/Search?Name=Anna%20Turley
|
||||
[^25]: Companies House, officers of HOPE UNLIMITED CHARITABLE TRUST (02738367), 40 officers and 33 resignations, accessed 1 October 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02738367/officers
|
||||
[^26]: Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust, annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2023, filed 30 September 2024, Companies House filing MzQzNzcyNTg5NmFkaXF6a2N4. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02738367/filing-history/MzQzNzcyNTg5NmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1
|
||||
[^27]: Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust, annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2022 (trustees' report, notes 17 to 23), filed 2023, Companies House, company 02738367. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02738367/filing-history
|
||||
[^28]: Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust, annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2024, filed 28 September 2025, Companies House filing MzQ4MjkyNzA1OWFkaXF6a2N4 (grant to Hope not Hate Ltd 787,858 pounds; owed by Hope not Hate Limited 48,102 pounds; restricted funds note 18). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02738367/filing-history/MzQ4MjkyNzA1OWFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1
|
||||
[^29]: Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust, annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2021, filed 29 September 2022, Companies House filing MzM1MzYwMDY0NmFkaXF6a2N4. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02738367/filing-history/MzM1MzYwMDY0NmFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1
|
||||
[^30]: Charity Commission for England and Wales, Register of Charities, HOPE Unlimited Charitable Trust (1013880), financial history, 2020 to 2024, accessed 1 October 2026. https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/1013880/financial-history
|
||||
[^31]: Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust, annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2020, filed 9 December 2021, Companies House filing MzMyMzA3OTQwOWFkaXF6a2N4 (restricted funds note 17; unrestricted Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust grant 46,000 pounds in 2019 and 2020). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02738367/filing-history/MzMyMzA3OTQwOWFkaXF6a2N4/document?format=xhtml&download=1
|
||||
[^32]: NPT UK, "Donor-Advised Fund FAQs", nptuk.org (site navigation lists NPT Transatlantic as a donor-advised fund offering), accessed 1 October 2026. https://www.nptuk.org/donor-advised-funds/faq/
|
||||
[^33]: The Sigrid Rausing Trust, grantee profile "HOPE Not Hate" (supported since 2013; total of previous grants 1,615,000 pounds; current grant 250,000 pounds, grant start February 2026), accessed 1 October 2026. https://sigrid-rausing-trust.org/grantees/hope-not-hate/
|
||||
[^34]: Charity Commission, "Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust addresses concerns following intervention by regulator", GOV.UK press release, 22 January 2026. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/hope-not-hate-charitable-trust-addresses-concerns-following-intervention-by-regulator
|
||||
[^35]: "Commission assesses Tory MP's concerns about Hope not Hate as part of case", Civil Society, 17 September 2025. https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/commission-assesses-tory-mp-s-concerns-about-hope-not-hate-as-part-of-case.html
|
||||
[^36]: Dami Adewale, "Charity cleared by commission after Farage complaint", Third Sector, 24 June 2026. https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/charity-cleared-commission-farage-complaint/governance/article/1962712
|
||||
[^37]: Matthew Collins, "How A Far Right Terror Plot To Murder A Labour MP Was Foiled By Whistleblower Robbie Mullen" (extract from Nazi Terrorist: The Story of National Action), HuffPost UK, 8 May 2019. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/national-action-rosie-cooper_uk_5cd1c61ce4b04e275d511211
|
||||
[^38]: Associated Press, "Neo-Nazi who planned to kill UK lawmaker is jailed for life", 17 May 2019 (High Court Judge Maura McGowan: "only a sentence of life imprisonment can meet the appalling seriousness of your offending"). https://www.foxnews.com/world/neo-nazi-who-planned-to-kill-uk-lawmaker-is-jailed-for-life.amp
|
||||
[^39]: HOPE not hate magazine, no. 36, September to October 2018, editorial ("Elephant in the room"), Internet Archive item hope_not_hate_36. https://archive.org/details/hope_not_hate_36
|
||||
[^40]: HOPE not hate magazine, no. 39, June to July 2019, advertisement for Nazi Terrorist: The Story of National Action by Matthew Collins with Robbie Mullen, Internet Archive item hope_not_hate_39. https://archive.org/details/hope_not_hate_39
|
||||
[^41]: Peter Walker, "Nigel Farage withdraws 'violent means' claim against Hope Not Hate", The Guardian, 14 November 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/14/nigel-farage-withdraws-claim-hope-not-hate-high-court
|
||||
[^42]: Cabinet Office, New Year Honours 2017, full list (CSV): Members of the Order of the British Empire, "Mr Nicholas LOWLES, Founder, Hope Not Hate. For services to Community Cohesion and Combating Extremism", London, GOV.UK. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7f0f19e5274a2e8ab49da3/new-years-honours-2017-full-list-csv.csv
|
||||
199
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Jane Street Capital.md
Normal file
199
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Jane Street Capital.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,199 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- JaneStreet
|
||||
- ProprietaryTrading
|
||||
- SEBI
|
||||
- Terraform
|
||||
- FTX
|
||||
- AlamedaResearch
|
||||
- SamBankmanFried
|
||||
- CarolineEllison
|
||||
- Anthropic
|
||||
- Lobbying
|
||||
- CampaignFinance
|
||||
- RevolvingDoor
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Jane Street Capital
|
||||
- Jane Street
|
||||
- Jane Street Group
|
||||
- Jane Street Group LLC
|
||||
- Jane Street Group, LLC
|
||||
- Jane Street Capital, LLC
|
||||
- Jane Street Capital LLC
|
||||
- Jane Street Securities
|
||||
- JSI Investments
|
||||
- JS Group
|
||||
summary: "New York proprietary trading firm that trained Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, agreed in 2024 to buy FTX's Anthropic shares, and faces India's 2025 manipulation order and the Terraform estate's insider trading suit."
|
||||
start: 1999-08-31
|
||||
location: "New York, New York"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Granieri]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "co-founder"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Granieri]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-01
|
||||
role: "management committee member of Jane Street Group"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[James McClave]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2024-12
|
||||
role: "management committee member of Jane Street Group"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Sam Bankman-Fried]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2017-09
|
||||
role: "trader"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Caroline Ellison]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016
|
||||
end: 2018-03
|
||||
role: "assistant quantitative trader on the equities desk"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Ross Rheingans-Yoo]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "worked with Bankman-Fried"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Securities and Exchange Board of India]]"
|
||||
start: 2025-07-03
|
||||
role: "ex parte interim order on index options expiry day trading; INR 4,843.57 crore impounded"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[Terraform Labs]]"
|
||||
start: 2026-02-24
|
||||
role: "defendant in the plan administrator's insider trading suit, Snyder v. Jane Street Group"
|
||||
fn: 17
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Hogan Lovells]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2003-03-07
|
||||
role: "registered lobbying firm as Hogan & Hartson for Jane Street Securities; termination report filed August 12, 2005"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Hogan Lovells]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-08-09
|
||||
role: "registered lobbying firm on the regulation of financial investments"
|
||||
fn: 24
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Porterfield, Fettig & Sears]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-06-02
|
||||
role: "registered lobbying firm on tax issues and H.R. 1"
|
||||
fn: 23
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "defense counsel in Snyder v. Jane Street Group"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Cantor Fitzgerald]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-07-19
|
||||
role: "prime brokerage and financing through CF Secured, LLC (Cantor Prime Services)"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Jane Street Capital, LLC is a broker-dealer formed in [[Delaware]] on August 31, 1999 and registered with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] on March 27, 2000, with its main office at 250 Vesey Street in [[New York City]]. Its direct owner is Jane Street Group, LLC, which it reports as its member from January 2014, and its indirect owners are JSHC, LLC and JSHP, LLLP, both from October 2019. The [[Financial Industry Regulatory Authority]] record lists as control persons of Jane Street Group the members of its management committee, among them [[Robert Granieri]] (from January 2014) and, from December 2024, [[James McClave]] and others. The firm is registered with 29 self-regulatory organizations, holds books and records with third parties including the communications archiver Behavox, and reports prime brokerage arrangements with Wells Fargo Securities (from August 2024), BofA Securities (clearance and custody, from August 2023) and CF Secured, LLC, which does business as Cantor Prime Services and is indirectly owned by [[Cantor Fitzgerald]], L.P. (prime brokerage and financing, from July 19, 2022).[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The interim order of the [[Securities and Exchange Board of India]] (SEBI) of July 3, 2025 gives the establishment of Jane Street Group, LLC as 2000, its headcount as more than 2,600 in five offices in the [[United States]], Europe and Asia, and its trading as spanning 45 countries. The order lists Jane Street Capital, LLC and Jane Street Execution Services, LLC as its United States broker-dealers, Jane Street Financial Limited and Jane Street Netherlands B.V. as its regulated European firms and Jane Street Hong Kong Limited as its [[Hong Kong]] entity, and records that Jane Street Europe Limited is the holding company of the [[India|Indian]] entity JSI Investments Private Limited, with Jane Street Group the ultimate holding company.[^2] The complaint in *Snyder v. Jane Street Group, LLC* gives the founding year as 1999, names Granieri as a co-founder, and states that the firm reported net trading revenue of more than 10 billion dollars and net profit of nearly 6 billion dollars in 2023, nearly 20.5 billion and nearly 13 billion dollars in 2024, and net trading revenue above 24 billion dollars in the first three quarters of 2025; that it is behind more than 10 percent of equity trades in North America; and that it entered the cryptocurrency market in 2017.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Alumni at Alameda Research and FTX
|
||||
|
||||
[[Sam Bankman-Fried]] joined Jane Street after his graduation and left in September 2017 to become Director of Development at the [[Centre for Effective Altruism]], according to a 2025 filing by the [[FTX Recovery Trust]]. The Trust wrote that at Jane Street he met other adherents of [[Effective Altruism]] who later followed him to the [[FTX]] group, including [[Caroline Ellison]] and [[Ross Rheingans-Yoo]], and that Rheingans-Yoo, who had worked with him at Jane Street and shared a residence with him in Hong Kong, moved into his 30 million dollar penthouse in [[Bahamas|the Bahamas]] in early 2022 to work at the [[FTX Foundation]] and then at [[Latona Biosciences Group]]. In November 2017 Bankman-Fried founded [[Alameda Research]] with [[Tara Mac Aulay|Tara MacAulay]], the former chief executive of the Centre for Effective Altruism; in April 2018 MacAulay and other employees left after offering to buy him out.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
Ellison's sentencing memorandum states that she first met Bankman-Fried in June 2015, when she was a summer trading intern and he had been a full-time trader for about a year and was coaching a mock trading exercise, and that the two became acquainted at a Jane Street-sponsored dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse. Her counsel wrote that Jane Street trained interns to think principally about maximizing the expected value of a strategy rather than about potential losses, through mock trading sessions and a culture of small wagers; that she returned as an intern in the summer of 2016, was asked within weeks to forgo a master's program for a full-time position, and worked from the fall of 2016 for about a year and a half as an assistant quantitative trader on the equities desk; that her social circle in New York consisted mostly of other Jane Street employees; and that in February 2018 Jane Street sent her on a recruiting trip to the Bay Area, where she met Bankman-Fried for coffee in [[Berkeley]] and accepted a job at Alameda, which she joined in March 2018.[^5] [[Nick Beckstead]], the chief executive of the FTX Foundation, was named with Rheingans-Yoo as a defendant in the FTX debtors' 2023 adversary proceeding over Latona's life sciences investments.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Anthropic
|
||||
|
||||
[[Anthropic]]'s announcement of its 124 million dollar Series A on May 28, 2021 lists James McClave among the participants in a round led by [[Jaan Tallinn]], with [[Dustin Moskovitz]], the [[Center for Emerging Risk Research]] and [[Eric Schmidt]] also participating.[^7] [[Federal Election Commission]] records list a contributor named James McClave with the occupation trader and the employer Jane Street, and the FINRA record lists a James McClave (CRD 4823496) as a management committee member of Jane Street Group from December 2024.[^1][^8] [[Dario Amodei]]'s January 2026 essay "The Adolescence of Technology" thanks "Jim McClave," with Nick Beckstead and others, for comments on drafts.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
In March 2024 the FTX estate agreed to sell the majority of its Anthropic stake for 884 million dollars. *[[CNBC]]* reported, from a filing in the Delaware bankruptcy court dated March 22, 2024, that the largest buyer was ATIC Third International Investment Co., aligned with the [[Mubadala]] sovereign wealth fund of the [[United Arab Emirates]], for nearly 500 million dollars; that Jane Street was the second-largest buyer, at almost 100 million dollars; and that [[Craig Falls]], Jane Street's head of quantitative research, proposed to buy about 20 million dollars of shares personally. The sales were subject to the approval of Judge [[John T. Dorsey|John Dorsey]].[^10] Ellison's own Anthropic Series B shares, bought through a 10 million dollar simple agreement for future equity on or about March 31, 2022, were forfeited to the United States under her consent order of September 2024.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Millennium suit and the SEBI inquiry
|
||||
|
||||
Jane Street Group sued [[Millennium Management]] and two former Jane Street traders in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] on April 12, 2024 under the [[Defend Trade Secrets Act]] (No. 1:24-cv-02783, Judge [[Paul A. Engelmayer]]). The parties stipulated to dismiss all claims and defenses with prejudice, each bearing its own costs, and the court so-ordered the stipulation on December 6, 2024.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
SEBI's order states that its inquiry began from April 2024 media reports titled "Jane Street-Millennium Suit: 'Secret' Strategy Concerns India, Hearing Reveals" and "Ex-Jane Street trader pillories claims he stole trade secrets," reports of the Millennium action in which Jane Street alleged unauthorized use of its proprietary strategies in Indian options markets. The order's chronology lists a request to the [[National Stock Exchange of India]] on July 23, 2024 to examine the group's trading; a meeting with SEBI on August 20, 2024 and a written submission from Jane Street dated August 30, 2024; a SEBI circular of October 1, 2024 on index options; an NSE examination report on November 13, 2024; a finding by a SEBI team on February 4, 2025 that the group appeared prima facie to be violating the PFUTP Regulations; and a caution letter issued by NSE on SEBI's instructions on February 6, 2025 to Jane Street Singapore Pte. Ltd. and JSI Investments Private Limited, to which the group replied on February 6 and 21. SEBI recorded that on May 15, 2025, "in disregard of the caution letter," the group continued to run very large cash-equivalent positions in index options.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### SEBI interim order of July 3, 2025
|
||||
|
||||
Whole Time Member [[Ananth Narayan G.]] issued the ex parte interim order (WTM/AN/MRD/MRD-SEC-3/31516/2025-26) in [[Mumbai]] under sections 11(1), 11(4), 11B(1) and 11D of the [[SEBI Act, 1992]], against JSI Investments Private Ltd., JSI2 Investments Private Ltd., Jane Street Singapore Pte. Ltd. and Jane Street Asia Trading Ltd. The order describes two strategies on [[Bank Nifty]] options expiry days, an "Intra-day Index Manipulation" strategy and an "Extended Marking The Close" strategy. On the first, which it analyzed on the sample day of January 17, 2024, SEBI found that the group bought Bank Nifty constituent shares and futures aggressively in the morning while building larger opposite positions in index options, then reversed the cash and futures positions later in the day; it computed an intraday cash and futures loss of INR 199.7 crore across 15 such days and wrote that the loss "can only be viewed as a mala fide cost." SEBI found prima facie violations of section 12A of the SEBI Act and regulations 3 and 4 of the PFUTP Regulations, 2003.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
Table 44 of the order lists 21 expiry days with total gains of INR 48,43,57,70,168 (INR 4,843.57 crore). Eighteen are Bank Nifty days from August 31, 2023 to July 10, 2024, of which January 17, 2024 accounts for INR 7,34,92,69,578; the order classes October 4, 2023, May 8, 2024 and July 10, 2024 under the extended marking the close strategy. The last three rows are [[Nifty 50|Nifty]] expiry days after the February 2025 caution letter: May 8, 2025 (INR 3,06,65,621), May 15, 2025 (INR 1,67,52,81,113) and May 22, 2025 (INR 1,99,36,24,324).[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The order addressed Jane Street's letter of August 30, 2024, which suggested that the trades were meant to "remove unwanted delta" or to "manage overall delta," in a paragraph stating that "these bland statements do not take away from any of the arguments made above." The directions impounded INR 4,843.57 crore jointly and severally into an escrow account with a lien in favor of SEBI, restrained the four entities from accessing the securities market, froze debits from their bank, custody and demat accounts, required an inventory of Indian assets within 15 days and the close-out of open derivative positions within three months, made most restraints lapse on deposit of the escrow, and gave the entities 21 days to reply. SEBI stated that its observations were prima facie and made on the material on record.[^2] On July 21, 2025 SEBI stated that Jane Street had confirmed compliance with the cease and desist direction and had deposited INR 4,843.57 crore in escrow.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Jane Street appealed to the [[Securities Appellate Tribunal]]. On September 9, 2025, Khushboo Tiwari reported in the *[[Business Standard]]*, a three-member bench led by Justice [[P. S. Dinesh Kumar]] admitted the appeals and directed SEBI to explain within three weeks why the documents the firm sought could not be disclosed. SEBI's senior counsel, Gaurav Joshi, told the tribunal that more than 10 gigabytes of data had been provided and that "no show-cause has been issued because we are still investigating the matter," adding that the scope of a show cause notice could enlarge beyond the interim order. Jane Street sought earlier surveillance and investigation reports, including one by SEBI's Integrated Surveillance Department and correspondence with the National Stock Exchange, which it said cleared it of wrongdoing; SEBI replied that the material had not been relied upon in the order.[^14] *[[Business Today]]* reported on February 25, 2026, citing CNBC-TV18, that the tribunal had adjourned the hearing.[^15] [[Bloomberg News|Bloomberg]] reported in December 2025, citing people familiar with the investigation, that SEBI was examining a further strategy, the simultaneous selling of index call and put options at one strike price on settlement days, and could order additional disgorgement beyond the roughly 570 million dollars held in escrow; Bloomberg added that the firm had consistently denied wrongdoing in India and that the interim order put its trading gains in India from January 2023 to March 2025 at about 4.3 billion dollars.[^16] No final SEBI order and no tribunal decision had been located as of October 1, 2026.
|
||||
|
||||
### Terraform and Snyder v. Jane Street Group
|
||||
|
||||
On February 24, 2026 [[Todd R. Snyder]], the plan administrator of the [[Terraform Labs]] estates and of the Terraform Labs Wind-Down Trust, sued Jane Street Group, LLC, Jane Street Capital, LLC, Granieri, [[Bryce Pratt]] and [[Michael Huang]] in the Southern District of New York (No. 1:26-cv-01536, Judge [[Dale E. Ho]]), asserting claims under sections 10(b), 20A and 20(a) of the [[Securities Exchange Act of 1934|Securities Exchange Act]], Rule 10b-5, section 6(c)(1) of the [[Commodity Exchange Act]] and CFTC Rule 180.1, as assignee also of the [[Luna Foundation Guard]] and of individual investors. Terraform's plan had been confirmed by the Delaware bankruptcy court on September 20, 2024 and became effective on October 1, 2024. The complaint was filed with extensive redactions. On May 12, 2026 the court granted the defendants' letter motion to seal exhibits to their motion to dismiss and to unseal material in the complaint, finding the remaining redactions narrowly tailored to protect privacy interests, and directed the plaintiff to re-file the complaint with the revised redactions, which he did on May 18, 2026.[^17][^18]
|
||||
|
||||
The re-filed complaint alleges that Jane Street completed onboarding for over-the-counter trading with Terraform by November 2018; that Pratt, a summer 2021 software engineering intern at Terraform, joined Jane Street in September 2021 and kept close contact with Terraform's head of research; that on February 22, 2022 Pratt and two Terraform employees opened a group chat they named "Bryce's Secret," in which a Terraform employee identified the "big company" interested in Terraform as "Jane Streeeeeeeet"; and that Pratt relayed to Jane Street traders what he described as information from "my sources" and "trusted sources," including an estimate that Alameda Research's Anchor deposits were "somewhere north of $1B." It alleges that Terraform's then head of research interviewed with Jane Street in late March 2022, was offered a position on May 18, 2022 after the collapse, and began work there on June 6, 2022.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
According to the complaint, Jane Street accumulated about 200 million UST between February and April 2022 and staked it in the Anchor Protocol at 20 percent; on Saturday, May 7, 2022 it unstaked and sold its entire position of about 192 million UST in a single day, and at 10:24 p.m. Huang reported to colleagues the sale of "92m UST at .9978 on binance, and 85m UST at .9942 on curve in one swap." The complaint calls that swap the largest single swap on the Curve 3pool. On May 9, Pratt opened a group message with [[Do Kwon]], Huang and another Jane Street employee to express interest in bidding on bitcoin or Luna; Kwon replied that "Bill from Jump," the [[Jump Trading]] co-founder [[William DiSomma|Bill DiSomma]], should have contacted Jane Street about a fundraise. The same day, the complaint alleges, a Jane Street colleague told Pratt that "Jump and Alameda are providing funding to Do today at some huge haircut." A Jump employee then introduced Granieri by email to DiSomma and Jump's president [[Dave Olsen]], Granieri replied that he planned to say yes, and after the call Granieri wrote to an internal "robs-discussion-group" that Jump was "a big backer of this ecosystem," was looking for help bailing it out at a 60 percent discount with lockups, planned to invest only 100 to 200 million dollars, and that Jane Street "might be interested in buying between $200 mln and $500 mln" of Luna.[^18][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
The complaint alleges that Jane Street went short 3.2 million UST and 1.1 million Luna on May 9, 12.2 million UST and 1.4 million Luna on May 10, and a further 8.2 million UST and 4.5 million Luna on May 11; that on May 10 a trader said he had "understood that mnpi didn't really exist in crypto"; that Granieri planned to "informally wall" leadership off from the desk although he did not "think there's any legal requirement to do so"; that Jane Street unwound the shorts for more than 19 million dollars of profit on UST and more than 115 million dollars on Luna; that on May 13 it ended the day holding more than 2.2 billion Luna futures bought for less than 1 million dollars; and that after an on-chain analytics firm, Nansen, published wallet analysis on May 27, 2022, employees discussed decommissioning the wallet and retired four wallets. The plaintiff seeks disgorgement for Terraform's creditors.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
The defendants, represented by [[Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton]], moved to dismiss on April 23, 2026. Their memorandum calls the case "an attempt by the estate of Terraform Labs Pte Ltd. ('Terraform') to extract cash from Jane Street to foot the bill for a fraud that Terraform itself perpetrated on the market," states that investors including Jane Street withdrew more than 2 billion dollars of UST from Anchor on May 7 in response to public signals, argues that the complaint's own allegations place the 85 million UST sale ten minutes after the alleged information was visible to the market and the first shorts on May 8, before the alleged rescue information of the evening of May 9, relies on the [[Archegos Capital Management|Archegos]] decision of the Second Circuit for the absence of a duty between arm's-length counterparties, and invokes the Wagoner rule and in pari delicto, stating that the plaintiff "stands in the shoes of a convicted felon" whose founder is serving a 15-year prison sentence. Their exhibits include a May 7, 2022 Jane Street chat forwarded on June 3, 2022 "to retain a record," and the May 9, 2022 email from Jump introducing Granieri to DiSomma, "one Jumps owners," and Olsen.[^19][^20] The plaintiff, represented by [[Kirkland & Ellis]], filed an opposition under seal and in redacted form on June 11, 2026; the defendants replied on July 13, 2026, and all parties jointly requested oral argument the same day.[^17][^20] A ruling had not been located as of October 1, 2026.
|
||||
|
||||
The government's letter at Ellison's sentencing records that the May 2022 collapse of Terra and Luna led Alameda's lenders to recall nearly all their loans, requiring Alameda to repay more than 6 billion dollars on demand, which it did largely with FTX customer funds.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### Lobbying
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Lobbying Disclosure Act]] record begins with a registration by Hogan & Hartson L.L.P., now [[Hogan Lovells]], effective March 7, 2003, for "Jane Street Securities" at 111 Broadway, listing lobbyists Kim M. Allen, [[Nancy Granese|Nancy L. Granese]], W. Michael House and James G. McMillan. Its mid-year 2003 report gives income of 10,000 dollars, contacts with the House and the Senate, and the specific issue "Monitor financial services legislation"; later reports record no income, and a termination report was filed on August 12, 2005.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
No further registration appears until 2025. [[Porterfield, Fettig & Sears]] registered for Jane Street Group, LLC with an effective date of June 2, 2025 (posted July 17, 2025) on "tax issues," reported 30,000 dollars for the second quarter of 2025 and 60,000 dollars for the third, the latter citing "H.R.1, One Big Beautiful Bill Act," and filed no-activity reports for the following three quarters. Its lobbyists include [[Chris Maneval]], whose disclosed covered positions include deputy chief of staff to House Republican Whip [[Tom Emmer]] and chief of staff and legislative director to Emmer.[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
Hogan Lovells US LLP, since renamed Hogan Lovells Cadwalader US LLP, registered for Jane Street Group on September 18, 2025, effective August 9, 2025, on "issues related to the regulation of financial investments." Its lobbyists and their disclosed covered positions are [[Timothy Bergreen]], staff director and deputy staff director of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] from 2015 to 2021 and chief of staff and legislative director to Representative [[Adam Schiff]] from 2003 to 2014; [[Mayur Patel]], associate general counsel at the [[Office of the United States Trade Representative]] from 2011 to 2018 and chief international trade counsel of the [[Senate Finance Committee]] from 2020 to 2025; [[Aaron Cutler]], senior adviser for policy and outreach to House Majority Leader [[Eric Cantor]] in 2013 and 2014; and [[Daniel Winkler]], an aide and adviser to [[Kyrsten Sinema]] from 2015 to January 2025. It reported 160,000 dollars for the third quarter of 2025, 50,000 for the fourth, 30,000 for the first quarter of 2026 and 10,000 for the second. The agencies contacted were the [[Department of Commerce]], the [[White House|Executive Office of the President]], the [[Department of the Treasury]] and the Office of the United States Trade Representative, with the [[State Department]] added in the 2026 reports.[^24] Bloomberg reported that Jane Street representatives met the Treasury, Commerce and the Executive Office of the President to discuss the firm's operations in India, and that Granieri had met lawmakers.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Political contributions
|
||||
|
||||
Itemized Federal Election Commission receipts that list Jane Street as the contributor's employer include, under Granieri's name, 225,000 dollars to [[Republican Voters Against Trump]] and 200,000 dollars to [[Unite the Country]] (July 31, 2020), 175,000 dollars to [[Priorities USA Action]] (August 12, 2020), 100,000 dollars each to the [[Senate Leadership Fund]], Colorado Rising PAC and 1820 PAC (September 21, 2020), 500,000 dollars to WFW Action Fund (February 25, 2022), 500,000 dollars to [[Principled Leadership for Michigan]] (July 22, 2022), 500,000 dollars to the Senate Leadership Fund (October 17, 2022), 500,000 dollars each to SFA Fund (December 15 and 27, 2023) and Women Vote (January 30, 2024), 700,000 dollars to HMP and 500,000 dollars to the [[Congressional Leadership Fund]] (September 27, 2024), and 198,000 dollars to Emmer Majority Builders (September 27, 2024). In the 2026 cycle the receipts include 130,900 dollars to Emmer Majority Builders (April 2, 2025), 345,100 dollars to Article One Victory with joint fundraising transfers to the [[Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee|DCCC]] and [[Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee|DSCC]] (December 24, 2025), and 500,000 dollars each to the committees registered as SLF PAC and CLF on March 31, 2026 and again on June 3 and 4, 2026.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
Contributions by other employees include 1,500,000 and 1,000,000 dollars to the Senate Leadership Fund on October 15, 2024 from two contributors listed as managing directors, 313,800 dollars to Emmer Majority Builders on March 1, 2024 from one of them, and 1,000,000 dollars to Unite the Country on February 28, 2020 from a contributor listed as a programmer, who appears in 2019 receipts as the firm's head of technology. James McClave, listed as a trader, gave 401,300 dollars to the [[Biden Victory Fund]] on September 24, 2020 and 250,000 dollars to the Harris Action Fund on May 10, 2023. [[Daniel Setzman]] and [[Turner Batty]], both listed on the FINRA record as management committee members of Jane Street Group from December 2024, gave to Republican joint fundraising committees in 2024, 2025 and 2026, among them 373,200 and 376,600 dollars from Setzman to Grow the Majority (September 2024 and April 2026) and 420,100 dollars from Batty to One Team Senate Majority (December 10, 2025).[^1][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Regulatory record
|
||||
|
||||
Jane Street Capital's FINRA record reports two final regulatory events involving control affiliates: an administrative fine of KRW 281.2 million (about 215,000 dollars) imposed by [[South Korea]]'s [[Financial Services Commission (South Korea)|Financial Services Commission]] on Jane Street Asia Limited, initiated December 27, 2023 and paid February 1, 2024, for hedging an October 2019 block trade before it was eligible for reporting, which the commission found violated the market disruption provisions of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act; and a 3,500 dollar penalty imposed by [[Norway]]'s Finanstilsynet on Jane Street Group on January 21, 2021 for late reporting of net short positions in March and May 2020.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, BrokerCheck Report, Jane Street Capital, LLC, CRD 103782, SEC 8-52275 (report generated 2026), firm profile, direct and indirect owners, registrations, industry arrangements and disclosure events. https://files.brokercheck.finra.org/firm/firm_103782.pdf ; BrokerCheck Report, CF Secured, LLC, CRD 285841, firm names and indirect owners. https://files.brokercheck.finra.org/firm/firm_285841.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: Securities and Exchange Board of India, "Interim Order in the matter of Index manipulation by Jane Street Group," WTM/AN/MRD/MRD-SEC-3/31516/2025-26, July 3, 2025, signed Ananth Narayan G., Whole Time Member, Mumbai, paras. 1-3 and Table 1 (pp. 1-4), paras. 15.51.3-15.51.4 (pp. 46-47), paras. 36-38 and Table 44 (pp. 94-95), paras. 60-66 (pp. 102-105). https://www.sebi.gov.in/sebi_data/attachdocs/jul-2025/1751584518593.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: Complaint, *Snyder v. Jane Street Group, LLC*, No. 1:26-cv-01536-DEH (S.D.N.Y. filed Feb. 24, 2026), ECF No. 1 (public redacted version), paras. 2, 6, 11, 19-23, 46-48. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503.1.0.pdf
|
||||
[^4]: FTX Recovery Trust's Motion for Reconsideration or to Modify Order Allowing Rheingans-Yoo's FDU Claim, *In re FTX Trading Ltd.*, No. 22-11068 (KBO) (Bankr. D. Del. July 23, 2025), D.I. 31846, paras. 7-11. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.deb.188450/gov.uscourts.deb.188450.31846.0.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: Defendant Caroline Ellison's Sentencing Memorandum (redacted public filing), *United States v. Ellison*, No. 22 Cr. 673 (LAK) (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 10, 2024), ECF No. 497, memorandum pp. 12-16 (ECF pp. 15-19). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939.497.0.pdf
|
||||
[^6]: Complaint, *Alameda Research Ltd. v. Platform Life Sciences Inc.*, Adv. Pro. No. 23-50444 (JTD) (Bankr. D. Del. July 19, 2023), filed as D.I. 1881 in No. 22-11068, caption and paras. 1, 9. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.deb.188450/gov.uscourts.deb.188450.1881.0.pdf
|
||||
[^7]: Anthropic, "Anthropic raises $124 million to build more reliable, general AI systems," May 28, 2021. https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-raises-124-million-to-build-more-reliable-general-ai-systems
|
||||
[^8]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A itemized individual receipts, contributor employer "Jane Street," receipts of 100,000 dollars or more, two-year periods 2020, 2022, 2024 and 2026, queried October 1, 2026 through the OpenFEC API (api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/). https://api.open.fec.gov/developers/
|
||||
[^9]: Dario Amodei, "The Adolescence of Technology," January 2026, acknowledgments, filed as Exhibit 1 to the Declaration of Michael J. Mongan, *Anthropic PBC v. U.S. Department of War*, No. 3:26-cv-01996-RFL (N.D. Cal. Mar. 9, 2026), ECF No. 6-7. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.465515/gov.uscourts.cand.465515.6.7.pdf
|
||||
[^10]: MacKenzie Sigalos, "FTX estate selling majority stake in AI startup Anthropic for $884 million, with bulk going to UAE," *CNBC*, March 25, 2024 (updated March 28, 2024). https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/25/ftx-estate-sells-majority-stake-in-startup-anthropic-for-884-million.html
|
||||
[^11]: Consent Preliminary Order of Forfeiture as to Specific Property/Money Judgment, *United States v. Ellison*, S2 22 Cr. 673 (LAK) (S.D.N.Y. filed Sept. 25, 2024), ECF No. 510, pp. 3-4. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939.510.0.pdf
|
||||
[^12]: Docket, *Jane Street Group, LLC v. Millennium Management LLC*, No. 1:24-cv-02783-PAE (S.D.N.Y.), entry 1 (complaint, Apr. 12, 2024) and stipulation and order of dismissal with prejudice (so-ordered Dec. 6, 2024); CourtListener docket 68431468. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68431468/jane-street-group-llc-v-millennium-management-llc/
|
||||
[^13]: "US trading firm Jane Street confirms it will comply with directive: Sebi," *Business Standard*, July 21, 2025, reporting the SEBI statement of that date. https://www.business-standard.com/markets/news/jane-street-compliance-with-order-sebi-125072101483_1.html
|
||||
[^14]: Khushboo Tiwari, "Sebi refuses more data to US trading firm Jane Street as probe deepens," *Business Standard*, September 9, 2025. https://www.business-standard.com/markets/news/sat-admits-jane-street-appeal-against-sebi-in-bank-nifty-case-125090900517_1.html
|
||||
[^15]: "Jane Street vs Sebi: SAT adjourns hearing in market manipulation case," *Business Today*, February 25, 2026, citing CNBC-TV18. https://www.businesstoday.in/markets/story/jane-street-vs-sebi-sat-adjourns-hearing-in-market-manipulation-case-517925-2026-02-25
|
||||
[^16]: Bloomberg, "Jane Street hires lobbyists after 20 years amid Sebi investigation," republished by *Business Standard*, December 24, 2025. https://www.business-standard.com/markets/news/jane-street-hires-lobbyists-after-20-years-amid-sebi-investigation-125122401325_1.html
|
||||
[^17]: Docket, *Snyder v. Jane Street Group, LLC*, No. 1:26-cv-01536-DEH (S.D.N.Y.), entries 1 (Feb. 24, 2026), stipulated briefing order (Apr. 8, 2026), 28-29 (Apr. 23, 2026), 36 (order signed May 12, entered May 15, 2026), 37 (May 18, 2026), 41 (June 11, 2026), 49-50 (July 13, 2026); CourtListener docket 72321910. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72321910/snyder-v-jane-street-group-llc/
|
||||
[^18]: Complaint (re-filed with revised redactions), *Snyder v. Jane Street Group, LLC*, No. 1:26-cv-01536-DEH (S.D.N.Y. May 18, 2026), ECF No. 37, paras. 2-5, 11, 21-23, 46-48, 50-61, 65-69, 90-95, 100-107, 118-120, 124-163. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503.37.0_1.pdf
|
||||
[^19]: Declaration of Thomas Q. Lynch in Support of Motion to Dismiss, Exhibits C (Jane Street communication, May 7, 2022) and J (Jane Street communication, May 9, 2022, revised redactions), *Snyder v. Jane Street Group, LLC*, No. 1:26-cv-01536-DEH (S.D.N.Y. filed May 19, 2026), ECF Nos. 38-3 and 38-10. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503.38.3.pdf and https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503.38.10.pdf
|
||||
[^20]: Memorandum of Law in Support of Defendants' Motion to Dismiss, *Snyder v. Jane Street Group, LLC*, No. 1:26-cv-01536-DEH (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 23, 2026), ECF No. 29, preliminary statement (pp. 1-4); joint letter of Rishi N. Zutshi and Sarah E. McVay requesting oral argument, ECF No. 50 (July 13, 2026), signature blocks. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503.29.0.pdf and https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503/gov.uscourts.nysd.658503.50.0_2.pdf
|
||||
[^21]: Letter of the United States (AUSA Danielle R. Sassoon), *United States v. Ellison*, 22 Cr. 673 (LAK) (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 17, 2024), ECF No. 502, p. 3. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939.502.0.pdf
|
||||
[^22]: Lobbying Disclosure Act database, registrant Hogan & Hartson L.L.P. (listed as Hogan Lovells Cadwalader US LLP), client Jane Street Securities: registration (LD-1) effective Mar. 7, 2003, received Mar. 17, 2003, filing 4686194d-683f-4713-8105-5b839d9aba6f; mid-year 2003 report (LD-2) signed Aug. 7, 2003, filing 9502455c-0853-45bc-9fc2-75d769c4f874; year-end 2003 and 2004 reports; termination report posted Aug. 12, 2005. https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Jane%20Street
|
||||
[^23]: Lobbying Disclosure Act database, registrant Porterfield, Fettig & Sears, LLC, client Jane Street Group, LLC: registration effective June 2, 2025, posted July 17, 2025 (filing 41ab0657-06e7-487b-808f-de674920e11f), and quarterly reports posted July 21, 2025, Oct. 20, 2025, Jan. 20, 2026, Apr. 20, 2026 and July 17, 2026. https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/41ab0657-06e7-487b-808f-de674920e11f/print/
|
||||
[^24]: Lobbying Disclosure Act database, registrant Hogan Lovells US LLP (now Hogan Lovells Cadwalader US LLP), client Jane Street Group, LLC: registration effective Aug. 9, 2025, posted Sept. 18, 2025 (filing 575096ca-b874-4afc-b37f-e6fc53b00b58), and quarterly reports posted Oct. 16, 2025, Jan. 16, 2026, Apr. 15, 2026 and July 15, 2026, lobbyist covered-position entries. https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/575096ca-b874-4afc-b37f-e6fc53b00b58/print/
|
||||
129
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Middlebury Institute CTEC.md
Normal file
129
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Middlebury Institute CTEC.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,129 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- CTEC
|
||||
- MiddleburyInstitute
|
||||
- CounterTerrorism
|
||||
- OnlineExtremism
|
||||
- Accelerationism
|
||||
- OpenAI
|
||||
- TVTP
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Middlebury Institute CTEC
|
||||
- CTEC
|
||||
- Middlebury CTEC
|
||||
- Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism
|
||||
- Middlebury Institute of International Studies
|
||||
- Middlebury Institute's Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism
|
||||
summary: "Research center at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, founded in 2018, whose work on extremist language models, Telegram networks and games drew on OpenAI access, DHS grants and Logically funding."
|
||||
start: 2018
|
||||
location: "Monterey, California"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jason Blazakis]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "founding executive director"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Alex Newhouse]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2022
|
||||
role: "deputy director"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[OpenAI]]"
|
||||
start: 2019
|
||||
role: "research partner on misuse of GPT-2, then academic API access for GPT-3"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2021-10-01
|
||||
end: 2023-09-30
|
||||
role: "targeted violence and terrorism prevention grant EMW-2021-GR-00032, game-based curriculum"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Logically]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-09
|
||||
role: "two-year research grant for a cross-platform extremism database"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[Meta Platforms]]"
|
||||
start: 2022-09-15
|
||||
role: "research partner named at the White House United We Stand summit"
|
||||
fn: 16
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[iThrive Games Foundation]]"
|
||||
start: 2021
|
||||
role: "co-design and testing partner for the DHS-funded game"
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, known as CTEC, is a research center at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in [[Monterey, California]], part of [[Middlebury College]]. Its stated mission is to advance education, research and intelligence analysis on domestic extremism, transnational emerging threats and trust and safety technology policy, and its website describes work that provides "bespoke analysis for tech and government clients."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Founding and staff
|
||||
|
||||
[[Alex Newhouse]] helped start the center in 2018 while a graduate student at the Institute, first as an independent contractor, then as research lead, and then as deputy director; his biography dates the deputy directorship to 2020, while a Middlebury article of October 27, 2020 lists [[Kris McGuffie]] as deputy director and Newhouse as digital research lead. In 2022 he became a senior research fellow while pursuing a doctorate at the [[University of Colorado Boulder]], and he is listed in 2026 as a non-resident senior fellow. His biography lists earlier work on the data governance and fraud management teams of [[Sony Interactive Entertainment]]. The October 2020 article described the center's staff as working on extremism research projects "for several notable clients" and did not name them.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Jason Blazakis]], the center's founding executive director, directed the [[Counterterrorism Finance and Designations Office]] in the [[Bureau of Counterterrorism]] of the [[United States Department of State]] from 2008 to 2018, where his biography says he was responsible for directing efforts to designate states, organizations and individuals as state sponsors of terrorism, foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists. His biography also lists earlier positions at the [[Congressional Research Service]], the [[Bureau of Intelligence and Research]] and the embassy in Kabul, and a senior fellowship at the [[Soufan Center]].[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 24, 2023 Middlebury announced an anonymous gift of 2 million dollars to expand the center and to provide financial aid to students in the master's program in nonproliferation and terrorism studies. Blazakis was quoted calling it the most significant gift the center had received since its founding in 2018, and the announcement stated that it would support staff positions and senior research scholars.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Katharine Petrich]] was named interim director on November 17, 2023, and the center announced on February 12, 2024 that [[Sarah Pollack]] would become its director of tech policy and strategy; the announcement states that Pollack had led communications for the global counter-terrorism and violent extremism program of [[Meta Platforms]].[^5] [[J.M. Berger]] and [[Sam Jackson]] joined as senior research fellows in June 2023, alongside [[Amy Cooter]], then the center's director of research, academic development and innovation.[^6] Pages dated August 2026 identify Blazakis again as executive director.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Reports with OpenAI
|
||||
|
||||
In November 2019 [[OpenAI]] published "Release Strategies and the Social Impacts of Language Models," whose author list includes Newhouse, Blazakis and Kris McGuffie with the affiliation CTEC, alongside OpenAI staff. The report names CTEC as a partner exploring how GPT-2 could be misused by terrorists and extremists, thanks Blazakis and Newhouse for feedback on earlier versions, and reproduces as its Appendix D a CTEC report of October 2019, "The Industrialization of Terrorist Propaganda: Neural Language Models and the Threat of Fake Content Generation," by Newhouse, Blazakis and McGuffie.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
In September 2020 McGuffie and Newhouse published "The Radicalization Risks of GPT-3 and Advanced Neural Language Models." The report states on its first page: "This project was made possible by the OpenAI API Academic Access Program." It found that GPT-3 showed significant improvement over GPT-2 in generating extremist texts, and stated that "OpenAI's preventative measures are strong" while describing a risk from unregulated copycat technology.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Grants from the Department of Homeland Security
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Department of Homeland Security]] announced fiscal year 2021 [[Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention]] grants on September 27, 2021. One, of 629,533 dollars, went to CTEC with the [[iThrive Games Foundation]] for a game-based curriculum on radicalization; the federal spending database records it as award EMW-2021-GR-00032 with a period from October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2023. Middlebury's announcement of November 9, 2021 gave the amount as 630,000 dollars over two years, with Newhouse as principal investigator.[^10][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
The DHS announcement of September 14, 2022 listed two further awards connected to Middlebury. One, of 699,763 dollars, went to CTEC for a joint project with the nonprofit [[Take This]] and [[Logically]] to develop "a shared framework for understanding extremism in games," best practices and training workshops for community managers and trust and safety staff. The other, of 659,327 dollars, went to [[Arizona State University]] for the continuation of "Diverting Hate," a project on incel radicalization on [[Twitter]] begun by a student team from the Institute in the [[Invent2Prevent]] program. The federal spending database records a Middlebury College award, EMW-2022-GR-00036, at 686,633.14 dollars.[^10][^11]
|
||||
|
||||
The Science and Technology Directorate of DHS paid [[RTI International]] to evaluate the 2021 grant, and RTI's profile, dated July 2024 and posted by DHS on January 27, 2025, records that the grant ran from October 2021 to March 2024 including a two-quarter extension. It was the center's first targeted violence prevention grant. The center held two co-design sessions with 22 adolescents and 11 playtests, consulted [[John Horgan]] and [[Christian Picciolini]], and built a single-player dialogue game; 13 adolescents completed it and 9 completed the pre- and post-game surveys, too few for an outcome evaluation. RTI reported delays caused by changes to the game format and difficulty recruiting schools.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
[[NCITE]], the DHS Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska Omaha, was evaluating the same grant program during these years, and RTI International was one of its partners.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Funding from technology companies
|
||||
|
||||
On September 29, 2022 CTEC announced a two-year grant from Logically, a company that describes itself as using artificial intelligence and human expertise against misinformation, to build a cross-platform social media database on the role of extremist organization, narrative creation and disinformation in radicalization, with Newhouse as principal investigator and the senior research scholar [[Matt Kriner]] assisting. The database was to combine archives from [[Telegram]], [[YouTube]], [[Instagram]], Twitter, [[Facebook]], [[Roblox]] and [[Steam]] with leaked material from [[Epik]], the [[Oath Keepers]], [[Iron March]], [[Fascist Forge]] and the [[International Third Positionist Forum]]. CTEC was one of three recipients of grants announced by Logically.[^14] Logically was sold in a pre-pack administration deal confirmed on July 7, 2025, in which [[Kreatur Ltd]], run by a former director and early investor in Logically, acquired its technology, brand and key assets.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
Middlebury's account of October 19, 2022 states that CTEC would partner with Meta and the [[White House]] #UnitedWeStand initiative, and that the partnership was announced at the summit of September 15, 2022. It quotes [[Dina Hussein]], then counterterrorism policy lead at Meta, and Newhouse, and states that CTEC "partners with [[Spectrum Labs]] to provide multilingual research support for the construction of artificial intelligence products."[^16] The White House fact sheet for the summit lists Meta among technology companies announcing actions and does not mention CTEC or Middlebury.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### Telegram networks and the Accelerationism Research Consortium
|
||||
|
||||
In June 2022 CTEC and [[Tech Against Terrorism]] published a report on two coalitions, the [[United Acceleration Front]] and the [[National Socialist Coalition]], that emerged on Telegram in early 2021 around [[Feuerkrieg Division]] and [[InJekt Division]]. The report states that the two organizations collected and analyzed data from associated channels and chats from June 2021 to February 2022, and that Tech Against Terrorism identified 21 entities in the network.[^18] Middlebury's 2022 account states that CTEC is a founder of the [[Accelerationism Research Consortium]], which it describes as the first research initiative on militant accelerationism, and Kriner is named as the consortium's managing director.[^14][^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Profiles of extremist organizations
|
||||
|
||||
The center publishes a series titled "Dangerous Organizations and Bad Actors," with profiles that include [[The Base]] (March 6, 2022), the [[Active Club Network]] (March 15, 2023), [[Atomwaffen Division]] (April 12, 2023) and [[National Action]] (August 23, 2023). The profile of The Base states that its founder, [[Rinaldo Nazzaro]], is based in Russia and manages the group from afar, primarily through Telegram.[^19] The October 2020 Middlebury article also refers to a CTEC report of April 2020 on the [[Russian Imperial Movement]], which the State Department designated a specially designated global terrorist entity in the same month.[^2][^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Middlebury Institute of International Studies, "Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism," home page. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec
|
||||
[^2]: Middlebury Institute of International Studies, "Alex Newhouse," faculty and fellow profile, https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/people/alex-newhouse ; Eva Gudbergsdottir and Anna Philips, "National Spotlight is on CTEC Counterterrorism Research on White Supremacist Movements," Middlebury Institute, October 27, 2020, https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/news/national-spotlight-ctec-counterterrorism-research-white
|
||||
[^3]: Middlebury Institute of International Studies, "Jason Blazakis," faculty profile. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/people/jason-blazakis
|
||||
[^4]: Office of Advancement, "$2 Million Gift Will Fund Expansion of the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism," Middlebury Institute, May 24, 2023. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/news/2-million-gift-will-fund-expansion-center-terrorism
|
||||
[^5]: "Katharine Petrich Announced as CTEC's New Interim Director," Middlebury Institute, November 17, 2023, https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/news/katharine-petrich-announced-ctecs-new-interim-director ; Ian Driscoll, "CTEC Announces New Director of Tech Policy and Strategy," Middlebury Institute, February 12, 2024, https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/news/ctec-announces-new-director-tech-policy-and-strategy
|
||||
[^6]: "CTEC Welcomes J.M. Berger and Sam Jackson," Middlebury Institute, June 26, 2023. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/news/ctec-welcomes-jm-berger-and-sam-jackson
|
||||
[^7]: CTEC home page, news items of May 7 and August 10, 2026, and "CTEC Experts" staff page. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-experts
|
||||
[^8]: Irene Solaiman, Miles Brundage, Jack Clark, Amanda Askell, Ariel Herbert-Voss, Jeff Wu, Alec Radford, Gretchen Krueger, Jong Wook Kim, Sarah Kreps, Miles McCain, Alex Newhouse, Jason Blazakis, Kris McGuffie and Jasmine Wang, "Release Strategies and the Social Impacts of Language Models," OpenAI Report, November 2019, partnerships section, acknowledgements and Appendix D. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1908.09203
|
||||
[^9]: Kris McGuffie and Alex Newhouse, "The Radicalization Risks of GPT-3 and Advanced Neural Language Models," Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, September 16, 2020, executive summary. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2009.06807
|
||||
[^10]: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, press releases and grantee abstracts for the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program, fiscal years 2021 (September 27, 2021) and 2022 (September 14, 2022), compiled PDF; USAspending.gov award records EMW-2021-GR-00032 (629,533 dollars, October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2023) and EMW-2022-GR-00036 (686,633.14 dollars), recipient "President and Fellows of Middlebury College." https://ecivis-partners.s3.amazonaws.com/bplih/grantfile/2c/2c8da5432f7e05dd7e86265ed0fe7b6e6d3fced9 ; https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/
|
||||
[^11]: Stephen Diehl, "Middlebury Institute Team Will Develop Game to Counter Extremist Recruitment in Schools," Middlebury Institute, November 9, 2021. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/news/middlebury-institute-team-will-develop-game-counter
|
||||
[^12]: RTI International, "DHS FY2021 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grantee Evaluation Site Profile: Middlebury Institute's Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism," July 2024, posted by DHS January 27, 2025. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-01/2025_0127_cp3-middlebury-institute-fy21-tvtpgrant-eval-report.pdf
|
||||
[^13]: NCITE, "Evaluating Terrorism and Targeted Violence Prevention Programs," project page, University of Nebraska Omaha. https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/research/research-projects/allen-impact-tvtp-grant-programs.php
|
||||
[^14]: Stephen Diehl, "CTEC is Working on First-of-its-Kind Social Media Database on Far-Right Movements," Middlebury Institute, September 29, 2022. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/news/ctec-working-first-its-kind-social-media-database-far-right
|
||||
[^15]: "AI fact-checker Logically sold off in administration deal," UKTN, July 7, 2025. https://www.uktech.news/ai/ai-fact-checker-logically-sold-off-in-administration-deal-20250707
|
||||
[^16]: Sierra Abukins, "CTEC Partners with Meta to Support White House Initiative to Combat Violent Extremism," Middlebury Institute, October 19, 2022. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/news/ctec-partners-meta-support-white-house-initiative-combat
|
||||
[^17]: "Fact Sheet: The United We Stand Summit: Taking Action to Prevent and Address Hate-Motivated Violence and Foster Unity," The White House, September 15, 2022, via the American Presidency Project. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/fact-sheet-the-united-we-stand-summit-taking-action-prevent-and-address-hate-motivated
|
||||
[^18]: Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism and Tech Against Terrorism, "Militant Accelerationism Coalitions: A Case Study in Neo-Fascist Accelerationist Coalition Building Online," June 2022, executive summary; Middlebury Institute landing page of June 7, 2022. https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/militant-accelerationism-coalitions-case-study
|
||||
[^19]: Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, "Dangerous Organizations and Bad Actors: The Base" (March 6, 2022), https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/dangerous-organizations-and-bad-actors-base ; "Dangerous Organizations and Bad Actors: The Active Club Network" (March 15, 2023), https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/dangerous-organizations-and-bad-actors-active ; "Dangerous Organizations and Bad Actors: Atomwaffen Division" (April 12, 2023), https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/dangerous-organizations-and-bad-actors-4 ; "Dangerous Organizations and Bad Actors: National Action" (August 23, 2023), https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/academics/centers-initiatives/ctec/ctec-publications/dangerous-organizations-and-bad-actors-5
|
||||
[^20]: Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism, "Dangerous Organizations and Bad Actors: Nordic Resistance Movement" (November 18, 2022), stating that the Russian Imperial Movement "was designated a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) entity by the U.S. State Department in April of 2020." https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/ctec-publications-0/dangerous-organizations-and-bad-actors-nordic-resistance-movement
|
||||
166
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Mirror Group Newspapers.md
Normal file
166
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Mirror Group Newspapers.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,166 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Newspaper
|
||||
- UK
|
||||
- RobertMaxwell
|
||||
- MirrorGroup
|
||||
- PensionFunds
|
||||
- PhoneHacking
|
||||
- ReachPlc
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Mirror Group Newspapers
|
||||
- Mirror Group
|
||||
- MGN
|
||||
- MGN Limited
|
||||
- MGN Ltd
|
||||
- Mirror Group Newspapers plc
|
||||
- Mirror Group Newspapers Limited
|
||||
- Mirror Group plc
|
||||
- Trinity Mirror
|
||||
summary: "Publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People, bought by Robert Maxwell in 1984, floated in 1991, and the subject of DTI inspectors from 1992 and phone hacking litigation."
|
||||
start: 1984
|
||||
location: "London, United Kingdom"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Maxwell]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1984
|
||||
role: "proprietor"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Reach plc]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1999
|
||||
role: "parent company, as Trinity Mirror plc and later Reach plc"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Trade and Industry]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1992-06
|
||||
end: 2001-03-30
|
||||
role: "inspectors appointed under sections 432 and 442 of the Companies Act 1985"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Samuel Montagu]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "merchant bank sponsoring the 1991 flotation"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "auditor"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Lord Williams of Elvel]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director, as stated in the Commons on December 12, 1991"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Paul Vickers]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1992-12
|
||||
role: "company secretary and group legal director"
|
||||
fn: 24
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Piers Morgan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1996
|
||||
end: 2004-05
|
||||
role: "editor of the Daily Mirror"
|
||||
fn: 23
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) is the publisher of the national titles the [[Daily Mirror]], the [[The Sunday Mirror|Sunday Mirror]] and *The People*. [[Robert Maxwell]] acquired the group in 1984 and floated it in 1991.[^1] Since 1999 its parent company has been the company incorporated in 1904 as the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo and now named [[Reach plc]].[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Corporate Entities
|
||||
|
||||
The Companies House register carries three companies with the group's name. Company 00168660 was incorporated on June 29, 1920 and was named Mirror Group Newspapers plc until April 21, 1994, Mirror Group Limited from that date until September 25, 2007, and since then Stradbrook Holdings Limited, described as a non-trading company. Company 02542560 was incorporated on September 24, 1990 as Adviser (160) Limited and has been named Mirror Group Newspapers Limited since April 21, 1994; a members' voluntary liquidation began on June 18, 2025, with two [[BDO]] practitioners appointed, and dissolution is due on November 3, 2026. Company 02571173, incorporated on January 2, 1991 as Legibus 1606 Limited and renamed MGN Limited on April 16, 1991, is the active publishing company at One Canada Square, [[Canary Wharf]].[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The parent company's register entry records the names The Liverpool Daily Post and Echo Public Limited Company (from February 15, 1982), Trinity International Holdings Public Limited Company (from January 11, 1985), Trinity Public Limited Company (from May 5, 1998), Trinity Mirror plc (from September 6, 1999) and Reach plc (from May 3, 2018).[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Maxwell Ownership and the 1991 Flotation
|
||||
|
||||
Maxwell bought the group in 1984. In 1990 [[Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte]] audited his main companies, and Maxwell attempted to disguise the financial collapse of the empire with secret loans from the Mirror Group pension fund. The group was floated in 1991, and receivers were appointed to Maxwell's personal estate the same year.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The MGN board approved Maxwell's request for sole signatory authority, for unlimited amounts, over all company bank accounts at a board meeting called at midnight and held at 2.45am on the day he took over; the board of [[Maxwell Communication Corporation]] had agreed to the same request in 1981. From 1984 a central treasury, based from 1987 in Maxwell House, handled treasury functions for all of Maxwell's companies including MGN, and the MGN finance department's role was confined to collating bank balances and processing cheques.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Samuel Montagu]] was the merchant bank sponsoring the flotation.[^4] [[Lawrence Guest]], finance director of MGN since 1977, sat on the pension fund investment committee, and [[Michael Stoney]], whom [[Kevin Maxwell]] had wanted as senior finance director in November 1990, was from May 1991 answerable to Maxwell and responsible for bank relations, the treasury function and relations with the auditors. [[Alan Clements]], who had retired as finance director of [[ICI]], was approached in March 1991 to join the board as a non-executive director. [[Robert Bunn]] was finance director of the private-side Maxwell companies and a director of MGN, and [[Alan Stephens]] was company secretary of MGN from 1984; Stephens had been named company secretary of Robert Maxwell and Company in 1965, a company deeply entangled in the affairs of Pergamon Press, on which a 1973 [[Department of Trade and Industry]] report had said that Maxwell could not be trusted to exercise "proper stewardship" of a publicly quoted company.[^5][^6] Stephens was also a director of [[Bishopsgate Investment Management]]; [[Peter Walker]] had insisted that the secretarial function be split between MGN and Maxwell Communication Corporation, and Walker, displeased that board documents were often handed to directors half an hour before meetings, declined the chairmanship before the split was implemented.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Pension Fund Transactions
|
||||
|
||||
In February 1986 the MGN pension fund bought Strand House, next to the Mirror Building, for 17.1 million pounds. The building was leased to Pergamon Press, which bought it outright for 17.8 million pounds nine months later. Six months after the pension fund purchase, [[Savills]] valued it at 36 million pounds when it was offered as collateral for a loan of 105 million pounds. Guest was on the investment committee that approved the purchase, and there was no independent valuation.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Shares in [[Reuters]] were sold by MGN to the pension fund and bought back some time later at an artificially low price on backdated documentation; Guest signed the agreement unwinding the transaction.[^7] Coopers audit staff recorded in a memorandum of matters for partners' attention that paired transactions before and after the balance sheet date removed and then reinstated an MGN liability to the pension fund, with the note: "We understand from Robert Bunn that the reasoning is 'political.'"[^8] A letter drafted by Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte in June 1991 and addressed to Bunn warned that accounting systems, management information and statutory accounts were "well below the levels we would consider adequate", and described the quality of audit information as "lamentably poor." The inspectors found that Bunn, with Kevin Maxwell, bore "the major responsibility" for deficiencies in the information provided to the auditors and "a significant responsibility" for purchases of Mirror Group shares by Maxwell in breach of undertakings in the flotation prospectus.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Pension Funds in Parliament
|
||||
|
||||
On December 12, 1991, in a Commons debate on pension funds, [[Kenneth Hind]] described the appropriation by Maxwell of between 300 million and 500 million pounds from the Daily Mirror and Maxwell Communication Corporation pension fund as the catalyst for the debate. He stated that Bishopsgate Investment Management was wholly owned by the Maxwell family and that Maxwell and his two sons were trustees of the fund. He also stated that Lord Williams of Elvel, the Labour deputy leader in the House of Lords and a director of MGN, had addressed the Lords on January 31 on corporate governance. During the debate a Member asked whether the Labour Party would disclose and return the money it had received from Maxwell, citing Early Day Motion 365.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
On June 8, 1992 the Secretary of State for Social Security, [[Peter Lilley]], told the Commons that 35,000 people had pensions or were members of pension funds within the Maxwell group, and that about 15,000 of them were guaranteed their pensions by Mirror Group Newspapers.[^10] On June 9, 1992 the Commons debated the Maxwell pensioners. Ron Leighton told the House that a deputation of Daily Mirror staff led by Joe Lynch had told him that Maxwell was taking over the Daily Mirror only to get hold of the pension fund, which Lynch put at about 500 million pounds.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### Seymour Hersh and Nicholas Davies
|
||||
|
||||
In October 1991 the Mirror Group published a series of prominent articles attacking [[Seymour Hersh]] and his British publisher [[Faber and Faber]] over Hersh's book *[[Samson Option|The Samson Option]]*, suggesting that the book made false allegations about Maxwell and [[Nicholas Davies]], a former foreign editor of the Daily Mirror. On Thursday, August 18, 1994 the group apologised "unreservedly" in court for those articles, acknowledged that its attacks were "entirely improper," and agreed to pay Hersh and Faber "substantial damages" and their costs.[^12] The allegations themselves, and the Commons motions and denials that followed publication, are set out on the Robert Maxwell and Nicholas Davies pages.
|
||||
|
||||
### Inspectors, Regulators and Prosecutions
|
||||
|
||||
The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry appointed two inspectors in June 1992 under sections 432 and 442 of the Companies Act 1985 to investigate the affairs and membership of Mirror Group Newspapers plc: [[Sir John Thomas]] and Raymond Turner. The report was published on March 30, 2001, and the Department announced that it was taking legal advice on directors' disqualification proceedings and that regulators and professional bodies had already acted on many of the events described.[^13] Coopers & Lybrand Deloitte had agreed in 1999 to pay 67.6 million pounds to Maxwell creditors, and the Joint Disciplinary Scheme fined [[PricewaterhouseCoopers]] a record sum the same year for shortcomings in the 1990 audit.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
The inspectors found that Clements bore "the major responsibility" among the directors for failing to ensure that the board could control the management of the company and Maxwell himself, and that his presence and that of Sir Robert Clark on the board "was used to convey the impression that MGN was a properly run listed company subject to the control of the board and not RM, whereas this was not the case." They found that board papers had been handed out as meetings started in 1991, and that the directors had in consequence "inadvertently" given Maxwell sole signatory authority on a new bank account.[^8] Of Stoney they found that he co-authorised two dozen unusual transactions between MGN and Maxwell private companies.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
Stoney was charged with conspiracy to defraud and false accounting over a 50 million pound loan from [[Bankers Trust]] to MGN in October 1991; the case did not come to court after Kevin Maxwell's acquittal at an earlier trial, and the [[Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales]] expelled Stoney. Bunn was tried for conspiracy to defraud over a pension fund transaction that took place after Maxwell's death, fell ill during the trial, and the prosecution dropped its case.[^8] The trial of Kevin and Ian Maxwell collapsed in 1995.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Phone Hacking Litigation
|
||||
|
||||
[[Mr Justice Mann]] gave judgment in *Gulati v MGN Ltd* on May 21, 2015, on the claims of eight trial claimants for whom [[David Sherborne]] appeared; MGN was represented by [[Matthew Nicklin]] QC. The defendant had admitted liability to Shobna Gulati and nine other claimants in September 2014 and had published a general public apology for phone hacking in February 2015.[^15] Mann J found that phone hacking and other unlawful information gathering had been used in an extensive and habitual way across all three national titles from 1999 to 2006, and in 2017 MGN admitted that the findings applied to all newspaper desks at all three titles.[^16] The awards to individual claimants included 260,250 pounds to one, 188,250 pounds to another and 157,250 pounds to a third; the judge described the awards as far more substantial than in any hitherto reported privacy case.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
*The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* (case HC-2000-000003) was tried before [[Mr Justice Fancourt]] over several weeks from May 10 to June 30, 2023, with judgment on December 15, 2023. The claimants were [[Prince Harry]], Nikki Sanderson, Michael Turner and Fiona Wightman, and the claim was one of many in the fourth wave of what the court called the Mirror Newspapers Hacking Litigation.[^18] MGN contested the generic allegations, and Fancourt J found that unlawful information gathering had continued after August 2006 to some extent. Expenditure on private investigators over the period, calculated by the claimants at 9.7 million pounds and put by MGN at just under 9 million pounds, exceeded 1 million pounds in each year from 2003 to 2005; 118 of 129 articles relied on in *Gulati* and the managed claims pending with it were admitted or found to be the product of voicemail interception.[^19] The court awarded 140,600 pounds in total to the Duke of Sussex, with awards for fifteen of the thirty-three sample articles among its heads, and 31,650 pounds to Mr Turner, 67,500 pounds to Ms Sanderson and 22,750 pounds to Ms Wightman.[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
The judge recorded that, as counsel for MGN emphasised at the start of closing submissions, by June 2023 MGN had paid out about 105 million pounds in compensation and costs to about 600 claimants in the Mirror Newspapers Hacking Litigation.[^21] MGN spent more than 2 million pounds on one investigator group, TDI/ELI. Documents which should have been disclosed for the *Gulati* trial in 2015 were not disclosed.[^22] [[Piers Morgan]] was editor of the Daily Mirror from 1996 until he was sacked in May 2004. MGN did not call him as a witness; the judge recorded that he had stated publicly on several occasions that although he knew about phone hacking, he had never hacked a phone or instructed anyone to hack one, and a former Mirror journalist, Mr Hipwell, gave evidence that Morgan knew of and took the benefit of the practice, evidence the judge in *Gulati* had described as "convincing."[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
### Board and Legal Department Knowledge, 2003 to 2013
|
||||
|
||||
The 2023 judgment named five individuals whose knowledge of unlawful activity at the three titles was in issue: Marcus Partington, in-house lawyer at *The People* from 1997 and at the Mirror from 2002, deputy group legal director of Trinity Mirror plc from April 2007 and group legal director from 2014 to 2021; Paul Vickers, company secretary and group legal director of MGN from December 1992, a main board director from 1994, and holder of the same positions at Trinity Mirror plc from 1999 to 2014; [[Sly Bailey]], chief executive of Trinity Mirror plc from February 2003 to June 2012; Vijay Vaghela, group finance director from May 2003 to February 2019; and David Grigson, a director from January 2012 and chairman from May 29, 2012 to May 2018.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
Fancourt J found that the board of Trinity Mirror plc was by the end of Bailey's tenure "dysfunctional," with substantial parts of the business handled informally and not reported to the board. He found that Vickers knew of voicemail interception at least by 2003 and that Bailey knew, or turned a blind eye, from early 2007 at the latest; that the legal department knew; and that there was a pretence that there was "no credible evidence" of the practice when the board had desisted from investigating. He found that Vaghela, the non-executive directors and the former chairmen [[Victor Blank]] and Ian Gibson did not know, that no board agenda or minutes produced in the proceedings addressed unlawful information gathering or voicemail interception, and that a questionnaire circulated by Vickers in 2011 produced 44 denials. The company was taken to have known what Bailey and Vickers knew, and the board as a whole did not decide to condone or conceal the activity.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
The judge recorded that the [[Metropolitan Police|Metropolitan Police Service]] provided proof of the activity on a large scale in December 2013, that admissions followed in September 2014, and that MGN then tried to avoid disclosure and did not disclose material documents it knew it had.[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
### Reach
|
||||
|
||||
At the time of the December 2023 judgment Reach had made provisions of 45.4 million pounds for known claims, potential future claims and common costs.[^27] On February 9, 2024 Prince Harry and the publisher settled the remaining parts of his claim, with an initial payment of 400,000 pounds and further "substantial" damages.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "Timeline: The Maxwell scandal," *Accountancy Age,* March 29, 2001, entries for 1984, 1990, 1991 and 1992. https://accountancyage.com/2001/03/29/timeline-the-maxwell-scandal/ ; *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), para 3 (the three national titles). https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2023/3217
|
||||
[^2]: Companies House, Reach plc, company number 00082548, incorporated November 11, 1904, previous names. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00082548 ; *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), paras 3 and 13 (Trinity Mirror plc as parent from 1999 following a merger in late 1999, now Reach plc).
|
||||
[^3]: Companies House, Stradbrook Holdings Limited, company number 00168660. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00168660 ; Mirror Group Newspapers Limited, company number 02542560, and its insolvency page. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02542560 and https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02542560/insolvency ; MGN Limited, company number 02571173. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02571173 ; each accessed October 1, 2026.
|
||||
[^4]: Andrew Sawers, "Maxwell report: All the publisher's men," *The CFO,* May 9, 2001, quoting the DTI inspectors' report on Mirror Group Newspapers plc (profile of Lawrence Guest). https://the-cfo.io/2001/05/09/maxwell-report-all-the-publishers-men/ . The inspectors' report itself was not available online and is quoted here as quoted in that article.
|
||||
[^5]: Sawers, *The CFO,* May 9, 2001, profiles of Michael Stoney, Alan Clements, Robert Bunn, Richard Baker and Alan Stephens (same URL).
|
||||
[^6]: "Timeline: The Maxwell scandal," *Accountancy Age,* March 29, 2001, entry for 1973. https://accountancyage.com/2001/03/29/timeline-the-maxwell-scandal/
|
||||
[^7]: Sawers, *The CFO,* May 9, 2001, profile of Lawrence Guest (Strand House, Reuters shares) (same URL).
|
||||
[^8]: Sawers, *The CFO,* May 9, 2001, profiles of Alan Clements, Robert Bunn and Michael Stoney (same URL).
|
||||
[^9]: HC Deb, December 12, 1991, vol 200, cc1069-89, "Pension Funds," speech of Kenneth Hind and interventions. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1991/dec/12/pension-funds
|
||||
[^10]: HC Deb, June 8, 1992, vol 209, cc11-13, oral answers, "Maxwell Pensions," answers of Peter Lilley. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1992/jun/08/maxwell-pensions
|
||||
[^11]: HC Deb, June 9, 1992, vol 209, cc203-49, "Maxwell Pensioners," speech of Ron Leighton. https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1992/jun/09/maxwell-pensioners
|
||||
[^12]: "Writer wins damages, apology in libel suit," Associated Press, in *Deseret News,* August 20, 1994. https://www.deseret.com/1994/8/20/19125977/writer-wins-damages-apology-in-libel-suit/ (the date of the court appearance is taken from the article's "Thursday" and its Saturday publication date).
|
||||
[^13]: Department of Trade and Industry, "DTI publishes inspectors report on Mirror Group Newspapers plc," March 30, 2001 (The Stationery Office, ISBN 0 11 515481 7), reproduced at https://wired-gov.net/wg/wg-news-1.nsf/54e6de9e0c383719802572b9005141ed/1ab21f25f7a1e6fa802572ab004b3fc5?OpenDocument=
|
||||
[^14]: "Timeline: The Maxwell scandal," *Accountancy Age,* March 29, 2001, entries for 1995 and 1999. https://accountancyage.com/2001/03/29/timeline-the-maxwell-scandal/
|
||||
[^15]: *Gulati and others v MGN Ltd* [2015] EWHC 1482 (Ch), Mann J, May 21, 2015, title page; *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), paras 4 and 33. https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2015/1482
|
||||
[^16]: *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), paras 4, 11 and 26.
|
||||
[^17]: *Gulati v MGN Ltd* [2015] EWHC 1482 (Ch), paras 435, 480, 537, 599, 701 and 702.
|
||||
[^18]: *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), title page and paras 1 to 5.
|
||||
[^19]: *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), paras 167 to 172.
|
||||
[^20]: *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), paras 1616, 1619, 1633, 1655 and 1678.
|
||||
[^21]: *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), para 118. https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/ch/2023/3217
|
||||
[^22]: *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), paras 27 and 123.
|
||||
[^23]: *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), paras 92, 312 and 319 and the summary of *Gulati* findings in Part II.
|
||||
[^24]: *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), para 18(d).
|
||||
[^25]: *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), paras 582 to 592.
|
||||
[^26]: *The Duke of Sussex and others v MGN Limited* [2023] EWHC 3217 (Ch), para 585.
|
||||
[^27]: "Reach shares rise after Prince Harry wins phone hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers," Proactive Investors, December 2023. https://www.proactiveinvestors.com/companies/news/1036329/reach-shares-rise-after-prince-harry-win-phone-hacking-case-against-mirror-group-newspapers-1036329.html
|
||||
[^28]: "Prince Harry, Mirror Group Settle Phone-Hacking Case," *The Hollywood Reporter,* February 9, 2024. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/prince-harry-mirror-settle-phone-hacking-case-1235820827/
|
||||
136
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/NCITE.md
Normal file
136
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/NCITE.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,136 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- NCITE
|
||||
- UniversityOfNebraskaOmaha
|
||||
- DHSCenterOfExcellence
|
||||
- CounterTerrorism
|
||||
- DHSScienceAndTechnology
|
||||
- TVTP
|
||||
- NihilisticViolentExtremism
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- NCITE
|
||||
- National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center
|
||||
- National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center
|
||||
- NCITE Center of Excellence
|
||||
- Center of Excellence for Terrorism Prevention and Counterterrorism Research
|
||||
- TPCR
|
||||
summary: "DHS Center of Excellence at the University of Nebraska Omaha, created by a ten-year cooperative agreement announced in February 2020, which also evaluates DHS prevention grants and had an April 2025 termination notice paused."
|
||||
start: 2020-02-24
|
||||
location: "Omaha, Nebraska"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[DHS Science and Technology Directorate]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020-02-24
|
||||
role: "ten-year cooperative agreement, Office of University Programs"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[DHS Science and Technology Directorate]]"
|
||||
start: 2021-03-10
|
||||
role: "basic ordering agreement 70RSAT21G00000002, task orders for research"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Gina Ligon]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Seamus Hughes]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "senior research faculty and policy associate"
|
||||
fn: 17
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[National Strategic Research Institute]]"
|
||||
start: 2023
|
||||
role: "explosives threat project with the Department of Defense research center"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center, known as NCITE, is a research consortium based at the [[University of Nebraska Omaha]] and designated by the [[Department of Homeland Security]] as its Center of Excellence for terrorism prevention and counterterrorism research. The center is funded through a ten-year cooperative agreement announced in 2020 and a basic ordering agreement signed in 2021, and the university also holds separate DHS grants for prevention and threat assessment projects.
|
||||
|
||||
### Selection of the University of Nebraska Omaha
|
||||
|
||||
On February 24, 2020, the [[DHS Science and Technology Directorate]] announced that the University of Nebraska Omaha would lead a consortium for a new Center of Excellence for Terrorism Prevention and Counterterrorism Research. The directorate stated that it would provide a grant of 3.65 million dollars for the first operating year of a ten-year grant period. [[William N. Bryan]], then the senior official performing the duties of the Under Secretary for Science and Technology, was quoted in the release.[^1] The university's release of the same day described a "10-year, $36 million grant" from the [[Office of University Programs]], the largest single grant in the university's 112-year history, and a consortium of 17 partner institutions "stretching from Maine to Florida to Southern California." It named the center the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center of Excellence, quoted the University of Nebraska system president [[Ted Carter]] and the Omaha chancellor [[Jeffrey P. Gold]], and quoted Nebraska's governor, [[Pete Ricketts]], who thanked the university "for its successful effort to bring such an ambitious project to fruition." Representative [[Don Bacon]] was also quoted.[^2] The center and the university later gave the figure as 36.5 million dollars over ten years.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The release named Gina Ligon as principal investigator. It described her as holding the Jack and Stephanie Koraleski Chair for Collaboration Science in the College of Business Administration, and listed her earlier work as "collecting data on terrorist group leaders and their business operations for the Department of Defense" and "co-developing a professional training program for civilian leaders from [[USSTRATCOM]] for the National Strategic Research Institute (NSRI)." [[Douglas Derrick]] was to lead the innovation and transition portfolio. The center was to occupy [[Mammel Hall]], where work had begun on what the release called a "privately-funded, $17 million, 44,000 square-foot addition."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
A 2022 article in the University of Nebraska Foundation magazine reported that the university was selected from about 75 institutions that submitted letters of interest, after a site visit by DHS officials, and that the center occupied a new wing of the Omaha business school. Ligon, an organizational psychologist, was quoted saying that the university was "the trusted agent, the academic partner of the Department of Homeland Security for all counterterrorism research."[^3] NCITE's 2023 announcements described more than 60 academics at 26 institutions, and a partnership with the National Strategic Research Institute, a [[Department of Defense]] university affiliated research center of the University of Nebraska. NCITE stated that Omaha was the only university with both a DHS Center of Excellence and access to such a research center.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Basic ordering agreement and task orders
|
||||
|
||||
On March 10, 2021, the DHS Office of Procurement Operations entered basic ordering agreement 70RSAT21G00000002 with the University of Nebraska. The award description states that its purpose was "to initiate Phase V of OUP's 2 new Basic Ordering Agreements (BOAs) for a 5-year period, 1 BOA each to: CBTS / [[Texas]] A&M University and NCITE / University of Nebraska Omaha." The record gives a period from March 10, 2021 to March 9, 2026, a single-award structure, the Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Technology as funding agency, and a ceiling of 45,000,000 dollars, last modified on May 13, 2025. Obligations are recorded on the task orders and not on the agreement.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
NCITE announced on April 18, 2023 that the ceiling had been raised to 35 million dollars from 10 million, and that the original ceiling had been 5 million. [[Dana Saft]], the program manager at the Office of University Programs, was quoted in the announcement. The same release stated that other agencies could direct funding through the vehicle.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The federal spending database lists eleven task orders to the University of Nebraska under the agreement between September 2021 and September 2025, with the following award amounts and periods of performance.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
- 70RSAT21FR0000084, 5,611,667.42 dollars, September 29, 2021 to March 18, 2025.
|
||||
- 70RSAT22FR0000050, 997,092 dollars, September 27, 2022 to May 31, 2024, for a workshop and report on terrorist use of explosives.
|
||||
- 70RSAT22FR0000108, 8,712,585 dollars, September 30, 2022 to March 17, 2025, described as "CP3 Grant Program Evaluations."
|
||||
- 70RSAT23FR0000024, 1,622,181 dollars, June 12, 2023 to March 17, 2025.
|
||||
- 70RSAT23FR0000046, 10,024 dollars, May 8 to June 7, 2023, described as "Metaverse Experience - Terrorist Adoption of Emerging Technology."
|
||||
- 70RSAT23FR0000114, 748,618 dollars, September 14, 2023 to March 13, 2026.
|
||||
- 70RSAT23FR0000115, 839,677.85 dollars, September 19, 2023 to March 18, 2025, for support to National Threat Evaluation and Reporting.
|
||||
- 70RSAT24FR0000054, 195,628 dollars, July 24, 2024 to December 31, 2025, for a fusion center threat assessment using suspicious activity reporting.
|
||||
- 70RSAT24FR0000098, 1,267,870 dollars, September 30, 2024 to July 8, 2025, for a soft target risk assessment.
|
||||
- 70RSAT25FR0000046, 970,300 dollars with a ceiling of 1,498,249 dollars, September 29, 2025 to March 9, 2027, titled "Research on Emerging Activity of Criminal and Terrorist Groups (REACT)."
|
||||
- 70RSAT25FR0000047, 1,849,416 dollars, September 29, 2025 to March 9, 2027, titled "Disrupting Cartels."
|
||||
|
||||
A twelfth order, 70RSAT26FR0000072, titled "Countering Nihilistic Violent Extremist (NVE) Threats," is listed at 1,838,383 dollars from September 30, 2026 to March 29, 2028 under a new basic ordering agreement, 70RSAT26G00000003, dated July 15, 2026.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Evaluation of DHS prevention grants
|
||||
|
||||
DHS administers the [[Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program]] through its [[Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships]]. NCITE announced in April 2023 a three-year project of 4.5 million dollars, led by [[Matt Allen]], to evaluate the program, with partners at [[RTI International]] and the [[Public Policy Center of the University of Nebraska]].[^4] The NCITE report states that the Science and Technology Directorate asked the center to evaluate the program, and that its outcome evaluation used data from recipients in fiscal years 2016, 2020, 2021 and 2022. A second DHS program, [[Invent2Prevent]], was evaluated by the University of Nebraska Public Policy Center. The NCITE project page lists Sarah Cook, director of the security and extremism research program of RTI International, on the research team.[^7][^8]
|
||||
|
||||
The DHS announcement of the fiscal year 2021 grants lists a grant of 715,102 dollars to "University of Nebraska, Omaha, NCITE" for a project on tips reporting, combining tips data from [[Sarpy County, Nebraska]] with focus groups and laboratory studies and building a chatbot for reporting.[^9] The federal spending database records the corresponding award, EMW-2021-GR-00072, at 683,920.86 dollars with a start date of October 1, 2021.[^10] Separately, the Science and Technology Directorate paid RTI International to evaluate five fiscal year 2021 grantees, among them the [[Middlebury Institute CTEC]]; RTI's profile of that grant was posted by DHS on January 27, 2025.[^11] The same grant program funded the Middlebury center in fiscal years 2021 and 2022.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
The DHS task order titled "CP3 Grant Program Evaluations" is recorded at 8,712,585 dollars, and the NCITE announcement of the evaluation project gave 4.5 million dollars.[^4][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Termination notice of April 2025
|
||||
|
||||
[[Nextgov]] reported on April 8, 2025 that DHS had halted funding to all grants and cooperative agreements in the Science and Technology Directorate, citing a memo titled "Termination of the Centers of Excellence" signed by Acting Under Secretary [[Julie Brewer]] and sent to Secretary [[Kristi Noem]], and citing two people familiar with the matter for the approval. A memo of March 4, 2025 listed new priority mission areas for the directorate, one of them "Counter Transnational Criminal Organizations and Other Illicit Actors."[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 25, 2025 Nextgov reported that the termination of NCITE had been paused after discussions between Senator Pete Ricketts and Noem. The University of Nebraska Omaha stated that it received a notification of award termination on April 8 and that DHS notified it a day later that the termination was paused. Ricketts told Nextgov that a main focus of NCITE was research on cartel activity, border security and related terrorism, and said at a town hall in [[Scottsbluff, Nebraska]] that Noem had told him, "I will keep [NCITE] funded through the fiscal year." The Alaska center ADAC-ARCTIC at the [[University of Alaska Anchorage]] was the other center reported as paused.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Four of the task orders above carry end dates of March 17 or 18, 2025 in the federal spending database: 70RSAT21FR0000084, 70RSAT22FR0000108, 70RSAT23FR0000024 and 70RSAT23FR0000115.[^6] The two task orders beginning September 29, 2025 are titled "Disrupting Cartels" and "Research on Emerging Activity of Criminal and Terrorist Groups."[^6] NCITE's 2026 announcement stated that Ricketts "played an integral role in keeping the UNO-based Center and its research federally funded in 2025."[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
A fact sheet of the Science and Technology Directorate dated March 2025 describes NCITE as a consortium with more than 40 university and industry partners, lists the [[George Washington University]] among its university partners, and lists as DHS alignment [[U.S. Customs and Border Protection]], the [[Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency]], [[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]], the [[Office of Intelligence and Analysis]], the [[Transportation Security Administration]], the [[United States Coast Guard]], the [[United States Secret Service]], the State of Nebraska, Douglas County and Sarpy County.[^15] On June 10, 2025, two months after the termination notice, Ligon submitted written testimony to a subcommittee of the [[Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs]] chaired by [[James Lankford]] on threats to the 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 [[Los Angeles]] Olympics. The testimony lists "newly designated cartel terrorist organizations" among likely threat actors, refers to the [[State Department]] designation of ten cartels and transnational criminal organizations as foreign terrorist organizations, and asks the subcommittee to consider "restoring and protecting funding for the nine DHS Centers of Academic Excellence."[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Prosecution research and the 764 report
|
||||
|
||||
[[Seamus Hughes]], who had been deputy director of the [[GWU Program on Extremism]] from its founding in 2015, is a senior research faculty member and policy associate at NCITE. The NCITE biography lists a 2023 NCITE report with [[Pete Simi]] on threats to public officials and describes his earlier service at the [[National Counterterrorism Center]] and the [[Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee]].[^17][^18][^19] The 2015 newsletter of the Program on Extremism, obtained from DHS in a records release, stated that Hughes had been named to the [[Homeland Security Advisory Council]] of the DHS Secretary.[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
NCITE's report "Prosecuting [[Nihilistic Violent Extremism]]: An Examination of Federal and State Charges Against 764 and Related Networks," dated December 20, 2025, names Hughes as principal investigator of the prosecuting threat actors team with [[Mackenzie Harms]], and [[Bettina Rottweiler]], [[Caitlin Clemmow]] and [[Austin Doctor]] as leads of the youth mobilization team. It states that it is based on work supported by DHS under grant award number 20STTPC00001-06. The report describes [[764 Network]] as founded in January 2021 by a teenager in Texas who had interacted with members of [[CVLT]] and [[Greggy's Cult]], and states that court records identify crossover in membership among the three. It reports that the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] stated in December 2025 that it was conducting more than 350 investigations connected to 764 and other nihilistic violent extremist groups, and that [[Canada]] was the first country to designate 764 as a terrorist entity.[^21] An NCITE briefing of August 29, 2025 had given the FBI figure as over 250 open investigations.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
### Year seven
|
||||
|
||||
On August 17, 2026 NCITE announced five new projects for its seventh research year, selected from 26 applicants after a DHS blind peer review. It stated that the Office of University Programs approved a 6.1 million dollar annual allocation under the ten-year cooperative agreement on July 10, 2026, that 17 projects would begin in early September, and that the center had been awarded more than 58 million dollars in DHS grants and contracts since 2020. The new projects include research on artificial intelligence vulnerabilities at sports and entertainment venues, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attack costs, drones and prosecution of illicit threat actors.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, S&T Public Affairs, "News Release: DHS Selects the University of Nebraska Omaha to Lead Center of Excellence for Terrorism Prevention and Counterterrorism Research," February 24, 2020. https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2020/02/24/news-release-dhs-selects-university-nebraska-omaha-lead-terrorism-research
|
||||
[^2]: University Communications, "UNO Selected Lead by DHS to Oversee Counterterrorism, Terrorism Prevention Research Center," University of Nebraska Omaha, February 24, 2020 (Wayback Machine capture of September 8, 2025). https://web.archive.org/web/20250908125111/https://www.unomaha.edu/news/2020/02/uno-selected-lead-by-dhs-to-oversee-counterterrorism-terrorism-prevention-research-center.php ; the text was republished as "New Center to Lead Counterterrorism, Terrorism Prevention Research," Homeland Security Newswire, February 26, 2020, https://www.homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dr20200226-new-center-to-lead-counterterrorism-terrorism-prevention-research
|
||||
[^3]: Jackie Ostrowicki, "How a UNO Professor Is Leading A National Center Focused on Counterterrorism," University of Nebraska Foundation, March 2022. https://nebraska.edu/nuforne/gina-ligon
|
||||
[^4]: NCITE Communications, "NCITE Increases Funding Agreement With DHS, Adds $25 Million to Ceiling," University of Nebraska Omaha, April 18, 2023. https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/news/2023/04/boa-funding.php
|
||||
[^5]: USAspending.gov, award record for indefinite delivery vehicle 70RSAT21G00000002 (Basic Ordering Agreement, University of Nebraska, DHS Office of Procurement Operations), period of performance March 10, 2021 to March 9, 2026, base and all options value 45,000,000 dollars, last modified May 13, 2025. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_IDV_70RSAT21G00000002_7001/
|
||||
[^6]: USAspending.gov, award records for task orders under 70RSAT21G00000002 and 70RSAT26G00000003 to "University of Nebraska," retrieved through the USAspending search and award endpoints on October 1, 2026; URL pattern https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_AWD_<order number>_7001_70RSAT21G00000002_7001/ (for example CONT_AWD_70RSAT22FR0000108_7001_70RSAT21G00000002_7001). The order 70RSAT26FR0000072 appears in the award search but its detail record returned no result on that date.
|
||||
[^7]: Matt Allen, Andrea Walker and others, "TVTP Grant Program Formative and Outcome Evaluation Report," NCITE, University of Nebraska Omaha (digital commons item 106; Wayback Machine capture of May 24, 2025). https://web.archive.org/web/20250524203610id_/https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&context=ncitereportsresearch
|
||||
[^8]: NCITE, "Evaluating Terrorism and Targeted Violence Prevention Programs," project page, University of Nebraska Omaha. https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/research/research-projects/allen-impact-tvtp-grant-programs.php
|
||||
[^9]: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, press releases and grantee abstracts for the Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program, fiscal years 2021 (announced September 27, 2021) and 2022 (announced September 14, 2022), compiled PDF. https://ecivis-partners.s3.amazonaws.com/bplih/grantfile/2c/2c8da5432f7e05dd7e86265ed0fe7b6e6d3fced9
|
||||
[^10]: USAspending.gov, award record EMW-2021-GR-00072, "Financial Assistance for Countering Violent Extremism," University of Nebraska, Omaha, 683,920.86 dollars, start October 1, 2021. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ (recipient search "University of Nebraska," retrieved October 1, 2026).
|
||||
[^11]: RTI International, "DHS FY2021 Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention (TVTP) Grantee Evaluation Site Profile: Middlebury Institute's Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism," July 2024, posted by DHS January 27, 2025. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-01/2025_0127_cp3-middlebury-institute-fy21-tvtpgrant-eval-report.pdf; list of five evaluated grantees at https://www.dhs.gov/publication/2021-targeted-violence-and-terrorism-prevention-grantee-evaluation-reports
|
||||
[^12]: Alexandra Kelley, "DHS cancels S&T grants under a new mission focus for the directorate," Nextgov/FCW, April 8, 2025. https://www.nextgov.com/digital-government/2025/04/dhs-cancels-st-grants-under-new-mission-focus-directorate/404378/
|
||||
[^13]: Alexandra Kelley, "Senators privately advocated to save DHS Centers of Excellence," Nextgov/FCW, April 25, 2025. https://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2025/04/senators-privately-advocated-save-dhs-centers-excellence/404872/
|
||||
[^14]: NCITE Communications, "In Seventh Year, NCITE Adds Projects on CBRN Deterrence, AI Vulnerabilities at Large Venues, and More," University of Nebraska Omaha, August 17, 2026. https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/news/2026/08/ncite-year-seven.php
|
||||
[^15]: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, "National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center (NCITE)," fact sheet, March 2025. https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/2025-03/25_0331_st_ncite_fact_sheet.pdf
|
||||
[^16]: Gina Ligon, written statement, "Terrorist Threats to International Sporting Events: A Look at Tactics, Threat Actors, and Targets," U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Border Management, Federal Workforce and Regulatory Affairs, hearing of June 10, 2025, pp. 1-10. https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/Ligon-Testimony.pdf
|
||||
[^17]: NCITE, "Seamus Hughes," staff biography, University of Nebraska Omaha. https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/about-ncite/staff-directory/seamus-hughes.php
|
||||
[^18]: NCITE, "Center Directory," University of Nebraska Omaha. https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/about-ncite/staff-directory/index.php
|
||||
[^19]: "Program on Extremism Launches at GW," GW Today, June 22, 2015. https://gwtoday.gwu.edu/program-extremism-launches-gw
|
||||
[^20]: Program on Extremism Newsletter, December 17, 2015, DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate records release, pages NPPD 001896 to 001899. https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/Emails-re-GWU-Program-on-Extremism-1896-1939.pdf
|
||||
[^21]: NCITE, "Prosecuting Nihilistic Violent Extremism: An Examination of Federal and State Charges Against 764 and Related Networks," research report, December 20, 2025. https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/news/2025/12/img/prosecuting-nve-report.pdf
|
||||
[^22]: NCITE, "NCITE Briefing: Nihilistic Violent Extremism," University of Nebraska Omaha, August 29, 2025. https://www.unomaha.edu/ncite/news/2025/08/nve-landing-page.php
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,163 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- NCMEC
|
||||
- CyberTipline
|
||||
- CSAM
|
||||
- ChildExploitation
|
||||
- Nonprofit
|
||||
- FederalGrants
|
||||
- PhotoDNA
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
|
||||
- National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
|
||||
- The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
|
||||
- NCMEC
|
||||
summary: "Nonprofit exempt since 1984 that operates the CyberTipline under 18 U.S.C. 2258A, draws about three quarters of its revenue from federal grants, and seats corporate directors from Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Adobe."
|
||||
start: 1984
|
||||
location: "Alexandria, Virginia"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[John Walsh]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "co-founder"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Revé Walsh]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "co-founder"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Michelle DeLaune]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president and chief executive officer"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Ernie Allen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president and chief executive officer in December 2009"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "federal grants; $41.4 million in fiscal year 2023"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Meta Platforms]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022
|
||||
end: 2022
|
||||
role: "top corporate donor in 2022, over $1 million"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Regina Schofield]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-12-12
|
||||
role: "chairperson; vice chair until 2025-12-11"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Manus Cooney]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director on the returns for 2024 and 2025"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Sean Joyce]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director on the returns for 2024 and 2025"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Heidi Heitkamp]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2025-04-03
|
||||
role: "director on the return for 2024; director through 2025-04-03"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jeff Collins]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "corporate board seat, Amazon Web Services"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jenny Lay-Flurrie]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "corporate board seat, Microsoft"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[John Penn II]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "corporate board seat, Adobe"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Ellen Petrocci]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-12-12
|
||||
role: "corporate board seat, Verisign"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Michael Breslin]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "corporate board seat, LexisNexis Special Services"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[David L. Bowdich]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "corporate board seat, The Walt Disney Company"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Amazon Web Services]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "technology contractor paid $291,871 in 2025"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: participant_in
|
||||
with: "[[United States v. Ackerman]]"
|
||||
role: "amicus curiae; held a governmental entity or agent by the Tenth Circuit"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private nonprofit corporation, exempt under section 501(c)(3) since a ruling dated May 1, 1984, with its headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.[^1] Its return states that its mission is to help find missing children, reduce child sexual exploitation and prevent child victimization, and states that its Exploited Children Division operates the [[CyberTipline]], manages a child victim identification program and maintains a hash-sharing list to support industry detection of online [[Child sexual abuse material|child sexual abuse material]].[^2] The Stanford Internet Observatory wrote in 2024 that Congress authorized NCMEC in 1984 under the Missing Children's Assistance Act of 1983 and that NCMEC created the CyberTipline in 1998.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Statutory Role
|
||||
|
||||
[[18 U.S.C. § 2258A]] requires a provider with actual knowledge of an apparent violation involving child pornography to report to the CyberTipline of NCMEC, and directs that NCMEC "shall make available each report" to federal, state, local or designated foreign law enforcement; section 2258C lets NCMEC give providers hash values and other elements from reports.[^4] In [[United States v. Ackerman]], decided August 5, 2016, the Tenth Circuit (opinion by Judge [[Neil Gorsuch]]) held NCMEC a "governmental entity or agent," stating that its "law enforcement powers extend well beyond those enjoyed by private citizens" under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A and 42 U.S.C. § 5773(b). NCMEC appeared as amicus curiae in support of the government, represented in part by [[Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner|Bryan Cave LLP]] of Kansas City; [[Dropbox]], [[Facebook]], [[Google]], [[Microsoft]], [[Pinterest]], [[Snapchat]] and [[Twitter]] are listed as amici for the government under other counsel.[^5] NCMEC's return for 2025 lists Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP among its five largest independent contractors, paid $303,290 for legal services.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Finances
|
||||
|
||||
NCMEC's returns report total revenue of $66,813,108 for 2025, of which contributions and grants were $60,818,469 and government grants $50,280,968; expenses were $62,756,502 and net assets $83,655,346. For 2024 they report revenue of $64,507,554, contributions and grants of $59,854,342, of which government grants were $48,907,021. Its Schedule C reports lobbying expenditures of $212,126 for 2024 and $122,836 for 2025, described as the time of staff and consultants communicating with members of Congress and their offices.[^2][^6] The Nonprofit Explorer series of its returns gives total revenue of $47,255,932 for 2019, $53,896,819 for 2020, $54,122,734 for 2021, $60,183,871 for 2022 and $65,191,787 for 2023.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The Stanford Internet Observatory reported that in 2022 NCMEC received about 68 percent of its $58 million revenue from government contracts and grants, mainly through the Department of Justice's [[Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention]]; that in fiscal year 2023 NCMEC received $41.4 million of that office's funds and the 61 Internet Crimes Against Children task forces $40.8 million; and that in 2022 "Meta and Old Navy were the top corporate donors; each contributed over $1 million."[^3] NCMEC's website states: "This Web site is funded, in part, through a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, [[Department of Justice|U.S. Department of Justice]]."[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
NCMEC's return for 2025 lists these independent contractors paid over $100,000: 1900 Duke Street LP, for office rent, $2,482,621; Motion Recruitment Partners, for technology contract services, $488,563; Creative2 LLC, for website design and maintenance, $326,718; Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, for legal services, $303,290; and [[Amazon Web Services]], for technology contract services, $291,871.[^2] The list for 2024 names 1900 Duke Street LP ($2,502,776), Motion Recruitment Partners ($741,785), Fortitude Int'l LLC for technology contract services ($523,312), Orr Group Inc. for fundraising strategy services ($308,048) and Pivotal Solutions Inc. for technology contract services ($296,650).[^6] The 2025 return reports 552 employees, 664 volunteers, total assets of $107,288,189 and a governing body of 26 voting members, 24 of them independent; the 2024 return reports 520 employees, 950 volunteers, total assets of $103,543,622 and 30 voting members, 28 of them independent.[^2][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Officers and Board
|
||||
|
||||
On the return for 2025 the reportable compensation of the president and chief executive officer, [[Michelle DeLaune]], was $521,550 (plus $27,112 of other compensation); of the chief legal officer, [[Panayiota Souras]], $286,794; of the chief financial officer, [[Paul Beriault]], $273,556; of the chief operating officer, [[Derrick Driscoll]], $268,954; and of [[John Shehan]], senior vice president of the Exploited Children Division, $239,750. Schedule O reports family relationships between [[John Walsh]] and [[Revé Walsh|Reve Walsh]] and between John Shehan and [[Staca Shehan]], who is vice president of the Analytical Services Division.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The directors on the 2025 return include [[Regina Schofield]] (vice chair until December 11, 2025, chairperson from December 12, 2025), [[Jon Grosso]] (chair until December 11, 2025), [[Bob Trono]] (chairperson-elect), Reve Walsh, John Walsh, [[Manus Cooney]], [[Sean Joyce]], [[Heidi Heitkamp]] (through April 3, 2025), [[Karen Quintos]], [[Courtney Gregoire]], [[Jeff Collins]], [[Chris Nelson]], [[John Penn II|John Penn]], [[Michael Breslin]] and [[Ellen Petrocci]] (from December 12, 2025).[^2] NCMEC's website, in October 2026, groups its directors into individual seats and corporate seats. The individual seats list Schofield as board chair, Trono with the affiliation "Lockheed Martin Incorporation," Cooney with "American Continental Group," Quintos as "Former CCO & CMO, Dell Technologies," and John and Reve Walsh as co-founders. The corporate seats list [[Bethany Biesenthal]] ([[Jones Day]]), [[David L. Bowdich]] ([[The Walt Disney Company]]), Michael Breslin (LexisNexis Special Services, Inc.), Jeff Collins (Amazon Web Services), [[Jenny Lay-Flurrie]] (Microsoft), Chris Nelson ([[Gap Inc.]]), John Penn II ([[Adobe]]) and Ellen Petrocci ([[Verisign]]).[^7] The returns for 2024 and 2025 do not list Lay-Flurrie, Bowdich or Biesenthal.[^2][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Technology and Industry
|
||||
|
||||
On December 15, 2009 Microsoft announced that it was donating PhotoDNA to NCMEC; the release quoted [[Ernie Allen]] as NCMEC's president and chief executive.[^8] The 2024 return of [[Thorn]], which reports software subscription revenue, lists Ernie Allen among its board members.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Reporting Disputes
|
||||
|
||||
[[NBC News]] reported in July 2023 that NCMEC's senior vice president John Shehan said NCMEC had rescinded an invitation to [[Discord]] to join its CyberTipline Roundtable after the company failed to "identify a senior child safety representative to attend," and that NCMEC said Discord's average response to takedown notifications had slowed from about three days in 2021 to nearly five days in 2022.[^10] NCMEC's published tables give 75,038 takedown notifications to providers for 2021 and 80,969 for 2022.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 29, 2025, Senator [[Marsha Blackburn]] wrote to the chief executives of Discord and X, citing "recent testimony from NCMEC's President and CEO to the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]]" and NCMEC data on declines in reports in 2024.[^12] On April 9, 2026, Senator [[Chuck Grassley]] released data that NCMEC had given his office on March 16, 2026 about eight companies, quoting NCMEC's statement that "Many ESPs regularly tout the number of reports they submit to the CyberTipline, but fail to disclose that millions of reports lack basic information," and a list of "poor reporter" companies whose reports in large part lacked location information.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: ProPublica, Nonprofit Explorer API, organization 521328557 (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children), IRS ruling date 1984-05-01, subsection 501(c)(3), filings 2011 to 2024. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/521328557.json
|
||||
[^2]: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, IRS Form 990 for the year ended December 31, 2025 (IRS object ID 202611699349301126), Parts I, III, VII and VIII, Schedules C and O. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2026/2026_TEOS_XML_06A.zip
|
||||
[^3]: Stanford Internet Observatory, "The Strengths and Weaknesses of the Online Child Safety Ecosystem: Perspectives from Platforms, NCMEC, and Law Enforcement on the CyberTipline and How to Improve It," April 22, 2024, secs. 2 and 2.1. https://purl.stanford.edu/pr592kc5483
|
||||
[^4]: 18 U.S.C. §§ 2258A(c), 2258C, Legal Information Institute. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258A ; https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2258C
|
||||
[^5]: United States v. Ackerman, 831 F.3d 1292 (10th Cir. 2016), No. 14-3265, counsel listing and paras. 14-17. https://openjurist.org/831/f3d/1292/united-states-v-ackerman
|
||||
[^6]: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, IRS Form 990 for the year ended December 31, 2024 (IRS object ID 202502169349301015). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_08A.zip
|
||||
[^7]: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "Leadership: Board of Directors," accessed October 2026. https://www.missingkids.org/footer/about/leadership/leadership-profiles
|
||||
[^8]: Microsoft, "Microsoft and National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Push for Action to Fight Child Pornography," Microsoft Source, December 15, 2009. https://news.microsoft.com/source/2009/12/15/microsoft-and-national-center-for-missing-exploited-children-push-for-action-to-fight-child-pornography/
|
||||
[^9]: Thorn, IRS Form 990 for the year ended December 31, 2024 (IRS object ID 202503189349315755), Part VII. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
|
||||
[^10]: Ben Goggin, "Child predators are using Discord, a popular app among teens, for sextortion and abductions," NBC News, July 21, 2023. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/discord-child-safety-social-platform-challenges-rcna89769
|
||||
[^11]: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, "2021 Notifications by NCMEC per ESP" and "2022 Notifications by NCMEC per ESP." https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/2021-notifications-by-ncmec-per-esp.pdf ; https://www.missingkids.org/content/dam/missingkids/pdfs/2022-notifications-by-ncmec-per-esp.pdf
|
||||
[^12]: Marsha Blackburn, letters of April 29, 2025 to Jason Citron (Discord) and Linda Yaccarino (X Corp.). https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/services/files/2DCCC15A-5004-4640-9F08-B56C98F6D3E6 ; https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/services/files/C3C2DD2F-EAC2-45B5-BDC3-02CF414782DB
|
||||
[^13]: Senate Judiciary Committee, "Grassley Releases New and Disturbing Information on Online Child Exploitation, Presses Tech Giants for Answers," April 9, 2026. https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/grassley-releases-new-and-disturbing-information-on-online-child-exploitation-presses-tech-giants-for-answers
|
||||
145
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/National Review.md
Normal file
145
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/National Review.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,145 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Media
|
||||
- Magazine
|
||||
- Conservatism
|
||||
- WilliamFBuckley
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- EHowardHunt
|
||||
- NationalReviewInstitute
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- National Review
|
||||
- NR
|
||||
- National Review Inc.
|
||||
- National Review Inc
|
||||
- National Review Online
|
||||
- National Review magazine
|
||||
summary: "Conservative weekly founded November 19, 1955 by William F. Buckley Jr., with former CIA and Office of Policy Coordination personnel among its early editors, owned since August 1, 2015 by the National Review Institute."
|
||||
start: 1955-11-19
|
||||
location: "New York, New York"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[William F. Buckley Jr.]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1955-11-19
|
||||
role: "founder, editor and publisher"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[National Review Institute]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015-08-01
|
||||
role: "sole owner of National Review Inc."
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[James Burnham]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "editor"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Willmoore Kendall]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "editor"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Frank Meyer]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1957
|
||||
end: 1972
|
||||
role: "senior editor and columnist"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Priscilla Buckley]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1957
|
||||
role: "managing editor from 1959"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
*National Review* is an American conservative magazine whose first issue was dated November 19, 1955, under the editor and publisher [[William F. Buckley Jr.]] The opening statement by Buckley in that issue said that the magazine "stands athwart history, yelling Stop."[^1] National Review Inc., a New York corporation (EIN 13-1899384), has been a wholly owned subsidiary of the [[National Review Institute]], a 501(c)(3) charity Buckley founded in 1991, since August 1, 2015.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Masthead, 1957
|
||||
|
||||
A copy of the issue of February 2, 1957 is held in a [[Central Intelligence Agency]] file. Its masthead lists Buckley as editor and publisher; [[James Burnham]], [[Willmoore Kendall]] and [[William S. Schlamm]] as editors; [[L. Brent Bozell]] and [[John Chamberlain]]; [[Frank Meyer]] and [[Morrie Ryskind]] as associates; and Sam M. Jones as Washington correspondent. Its list of contributors includes [[Max Eastman]], [[J. B. Matthews]] and [[Revilo Oliver]].[^3] An undated masthead preserved in the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]'s file on Buckley lists [[William A. Rusher]] as publisher and, as editors, Bozell, Burnham, Chamberlain, [[Whittaker Chambers]], Kendall, Suzanne La Follette and Meyer.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Intelligence Service of the Founding Staff
|
||||
|
||||
[[Howard Hunt|E. Howard Hunt]] wrote in his 1974 memoir *Undercover* that in 1950 he met and frequently conferred with Burnham, a former professor of philosophy whom he described as "a consultant to OPC on virtually every subject of interest to our organization," OPC being the [[Office of Policy Coordination]], the covert-action office placed under the Central Intelligence Agency. Hunt wrote that Burnham, by virtue of his Trotskyite background, was something of an authority on communist parties and front organizations, and that through Burnham he met Buckley.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Willmoore Kendall, a political scientist, worked from 1942 in the offices of Inter-American Affairs in Washington and, according to a biographical profile in *Modern Age,* was appointed chief of the Inter-American Division, Office of Reports and Estimates, of the Central Intelligence Agency; he resigned that position in 1948 for an associate professorship at Yale, where he met Buckley, and in 1955 became a founding editor of the magazine.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Frank Meyer joined the British Communist Party in 1931 as a student at Oxford, was expelled from the London School of Economics and deported from England in 1934, and began to draw away from the party in 1945. In the early 1950s, John Judis wrote, he was an expert government witness at Smith Act trials in New York and Chicago. [[Ralph de Toledano]], who had known him on the left, introduced him to Buckley in 1955, and he became a senior editor in 1957 and remained until his death in 1972.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Priscilla Buckley]], the managing editor from 1959, appears in a printed biographical directory entry preserved in the FBI file as "reports officer CIA, Washington, 1951-53," followed by "with Nat. Review mag., N.Y.C., 1957-, mng. editor, 1959-."[^8] In the entries for William F. Buckley Jr. reproduced in the same file from two editions of a biographical directory, the listed positions are "Sr. editor American Mercury, 1952" in one and "Asso. editor Am. Mercury, 1952" in the other, then editor-in-chief of *National Review* from 1955; the second also lists membership of the [[United States Information Agency|U.S. Information Agency]]'s advisory commission from 1969, and neither entry lists service with the Central Intelligence Agency.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Buckley in Mexico City
|
||||
|
||||
Hunt wrote that he volunteered to open the Office of Policy Coordination station in [[Mexico City]], began planning in the late summer of 1950, and interviewed candidates to work for him as agents outside the embassy: "First on my list was Bill Buckley, who readily agreed and set about working out details of his cover." Hunt wrote that Burnham had told him Buckley was looking for the best way of working against the Stalinists and that Buckley spoke English, Spanish and French.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
Hunt wrote that he assigned Buckley to help Eudocio Ravines, a Chilean communist who had been recruited by the Agency and was living in Mexico City under an alias, finish *The Yenan Way* and translate it into English; that when Scribner's accepted the translation Buckley decided to leave Mexico and the Agency; and that Buckley told him he was thinking either of purchasing the *American Mercury* or of founding a magazine of his own. In a footnote Hunt wrote that he and his wife had asked Buckley to be guardian of their children and executor of their estate, and that Buckley, already the children's godfather, agreed.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Director of Security's Memorandum, 1958
|
||||
|
||||
A memorandum of November 24, 1958 from the CIA's Director of Security to the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] concerns an article in the *National Review Bulletin* of November 15, 1958 asserting that the Agency was responsible for the Dutch publication of Boris Pasternak's *Doctor Zhivago.* The memorandum states that a source of the [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]] had advised that Ralph de Toledano wrote the article, describes de Toledano as a member of "the extreme right wing element" and a close associate of Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]], and states that the editors of *National Review* and the *Bulletin* "have had numerous articles in the past charging that the Committee for Free Europe and [[Radio Free Europe]] are CIA sponsored and financed."[^11] A text excerpt from the magazine, catalogued with the Agency's records as of 1958, states that *National Review* was encouraged by the enthusiasm of a number of serious persons for a "private investigation of Radio Free Europe," that an informal meeting of prospective members of a committee had been held, and that the enterprise was hampered by lack of funds.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### The FBI File, 1950 to 1969
|
||||
|
||||
The FBI file begins with a memorandum of October 20, 1950 from [[Louis B. Nichols]], Assistant to the Director, to [[Clyde Tolson]]. It records that Buckley, who had been editor of the *Yale Daily News* the year before and had sponsored a forum at which Nichols spoke, had written asking to visit the Bureau, that Nichols arranged for him to call at his office, and that "an Agent in Mr. Jones' office will take Buckley on a very special tour." Nichols noted that after the Yale forum he had said that someday the Bureau would hear from Buckley. A later note in the file describes Buckley as an outspoken anticommunist who became friendly with Nichols, by then an executive vice president of Schenley Industries. A summary memorandum in the file records that Buckley and his wife came to the Bureau on October 25, 1950, were given "a very special tour of Bureau facilities" and met the Director, and that in April 1953 Buckley told Nichols he was writing a book to counteract the books of [[Alan Barth]] and Biddle denouncing loyalty and security investigations. A memorandum of October 1962 records that Buckley, identified as editor of *National Review,* was given a special tour on October 26, 1962 after a brief visit with the Director in his office, commented on the excellence of the communism exhibit, and was provided Bureau transportation to the [[White House]] for the public tour.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
On May 28, 1969 the President named Buckley to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Information. An FBI memorandum of the following days states that the White House had requested an investigation; that the Bureau's main files showed "limited but cordial relations with Buckley in the past"; and that he had been on the Bureau's Special Correspondents List until May 25, 1967, when he was removed after writing in *National Review* a mock editorial of the *[[New York Times]]* "at the expense of the Director." A teletype dated June 2, 1969 ordered the inquiry completed by June 9 and directed that no neighborhood investigation be conducted without Bureau approval.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
A teletype in the inquiry lists associates of the appointee, among them Senator [[Barry Goldwater]], Senator [[Jacob Javits]], Peter Starr, president of Starr Broadcasting Group of Omaha, and James Burnham, assistant editor of *National Review.* It states that "among others" the members of the board of directors of *National Review* were Roger A. Moore, Morrie Ryskind and Lloyd H. Smith, with other names redacted.[^15] A biographical summary in the file lists Buckley as chairman of the board of directors of Starr Broadcasting Group, Omaha, Nebraska, and as a member of the board of directors of Catawba Corporation, New York.[^16] Peter Starr told agents that he had known Buckley since 1954, that Buckley was the majority stockholder and chairman of Starr Broadcasting Group and Starr the minority stockholder, and that the company had been founded with Buckley's financial backing. A person whose name is redacted told agents that Buckley had published *National Review* for many years although it operated at a financial loss and that he had offset losses by soliciting contributions from friends and subscribers.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### Hunt and Watergate, 1973
|
||||
|
||||
On January 21, 1973 the program *Firing Line* on station WETA in Washington, hosted by Buckley, broadcast a discussion on the CIA and Cuba with E. Howard Hunt and the Havana lawyer Mario Lazo. A transcript prepared for a public affairs staff is among the CIA's records. Buckley introduced Hunt as having been intimately involved as an official in the Central Intelligence Agency in the [[Bay of Pigs]], and asked him whether public identification as a long-time CIA official allowed him to discuss the Agency's activities.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
In August 1973 an FBI background check on Buckley for a government appointment recorded the statement of [[Arthur Schlesinger Jr.]], who said on August 15 that he had debated Buckley publicly on a number of occasions, thought him a person of good character and a loyal American, and had some question concerning Buckley's associates because it was his understanding that Buckley was a good friend of E. Howard Hunt, "connected with the Watergate break-in," and the godfather of some of his children; Schlesinger said he was very much opposed to Buckley's ideas and would not recommend him for a government position. The teletype also directed the New York office to check court records on a libel suit against *Esquire* magazine and [[Gore Vidal]].[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
Hunt wrote in *Undercover* that after his testimony to the Senate, thousands of telegrams and letters arrived and were answered by "a small committee William Buckley established in my behalf at his National Review offices." Hunt wrote that Buckley solicited funds for his legal defense and, when returns were disappointing, suggested that he retain Buckley's personal attorney, C. Dickerman Williams, at no cost.[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Copeland and the Watergate Hearings, 1973
|
||||
|
||||
The staff report on the CIA and Watergate prepared for Senator [[Howard Baker]] of the Senate Watergate Committee after the committee's public hearings records that in the issue of September 14, 1973 of *National Review,* [[Miles Copeland]] wrote an article entitled "The Unmentionable Uses of a CIA," suggesting that [[James McCord]] had led the Watergate burglars into a trap. The report records it alongside an article in *Harper's Magazine* by Andrew St. George that indicated former Director of Central Intelligence [[Richard Helms]] had prior knowledge of the break-in.[^21] The journal of the CIA's Office of Legislative Counsel for November 19, 1973 records a conversation between two Senate Armed Services Committee staff members and Copeland in London about allegations in two recent articles by him in *National Review,* and a meeting with Senator [[Stuart Symington]], who said that he was inclined to "let all the St. Georges and Copelands have their say" and then rebut them on the Senate floor.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
### Agency Assessments, 1957 to 1962
|
||||
|
||||
A memorandum of December 13, 1957 for the Director of Central Intelligence, prepared by an assistant to the Director, counts 26 clippings in the Agency's files on references to the CIA by the columnist Fulton Lewis Jr. between January 1950 and December 1957, fourteen of them derogatory. It names Senator McCarthy, Westbrook Pegler, *The American Mercury* and *The National Review* as examples of others sharing Lewis's general point of view who "have shown no friendliness toward CIA," and states that there is no evidence that the groups have any cohesiveness, including an agreed plan of attack.[^23] An action memorandum from the Office of the Director dated October 1962 records that Director [[John McCone]] had picked out of his press clipping file an article from *National Review* of October 9 entitled "Swiped from the CIA, Relocation Bulletin 19, Toilet Facilities," and asked for background.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
### Ownership and Funding
|
||||
|
||||
The National Review Institute's Form 990 for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2017 reports National Review Inc. in Schedule R as a related corporation engaged in magazine sales, 100 percent owned by the Institute. The return lists as trustees [[Rich Lowry]], Jack Fowler, [[John Bolton]], [[Dick DeVos]], David Bahnsen, Daniel Mahoney, Brian Murdock, John Buser, L. Stanton Towne, Robert Agostinelli and Peter Travers among others, and as fellows [[Jonah Goldberg]], [[Kevin Williamson]], [[Kathryn Lopez]], [[Ramesh Ponnuru]] and Jay Nordlinger. Lowry and Fowler received reportable compensation of 367,206 dollars and 225,397 dollars respectively from related organizations, and the Institute's president received 289,752 dollars.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer lists the Institute's total revenue as 519,459 dollars for the fiscal year ended July 2013, 3,963,429 dollars for July 2014, 3,286,106 dollars for July 2015, 9,034,282 dollars for July 2016, 5,689,857 dollars for July 2017 and 7,342,526 dollars for July 2018.[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: William F. Buckley Jr., "Our Mission Statement," *National Review,* November 19, 1955, reproduced by the National Review Institute. https://nrinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Our-Mission-Statement.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: National Review Institute, "About NRI" (founded 1991; August 1, 2015 reorganization making National Review, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary). https://nrinstitute.org/about-nri/ ; National Review Institute, Form 990 for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2017, EIN 13-3649537, Schedule R (National Review Inc, EIN 13-1899384, ownership 100 percent), object ID 201733469349300108, from the Internal Revenue Service bulk e-file archive. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2017/download990xml_2017_6.zip
|
||||
[^3]: *National Review,* February 2, 1957, masthead and cover, as held in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP78-01416R000200080025-7 (text from the optical character recognition of the scan; some names are partly garbled). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp78-01416r000200080025-7
|
||||
[^4]: Federal Bureau of Investigation, file on William F. Buckley Jr., headquarters file part 1, undated *National Review* masthead. https://archive.org/details/foia_Buckley_William_F.-HQ-1 (optical character recognition text, no page numbers).
|
||||
[^5]: E. Howard Hunt, *Undercover: Memoirs of an American Secret Agent* (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1974), pp. 68-69 (page numbers taken from the running heads of the scanned text). https://archive.org/details/undercovermemoirsofanamericansecretagent
|
||||
[^6]: "Willmoore Kendall," *Modern Age,* online biographical profile. https://modernagejournal.com/willmoore-kendall-3/244747/
|
||||
[^7]: John B. Judis, "The Godfather of American Conservatism," Alicia Patterson Foundation. https://aliciapatterson.org/john-judis/the-godfather-of-american-conservatism/
|
||||
[^8]: FBI file on William F. Buckley Jr., headquarters file part 2, printed biographical directory entries for Priscilla Langford Buckley and William Frank Buckley Jr. (directory titles not shown in the scan). https://archive.org/details/foia_Buckley_William_F.-HQ-2
|
||||
[^9]: Hunt, *Undercover,* pp. 68-69.
|
||||
[^10]: Hunt, *Undercover,* pp. 76-77 (page numbers taken from the running heads of the scanned text).
|
||||
[^11]: Central Intelligence Agency, Memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence from the Director of Security, "Article in the National Review Bulletin of 15 November 1958 concerning the book 'Dr. Zhivago,'" November 24, 1958, CIA Reading Room document 0005796341 (scan partly illegible). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0005796341
|
||||
[^12]: CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP74-00297R000900080057-6, text excerpt from *National Review.* https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp74-00297r000900080057-6
|
||||
[^13]: FBI file on William F. Buckley Jr., headquarters file part 1, memorandum L. B. Nichols to Mr. Tolson, October 20, 1950, with Buckley's letter of October 19, 1950, and later routing note; summary memorandum on the main file; memorandum on the October 26, 1962 tour (the scan is partly illegible; the dates of the proposed 1950 visit in the first memorandum are not relied on). https://archive.org/details/foia_Buckley_William_F.-HQ-1
|
||||
[^14]: FBI file on William F. Buckley Jr., headquarters file part 2, "Special Inquiry - White House" memorandum and teletype of June 2, 1969. https://archive.org/details/foia_Buckley_William_F.-HQ-2
|
||||
[^15]: FBI file on William F. Buckley Jr., headquarters file part 2, 1969 inquiry teletype listing associates and board members (names partly redacted; scan partly illegible).
|
||||
[^16]: FBI file on William F. Buckley Jr., headquarters file part 1, biographical summary (the scan is partly illegible). https://archive.org/details/foia_Buckley_William_F.-HQ-1
|
||||
[^17]: FBI file on William F. Buckley Jr., headquarters file part 2, 1969 interview summaries (Peter H. Starr; one interviewee redacted).
|
||||
[^18]: *Firing Line,* WETA-TV Washington, January 21, 1973, transcript, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP84-00499R000200010003-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp84-00499r000200010003-1
|
||||
[^19]: FBI file on William F. Buckley Jr., headquarters file part 2, teletype of August 1973 reporting the interview of Arthur Schlesinger on "8/15/73."
|
||||
[^20]: Hunt, *Undercover,* pp. 322-323 (page numbers taken from the running heads of the scanned text).
|
||||
[^21]: United States Senate, Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (staff), "CIA Investigation," report to Senator Howard Baker on the CIA and Watergate, 1973, introduction and note citing Miles Copeland, "The Unmentionable Uses of a CIA," *National Review,* September 14, 1973, p. 996; CIA Reading Room document C01481990. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-01481990
|
||||
[^22]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of Legislative Counsel, Journal, Monday, November 19, 1973, items 5 and 6, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP75B00380R000400010011-9. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75b00380r000400010011-9
|
||||
[^23]: Central Intelligence Agency, Memorandum for the Director, "Fulton Lewis, Jr.," December 13, 1957, paras 2, 18 and 19, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP74-00297R000900070007-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp74-00297r000900070007-2
|
||||
[^24]: Central Intelligence Agency, Office of the Director, Action Memorandum No. S-254 (October 1962; day not legible in the scan), CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP80B01676R000200060002-4. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp80b01676r000200060002-4
|
||||
[^25]: National Review Institute, Form 990 for the fiscal year ended July 31, 2017, Part VII and Schedule R (see note 2).
|
||||
[^26]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, National Review Institute, EIN 13-3649537, API v2 organization record. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/133649537
|
||||
|
|
@ -1,56 +1,267 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Event
|
||||
- PeoplesTemple
|
||||
- Jonestown
|
||||
- Guyana
|
||||
- Assassination
|
||||
- MKULTRA
|
||||
- CIA
|
||||
- Assassination
|
||||
summary: "The 1978 mass deaths of 918 people at the People's Temple agricultural commune in Guyana, investigated as a possible MKULTRA experiment due to the discovery of drugs used in known CIA operations and the presence of CIA agent Richard Dwyer."
|
||||
location: Jonestown, Guyana
|
||||
created: 2026-06-03
|
||||
updated: 2026-06-03
|
||||
- LeoRyan
|
||||
- SovietUnion
|
||||
- HouseForeignAffairs
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- People's Temple
|
||||
- Peoples Temple
|
||||
- Peoples Temple Christian Church
|
||||
- People's Temple Christian Church
|
||||
- People's Temple of the Disciples of Christ
|
||||
- Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ
|
||||
- Jonestown
|
||||
- Jonestown massacre
|
||||
- Jonestown Massacre
|
||||
- Jonestown tragedy
|
||||
- Peoples Temple Agricultural Project
|
||||
summary: "Church led by Jim Jones that moved most members from California to a leased Guyana settlement, where 909 people died on November 18, 1978, after Leo Ryan was shot at the Port Kaituma airstrip."
|
||||
end: 1978-11-18
|
||||
location: "Jonestown, Guyana"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Jim Jones]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "founder and director"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jim Jones]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 1978-11-18
|
||||
role: "leader of the People's Temple and of Jonestown"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[House Committee on Foreign Affairs]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1978-11-21
|
||||
end: 1979-05-15
|
||||
role: "Staff Investigative Group inquiry ordered by Chairman Clement J. Zablocki; report dated May 15, 1979"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[United States Customs Service]]"
|
||||
start: 1977-02
|
||||
end: 1977-09
|
||||
role: "investigation of reported gun shipments and contraband to Jonestown"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Charles Garry]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1977-07
|
||||
role: "legal counsel"
|
||||
fn: 67
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Mark Lane]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "legal counsel"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]]"
|
||||
start: 1980-04
|
||||
end: 1980-11
|
||||
role: "review of allegations of CIA involvement referred by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on April 3, 1980"
|
||||
fn: 56
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Larry Layton]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 1978-11-18
|
||||
role: "member and Jonestown security force member; convicted in 1986 over the Port Kaituma shootings"
|
||||
fn: 64
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
The mass deaths at [[Jonestown]], [[Guyana]], on November 18, 1978, resulted in the deaths of 918 people at the People's Temple compound led by [[Jim Jones]] and at the nearby airfield at [[Port Kaituma]]. [[Congressman]] [[Leo Ryan]], a [[California]] Democrat, became the first and only sitting member of [[Congress]] assassinated in the line of duty. Three journalists and a People's Temple defector were also murdered at the airfield. The official version held that Jim Jones's followers committed mass suicide by swallowing cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in an act of religious devotion. Surviving relatives and investigators raised the possibility that the massacre was connected to a [[CIA]] behavioral modification program, and that many of the dead were actually murdered.[^1][^2]
|
||||
The People's Temple was a church organization led by [[Jim Jones]] that moved most of its membership from [[California]] to a leased agricultural settlement in [[Guyana]] known as [[Jonestown]].[^1] On November 18, 1978, [[Leo Ryan]], a California Democrat and member of the [[House Committee on Foreign Affairs]], was shot and killed at the [[Port Kaituma]] airstrip after visiting the settlement, and a mass suicide and murder ritual began at Jonestown at about 5 p.m. The committee's staff report counted 909 deaths at Jonestown, including Jones, five killed at the airstrip (Ryan, three journalists and a Temple defector), and four found dead at the Temple's headquarters in [[Georgetown]]; the three figures add to 918. A [[State Department]] situation report of the Guyana Task Force dated shortly after the deaths gave the final count of bodies removed from Jonestown as 912 or 913.[^2][^3] Chairman [[Clement J. Zablocki]] ordered the staff inquiry on November 21, 1978. The Staff Investigative Group received 902 State Department documents dated June 7, 1974, through November 29, 1978, and conducted 155 hours of on-the-record interviews with 62 persons, producing 5,038 pages of transcript that the committee classified confidential.[^4] The official account holds that Jones's followers swallowed a cyanide-laced drink. Curt Rowlett wrote in 1998 that new information revealed the possibility that the deaths were an [[Project MKUltra|MKULTRA]] mind-control experiment conducted by the [[CIA]] and that most of the dead were murdered, and [[Wayne Madsen]] wrote in 2007 that the CIA kept extensive open-source records on its suspected involvement with the Temple.[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### CIA Presence at Jonestown
|
||||
### Incorporation in Guyana and the Jonestown Lease
|
||||
|
||||
Jack Anderson reported on September 27, 1980, that [[Richard Dwyer]], the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in [[Georgetown]], Guyana, was a CIA agent and a friend of Jim Jones. Dwyer and U.S. Ambassador John Burke had both allegedly worked for the CIA in [[Bangkok]] during the [[Vietnam War]]. Dwyer was wounded in the Port Kaituma shootings where Ryan and the others were killed. On the death tape recorded during the final moments, Jones was heard saying, "Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him." Dwyer reportedly left Guyana for [[Grenada]] after the massacre. The U.S. Consular Officer at the Georgetown embassy, [[Richard McCoy]], allegedly liaised with Jones and was a [[United States Air Force|U.S. Air Force]] intelligence official. Another alleged CIA employee, [[Dan Webber]], operating under State Department cover, visited Jonestown the day after the massacre.[^2]
|
||||
The State Department told the House committee on December 13, 1978, that Temple representatives visited Guyana in 1973 to explore agricultural development, and that in February 1974 two Temple trustees applied to the Guyanese government for a long-term lease of 25,000 acres near Port Kaituma, about 130 miles northwest of Georgetown. The Guyanese Parliament incorporated the People's Temple of the Disciples of Christ by act on March 7, 1975. In February 1976 the government granted a lease of 3,842 acres in the North West District at a nominal rent. The lease required the Temple to clear, cultivate and occupy at least half the acreage during the first seven years and to report to the government at five-year intervals. The Temple stated an intention to invest about 400,000 dollars in the first two years and deposited capital with a government-owned bank.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Drugs Found at the Site
|
||||
[[Joe Holsinger]], Ryan's administrative assistant, told a San Francisco forum on May 23, 1980, that a report by the [[Alliance for the Preservation of Religious Liberty]] named [[Phillip Blakey]], a British citizen, as the person who arranged the lease and the money for it in 1974.[^8] The attorney W. William Wilson told the [[Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]] on April 16, 1980, that the [[Chicago Defender]] had reported Blakey worked for the CIA in 1975 and recruited mercenaries for the [[UNITA]] forces in [[Angola]], and that the paper cited a former senior Guyanese government administrator and other sources.[^9] The House staff report lists Philip Blakey as the husband of the defector [[Deborah Layton Blakey]] and as one of three family members, with her mother and her brother [[Larry Layton]], who remained at Jonestown.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
A huge cache of mind-altering drugs was discovered at Jonestown following the massacre, including Thorazine, sodium pentothal, Demerol, thallium, chloral hydrate, and Largatil. These drugs were consistent with those used in known [[MKULTRA]] and behavioral modification operations. The presence of such quantities in an agricultural commune suggested a purpose beyond routine medical care.[^2]
|
||||
The House staff group reported evidence of a strong working relationship between the Temple and some Guyanese officials, especially in customs and immigration. It found that the Temple had a privileged status that allowed it to bring items into Guyana outside the usual customs procedures, that shipments were often inspected perfunctorily or not at all, and that the Temple likely brought large sums of money and guns into the country in suitcases and false-bottom crates. Temple members could have customs areas at Timehri Airport closed to other citizens to ease the entry of members or hinder the exit of defectors, and the visas of Temple opponents were curtailed on arbitrary decisions that the [[United States Embassy in Georgetown]] later reversed.[^11] The report records repeated charges that the Temple member [[Paula Adams]] had a sexual relationship with [[Laurence Mann]], the Guyanese ambassador to the [[United States]], that she made tape recordings, and that transcripts were made for Jones and periodically turned over to high officials of the Guyanese government. It records evidence, which it called incomplete and inconclusive, that unknown Guyanese officials influenced the Stoen custody case, and testimony that support from Deputy Prime Minister [[Ptolemy Reid]] came from ideological compatibility with the Temple's socialism and did not appear to be generated for illegal reasons.[^11] The Guyanese government declined by letter of March 28, 1979, on grounds of protocol and its own judicial inquiry, to allow the staff group to interview Guyanese officials, and the report states that this left a conspicuous void.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Brazilian Police Drug Smuggling Investigation
|
||||
The [[New York Times]] reported on December 24, 1978, that local officials in the northwestern region had filed written reports expressing concern about the settlement, that the central government declined to investigate, and that at least two officers who raised questions were transferred. The same report quotes Deborah Layton Blakey as saying that in September 1977 she and [[Terri Buford]] delivered a threat of mass suicide to Reid.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
According to a January 9, 1979, article in the Brazilian newspaper Manchete, Brazil's Federal Police suspected that Jones and the People's Temple were part of a [[Bolivia]]-[[Brazil]]-Guyana drug smuggling network. In 1978, Brazilian police discovered the largest cocaine shipment ever seized in Brazil, and two traffickers arrested claimed that ten kilograms of the cocaine were destined for Jim Jones in Guyana. The head of the [[Sao Paulo]] Police Headquarters for Combating Drugs, [[Arthur Carbone Filho]], stated he had conclusive documentation that the cocaine traffic between Bolivia and Guyana had been occurring frequently for some time. Carbone said the purpose of Jones's arrival in Brazil in 1969, when he resided in [[Belo Horizonte]], was probably to establish connections for supplies of Bolivian cocaine to the People's Temple. [[Francisco Carlos Gariato]], chief of the Sao Paulo Federal Police, said a Bolivian trafficker confessed to smuggling cocaine to Guyana and was later identified as a follower and recruiter for Jones.[^2]
|
||||
### Customs Investigation, Interpol and the State Department
|
||||
|
||||
### The Lawsuit Against the CIA
|
||||
The [[United States Customs Service]] began an investigation in February 1977 of allegations that more than 170 weapons stored at [[Ukiah]] had been moved to the Temple's San Francisco headquarters and possibly on to Jonestown. The House staff report states that the investigation was compromised a month later when an individual passed information about it to [[Dennis Banks]], head of the [[American Indian Movement]], in an effort to dissuade Banks from further contact with Jones, that the conversation was apparently taped and word reached Jones, and that a copy of the Customs report sent to [[Interpol]] was shared by normal procedure with the Guyanese police. According to information given to the staff group, Guyanese Police Commissioner C. A. "Skip" Roberts reportedly showed the copy to Paula Adams or [[Carolyn Layton]], and one of them passed the information to Jones.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
The relatives of Jonestown victims sued CIA Director [[Stansfield Turner]], alleging that he had conspired with Jones to control the cult as part of a secret government behavior-modification program. The lawsuit was reported in the [[Washington Post]] on March 25, 1983. [[Joe Holsinger]], Congressman Ryan's assistant and friend, stated that he believed Jonestown was a massive mind control experiment and that the CIA and military intelligence were involved. The CIA maintained extensive open source records on the Jonestown allegations, though most official intelligence files on the incident remain classified.[^2]
|
||||
The Customs investigation closed in August and September 1977 after a shipment of crates bound for Jonestown was opened in [[Miami]], and a report with negative results was filed. Investigators nonetheless sent copies to Interpol and the State Department because the investigation had disclosed allegations that Jones intended to establish a political power base in Guyana and might have several hundred firearms there. The State Department's Office of Munitions Control received the report on September 1, 1977, and a copy went to the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs on September 6. There is no indication that a copy went to the Embassy in Georgetown, and none of the more than 26 State Department officials the staff group interviewed had seen it before November 18, 1978, although one professed awareness of it.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Intelligence Network in Guyana and the Caribbean
|
||||
[[Richard Dwyer]] said in a 1990 oral history that the Guyanese authorities searched Temple shipments at customs because Interpol had alerted them to rumors of illegal shipments, and that nobody told the Embassy.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
At the time of the massacre, Guyana was governed by Prime Minister [[Forbes Burnham]], installed with CIA help, as was [[Omar Torrijos]] in [[Panama]]. The People's Temple had amassed a large fortune in property and bank assets across [[Latin America]], including in Panama, Guyana, and Grenada. During the massacre, the Temple's ship, the "Cudjoe," was en route to [[Trinidad]] with Temple members on board. Temple members subsequently established operations in Trinidad and Grenada, where CIA client [[Eric Gairy]] was Prime Minister. According to the [[Oakland Tribune]], the [[St. George's University Medical School]] in Grenada had on its staff Dr. [[Peter Bourne]], a graduate of the [[Walter Reed Army Institute of Research]] who had studied the psychological effects of stress on those in combat and served one year in Vietnam as head of the Army's psychiatric research team.[^2]
|
||||
### Embassy Georgetown, Consular Visits and the Privacy Act
|
||||
|
||||
### Congressman Ryan's CIA Criticism and Post-Massacre Revelations
|
||||
A State Department cable from Georgetown, number 2637, dated December 29, 1976, and signed McCoy, reports that Lieutenant Governor [[Mervyn Dymally]] of California, visited Guyana to see the People's Temple agricultural mission at Port Kaituma. The chargé d'affaires met Dymally on December 27 and again on December 28, and Jones was present at the second meeting, at which the chargé summarized the state of relations between the United States and Guyana. Dymally and Jones both said they had met Foreign Minister [[Frederick Wills]] on December 26, and that he feared the United States would destabilize Guyana as it had Chile. Jones indicated that there was real fear in the Guyanese government that the CIA was a supranational agency answerable to no one and acting against Guyana unknown to other agencies of the United States government. The chargé categorically denied that any United States agency, the CIA included, was acting against Guyana. Jones said he had met Mrs. Carter and Vice President-elect [[Walter Mondale]] earlier, that they assured him the Carter administration would not interfere in Guyana's domestic affairs, and that he intended to pass this message to Prime Minister [[Forbes Burnham]] on December 29.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
Congressman Ryan had been a persistent critic of the CIA. After his assassination, former CBS News correspondent [[Daniel Schorr]] revealed that Ryan was his source for uncovering a covert CIA operation in [[Angola]], in contravention of U.S. law. Schorr felt compelled on November 30, 1978, to reveal Ryan as his source because Ryan was "dead and beyond reproach." Schorr had been sanctioned by CBS News in 1976 after he passed to the [[Village Voice]] a secret House Select Committee on Intelligence report critical of Secretary of State [[Henry Kissinger]].[^2]
|
||||
The House staff group found that the Embassy provided the Temple in advance with the names of most of the people consular officers planned to interview at Jonestown, which allowed Jones to rehearse them, and that consular visits averaged five to six hours on four occasions between August 30, 1977, and November 1, 1978. The Temple filed 26 actions under the [[Privacy Act]] for documents about specified members, and the Embassy learned of this on December 2, 1977. The report concludes that the legal claims made Embassy reporting to the State Department less candid.[^17] A consular officer's memorandum of December 15, 1977, in the State Department's released files records a meeting on December 12 with Temple members who asked about the motive behind his planned visit to Jonestown.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Witnesses and Assassins
|
||||
In June 1978 the Embassy cabled the State Department (Log 126) for permission to ask the Guyanese government to exercise normal administrative jurisdiction over Jonestown. The State Department refused by cable (Log 130) because the approach "could be construed by some as U.S. Government interference." The Embassy's cable omitted the defection of Deborah Layton Blakey, which had occurred on May 12, 1978, with the help of consular officers [[Richard McCoy]] and Daniel Weber, because of Privacy Act considerations, according to the ambassador.[^17] The House staff group found that allegations that a Temple woman had a sexual relationship with McCoy and recorded it were false, citing her signed affidavit, and found no evidence that any other Embassy employee had been compromised by the Temple.[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
Witnesses to the shooting of Congressman Ryan and others at the airfield described the assailants as "zombie-like" and emotionless. In reference to a rumored hit list compiled by the People's Temple, a congressional aide was quoted as saying, "There are 120 white brainwashed assassins out from Jonestown awaiting the trigger word to pick up their hit." There was evidence that Jones used doubles, and confusion existed as to whether it was the genuine Jones whose body was found among the dead.[^1]
|
||||
On November 5, 1978, the Embassy relayed to Ryan that the Temple wanted him to work with its legal counsel, [[Mark Lane]], and would permit a visit only if the delegation was "balanced," had no media coverage and Lane was present. Lane wrote to Ryan on November 6 that he could not be in Jonestown when Ryan wished to visit and referred to a "witchhunt" against the Temple by the United States government.[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Larry Layton and the Only U.S. Prosecution
|
||||
Deborah Layton Blakey said, according to a [[San Mateo Times]] article of December 14, 1979, that McCoy warned her not to take her assertions about oppression and possible mass suicide to the press, and that she received a letter apparently from Jones referring to a conversation with McCoy.[^21] The San Mateo Times quoted Holsinger on December 6, 1978, as saying that each time Ryan's office contacted the State Department about the Temple, letters from Temple members urging Ryan to desist followed, that staff called it a Pavlovian reaction, and that it could have been incompetence. In his 1980 testimony, which attached that article, he asked whether the free flow of information to Jones was State Department policy or the work of a few officials with close ties to Jones.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Larry Layton]] was the only former People's Temple member tried in the United States for criminal acts arising from the Jonestown massacre. At the Port Kaituma airstrip, Layton opened fire on those inside a six-seat Cessna, wounding several people, while other Temple members simultaneously attacked the transport plane carrying Congressman Ryan and his delegation. Ryan, three journalists, and a Temple defector were killed. Layton was convicted in December 1986 by a federal jury in San Francisco on four counts including conspiracy to kill a congressman, aiding and abetting the murders, and wounding State Department diplomat Richard Dwyer. He was sentenced to life in prison in March 1987. After serving approximately 18 years between Guyanese jails and U.S. federal custody, Layton was paroled in April 2002 following a campaign by family members and advocates. He was the only participant in the events of November 18, 1978, to face criminal prosecution in the United States.[^3]
|
||||
The State Department press spokesman [[Hodding Carter]] told reporters on November 27, 1978, that the only investigation by an American agency in Guyana of which he was aware was done by Consular Affairs. Asked about reports that the CIA had been in the settlement five times, he said he was neither aware of it nor able to comment, and that such activity would be outside the CIA's charter as he understood the new charter.[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
### San Francisco Political Ties
|
||||
|
||||
The Temple moved its base to [[San Francisco]] in 1972. [[George Moscone]], elected mayor in 1975, signed a commission appointing "Reverend James Jones" a member of the [[San Francisco Housing Authority]] for a term ending April 27, 1980, effective November 30, 1976, in place of Stephen Walter, whose term had expired.[^24] The Jonestown Institute states that the appointment was announced on October 18, 1976, after Jones had declined an offer of a seat on the Human Rights Commission, that Jones later became chair of the authority, and that he hired three Temple leaders to positions on its staff.[^25] The House staff report describes Jones as having endowed himself with official legitimacy through the Moscone appointment, and states that San Francisco political figures appear to have been drawn by his ability to turn out hundreds of followers for rallies, mailings and phone banks, with some direct contributions to campaigns.[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
The House report states that the Temple's letter-writing campaigns against critical stories produced letters from Moscone, Dymally, the head of the San Francisco school system and members of the California State Assembly, and that the campaigns were particularly effective with the [[San Francisco Chronicle]] and the [[National Enquirer]]. Jones contributed sums totaling 4,400 dollars to the [[San Francisco Examiner]], the Chronicle and ten other newspapers for use in the "defense of a free press"; the Examiner returned the money and the Chronicle sent its check to [[Sigma Delta Chi]], which declined to return it to the Temple. The Examiner cancelled an eight-part series on Jones in 1972 after picketing and a threat of suit, and the report credits the August 1977 [[New West]] article with breaking Jones's hold on San Francisco and prompting his departure for Guyana.[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Timothy Stoen]], Jones's legal adviser, was hired in 1976 by San Francisco District Attorney [[Joseph Freitas]], according to a newspaper chronology reprinted in the House report, which also states that Jones resigned from the Housing Authority by shortwave radio from Jonestown after the 1977 New West article.[^27] Freitas said in January 1979, according to the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle, that Stoen had tried in 1976 to interfere with an investigation of death threats allegedly made by a Temple member to the Reverend [[Hannibal Williams]], and that the allegation surfaced in an in-house review. The state attorney general was investigating whether Stoen, as Freitas's voter-fraud prosecutor, had obstructed investigations at the Temple's behest and how he obtained his job. Stoen denied through his attorney that he had acted improperly.[^28] The House staff group interviewed Freitas and Stoen in California in January 1979, and after the State Department cited the Privacy Act in declining to give information about Stoen, Zablocki replied on March 13, 1979, that the Privacy Act permits disclosure to a committee of Congress within its jurisdiction under 5 U.S.C. 552a(b)(9).[^29][^30]
|
||||
|
||||
### Temple Finances, Panama Accounts and the Soviet Union
|
||||
|
||||
The House staff report estimated Jones's controlled wealth at 12 million dollars.[^31] It records that 199 [[Social Security Administration|Social Security]] annuitants lived in Jonestown with benefits of about 37,000 dollars a month, and that about 160,000 dollars in uncashed checks, mostly for August through October 1978, were recovered there.[^32] A court-appointed receiver in California later reported accounting for about 10 million dollars, of which 7.2 million was found in two [[Panama]] banks, according to the Jonestown Institute's compilation of 1979 press reports.[^33]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]]'s file on the case (RYMUR) contains a letter dated November 18, 1978, found at Jonestown, signed in the name of a Temple member and addressed to "Dear Comrade Timofeyev" at the Soviet consulate at 48 Chandra Nagar Street, Prashad Nagar, Georgetown. The letter states that it is a letter of instructions "regarding all our assets which we want to leave to the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" and that the Temple wanted its money to benefit "oppressed peoples all over the world." It describes two fixed-time deposits: account 3357 at the [[Swiss Bank Corporation]] in Panama, holding two deposits of 557,000 dollars and 1,486,000 dollars, and account 121-00-191A at the [[Union Bank of Switzerland]] in Panama, holding seven deposits maturing between May 31 and September 21, 1979, in amounts from 82,536 dollars to 1,623,000 dollars. The listed amounts add to 7,284,536 dollars.[^34] Companion letters instructed the bank officers to send cashier's checks to the consul as deposits matured; the Jonestown Institute reproduces additional letters of the same date leaving assets in banks in [[Caracas]] and [[Nassau]] to the Soviet Communist Party.[^35]
|
||||
|
||||
Three Temple members left Jonestown on November 18 with suitcases that the Jonestown Institute says held over 900,000 dollars in United States currency and over 135,000 Guyanese dollars, along with the letters, with instructions to deliver them to the Soviet Embassy; they abandoned the suitcases and were taken into protective custody at Port Kaituma.[^35] At State Department briefings, reporters asked on November 27, 1978, about Jones's reported activities with the Soviet Embassy and whether Soviet officials visited Jonestown, and Hodding Carter said he had seen the report and had no information on a visit. On November 28 a reporter asked whether the Temple had been negotiating a move to the [[Soviet Union]], and he answered, "I've seen reports to that end," and said allegations about half a million dollars to be delivered to the Soviet Embassy with a letter held by the Guyanese government were under investigation. On December 1, asked what had become of the 500,000 dollars and the note, he said he had nothing to offer and would take the question.[^36] The [[Associated Press]] reported from Georgetown that Jones's aides had met at least twice with an official of the Soviet Embassy to discuss moving the colony, and the New York Times reported on December 20, 1978, that Jonestown leaders had tried to bequeath about 7 million dollars in Panamanian and Venezuelan accounts to the Soviet Union.[^37][^38]
|
||||
|
||||
A State Department cable of November 1978, Georgetown 3807, records an Embassy interview with Jones's attorney Mark Lane. Lane said that Jones had talked of sending a delegation to the Soviet Union and perhaps of moving the commune there, and that he knew Jones had two or three million dollars in his cabin, which Lane said he had never seen and whose source he declined to name.[^39] A State Department letter of February 28, 1979, answering a request about Jones's foreign travel, stated that the only information the department had was a note in CIA files dated September 1960 indicating that Jones and his wife were planning a trip to the Soviet Union, Finland and Poland, and that nothing indicated the trip was made.[^40]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Jim Hougan]] wrote that the CIA's [[CIA Office of Security|Office of Security]] opened a file on Jones in November 1960 and that Jones's passport had been issued on June 28, 1960.[^41] A CIA staff cable of February 1, 1979, summarizing a [[Washington Post]] article headed "Guyana Exploits [[KGB]] Tie to Jonestown," records the article's closing statement that the best evidence of CIA involvement after November 18 was a cable sent at 9:18 p.m. the night Ryan was killed, which a reporter said listed the dead and wounded before the State Department had the information; the cable's sender, addressees and the remaining paragraphs are redacted in the released copy.[^42]
|
||||
|
||||
### Drugs and Medical Supplies
|
||||
|
||||
The Associated Press reported on December 28, 1978, that a drug inventory found in Jonestown showed large supplies of depressants, among them Quaaludes, Demerol, Valium, morphine and 11,000 doses of Thorazine, and that two survivors and law enforcement officials said some had been used to control the behavior of people viewed as disloyal; the report states that there were no records from which to determine how often the drugs were used.[^43] A [[Newsweek]] reporter who entered Jones's cottage after the deaths described a bag of drugs including Thorazine, Darvon, Pentothal and Valium.[^44] [[Jack Anderson]] wrote on September 27, 1980, that the discovery of an arms and drug cache raised the question of links between Jones and drug traffickers and organized crime, as well as law-enforcement agencies.[^45] Madsen's 2007 account lists thallium, chloral hydrate and Largatil among the drugs, with Thorazine, sodium pentothal and Demerol, and describes them as consistent with those used in known [[MKULTRA]] operations; he wrote that such quantities in an agricultural commune suggested a purpose beyond routine medical care.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Madsen cited a January 9, 1979, article in the Brazilian newspaper Manchete reporting that Brazil's Federal Police suspected the Temple of belonging to a [[Bolivia]], [[Brazil]] and Guyana drug network. Brazilian police had seized in 1978 the largest cocaine shipment in the country's history, and two arrested traffickers said ten kilograms were destined for Jones in Guyana. [[Arthur Carbone Filho]], head of the [[Sao Paulo]] police unit for combating drugs, said he had documentation that cocaine traffic between Bolivia and Guyana had occurred frequently and that Jones's 1969 arrival in Brazil, where he lived at [[Belo Horizonte]], was probably meant to establish connections for Bolivian cocaine. [[Francisco Carlos Gariato]], chief of the Sao Paulo Federal Police, said a Bolivian trafficker who confessed to smuggling cocaine to Guyana was later identified as a follower and recruiter for Jones.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Death Tape and Richard Dwyer
|
||||
|
||||
Richard Dwyer, the Deputy Chief of Mission in Georgetown, accompanied Ryan to Jonestown and was wounded at the airstrip. His oral history places him in the [[Foreign Service]] from 1957, in the State Department's Office of Functional and Biographic Intelligence, in [[Damascus]] and [[Cairo]], in [[Chad]] as deputy chief of mission and chargé from 1974 to 1977, on the Inspection Corps in 1977 and 1978, and in Georgetown from April 1978. In Chad a [[Peace Corps]] volunteer's letter identified him as the CIA chief. He said the CIA was not to his taste and that, instead of the standard reply of neither confirming nor denying the allegations, he wished he had said, "No, I am not CIA, never was and do not intend to be."[^15] A 1968 East German reference work by Julius Mader, quoted in a Senate hearing record, lists "Dwyer, Richard Alan" as born in 1933, in the State Department from 1957, working for the CIA from 1959, with posts at Damascus, Cairo and Washington.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
On the tape of the final hour at Jonestown, designated Q 042 by the FBI, Jones says: "Take Dwyer on down to the East House," and later, "Get Dwyer out of here before something happens to him."[^46] The San Mateo Times reported on December 14, 1979, that the FBI held a tape on which Jones said that, that the House investigator [[George Berdes]] and FBI agents in San Francisco confirmed it, and that Berdes and the agents concluded that Jones was mistaken. Dwyer told the paper that Jones apparently thought he was still at the compound and that he had spent the night with the wounded at the airstrip. [[Jackie Speier]], wounded at the airstrip, said Dwyer left the group on several occasions, that Ryan gave Dwyer a briefcase holding recorders, tapes and notes, and that when it was returned the tapes, notes and recorders were missing. Dwyer said Ryan did not give him the briefcase, that he picked it up at the airstrip, and that he gave it to the committee staff member [[Jim Schollaert]].[^21] Dwyer's oral history states that Jones thought he had returned and that the allegations that he ran a mind control operation came partly from Ryan's administrative assistant and partly from a young man at the CIA, whom he could not identify, who had told the assistant he had direct reports from "their man on the scene." Dwyer said there was nobody there but himself.[^15] The House staff report praised Dwyer's leadership of the survivors at Port Kaituma.[^17] Hougan wrote that Dwyer's background "is that of a sheepdipped CIA officer whose State Department cover had long ago worn thin," listing the Bureau of Intelligence and Research until February 1959, Damascus from 1960 to 1963, Cairo from 1963 to 1966, Washington from 1966 to 1968 and Sofia from 1970 to 1972.[^41]
|
||||
|
||||
Madsen wrote that Jack Anderson reported on September 27, 1980, that Dwyer was a CIA agent and a friend of Jones, and that Dwyer and Ambassador [[John Burke]] had both allegedly worked for the CIA in [[Bangkok]] during the [[Vietnam War]]; that Dwyer reportedly left Guyana for Grenada after the massacre; that McCoy allegedly liaised with Jones and was a [[United States Air Force]] intelligence official; and that another alleged CIA employee, [[Dan Webber]], working under State Department cover, visited Jonestown the day after the massacre.[^6] The Anderson column of that date in the CIA's files states that Mader's directory lists Dwyer as a CIA agent since 1959 and that Dwyer knew Jones; it does not mention Bangkok, Grenada, McCoy or Webber.[^45] Dwyer's oral history lists his assignments after Georgetown as [[Martinique]] from 1980 to 1983 and the Office of Caribbean Affairs in 1984, and states that he served as chargé at [[Antigua]] for a couple of weeks during the Grenada crisis of 1983; the report of the House staff group lists a Daniel Weber, vice consul and third secretary at Georgetown from October 1976 through December 1978, who with McCoy helped Deborah Layton Blakey defect.[^15][^17]
|
||||
|
||||
Jack Anderson's column of September 27, 1980, quoted a Capitol Hill source saying the allegations were coming from very responsible people and could not be dismissed, and stated that Dwyer had "no comment" when asked if he worked for the CIA.[^45] Larry Layton's signed confession to Guyanese authorities of November 22, 1978, stated that he had begged Jones to let him bring down the plane because he felt the people leaving were working with the CIA to smear the Temple and Guyana.[^47]
|
||||
|
||||
### Ryan, the CIA and the Reviews of CIA Involvement
|
||||
|
||||
On September 27, 1978, Ryan wrote to CIA Director [[Stansfield Turner]] asking him to confirm or deny a comment made during his investigation of the [[Patty Hearst]] case that the CIA had run experiments on prisoners at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, citing [[Donald DeFreeze]] of the [[Symbionese Liberation Army]] and another prisoner as sources. A routing slip in the CIA's files carries the letter.[^48] Madsen wrote that Ryan had never been a favorite of the CIA.[^6] After Ryan's death [[Daniel Schorr]] stated on November 29, 1978, that Ryan had been his source in 1975 for the covert CIA operation in Angola; the Associated Press report, published in the Washington Post on November 30, adds that Schorr was taken off the air at CBS in 1976 after passing to the [[Village Voice]] a secret House Select Committee on Intelligence report critical of Secretary of State [[Henry Kissinger]], and later resigned from CBS.[^49]
|
||||
|
||||
The House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Clement J. Zablocki, wrote to the [[Director of Central Intelligence]] on December 11, 1978, asking for all information and documents, and Turner replied on December 28 that Legislative Counsel [[Frederick P. Hitz]] would contact the staff.[^50] On February 2, 1979, Zablocki wrote to Secretary of State [[Cyrus Vance]] that it was the committee's understanding that all officials affiliated with the Embassy who had contact with the Temple, "including representatives of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]," would submit statements.[^51] A CIA staff cable of February 1, 1979, states that an entity whose name is redacted was reviewing documentary material recovered from Jonestown in search of evidence and was still cataloguing it, that the matter was sub judice, and that the sender had no plans to enquire further; the remaining text is redacted.[^52] A CIA routing sheet dated February 8, 1979, concerns the House committee staff.[^53]
|
||||
|
||||
The House staff report states that no conclusive evidence was available that the CIA was acquiring information on Jones or the Temple and that executive orders 11905 of February 18, 1976, and 12036 of January 24, 1978, prohibited the CIA from intelligence activity on United States citizens.[^54] The report also records that the [[Department of Justice|Justice Department]] told the staff the FBI had examined an allegation passed on by a constituent of Senator [[S. I. Hayakawa]] that Jones was holding people in Georgetown against their will, and closed it because relatives had gone voluntarily.[^54]
|
||||
|
||||
The House International Operations Subcommittee, chaired by [[Dante B. Fascell]], held hearings on February 20 and March 4, 1980. Holsinger testified that the CIA had an operation in Guyana designed to support Burnham, that there were credible reports it included covert support for Jones as an ally of Burnham, that the Temple provided funds to the Burnham group and acted as an intimidating force against the government's opponents, and that on the afternoon of the killings a [[White House]] staff member told him by telephone, "We have a CIA report from the scene." He said the [[Hughes-Ryan Amendment|Hughes-Ryan]] amendment of 1974, which Ryan co-sponsored, may have been violated by a failure to report a covert operation, and asked whether the deaths at Jonestown were preferred over disclosure of that operation.[^22] Anderson quoted [[Les Francis]], the White House aide, as saying he thought he had said "intelligence report" rather than "CIA report."[^45] The [[Washington Afro-American|Afro-American]] reported on July 15, 1980, that Holsinger also said the chief medical examiner in Guyana, Dr. Leslie Mootoo, reported that more than 700 of the bodies were not suicide victims. At the San Francisco forum on May 23, 1980, Holsinger said he believed the CIA was in effective control of the Embassy, questioned whether Jonestown was a mass mind control experiment under MKULTRA, and relied on the APRL report and an article titled "The Penal Colony."[^8][^55]
|
||||
|
||||
The committee staff group wrote Zablocki on March 28, 1980, that the hearings produced no substantive new information and that the CIA allegations were "largely speculative and unsubstantiated," and recommended referral to the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] of six contentions: that the CIA conducted a range of activities in Guyana, that a CIA agent witnessed Ryan's assassination, that the CIA violated the Hughes-Ryan Act by not reporting a covert operation, that it decided to allow the events of November 18 to occur to avoid disclosure, that the reporting failure was deliberate because Ryan co-authored the act, and that the CIA was used to promote American commercial interests. It recommended declassification of the committee's interview transcripts by January 1, 1985, subject to the witnesses' agreement. Zablocki, [[William S. Broomfield]], Fascell and [[John H. Buchanan]] wrote to the select committee chairman, [[Edward P. Boland]], on April 3, 1980.[^56]
|
||||
|
||||
CIA files record the referral from the other side. A note of April 4, 1980, from the Office of the Director to the Legislative Counsel states that "[[John McMahon]] denies any Agency involvement" and that the Director of Central Intelligence wanted a note to Zablocki or Boland saying the select committee agreed to investigate; the writer thought it better done staff to staff, and a handwritten reply reads "Yes!" A memorandum of April 17, 1980, from the Legislative Counsel to the Director reports that the House Foreign Affairs staff said on April 14 that neither the Fascell subcommittee nor the staffers who did the initial study found substance to support "persistent rumors about CIA"; that Zablocki's reason for referring the matter was that a fresh look might quell the rumors; that the staff said the allegations came from Holsinger and others very close to Jones whose mind-set was that nothing would persuade them there had not been a conspiracy against Ryan; and that the select committee's staff director, [[Tom Latimer]], said on April 15 that he saw no substance to the allegations and was recommending to Boland a low-key investigation in which a single staff member reviewed the same material made available to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The memorandum adds that Zablocki had "wiped his hands of the matter" and that the select committee felt it must "do something."[^57]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Rebecca Moore]] wrote in 1985, citing the journalist John Hanrahan, that on the second anniversary of the deaths the select committee announced in a two-page letter, without a report to the Foreign Affairs Committee or the public, that it found no evidence at all of CIA involvement, no CIA connection with Jones and no foreknowledge of the suicides, and that a congressional staff member told Hanrahan the CIA "pulled a fast one" and the first investigation's key sentence was "crafted with excruciating care."[^58]
|
||||
|
||||
[[John Judge]] and [[Sandy Meredith]] were reported by the [[Philadelphia Inquirer]] on February 5, 1982, to base on circumstantial evidence their theory that Jonestown was part of a 30-year CIA mind control experiment called MKULTRA; Judge cited the Guyanese government's changing body counts and said Jones was a close friend of a government agent.[^59]
|
||||
|
||||
### Civil Suits and Freedom of Information Litigation
|
||||
|
||||
[[Fielding McGehee]] filed a [[Freedom of Information Act]] request with the CIA on December 6, 1978, narrowed on December 22 at the suggestion of an agency representative to records on the "Peoples Temple," and sued on November 21, 1980. On May 5, 1981, the CIA stated that it held 84 responsive documents: 12 were released in full, 18 with substantial deletions, 26 were withheld and 28 (27 from the State Department, one from the FBI) were forwarded to the originating agencies. The agency had used December 22, 1978, as a search cut-off date without telling him. The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] held on January 4, 1983, that the delay of almost two and one-half years and the undisclosed cut-off date were evidence of bad faith that removed the credit ordinarily due to the CIA's affidavits by [[Louis J. Dube]], and reversed and remanded.[^60] Anderson wrote on September 27, 1980, that Ryan's five children had filed a 3 million dollar suit charging that the State Department withheld information that could have prevented his murder; their lawyer, [[Marvin E. Lewis]], said he would prove the State Department and the CIA possessed vital information.[^45]
|
||||
|
||||
Madsen cited a Washington Post report of March 25, 1983, that relatives of Jonestown victims sued CIA Director Turner alleging he conspired with Jones to control the group as part of a secret government behavior-modification program, and wrote that the CIA maintained extensive open-source records on the Jonestown allegations while most official intelligence files remain classified.[^6] Survivors of the airstrip attack and relatives of members sued the federal government in San Francisco on October 14, 1981, alleging that Vance and Turner took part in a conspiracy with Jones to control Temple members and that Jones was an employee, servant, agent or operative of the CIA from 1963 until his death.[^61] The Washington Post reported on October 15, 1981, the same suit in its "Around the Nation" column.[^62] UPI reported on October 11, 1983, that the [[Supreme Court]] declined to review the case after a district judge dismissed it because the plaintiffs' attorney failed to serve the defendants within 40 days and the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit|Ninth Circuit]] rejected his excuses.[^63]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Larry Layton Prosecution
|
||||
|
||||
Larry Layton, Deborah Layton Blakey's brother, boarded the six-seat Cessna at Port Kaituma, told the pilot to take off when shots were heard at the larger plane, and shot two passengers; a third shot misfired. He was indicted on October 9, 1980, in the Northern District of California on four counts: conspiracy to kill Leo Ryan under 18 U.S.C. 351(d), aiding and abetting that killing, conspiracy to kill Dwyer as an internationally protected person under 18 U.S.C. 1117, and aiding and abetting that attempted killing under 18 U.S.C. 1116(a). He was returned from Guyana in the company of FBI agents about November 20, 1980.[^64] A defense lawyer wrote that Layton had been tried in Guyana on attempted murder charges and acquitted.[^65] The first trial, beginning July 21, 1981, ended in a hung jury on September 26. After two interlocutory appeals by the government, a second trial began September 18, 1986, and on December 1, 1986, the jury convicted on all counts after deliberating 25 hours over six days; Peckham had excluded a final recording of Jones from the trial.[^66] On March 3, 1987, Judge [[Robert Peckham]] sentenced him to fifteen years on three counts and life on the count of aiding and abetting the killing of a member of Congress.[^64][^65] The Ninth Circuit affirmed on August 16, 1988, holding that Jones's pre-arrival tape-recorded speeches were admissible as coconspirator statements, and denied his motion to vacate for ineffective assistance of counsel.[^64]
|
||||
|
||||
In the first appeal, decided August 10, 1983, the Ninth Circuit described the government's offer of proof: Jones said in nightly speeches before the visit that if Ryan came "maybe [his] plane will just fall out of the sky," and told residents not to talk to visitors; Layton had been on the Temple security force in the United States.[^47] [[Charles Garry]], a Temple lawyer, told the House staff group that in a year and a half he found no evidence to support the Temple's charges of government conspiracy, while Lane said that people in government agencies had manipulated Jones.[^67] The report states that Jones placed a false defector in the [[Concerned Relatives]] group in San Francisco a month before the trip, and records unconfirmed reports that a large shipment of cyanide arrived at Jonestown two days before Ryan's visit and a survivor's statement that Jones said days earlier the congressman's plane "might fall from the sky."[^67] Dwyer said the only person charged in Guyana with a crime was a former Marine at the Georgetown office, convicted of helping [[Sharon Amos]] kill her children, and the Washington Post reported on January 29, 1979, that Guyanese police had charged [[Charles Beikman]] and [[Stephen Jones]] over the deaths of Amos and her three children.[^15][^68] The Jonestown Institute states that Layton, after about 18 years in Guyanese jails and federal prisons, was released on parole in April 2002, two years before his scheduled release, following a six-year campaign by family members and supporters, and that he was the only man convicted on criminal charges arising from the events of November 18, 1978.[^69]
|
||||
|
||||
### Dan Mitrione and the Jones Connection
|
||||
|
||||
[[Dan Mitrione]] was an [[Indiana]] native, childhood acquaintance of Jim Jones from [[Richmond, Indiana]], who had a parallel career arc through federal law enforcement and Latin American intelligence operations. Mitrione served as Richmond's police chief before joining the State Department's [[International Cooperation Administration]] (ICA), subsequently absorbed into the [[Agency for International Development]] (AID), as a public safety adviser teaching police techniques in Brazil and [[Uruguay]]. Former Uruguayan police officials confirmed that Mitrione taught torture techniques to security forces in the cellar of his Montevideo residence, using vagrant prisoners as demonstration subjects. Jones and Mitrione were both based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil during overlapping periods in 1962-1963. Mitrione was kidnapped by [[Tupamaros]] guerrillas in Montevideo and executed in August 1970. Jones, according to the SDSU Jonestown Primary Sources document, described Mitrione as "a cruel, cruel person, even as a kid, a vicious racist" and stated he had wanted to "inform on" Mitrione's activities. Jones's CIA file, opened in November 1960, coincided with the period of Mitrione's confirmed CIA recruitment.[^4]
|
||||
[[Dan Mitrione]] was an [[Indiana]] native who served as police chief of [[Richmond, Indiana]], before joining the State Department's [[International Cooperation Administration]], later absorbed into the [[Agency for International Development]], as a public safety adviser, first at Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and from 1969 as chief public safety adviser in Montevideo, [[Uruguay]]. Hougan wrote that Jones told followers in Guyana, "There was one guy that I knew growing up in Richmond, a cruel, cruel person, even as a kid, a vicious racist, Dan Mitrione," that a Richmond acquaintance confirmed the two men knew one another, and that Jones entered Brazil in April 1962 and settled in Belo Horizonte, where Mitrione was serving at the United States consulate. Jones said, as Hougan quotes him, that he had heard of Mitrione's activities in Belo Horizonte and was inclined to "inform on his activities to everybody on the Left."[^70] CounterPunch reported that Manuel Hevia Cosculluela, a Cuban double agent who infiltrated the CIA, stated that Mitrione trained Uruguayan police to torture using beggars in the soundproofed basement of his Montevideo home, and that [[Tupamaros]] guerrillas kidnapped Mitrione, whose body was found on August 10, 1970.[^71] Hougan wrote that Mitrione was recruited into the CIA under State Department cover in May 1960 and that the CIA's file on Jones was opened because Mitrione intended to use him as an agent, and that the file remained open for ten years and was closed, without explanation, after Mitrione's death, and that the CIA said after the massacre that its file on "the Rev. Jimmie Jones" was virtually empty.[^41]
|
||||
|
||||
### Burnham, Grenada and the Caribbean
|
||||
|
||||
Madsen wrote that Guyana was governed by Prime Minister Burnham, installed with CIA help, as was [[Omar Torrijos]] in Panama. A London newspaper's Insight team had reported in April 1967 that the 1964 downfall of [[Cheddi Jagan]]'s government in British Guiana, in a colony where Burnham led the opposing party, was engineered largely by the CIA, using [[Public Services International]] as cover, at a cost of more than 250,000 pounds over five years; a copy of the article is in CIA files.[^72] Madsen also wrote that the Temple amassed property and bank assets across [[Latin America]], including Panama, Guyana and [[Grenada]].[^6] The Temple's ship Cudjoe was en route to [[Trinidad]] with Temple members aboard during the massacre, and Temple members afterward established operations in Trinidad and Grenada, where Prime Minister [[Eric Gairy]], a CIA client according to Madsen, was in power. According to the [[Oakland Tribune]], as Madsen cited it, the staff of [[St. George's University Medical School]] in Grenada included Dr. [[Peter Bourne]], a graduate of the [[Walter Reed Army Institute of Research]] who had studied the psychological effects of stress in combat and had served a year in Vietnam as head of the Army's psychiatric research team.[^6] Holsinger told the House subcommittee that Gairy had visited Jones at the Temple in San Francisco before the move to Guyana, and that more than one million dollars of Temple money had been deposited in a Grenada bank.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
### Witnesses and Assassins
|
||||
|
||||
Witnesses to the shooting of Ryan at the airstrip described the assailants as "zombie-like" and emotionless, Rowlett wrote. In reference to a rumored death list compiled by the Temple, a congressional aide was quoted as saying: "There are 120 white brainwashed assassins out from Jonestown awaiting the trigger word to pick up their hit." There was evidence that Jones used doubles, and confusion existed as to whether the genuine Jones's body was among the dead.[^5] The House staff report stated that the existence of a reported hit squad intended to eliminate Jones's staunchest opponents could not be concretely documented but should not be totally discounted, and that there was evidence Jones and key lieutenants had "understandings" to eliminate various individuals, including national political leaders.[^73] The FBI obtained transcripts of coded radio messages between Jonestown and the Temple's Georgetown house in the hours before the deaths which, according to the Washington Post's report of January 29, 1979, showed an order to kill ten members of the Concerned Relatives group who had stayed in Georgetown.[^68]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Curt Rowlett, "Project Mind Kontrol: Did the U.S. Government Actually Create Programmed Assassins?," Steamshovel Press #16, 1998.
|
||||
[^2]: Wayne Madsen, "Was Jonestown a CIA Front for Drug Smuggling and Mind Control Experiments?," Wayne Madsen Report, August 31-September 3, 2007; Washington Post, March 25, 1983; Jack Anderson syndicated column, September 27, 1980; Brazilian newspaper Manchete, January 9, 1979.
|
||||
[^3]: UPI Archives, "Former Peoples Temple cult member Larry Layton was convicted," December 1, 1986. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/12/01/Former-Peoples-Temple-cult-member-Larry-Layton-was-convicted/1537533797200/; Washington Post, "Layton Receives Life Sentence for Jonestown Attack," March 4, 1987. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/national/1987/03/04/layton-receives-life-sentence-for-jonestown-attack/1f34a054-edf9-4e4c-bbe3-f3bced1eeffe/
|
||||
[^4]: Hougan, Jim. "The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue," Jonestown and Peoples Temple (SDSU archive). https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16572; CounterPunch, "Teaching Torture: The Death and Legacy of Dan Mitrione," August 13, 2020. https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/13/teaching-torture-the-death-and-legacy-of-dan-mitrione/
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy, Committee Print, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., House Document No. 96-223 (May 15, 1979), pp. 16-17. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^2]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 3-6 (summary of events of November 14-19, 1978). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^3]: U.S. Department of State, Operations Center, Guyana Task Force, Situation Report No. 4, document C09000556, in documents released in FOIA case F-1980-02844 (date line garbled in the scan; the report precedes Situation Report No. 28 of December 2, 1978). https://archive.org/details/F-1980-02844
|
||||
[^4]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 7-8, 15. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^5]: Curt Rowlett, "Project Mind Kontrol: Did the U.S. Government Actually Create Programmed Assassins?," Steamshovel Press, issue 16 (1998), pp. 13-23 (Jonestown passages at p. 21). https://archive.org/details/steamshovel-press-issue-16-1998
|
||||
[^6]: Wayne Madsen, "Was Jonestown a CIA Front for Drug Smuggling and Mind Control Experiments?," Wayne Madsen Report, publication date August 30, 2007 (headline dated August 31-September 3, 2007). https://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20070830_4 (copy: https://archive.org/details/madsen-070831-jonesdown). Madsen cites a Washington Post article of March 25, 1983, and a Brazilian newspaper article in Manchete of January 9, 1979 (translated by the CIA); neither was opened for this draft.
|
||||
[^7]: U.S. Department of State, letter of December 13, 1978, to Rep. Clement J. Zablocki, answers to questions 5 and 6, in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix I-C-1(D), pp. 65-76. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^8]: Joe Holsinger, statement to the forum "Psycho-Social Implications of the Jonestown Phenomenon," Miyako Hotel, San Francisco, May 23, 1980. https://archive.org/details/holsinger-psycho-social-implications
|
||||
[^9]: Prepared statement of W. William Wilson, with attachments (including the San Mateo Times article of December 14, 1979, and an extract from Julius Mader, Who's Who in CIA (Berlin, 1968)), April 16, 1980, in National Intelligence Act of 1980, Hearings before the Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., on S. 2284, pp. 551-562. https://archive.org/details/jonestown-senate-hearings-from-the-96th-congress
|
||||
[^10]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), p. 10 (persons interviewed in California). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^11]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 32-33 (finding I, involvement of the Government of Guyana). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^12]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 12-14, 33. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^13]: Nicholas M. Horrock, "Mass Cult Immigration Violated Jones' Agreement with Guyana," New York Times, December 24, 1978, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, pp. 447-450. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^14]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 25-27 (finding E, U.S. Customs Service investigation). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^15]: Richard A. Dwyer, interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy, July 12, 1990, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (copyright 1998), sections on Chad, the Inspection Corps and Georgetown, Guyana, 1978-1980. https://archive.org/details/interview-with-richard-a.-dwyer-on-jonestown
|
||||
[^16]: Embassy Georgetown to Secretary of State, cable Georgetown 2637, "Dymally Visit to Guyana," December 29, 1976, in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), appendixes, pp. 147-149. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^17]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 27-32 (findings G and H, Privacy Act and role of the State Department). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^18]: U.S. Department of State, memorandum to file, December 15, 1977, subject "People's Temple," document C09000254, in documents released in FOIA case F-1980-02844, "People's Temple in Jonestown, Guyana," Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/F-1980-02844
|
||||
[^19]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), p. 31. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^20]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 2-3. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^21]: Rick Sullivan and Karen Petterson, "CIA Agent Witnessed Jonestown Mass Suicide," San Mateo Times, December 14, 1979, reprinted as Attachment 2 to the statement of W. William Wilson, in National Intelligence Act of 1980, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearings, pp. 558-562. https://archive.org/details/jonestown-senate-hearings-from-the-96th-congress
|
||||
[^22]: Statement of Joe Holsinger, Administrative Assistant to the late Representative Leo J. Ryan, with Exhibit A (John Horgan and Rick Sullivan, "Ryan's Calls to State Department: Somehow the Word Would Get to Peoples Temple," San Mateo Times, December 6, 1978), in Review of the Implementation of Recommendations Relating to the Death of Representative Leo J. Ryan, Hearings before the Subcommittee on International Operations, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., February 20 and March 4, 1980, pp. 6-16. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13658
|
||||
[^23]: U.S. Department of State, transcript of daily briefing, Monday, November 27, 1978 (Hodding Carter), document C09000586, in documents released in FOIA case F-1980-02844. https://archive.org/details/F-1980-02844
|
||||
[^24]: City and County of San Francisco, commission appointing Reverend James Jones a member of the Housing Authority, signed by Mayor George R. Moscone, November 30, 1976, FBI RYMUR file 89-4286-BB-17-x. http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/SFHousing.pdf
|
||||
[^25]: "Jones Appointment to San Francisco Housing Authority," Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library (last modified April 17, 2024), citing Tim Reiterman and John Jacobs, Raven, p. 268. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=14021
|
||||
[^26]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 22-24 (finding C, opponents and media intimidated, public officials used). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^27]: Chronology, newspaper article (title and date not legible on the scan), reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, entries for 1976 and 1977. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^28]: James A. Finefrock, "DA Accuses Deputy of Pro-Temple Ploy," San Francisco Examiner and San Francisco Chronicle, January 21, 1979, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, p. 469. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^29]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 9-11 (California interviews, January 3-19, 1979). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^30]: Letter from Rep. Clement J. Zablocki to Douglas J. Bennet Jr., March 13, 1979, acknowledging the State Department letter of February 28, 1979, in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix III-G-2. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^31]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 18-19. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^32]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 33-35 (finding J, Social Security). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^33]: "The Jonestown Banks," Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library (originally posted February 25, 2018), compiling Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Examiner, San Francisco Chronicle and Washington Post reports of 1979 and 1982. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=78508
|
||||
[^34]: Letter dated November 18, 1978, signed in the name of a Temple member, to Mr. Fedor Timofeyev, Consul, 48 Chandra Nagar Street, Prashad Nagar, Georgetown, Guyana, FBI RYMUR file 89-4286-1637, p. 230 (FBI release stamp 11/9/82). http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/letter_toFeodorTimofeyev.pdf
|
||||
[^35]: "Financial Letters of November 18," Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library (last modified April 24, 2024), reproducing FBI RYMUR file 89-4286-1637, pp. 230-235, and 89-4286-B-1-k-3 and k-4, and citing Tim Reiterman and John Jacobs, Raven, pp. 562-563. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13904
|
||||
[^36]: U.S. Department of State, transcripts of daily briefings of November 27, November 28 and December 1, 1978 (Hodding Carter), documents C09000586, C09000587 and C09000589, in documents released in FOIA case F-1980-02844. https://archive.org/details/F-1980-02844
|
||||
[^37]: Associated Press dispatch from Georgetown, in "Note Found on Jones' Body," Nicholas M. Horrock, New York Times, November 27, 1978, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, p. 388. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^38]: Nicholas M. Horrock, "Paper Calls Jones Communist in 1950's," New York Times, December 20, 1978, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, pp. 445-446. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^39]: Embassy Georgetown to Secretary of State, cable Georgetown 3807, "Interview with Mark Lane," November 1978, document C09000122, in documents released in FOIA case F-1980-02844. https://archive.org/details/F-1980-02844
|
||||
[^40]: Douglas J. Dennet Jr., Assistant Secretary for Congressional Relations, letter to Rep. Clement J. Zablocki, February 28, 1979, answering question 5 of the February 2, 1979 request, in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix III-G-2, pp. 507-508. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^41]: Jim Hougan, "The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue," sections on Mitrione and the CIA file and on Dwyer, Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library (originally posted March 11, 2013). https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16572
|
||||
[^42]: CIA staff cable, TOT 011936Z February 1979, "Washington Post 1 February Article Titled 'Guyana Exploits KGB Tie to Jonestown,'" CIA Reading Room document 0001432572 (approved for release May 2007). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001432572
|
||||
[^43]: "Jones Commune Found Stocked With Drugs to Control the Mind," Associated Press, Georgetown, December 28, 1978, in New York Times, December 29, 1978, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, p. 455. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^44]: "The Cult of Death," Newsweek, December 4, 1978 (reporter's account of Jones's cottage, section "A Bag of Drugs"), reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, pp. 397-435 (account at pp. 413-414). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^45]: Jack Anderson, column, Washington Post, September 27, 1980, as filed in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00965R000100170035-8 ("Ryan Kin: How Much Did U.S. Know?"). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00965r000100170035-8
|
||||
[^46]: Transcript of FBI tape Q 042, prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III, Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=29079
|
||||
[^47]: United States v. Layton, 720 F.2d 548, 550-551 (9th Cir. 1983) (No. 82-1072, decided Aug. 10, 1983). https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/720/720.F2d.548.82-1072.html
|
||||
[^48]: Rep. Leo J. Ryan to Admiral Stansfield Turner, letter, September 27, 1978, with CIA Executive Secretariat routing slip, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP81M00980R000300040014-0. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp81m00980r000300040014-0
|
||||
[^49]: "Schorr Reveals Rep. Ryan as Source of Angola Leak," Associated Press, Newport, R.I., November 29, 1978, Washington Post, November 30, 1978, p. A-22, in CIA Operations Center News Service, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP81M00980R000600030002-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp81m00980r000600030002-1
|
||||
[^50]: Letter from Rep. Clement J. Zablocki to the Director of Central Intelligence, December 11, 1978, and letter from Stansfield Turner to Zablocki, December 28, 1978, in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix III, pp. 210-212. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^51]: Letter from Rep. Clement J. Zablocki to Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance, February 2, 1979, request (1), in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix I-C-1(M), pp. 153-154. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^52]: CIA staff cable, TOR 020013Z February 1979, "Wnintel," CIA Reading Room document 0001431650, "Cable re Material Recovered from Jonestown" (approved for release May 2007). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001431650
|
||||
[^53]: CIA routing and record sheet dated February 8, 1979, re House International Relations Committee staff looking into the death of Rep. Leo Ryan, CIA Reading Room document 0001432558 (approved for release February 2007). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001432558
|
||||
[^54]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 20-22 (finding B, "Conspiracy Against Jim Jones and People's Temple"), and Appendix III-B-2 (Executive Orders 11905 and 12036). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^55]: Washington Afro-American, July 15, 1980, "Ryan Aide Discounts 'Jonestown Mythology,'" CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000302770002-2. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000302770002-2
|
||||
[^56]: Staff Investigative Group (Ivo Spalatin, George R. Berdes, Thomas R. Smeeton) to Rep. Clement J. Zablocki, March 28, 1980; Zablocki to Rep. Dante B. Fascell, March 31, 1980; and Zablocki, William S. Broomfield, Fascell and John H. Buchanan Jr. to Rep. Edward P. Boland, April 3, 1980, Appendices 4 and 5, in Review of the Implementation of Recommendations Relating to the Death of Representative Leo J. Ryan, House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Operations hearings, February 20 and March 4, 1980, pp. 76-79. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=13658
|
||||
[^57]: CIA Office of the Director note to Legislative Counsel, April 4, 1980, "Guyana - HFAC" (Executive Registry 80-917), with UPI item of April 4, 1980, and Legislative Counsel memorandum to the Director of Central Intelligence, April 17, 1980 (OLC 80-0663/5), "Guyana - HFAC/HPSCI," CIA Reading Room document 0001432433 (approved for release February 2007). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-0001432433
|
||||
[^58]: Rebecca Moore, A Sympathetic History of Jonestown: The Moore Family Involvement in Peoples Temple (Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985), chapter 16 excerpt, "McGehee v. CIA," citing John Hanrahan. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16588
|
||||
[^59]: Frank Rossi, "The Question of Jonestown," Philadelphia Inquirer, February 5, 1982, as filed in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP90-00552R000303420024-5. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00552r000303420024-5
|
||||
[^60]: McGehee v. Central Intelligence Agency, 697 F.2d 1095, 1097-1099, 1102-1103, 1112-1113 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (No. 82-1096, decided Jan. 4, 1983). https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F2/697/697.F2d.1095.82-1096.html
|
||||
[^61]: "Rev. Jones: Was CIA Agent, Suit Alleges," UPI, San Francisco, Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1981, as filed in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000200020030-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000200020030-8
|
||||
[^62]: "Around the Nation," Washington Post, October 15, 1981, p. A10, as filed in CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP99-00498R000200020031-7. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp99-00498r000200020031-7
|
||||
[^63]: Spencer Sherman, "Peoples Temple Survivors Lose Appeal," UPI, October 11, 1983. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1983/10/11/Peoples-temple-survivors-lose-appeal/1510434692800/
|
||||
[^64]: United States v. Layton, 855 F.2d 1388, 1392-1394 (9th Cir. 1988) (Nos. 87-1071, 87-2576, decided Aug. 16, 1988). https://openjurist.org/855/f2d/1388/united-states-v-layton
|
||||
[^65]: "Larry Layton and Peoples Temple: Twenty-Five Years Later," essay by a member of Layton's defense team (author's name not shown on the captured page), Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16973
|
||||
[^66]: "Former Peoples Temple cult member Larry Layton was convicted," UPI, December 1, 1986. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1986/12/01/Former-Peoples-Temple-cult-member-Larry-Layton-was-convicted/1537533797200/
|
||||
[^67]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), pp. 21, 26-27 (findings B and F, including the statements of Mark Lane and Charles Garry). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^68]: Charles A. Krause, "FBI Has Copy of Cult's Radio Order To Kill," Washington Post, January 29, 1979, reprinted in Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), Appendix II-F-2, p. 478. https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
[^69]: "The Campaign to Release Larry Layton from Federal Prison," Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=32946
|
||||
[^70]: Jim Hougan, "The Secret Life of Jim Jones: A Parapolitical Fugue," sections II.2 and II.7, Jonestown and Peoples Temple, San Diego State University Library. https://jonestown.sdsu.edu/?page_id=16572
|
||||
[^71]: "Teaching Torture: The Death and Legacy of Dan Mitrione," CounterPunch, August 13, 2020. https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/13/teaching-torture-the-death-and-legacy-of-dan-mitrione/
|
||||
[^72]: "How the CIA Got Rid of Jagan," Insight, London newspaper (masthead not visible on the scan), April 1967, CIA Reading Room document CIA-RDP75-00149R000400180010-1. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp75-00149r000400180010-1
|
||||
[^73]: Staff Investigative Group, The Assassination of Representative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (House Document No. 96-223, May 15, 1979), p. 36 (finding K, future status of People's Temple). https://archive.org/details/ryan-assassination-house-rpt-1979-1
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
188
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/ProPublica.md
Normal file
188
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/ProPublica.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,188 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- NonprofitNewsroom
|
||||
- Media
|
||||
- InvestigativeJournalism
|
||||
- SandlerFoundation
|
||||
- SupremeCourt
|
||||
- DarkMoney
|
||||
- Snowden
|
||||
- Atomwaffen
|
||||
- Section501c3
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- ProPublica
|
||||
- Pro Publica
|
||||
- Pro Publica Inc
|
||||
summary: "New York nonprofit investigative newsroom established in 2007 and 2008 with funding from Herbert and Marion Sandler, publisher of reporting on the Snowden files, Atomwaffen Division, leaked IRS data, Leonard Leo and justices' gifts."
|
||||
start: 2007
|
||||
location: "New York City"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Sandler Foundation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2007
|
||||
role: "founding and largest donor"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Herbert Sandler]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2007
|
||||
role: "funder and founder"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Marion Sandler]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2007
|
||||
role: "funder and founder"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Herbert Sandler]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2019-06-05
|
||||
role: "founding chairman"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Paul Steiger]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2021-10
|
||||
role: "editor in chief at founding, later executive chairman"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Stephen Engelberg]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "editor-in-chief and co-chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Richard Tofel]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2021-09
|
||||
role: "president and co-chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Robin Sparkman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2021-09
|
||||
role: "president and co-chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Paul Sagan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
role: "chairman of the board"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[The Guardian]]"
|
||||
start: 2013-09
|
||||
end: 2013-09
|
||||
role: "joint reporting on NSA decryption documents"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[New York Times]]"
|
||||
start: 2013-09
|
||||
end: 2013-09
|
||||
role: "joint reporting on NSA decryption documents"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Leonard Leo]]"
|
||||
start: 2022-08
|
||||
role: "reporting on Marble Freedom Trust and judicial network"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Clarence Thomas]]"
|
||||
start: 2023-04
|
||||
role: "reporting on undisclosed gifts and travel"
|
||||
fn: 16
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Samuel Alito]]"
|
||||
start: 2023-06
|
||||
role: "reporting on 2008 Alaska trip"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom in [[New York City]] whose own account states that it "was founded in 2007-2008" and that its work has received nine [[Pulitzer Prize|Pulitzer Prizes]].[^1] The [[Internal Revenue Service]] recognized Pro Publica Inc (EIN 14-2007220) as exempt under section 501(c)(3) with a ruling date of February 2008.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Founding and the Sandler money
|
||||
|
||||
*[[Slate]]* reported on October 15, 2007 that the [[San Francisco]] Bay Area billionaires [[Herbert Sandler]] and [[Marion Sandler]] "have founded the nonprofit ProPublica" with $10 million that they promised to replenish annually, that the [[MacArthur Foundation]], the [[Atlantic Philanthropies]] and the [[JEHT Foundation]] were also contributing, and that, according to the *[[New York Times]]* that day, it would hire 24 reporters and editors under [[Paul Steiger]], the former managing editor of the *[[The Wall Street Journal]]*. The same article stated that the couple had made their fortune, which *[[Forbes]]* estimated at $1.2 billion, at [[Golden West Financial]] Corp., that [[Federal Election Commission]] records showed hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts to Democratic campaigns, that Herbert Sandler had given $2.5 million to the [[MoveOn.org Voter Fund]] in 2004, and that the [[Center for Responsive Politics]] recorded $8.5 million from the couple to the 527 group [[Citizens for a Strong Senate]] in the 2004 cycle.[^3] Federal Election Commission itemized receipts for the 2004 cycle include two entries dated August 11, 2004 to the MoveOn.org Voter Fund that differ by one dollar, $2,505,014 under the name "SANDLER, HERBERT" and $2,505,013 under "SANDLER, HERBERT M," and list Citizens for a Strong Senate as Marion Sandler's largest recipient in the 2004 and 2006 cycles.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Jack Shafer]]'s article in *Slate* also recalled that at the 1992 convention of the [[American Society of Newspaper Editors]] the Sandlers had blamed the press in part for the savings and loan disaster, that Marion Sandler asked "Where were you when it was happening?", and that, in the words of the *[[Chicago Tribune]]* reporter [[James Warren (journalist)|James Warren]] as quoted by *Slate*, Herbert Sandler "conceded that, apart from being an occasional anonymous source for one Wall Street Journal reporter, he declined to help journalists as much as he probably should have." It also noted that ProPublica's website promised investigations conducted "in a non-partisan and non-ideological manner."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Golden West, Wachovia and the board chairman
|
||||
|
||||
On August 8, 2011 ProPublica reported that [[Wells Fargo]] had agreed to pay $590 million to settle class actions by investors in bonds sold by [[Wachovia]], which Wells Fargo had acquired in October 2008. The article stated that the suits alleged that Wachovia misrepresented the quality of a mortgage portfolio it bought from Golden West Financial, whose founders and chief executives were Herb and Marion Sandler, and added: "Herb Sandler is ProPublica's board chairman, and the [[Sandler Foundation]] is ProPublica's founding and largest donor. The Sandlers are not accused of wrongdoing or named as defendants in the suit." The consolidated complaint focused on a $120 billion portfolio of loans purchased from Golden West, an $8 billion portfolio of collateralized debt obligations and $15 billion of goodwill, and heavily on option adjustable-rate mortgages marketed as "Pick-A-Pay" that allowed borrowers to defer payments. Wachovia had bought Golden West for $24.3 billion in a sale announced in May 2006 and closed in October 2006. The Sandlers declined to comment on the allegations in the complaint, and Wells Fargo said the settlement was not an admission of liability.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Sandler Foundation grants
|
||||
|
||||
The Sandler Foundation (EIN 94-3147856, San Francisco) files its Form 990 for years ended June 30. Schedule I, Part II of the returns for the years ended June 30, 2013 through June 30, 2025 lists the following cash grants to Pro Publica Inc (EIN 14-2007220): $3,000,000 (2013), three grants of $1,000,000 (2014), four of $1,000,000 (2015), three of $1,000,000 in each of 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019, $3,000,000 (2020), $3,000,000 (2021), $1,000,000 (2022), $2,000,000 (2023), $2,000,000 (2024) and $6,000,000 (2025), a total of $39,000,000 across the thirteen years. The same Schedule I entries, over the rows whose grantee could be read, total at least $49,750,000 in grants to the [[Center for American Progress]] and at least $34,835,000 in grants to the [[Center for Responsible Lending]].[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Board and officers
|
||||
|
||||
The Form 990 for calendar 2014 lists Herbert M. Sandler as founding chairman (three hours a week, no reportable compensation) and Paul E. Steiger as executive chairman (30 hours a week, $201,352 in reportable compensation), with directors [[Mark Colodny]], [[Henry Louis Gates Jr.]], [[Claire Hoffman]], [[Robert C. S. Monks]], [[Ron Olson]], [[Paul Sagan]], [[Kat Taylor]] and [[Tom Unterman]]; [[Richard Tofel]] as president and co-chief executive ($376,782) and [[Stephen Engelberg]] as editor-in-chief and co-chief executive ($372,391). The return for 2016 adds [[S. Donald Sussman]] and lists [[Jeffrey Gerth]] as a senior reporter through December 31, 2016; Unterman's directorship ended December 6, 2016. In the return for 2017 Sagan is chairman, Sandler remains founding chairman and Steiger executive chairman (reportable compensation $96,664), and the directors include [[Angela Filo]], [[Katie McGrath]] and [[James Stone]]. Tofel's reportable compensation that year was $396,415.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2019 records Sandler as founding chairman "thru 6/5/19" and Kat Taylor as a director through July 10, 2019. The return for 2021 records Steiger as executive chairman through October 2021 and Tofel as co-chief executive through September 2021, with Robin Sparkman as president and co-chief executive from September 2021. Directors in the 2024 return are Sagan (chairman), [[Claire Bernard]], [[Tomiko Brown-Nagin]], Colodny, [[Steve Daetz]], Filo, Gates, Hoffman, [[Anu Khosla]], [[Jonathan Klein]], [[Carrie Lozano]], McGrath, Monks, Stone and [[Charles F. Whitaker]]; Olson's directorship had ended in October 2023.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The organization's reported contributions were $10,115,367 in 2011, $13,678,241 in 2013, $43,063,123 in 2017, $37,366,751 in 2019 and $55,857,720 in 2023, and its total assets at the end of 2023 were $85,514,123. The Nonprofit Explorer record for the period ending December 2024 shows revenue of $64,268,632 and assets of $108,058,174.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Snowden documents, 2013
|
||||
|
||||
On September 5, 2013 ProPublica published, in partnership with the *New York Times* and [[The Guardian]], a report on the [[National Security Agency]] and [[GCHQ]] programs to defeat encryption, written for ProPublica by [[Jeff Larson]]. The article stated that the documents were "among more than 50,000 shared by The Guardian with The New York Times and ProPublica," that intelligence officials had asked the Times and ProPublica not to publish, and that the news organizations removed some specific facts but decided to publish. Larson's article was credited for the Guardian to James Ball, [[Julian Borger]] and [[Glenn Greenwald]], and for the Times to [[Nicole Perlroth]] and [[Scott Shane]].[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Atomwaffen Division, 2018
|
||||
|
||||
On May 3, 2018 ProPublica published, with the [[PBS Frontline]] program, an article on active-duty military members in the [[Atomwaffen Division]], stating that the journalists had obtained seven months of messages from a confidential chat room used by the group and had identified three Atomwaffen members or associates then employed by the Army or Navy and three who had served in the past.[^10] On June 20, 2018 ProPublica reported that Lance Corporal [[Vasillios George Pistolis]], whom it had identified as a neo-Nazi and as an assailant at the [[Unite the Right rally|Charlottesville]] rally of August 2017, had been convicted at a summary court-martial of disobeying orders and making false statements and would be imprisoned for a month, reduced in rank and likely forced from the [[United States Marine Corps]]; the article stated that in the previous 13 months Atomwaffen members and associates had been charged in five murders and a bomb plot.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
### The IRS data, 2021 to 2026
|
||||
|
||||
On June 8, 2021 ProPublica published "The Secret IRS Files" by [[Jesse Eisinger]], [[Jeff Ernsthausen]] and [[Paul Kiel]], stating that it had obtained "a vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data on the tax returns of thousands of the nation's wealthiest people, covering more than 15 years." Its first article stated that the 25 wealthiest Americans paid $13.6 billion in federal income taxes from 2014 to 2018 while their wealth, according to *Forbes*, rose $401 billion, a "true tax rate" of 3.4 percent.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
In the case of [[Charles Littlejohn]], *[[United States]] v. Littlejohn*, No. 24-3019, decided July 17, 2026, the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]] (Judges Rao, Walker and Rogers, with Judge Walker writing) affirmed a five-year sentence imposed on him in the District Court (No. 1:23-cr-00343). The opinion states that Littlejohn obtained a consulting job with the Internal Revenue Service in 2017, gave the tax return information of [[Donald Trump]] to a *New York Times* reporter in 2019, and took the tax return information of about 600 entities and about 7,600 of the wealthiest Americans, which he "leaked ... to ProPublica, which used data regarding at least 152 of his victims in about 50 articles." The court wrote that "ProPublica is sitting on the private, as-yet-unpublished data of other taxpayers stolen by Littlejohn."[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Leonard Leo and Barre Seid, 2022 and 2023
|
||||
|
||||
On August 22, 2022 ProPublica and [[The Lever]] published an article by [[Andrew Perez]] of The Lever and by [[Andy Kroll]] and [[Justin Elliott]] of ProPublica reporting that [[Barre Seid]], then 90, had given a nonprofit run by [[Leonard Leo]] a donation worth $1.6 billion, described as the largest known donation to a political advocacy group in United States history. The article stated that the *New York Times* had first reported the gift and that ProPublica and The Lever confirmed it from documents obtained independently. It reported that the [[Marble Freedom Trust]] was created in April 2020 in [[Utah]]; that its address was a house in North Salt Lake owned by [[Tyler Green]], a former law clerk to Justice [[Clarence Thomas]] who is listed in the trust's tax return as an administrative trustee; that Seid transferred his full ownership of the electronics maker [[Tripp Lite]] to the trust; that in February 2021 Tripp Lite's annual report to the State of [[Illinois]] had Seid's name crossed out as an officer and Leo's written in; and that [[Eaton]] bought Tripp Lite for $1.65 billion in March 2021. The authors quoted the tax law professor [[Ellen Aprill]] that a gift to a 501(c)(4) avoided the tax on the appreciation, and reported that lawyers said Seid avoided up to $400 million in taxes. The article stated that Seid and Leo had worked together at the Chicago Freedom Trust, a charity Seid formed in 2009, and that Seid appeared to be the donor listed as "Barry Seid" who gave $17 million in 2008 to distribute copies of a DVD of the film *Obsession* in presidential battleground states. It quoted Leo's statement to the *Times* that it was "high time for the conservative movement to be among the ranks of [[George Soros]], [[Hansjörg Wyss]], [[Arabella Advisors]] and other left-wing philanthropists."[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
On October 11, 2023 ProPublica published a long article by Andy Kroll, [[Andrea Bernstein]] and [[Ilya Marritz]] on Leo. It described a dinner Leo hosted in Maine on June 23, 2022 for about 70 guests including some two dozen federal and state judges, held during a conference of [[George Mason University]]'s [[Antonin Scalia]] Law School, and reported that Leo had arranged for Justices Antonin Scalia and Thomas to attend [[Koch brothers]] donor retreats from 2007 and, according to the *[[Washington Post]]*, had directed [[Kellyanne Conway]] in 2012 to pay [[Ginni Thomas]] at least $25,000 as a subcontractor, with the instruction "No mention of Ginni, of course." Leo denied that the payments had any connection to the Court.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Reporting on Supreme Court justices, 2023
|
||||
|
||||
On April 6, 2023 ProPublica published [[Joshua Kaplan]], Justin Elliott and [[Alex Mierjeski]]'s article reporting that for more than two decades Justice Thomas had accepted luxury trips almost every year from the Dallas real estate businessman [[Harlan Crow]] without disclosing them, including a nine-day trip to [[Indonesia]] in 2019 on Crow's superyacht that could have cost more than $500,000 if chartered, flights on Crow's jet, trips to the [[Bohemian Grove]] and stays at Crow's [[Adirondacks]] resort. A guest list for one trip in July 2017 included executives of [[Verizon]] and [[PricewaterhouseCoopers]], major Republican donors and a leader of the [[American Enterprise Institute]], and a painting at the resort showed Thomas in conversation with Leo. Crow said in a statement that the hospitality was "no different from the hospitality we have extended to our many other dear friends" and that he was "unaware of any of our friends ever lobbying or seeking to influence Justice Thomas on any case."[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
On April 13 ProPublica reported that in 2014 a Crow company bought three properties in [[Savannah, Georgia]], including the house where Thomas's mother lived, for $133,363 from Thomas, his mother and the family of his late brother, and that Thomas had not disclosed the sale; Crow said he intended to create a museum.[^17] On May 4 it reported that Crow's company paid the boarding school tuition of a grandnephew Thomas was raising, a payment that [[Mark Paoletta]], Thomas's friend and Ginni Thomas's lawyer, acknowledged.[^18] On June 20 it reported that [[Paul Singer]], a hedge fund founder, had flown Justice [[Samuel Alito]] on a private jet to a July 2008 fishing trip in Alaska at a lodge owned by [[Robin Arkley II]], that Leo helped organize the trip and asked Singer whether Alito could fly on the jet, and that Singer's fund had cases before the Court at least ten times afterward, including a 2014 case against [[Argentina]] in which Alito did not recuse himself and voted with the majority. Leo said in a statement that he "would never presume to tell" Alito and Scalia "what to do."[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
On July 12, 2023 ProPublica reported that Senators [[Sheldon Whitehouse]] and [[Dick Durbin]] had written to Singer, Arkley and Leo requesting a full accounting of transportation, lodging and gifts to any justice.[^20] On August 10 it reported that Thomas had received at least 38 destination vacations, 26 private jet flights, eight helicopter flights and a dozen VIP sports passes from a group of wealthy donors, and quoted Thomas's April statement that the Crows "are among our dearest friends."[^21] On August 31, after Thomas filed an expanded disclosure form, ProPublica reported that he acknowledged he should have reported the 2014 real estate sale, that he had disclosed three private jet trips from Crow in 2022, and that his lawyer [[Elliot Berke]] said there had been "no willful ethics transgression."[^22] On September 22 it reported that Thomas attended at least two Koch network donor events, including a January 25, 2018 summit in [[Palm Springs]], and had not reported the flight on his disclosure form; a Koch network spokesperson said the network did not pay for the jet.[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
### Supporters and gift policy
|
||||
|
||||
ProPublica's supporters page lists "some of our larger donors," among them the Sandler Foundation, the John S. and James L. [[John S. and James L. Knight Foundation|Knight Foundation]], the MacArthur Foundation, the William and Flora [[William and Flora Hewlett Foundation|Hewlett Foundation]], [[Arnold Ventures]], the [[Emerson Collective]], [[Crankstart]], the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the [[Commonwealth Fund]], [[Splunk]], and the law firms [[Davis Wright Tremaine]] and [[Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton]]. Its gift acceptance practices state that no donor may dictate what it reports on and that it discloses donations of $5,000 or more in its tax filings.[^24] In *[[Columbia Journalism Review]]* on August 21, 2020 [[Tim Schwab]] wrote that his review of nearly twenty thousand [[Gates Foundation]] grants found more than $250 million for journalism, with recipients including ProPublica and The Guardian.[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: ProPublica, "About," https://www.propublica.org/about/ (accessed October 1, 2026).
|
||||
[^2]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, organization record for Pro Publica Inc, EIN 14-2007220, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/142007220.json (queried October 1, 2026; ruling date 2008-02, subsection 3).
|
||||
[^3]: Jack Shafer, "Investigating Herbert and Marion Sandler, the funders of the new investigative journalism outfit," *Slate*, October 15, 2007, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/10/investigating-herbert-and-marion-sandler-the-funders-of-the-new-investigative-journalism-outfit.html
|
||||
[^4]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A itemized receipts, queried through the OpenFEC API on October 1, 2026 for contributor names "SANDLER, HERBERT" and "SANDLER, MARION," two-year transaction periods 2004, 2006 and 2008 (https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/).
|
||||
[^5]: Jake Bernstein, "Wells Fargo Picks to Pay," ProPublica, August 8, 2011, https://www.propublica.org/article/wells-fargo-picks-to-pay
|
||||
[^6]: Sandler Foundation, Form 990, Schedule I, Part II, for tax years beginning July 1, 2012 through July 1, 2024 (years ended June 30, 2013 through June 30, 2025), ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/943147856 (object IDs 201420459349303162, 201531339349303388, 201620469349302842, 201710469349303771, 201800899349300645, 201901339349302285, 202021369349303167, 202141329349304039, 202241319349306374, 202320959349300902, 202401029349300145, 202511339349309036 and 202611349349311916; full-text renderings under https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/). Grantee names are missing from some rows in the renderings for the year ended June 2014 and others, so grants to other recipients were counted only where the name or EIN could be read.
|
||||
[^7]: Pro Publica Inc, Form 990, Part VII, Section A, for calendar years 2014 through 2024, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/142007220 (object IDs 201501919349300415, 201612249349301181, 201732339349301053, 201832369349300743, 201912209349300626, 202042889349300439, 202102379349300020, 202242699349300499, 202312619349301136, 202412699349300726 and 202523189349307912).
|
||||
[^8]: Pro Publica Inc, Form 990 summary data, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer API, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/142007220.json (queried October 1, 2026).
|
||||
[^9]: Jeff Larson, "Revealed: The NSA's Secret Campaign to Crack, Undermine Internet Security," ProPublica, September 5, 2013, https://www.propublica.org/article/the-nsas-secret-campaign-to-crack-undermine-internet-encryption (reported in partnership with the New York Times and The Guardian).
|
||||
[^10]: "Ranks of Notorious Hate Group Include Active-Duty Military," ProPublica and PBS Frontline, May 3, 2018, https://www.propublica.org/article/atomwaffen-division-hate-group-active-duty-military
|
||||
[^11]: A. C. Thompson and Ali Winston, "U.S. Marine to Be Imprisoned Over Involvement With Hate Groups," ProPublica, June 20, 2018, https://www.propublica.org/article/vasilios-pistolis-imprisoned-marine-hate-groups
|
||||
[^12]: Jesse Eisinger, Jeff Ernsthausen and Paul Kiel, "The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax," ProPublica, June 8, 2021, https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
|
||||
[^13]: *United States v. Littlejohn*, No. 24-3019 (D.C. Cir. July 17, 2026), argued November 4, 2025, on appeal from No. 1:23-cr-00343 (D.D.C.), https://media.cadc.uscourts.gov/opinions/docs/2026/07/24-3019-2183720.pdf
|
||||
[^14]: Andrew Perez, Andy Kroll and Justin Elliott, "How a Secretive Billionaire Handed His Fortune to the Architect of the Right-Wing Takeover of the Courts," ProPublica and The Lever, August 22, 2022, https://www.propublica.org/article/dark-money-leonard-leo-barre-seid
|
||||
[^15]: Andy Kroll, Andrea Bernstein and Ilya Marritz, "We Don't Talk About Leonard: The Man Behind the Right's Supreme Court Supermajority," ProPublica, October 11, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/we-dont-talk-about-leonard-leo-supreme-court-supermajority
|
||||
[^16]: Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski, "Clarence Thomas Secretly Accepted Luxury Trips From GOP Donor," ProPublica, April 6, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow
|
||||
[^17]: "Clarence Thomas Didn't Disclose Harlan Crow Real Estate Deal," ProPublica, April 13, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-real-estate-scotus
|
||||
[^18]: "Clarence Thomas Raised Him. Harlan Crow Paid His Tuition." ProPublica, May 4, 2023 (headline as published: "Clarence Thomas Had a Child in Private School. Harlan Crow Paid the Tuition."), https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-school-tuition-scotus
|
||||
[^19]: "Alito Took Unreported Luxury Trip With GOP Donor Paul Singer," ProPublica, June 20, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/samuel-alito-luxury-fishing-trip-paul-singer-scotus-supreme-court
|
||||
[^20]: "Senators Ask Paul Singer, Leonard Leo for Accounting of Gifts to SCOTUS Justices," ProPublica, July 12, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/senators-ask-paul-singer-leonard-leo-accounting-gifts-supreme-court
|
||||
[^21]: "Clarence Thomas' 38 Vacations: The Other Billionaires Who Have Treated the Supreme Court Justice to Luxury Travel," ProPublica, August 10, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-other-billionaires-sokol-huizenga-novelly-supreme-court
|
||||
[^22]: "Clarence Thomas Filing Acknowledges Harlan Crow Real Estate Deal, Private Jet Travel," ProPublica, August 31, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-disclosure-filing-harlan-crow-real-estate-travel-scotus
|
||||
[^23]: "Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Events," ProPublica, September 22, 2023, https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-secretly-attended-koch-brothers-donor-events-scotus
|
||||
[^24]: ProPublica, "Supporters," https://www.propublica.org/supporters, and "Gift Acceptance Practices," https://www.propublica.org/gift-acceptance-practices (both accessed October 1, 2026).
|
||||
[^25]: Tim Schwab, "Journalism's Gates keepers," *Columbia Journalism Review*, August 21, 2020, https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-funding.php
|
||||
259
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Scale AI.md
Normal file
259
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Scale AI.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,259 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- ScaleAI
|
||||
- ArtificialIntelligence
|
||||
- DataLabeling
|
||||
- DefenseContracting
|
||||
- Lobbying
|
||||
- LaborPractices
|
||||
- Meta
|
||||
- RevolvingDoor
|
||||
- PeterThiel
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Scale AI
|
||||
- Scale AI, Inc.
|
||||
- Scale AI Inc.
|
||||
- Scale.com
|
||||
- Remotasks
|
||||
- Outlier AI
|
||||
- Smart Ecosystem
|
||||
summary: "San Francisco AI data company founded in 2016 by Alexandr Wang, holder of 105.6 million dollars in Army obligations, whose Labor Department inquiry was dropped in 2025 and in which Meta bought a non-voting stake."
|
||||
start: 2016
|
||||
location: "San Francisco, California"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Alexandr Wang]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016
|
||||
role: "founder"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Alexandr Wang]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016
|
||||
end: 2025-06-12
|
||||
role: "chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Alexandr Wang]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director; chairman of the board as of 2026-07-30"
|
||||
fn: 25
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jason Droege]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-06-12
|
||||
end: 2026-08-10
|
||||
role: "interim chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Francis deSouza]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2026-08-10
|
||||
role: "chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 25
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Michael Kratsios]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2021-03
|
||||
role: "managing director"
|
||||
fn: 17
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Meta Platforms]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-06
|
||||
role: "non-voting minority stake; 13.79 billion dollars of the consideration carried under the measurement alternative"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Y Combinator]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "existing investor named in the Series F announcement of 2024-05-21"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Accel]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "lead investor, Series F, 2024"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Founders Fund]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "existing investor named in the Series F announcement of 2024-05-21"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[U.S. Army]]"
|
||||
start: 2020-09-29
|
||||
end: 2024-09-14
|
||||
role: "contract W911QX20C0051, 105,550,316.38 dollars obligated"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[U.S. Air Force]]"
|
||||
start: 2021-03-15
|
||||
role: "ISR machine learning, Donovan and E-4C contracts"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Missile Defense Agency]]"
|
||||
start: 2025-12-29
|
||||
role: "SHIELD indefinite-delivery contract"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Defense Innovation Unit]]"
|
||||
start: 2025-03-05
|
||||
role: "Thunderforge prototype contract"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office]]"
|
||||
start: 2025-09-17
|
||||
role: "production other transaction agreement, ceiling 100 million dollars, raised to 500 million dollars on 2026-05-06"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: contractor_to
|
||||
with: "[[Qatar Ministry of Communications and Information Technology]]"
|
||||
start: 2025-02-24
|
||||
role: "five-year strategic partnership"
|
||||
fn: 24
|
||||
- type: investigated
|
||||
with: "[[Department of Labor]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2024-08
|
||||
end: 2025-05
|
||||
role: "Fair Labor Standards Act investigation, dropped"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[The Halcrow Group]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-02-01
|
||||
end: 2023
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Ballard Partners]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-06-01
|
||||
end: 2023
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Cornerstone Government Affairs]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2023-10-11
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[SHW Partners]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-08-15
|
||||
end: 2026-06-30
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist, Jason Miller"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Mehlman Consulting]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-08-19
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[The VM Group]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-08-01
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist, former House Armed Services staff"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Scale AI, Inc. is a [[San Francisco]] company that supplies labeled data, model evaluation and software for artificial intelligence. [[Alexandr Wang]] told the [[House Armed Services Committee]] in 2023 that "In 2016, I founded Scale with a mission to accelerate the development of AI," and that the company had worked with [[General Motors]], [[Toyota]], [[Meta Platforms|Meta]], [[Microsoft]] and [[OpenAI]] and with "the U.S. Department of Defense's CDAO [Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office], the U.S. Army, and the U.S. Air Force."[^1] Its federal customers include the [[U.S. Army]], the [[U.S. Air Force]], the [[Defense Logistics Agency]], the [[Missile Defense Agency]], the [[Defense Innovation Unit]] and the [[Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office]] (CDAO). In June 2025 Meta acquired a non-voting minority of its equity, and Wang joined Meta.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Founding and Investors
|
||||
|
||||
Wang wrote in the Series F announcement that "In 2016, I was studying AI at MIT" and that he founded Scale to supply the data pillar of artificial intelligence. On May 21, 2024, Scale announced a financing of 1 billion dollars at a valuation of 13.8 billion dollars, a mix of primary and secondary shares, led by existing investor [[Accel]] with participation from [[Y Combinator]], [[Nat Friedman]], [[Index Ventures]], [[Founders Fund]], [[Coatue]], [[Thrive Capital]], [[Spark Capital]], [[Nvidia]], [[Tiger Global Management]], [[Greenoaks]] and [[Wellington Management]]. The new investors named were Cisco Investments, DFJ Growth, Intel Capital, ServiceNow Ventures, AMD Ventures, WCM, [[Amazon]], [[Elad Gil]], Meta and Qualcomm Ventures. The announcement states that Scale's "Public Sector Data Engine has powered many major AI programs within the US Department of Defense."[^4] Scale's certificates of interested entities in federal court list Index Ventures VIII (Jersey), L.P., Accel-XII L.P. and Wang (June 2025), and, after the Meta investment, Meta Platforms, Inc. (September 2025).[^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Wang told the subcommittee that "I grew up in the shadow of the Los Alamos National Lab. My parents were physicists and worked on the technology that defined the last era of warfare, the atomic bomb," and that four years earlier he had gone "on an investor trip to China that was both enlightening and unsettling."[^1] The laboratory is at [[Los Alamos]], [[New Mexico]].
|
||||
|
||||
### Army and Air Force Contracts
|
||||
|
||||
The federal spending database USAspending.gov lists contract W911QX20C0051, awarded to Scale AI, Inc. on September 29, 2020 by the Army contracting office at Adelphi, Maryland (W6QK ACC-APG Adelphi), under solicitation W911NF17S0003, a broad agency announcement of the [[Army Research Laboratory]], using basic research procedures. It covers "research, development, design, configuration, implementation, and testing of machine learning algorithm in accordance with the tasks outlined in their proposal." Its period of performance ran to September 14, 2024; obligations total 105,550,316.38 dollars against a value with all options of 110,230,803.17 dollars. The initial action obligated 16,472,937.20 dollars. Modification P00001 of October 19, 2021 is described as "adding approved DD254 to Scale AI BAA contract," the DD254 being the Department of Defense contract security classification specification. Later modifications obligated 20,857,300.44 dollars (November 16, 2021, in a modification that also incorporated the clause implementing [[Executive Order 14042]]), 17,100,278.01 dollars (July 20, 2022, "exercise CLIN 3 option"), 3,465,110.56 dollars (September 6, 2022, "additional SIPR seats on Scale AI labeling BAA," SIPR being the Pentagon's classified network), 20,325,220.12 dollars (January 13, 2023, "update DD254, exercise option"), 1,440,764 dollars (July 13, 2023), 16,250,601.28 dollars (February 1, 2024, a ceiling increase) and three funding actions in 2024 of 1,512,804.13, 7,013,890.25 and 1,111,410.39 dollars.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The same database lists Air Force contract FA864921P0899, 749,942 dollars from March 15, 2021, for "accelerating USAF artificial intelligence/machine learning development for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance processing, exploitation, and dissemination"; Air Force contracts FA714622CB007 (945,000 dollars, February 28, 2022, "AI/ML support") and FA714622CB024 (1,800,000 dollars, July 25, 2022 to February 28, 2024, "Scale follow on"); a blanket purchase agreement for the [[Joint Artificial Intelligence Center]] test and evaluation program, W52P1J22A0073, signed January 28, 2022, with a value of 249,000,000 dollars and an ordering period to January 27, 2027; a Defense Logistics Agency indefinite-delivery contract, SP470124D0004, of September 27, 2024, under which task orders of 2,473,818 dollars and 2,511,830 dollars followed; Air Force awards for the Donovan platform, FA875125P0002 ("Tradewinds Donovan," 1,499,999.92 dollars, February 24, 2025) and FA873025PB007 ("Project Zion," 1,000,000 dollars, March 4, 2025); an Army indefinite-delivery contract, W911QX25DA011, signed August 21, 2025, with a value of 99,490,982.50 dollars for artificial intelligence support to the Army Research Laboratory through August 2030 and a task order of 2,882,872 dollars; an Air Force contract, FA875126C0001, for 5,064,551 dollars from February 27, 2026 for agentic artificial intelligence for the [[E-4C Survivable Airborne Operations Center]]; and a Missile Defense Agency indefinite-delivery contract, HQ085926DF526, under its Scalable Homeland Innovative Enterprise Layered Defense (SHIELD) program, signed December 19, 2025 with a recorded value of 151,000,000,000 dollars and a performance period to December 2035, with an initial order of 500 dollars.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Testimony Before Congress
|
||||
|
||||
On July 18, 2023, Wang testified before the Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation of the House Armed Services Committee, chaired by [[Mike Gallagher]] with [[Ro Khanna]] as ranking member and [[Matt Gaetz]] among its members, at a hearing titled "Man and Machine: Artificial Intelligence on the Battlefield." He said that "The country that is able to most rapidly and effectively integrate new technology into warfighting wins," that Scale had "partnered with DIU [Defense Innovation Unit] to develop a data engine that will support the Army's Robotic Combat Vehicle program," and that its Donovan platform was "being utilized right now in military planning exercises." Asked about procurement, he named the CDAO's Tradewinds program as "one of the fastest procurement methods" for new technology in the Department of Defense.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
On October 17, 2024, Wang wrote to [[Chuck Schumer]], [[Mitch McConnell]], [[Mike Johnson]] and [[Hakeem Jeffries]] asking that legislation before the end of the year authorize the [[AI Safety Institute]], require federal agencies to make their data ready for artificial intelligence, and define "developers" and "deployers," as Matt Bracken of FedScoop reported.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Defense Innovation Unit and CDAO Agreements
|
||||
|
||||
Jon Harper of DefenseScoop reported on March 5, 2025 that the Defense Innovation Unit had announced a prototype contract to Scale for Thunderforge, an AI-assisted planning and wargaming capability incorporating Scale's agentic applications, [[Anduril Industries]]'s Lattice software platform and Microsoft's large language model technology, with the Indo-Pacific Command and European Command first in line to receive it.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
On September 17, 2025, Scale announced a five-year enterprise agreement with the CDAO with a ceiling of 100 million dollars, structured as an other transaction authority agreement, following "two and a half years" of prototype agreements, and stated that its platforms would be available "on networks up to Top Secret/SCI."[^11] On May 6, 2026, Scale announced that the CDAO, which it described as part of the "U.S. Department of War," had raised the ceiling to 500 million dollars, that components of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps and defense agencies were ordering under it, and that its annotators at its AI center in [[St. Louis]] were trained to label electro-optical, infrared and synthetic aperture radar imagery for defense programs.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Lobbying
|
||||
|
||||
Scale AI, Inc. registered as its own lobbyist on June 8, 2021, on the National Defense Authorization Act, naming [[Jason Schmid]], who lists service as professional staff of the House Armed Services Committee. Expenses reported on its own filings were 340,000 dollars for 2021, 850,000 dollars for 2022, 670,000 dollars for 2023, 710,000 dollars for 2024, 1,180,000 dollars for 2025 and 1,040,000 dollars for the first half of 2026. The report for the first quarter of 2023 lists the Department of Defense and the [[National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency]] among the entities contacted and covers artificial intelligence programs in the defense and intelligence authorization acts. Its later in-house lobbyists include [[Max Fenkell]], Alexander Davis, Jonathan Van Buren, formerly legislative director to Representative [[Trey Hollingsworth]], and Ariel Marshall, who lists service as chief of staff to the Under Secretary for Science and Innovation at the [[Department of Energy]] from 2023 to 2025. The report for the second quarter of 2025 lists the [[White House Office]] among the entities contacted and adds "Issues related to the AI workforce"; the reports for 2026 add an energy issue labeled "Genesis Mission," with the Department of Energy contacted.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Outside registrants for Scale have been [[The Halcrow Group]] (February 1, 2022 to the third quarter of 2023; [[Stephanie Halcrow]], formerly professional staff of the House Armed Services Committee; 50,000 dollars per quarter), [[Ballard Partners]] (June 1, 2022 to the first quarter of 2023; [[Brian Ballard]] and Daniel McFaul, formerly chief of staff to Representatives [[Jeff Miller]] and Matt Gaetz; 40,000 dollars per quarter), [[Cornerstone Government Affairs]] (October 11, 2023; 20,000 dollars for each of the last two quarters of 2023 and 60,000 dollars per quarter since), SHW Partners LLC (August 15, 2025 to June 30, 2026), [[Mehlman Consulting]] (August 19, 2025; 40,000, 50,000, 60,000 and 60,000 dollars for the third quarter of 2025 to the second quarter of 2026) and The VM Group, whose registration, posted August 28, 2026, gives a client effective date of August 1, 2025 and names [[Christopher Vieson]], a former staff director of the House Armed Services Committee, and [[Phil MacNaughton]], a former professional staff member of the committee, on "defense technology."[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
SHW Partners is the firm of [[Jason Miller]], whom Kevin McCauley of O'Dwyer's described as [[Donald Trump]]'s chief spokesperson during the 2024 campaign, and which O'Dwyer's reported in May 2025 had been retained by India at 150,000 dollars a month.[^14] Its registration for Scale states the aim "Maintain top-rated positioning as entrepreneurs and enterprise solution-oriented problem solvers in the AI space, including, but not limited to, national defense applications"; its quarterly reports list the [[Department of Defense]], the [[Office of the Director of National Intelligence]], the [[Office of Management and Budget]] and the White House Office as entities contacted, and report no income from Scale. A termination report posted July 27, 2026 gives June 30, 2026 as the end date.[^13] Cornerstone's lobbyists for Scale have included [[Heather Molino]], formerly staff director of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]]; [[Anthony Lazarski]], formerly of the [[Senate Armed Services Committee]] staff; [[William Smith]], formerly staff director of the House Appropriations Committee; [[Andrew Flick]], formerly special assistant to the President and senior adviser for congressional affairs and strategic outreach in the Office of the Vice President; and, from the fourth quarter of 2025, [[Patrick Flood]], formerly deputy chief of staff and national security adviser to Representative [[Don Bacon]]. Mehlman Consulting is led by [[Bruce Mehlman]], formerly Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Technology Policy. Cornerstone and Mehlman are also registered for [[Andreessen Horowitz]], and Vieson and MacNaughton registered for Andreessen Horowitz through Zero Mile Strategies in February 2026.[^13][^15]
|
||||
|
||||
Wang's own federal contributions on the record of the [[Federal Election Commission]] include 2,900 dollars through [[WinRed]] on November 1, 2022, 6,600 dollars through [[ActBlue]] and 3,300 dollars twice to the Senate campaign of [[Martin Heinrich]] on April 22, 2024, and 1,000 dollars each through ActBlue and to Friends of Maria on June 20, 2024.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Michael Kratsios
|
||||
|
||||
[[Michael Kratsios]] listed his career in his questionnaire to the [[Senate Commerce Committee]] for his nomination as director of the [[Office of Science and Technology Policy]]: associate, chief compliance officer and chief financial officer of [[Clarium Capital|Clarium Capital Management]] (2010 to 2015); chief compliance officer of [[Thiel Capital]] and Thiel Macro (2012 to 2014); principal and chief of staff at Thiel Capital (2014 to 2017); deputy assistant to the President and deputy U.S. chief technology officer (2017 to 2019); Chief Technology Officer of the [[United States]] (2019 to 2021); acting Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (2020 to 2021); and "Managing Director, Scale AI, 2021-2025." The same questionnaire lists a consultancy at [[HySpecIQ]] in 2021, a seat on the board of managers of [[Improbable]] U.S. Defense and National Security in 2022 and board membership of the [[Foundation for American Innovation]] from 2023 to 2025.[^17] The Army contract W911QX20C0051 was signed on September 29, 2020, during the period he lists as acting Under Secretary for Research and Engineering.[^7][^17]
|
||||
|
||||
In its conflict-of-interest answers the questionnaire states: "I worked for Scale AI from March 2021 until January 17, 2024. I am no longer an employee and will divest of all of my Scale assets, per my ethics agreement," and "I hold equity and options in Scale AI, bitcoin, and ethereum. I will divest of these assets if confirmed, per my ethics agreement." It also states that "For the past four years, I have worked as the Managing Director of Scale AI," and that he will keep participating in Scale's 401(k) plan and health savings account, to which the company no longer contributes.[^17] Charles Rollet of TechCrunch reported that Kratsios was confirmed in March 2025, and that the office "has no oversight over the Department of Labor."[^18][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Labor Practices and Litigation
|
||||
|
||||
Josh Dzieza reported in The Verge in June 2023 that annotators said Scale's Remotasks platform paid relatively well when it arrived in Kenya, "averaging about $5 to $10 per hour depending on the task," that pay for the Kenyan annotators he interviewed had dropped to between 1 and 3 dollars per hour by the beginning of 2023, and that U.S.-based Remotasks annotators generally earned 10 to 25 dollars per hour. A Scale spokesperson said that the company's economists analyze a project's specifics "to ensure fair and competitive compensation"; former employees said pay was set by "a surge-pricing-like mechanism."[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
Troy Wolverton of the San Francisco Examiner reported on December 12, 2024 that a class action, McKinney v. Scale AI, filed in San Francisco Superior Court by Clarkson Law Firm, alleged that workers who train AI models had been misclassified as contractors and called Scale "the sordid underbelly propping up the generative AI industry"; a company spokesman said that "We are committed to ensuring we are in full compliance with all applicable laws and regulations."[^21] Ramey v. Scale AI, Inc., No. 3:24-cv-06999 (N.D. Cal.), a [[Fair Labor Standards Act]] action filed on October 6, 2024 against HireArt, Outlier AI and Scale AI, ended with a joint notice of settlement on February 11, 2025 and a stipulation of dismissal on May 12, 2025.[^22] Schuster v. Scale AI, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00620 (N.D. Cal.), filed on January 17, 2025 by Clarkson Law Firm against Outlier AI, Scale AI and Smart Ecosystem as a class action for negligence and under California's Unfair Competition Law and assigned to Judge [[Jacqueline Scott Corley]], drew a motion to compel arbitration on April 2, 2025 and ended with a notice of voluntary dismissal on August 10, 2026.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Department of Labor Investigation
|
||||
|
||||
Charles Rollet of TechCrunch reported on March 6, 2025 that the [[Department of Labor]] was investigating Scale for compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act and that a document showed the investigation active since at least August 2024. A Scale spokesperson said it had been initiated under the previous administration and that regulators had misunderstood Scale's work; a Labor Department spokesperson said the department could not confirm or deny it. Rollet noted that Wang had attended Trump's inauguration in January 2025 and that Kratsios, Scale's former managing director, was then Trump's nominee to lead the Office of Science and Technology Policy.[^23] On May 1, 2025 the department announced that it would no longer enforce, at least for the time being, a rule of the previous administration that made it harder to classify workers as contractors. On May 9, 2025 Rollet reported, citing a source directly familiar with the matter, that the department had dropped the investigation, and that [[Upwork]] and HireArt, two of Scale's HR partners also under investigation, had confirmed that they were no longer being investigated; he wrote that it was "not clear exactly why," and that Wang had published a letter urging Trump to "win the AI war." A Scale spokesperson said: "We're pleased with this update."[^19] The stipulation of dismissal in the Ramey case was filed three days later, on May 12, 2025.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
### Qatar
|
||||
|
||||
On February 24, 2025, at Web Summit Qatar, Qatar's Minister of Communications and Information Technology, [[Mohammed bin Ali Al Mannai]], and Wang signed a five-year agreement for Scale to supply AI tools to Qatari government entities.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
### Meta Investment
|
||||
|
||||
On June 12, 2025, Scale announced "a significant new investment from Meta Platforms, Inc." that "values Scale at over $29 billion." Wang joined Meta "to work on Meta's AI efforts" while remaining on Scale's board; the chief strategy officer, [[Jason Droege]], who had joined in September 2024 after work at [[Uber Eats]] and [[Axon]], became interim chief executive; and Scale said it would distribute proceeds "to Scale shareholders and vested equity holders" and that Meta "will hold a minority of Scale's outstanding equity."[^2] Meta's quarterly report for the period ended June 30, 2025 states: "In June 2025, we completed an investment in Scale AI by acquiring a non-voting minority of its outstanding equity. Out of the total consideration, $13.79 billion was included in non-marketable equity investments accounted for under the measurement alternative method, as we do not have significant influence over Scale AI's operations." Meta's annual report for 2025 describes "our minority investments in Scale AI for $13.80 billion."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Scale AI v. Mercor
|
||||
|
||||
On September 3, 2025, Scale sued the company [[Mercor]] and a former employee in Scale AI, Inc. v. Mercor.io Corporation, No. 3:25-cv-07402 (N.D. Cal.), under the Defend Trade Secrets Act. The case was reassigned to Judge [[Charles R. Breyer]] in December 2025, and Scale filed a stipulation of voluntary dismissal with prejudice on January 2, 2026.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Leadership Since 2025
|
||||
|
||||
On July 30, 2026, Scale announced that [[Francis deSouza]], formerly chief operating officer and president of security products at [[Google Cloud]] and earlier president and chief executive of [[Illumina]], would become chief executive on August 10, 2026, and quoted Wang as "Scale AI Founder and Chairman of the Board."[^25]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Armed Services, Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies, and Innovation. "Man and Machine: Artificial Intelligence on the Battlefield." Hearing of July 18, 2023, H.A.S.C. No. 118-37. Washington: U.S. Government Publishing Office, 2024 (statement and testimony of Alexandr Wang). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-118hhrg53627/pdf/CHRG-118hhrg53627.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: Scale AI. "Scale AI Announces Next Phase of Company's Evolution." June 12, 2025. https://scale.com/blog/scale-ai-announces-next-phase-of-company-evolution
|
||||
[^3]: Meta Platforms, Inc. Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2025, filed July 31, 2025, accession 0001628280-25-036791, note on non-marketable equity investments, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000162828025036791/meta-20250630.htm ; Form 10-K for 2025, filed January 29, 2026, accession 0001628280-26-003942, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000162828026003942/meta-20251231.htm
|
||||
[^4]: Wang, Alexandr. "Scale's Series F: Expanding the Data Foundry for AI." Scale AI, May 21, 2024. https://scale.com/blog/scale-ai-series-f
|
||||
[^5]: Schuster v. Scale AI, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-00620-JSC (N.D. Cal.), docket entries 1, 10, 17, 20 and 34. CourtListener RECAP. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69556383/schuster-v-scale-ai-inc/
|
||||
[^6]: Scale AI, Inc. v. Mercor.io Corporation, No. 3:25-cv-07402-CRB (N.D. Cal.), docket entries 1, 2, 9, 27 and 30. CourtListener RECAP. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71260080/scale-ai-inc-v-mercorio-corporation/
|
||||
[^7]: USAspending.gov, contract award W911QX20C0051, Scale AI, Inc. (UEI DHU2LMKSDQD9), Department of the Army, awarding office W6QK ACC-APG Adelphi, award record and transaction history queried October 1, 2026. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_AWD_W911QX20C0051_9700_-NONE-_-NONE-/ ; https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/transactions/
|
||||
[^8]: USAspending.gov, spending by award search for recipient "Scale AI," contract and indefinite-delivery award types, queried October 1, 2026, awards FA864921P0899, FA714622CB007, FA714622CB024, W52P1J22A0073, SP470124D0004, SP470124F0355, SP470125F0273, FA875125P0002, FA873025PB007, W911QX25DA011, W911QX25FA054, FA875126C0001, HQ085926DF526 and HQ085926FF523; award detail for W52P1J22A0073, W911QX25DA011 and HQ085926DF526. https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/search/spending_by_award/ ; https://api.usaspending.gov/api/v2/awards/CONT_IDV_HQ085926DF526_9700/
|
||||
[^9]: Bracken, Matt. "Scale AI pushes Congress to take action on AI data, safety issues this year." FedScoop, October 18, 2024. https://fedscoop.com/scale-ai-letter-to-congress-ai-priorities/
|
||||
[^10]: Harper, Jon. "Combatant commands to get new generative AI tech for operational planning, wargaming." DefenseScoop, March 5, 2025. https://defensescoop.com/2025/03/05/diu-thunderforge-scale-ai-combatant-commands-indopacom-eucom/
|
||||
[^11]: Harris, Kathryn. "From Prototype to Production: Unlocking Mission-Ready AI." Scale AI, September 17, 2025. https://scale.com/blog/scale-ai-inks-100m-deal
|
||||
[^12]: Harris, Kathryn. "Scale AI Expands Pentagon AI Partnership to $500 Million." Scale AI, May 6, 2026. https://scale.com/blog/scale-ai-pentagon-cdao-500-million-agreement
|
||||
[^13]: U.S. Senate and House, Lobbying Disclosure Act filings for client Scale AI, 2021 to 2026, queried October 1, 2026, including Scale AI, Inc. registration posted June 8, 2021 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/492634ce-5527-492a-8c09-5de878d7deb3/print/), first quarter 2023 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/4ba340a2-3d5f-47b1-826d-bb97a8ba7791/print/), second quarter 2025 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/64f301f4-32d8-4066-8567-c9967ec6c02c/print/) and first quarter 2026 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/97e705c2-c0c9-42c6-af69-e20438359e3e/print/); The Halcrow Group registration posted February 1, 2022 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/f0dc743a-821b-4919-9803-218cf6ccd08e/print/); Ballard Partners registration posted June 1, 2022 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/2fd82b31-1158-43f1-b874-11559c5006f2/print/); Cornerstone Government Affairs registration posted October 11, 2023 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/4bed6edb-c81c-41ff-aecb-e50754221888/print/), first quarter 2025 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/baae0f45-0014-4c73-9963-90c90f8393b8/print/) and fourth quarter 2025 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/30e96546-a5d5-459b-ae08-9b3efffca45b/print/); SHW Partners LLC registration posted August 15, 2025 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/ac3e454a-ae49-47b4-9373-bcff86bccc34/print/), third quarter 2025 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/ae29a41a-f65f-4158-9d48-d668fd35dbe1/print/) and termination posted July 27, 2026 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/c6822434-3e5e-4318-bc63-5845b2541934/print/); Mehlman Consulting registration posted August 19, 2025 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/abdd7fa4-d0dd-46f6-a946-a16482f72509/print/); The VM Group registration posted August 28, 2026 (https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/4087f730-33fc-451b-952d-6e39e960ccd9/print/). https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Scale+AI
|
||||
[^14]: McCauley, Kevin. "India Retains Firm of Ex-Trump Spokesperson." O'Dwyer's, May 1, 2025. https://www.odwyerpr.com/story/public/22935/2025-05-01/india-retains-firm-ex-trump-spokesperson.html
|
||||
[^15]: Lobbying Disclosure Act filings for client A16Z Capital Management: Zero Mile Strategies registration posted February 10, 2026, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/8e23305c-2d46-4df0-a09b-afa9586f12be/print/ ; Mehlman Consulting registration posted May 9, 2023, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/304977a5-3e0a-4d06-9f69-f2e5cb0cfc09/print/ ; Cornerstone Government Affairs registration posted November 26, 2024, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/52af18bf-30a7-44c6-b1b9-6841e4616d2b/print/
|
||||
[^16]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A receipts, contributor "Wang, Alexandr," sub_ids 4011820231711963266, 4060420241959129953, 4052420241950726141, 4052420241950726139, 4091820242040946471 and 4080520242008855753. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/
|
||||
[^17]: Kratsios, Michael. Questionnaire for nominees, Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, nomination as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, 2025, questions 7 to 11 and conflict-of-interest answers. https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/B3086E47-258A-4593-A791-DE02341F9684
|
||||
[^18]: Rollet, Charles. "Scale AI is being investigated by the US Department of Labor." TechCrunch, March 6, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/06/scale-ai-is-being-investigated-by-the-us-department-of-labor/
|
||||
[^19]: Rollet, Charles. "The Department of Labor just dropped its investigation into Scale AI." TechCrunch, May 9, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/09/the-department-of-labor-just-dropped-its-investigation-into-scale-ai/
|
||||
[^20]: Dzieza, Josh. "AI Is a Lot of Work." The Verge, June 20, 2023. https://www.theverge.com/features/23764584/ai-artificial-intelligence-data-notation-labor-scale-surge-remotasks-openai-chatbots
|
||||
[^21]: Wolverton, Troy. "Suit charges SF's Scale AI with misclassifying workers, wage theft." San Francisco Examiner, December 12, 2024. https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/technology/scale-ai-lawsuit-charges-sf-tech-startup-with-wage-theft/article_b6b3781a-b827-11ef-8cc7-c320ca742702.html
|
||||
[^22]: Ramey v. Scale AI, Inc., No. 3:24-cv-06999-SK (N.D. Cal.), docket entries 1, 24, 32 and 36. CourtListener RECAP. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69230354/ramey-v-scale-ai-inc/
|
||||
[^23]: Rollet, Charles. "Scale AI is being investigated by the US Department of Labor." TechCrunch, March 6, 2025 (spokesperson statements). https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/06/scale-ai-is-being-investigated-by-the-us-department-of-labor/
|
||||
[^24]: "MCIT, Scale AI sign partnership agreement." The Peninsula (Qatar), February 24, 2025. https://thepeninsulaqatar.com/article/24/02/2025/mcit-scale-ai-sign-partnership-agreement
|
||||
[^25]: Scale AI. "Scale AI Appoints Francis deSouza as CEO to Lead Next Phase of Company's Growth." July 30, 2026. https://scale.com/blog/scale-appoints-new-ceo
|
||||
228
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Sequoia Capital.md
Normal file
228
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Sequoia Capital.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,228 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- SequoiaCapital
|
||||
- VentureCapital
|
||||
- SiliconValley
|
||||
- PayPalMafia
|
||||
- FTX
|
||||
- HongShan
|
||||
- HouseSelectCommitteeOnTheCCP
|
||||
- CaymanIslands
|
||||
- PoliticalDonor
|
||||
- RevolvingDoor
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Sequoia Capital
|
||||
- Sequoia
|
||||
- Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC
|
||||
- Sequoia Capital Operations
|
||||
- Sequoia Capital Fund
|
||||
- Sequoia Capital U.S./Europe
|
||||
summary: "Menlo Park venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972, early investor in Apple, Cisco, PayPal, Square and FTX, which separated from its China and India affiliates in 2023 and 2024."
|
||||
start: 1972
|
||||
location: "2800 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Don Valentine]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1972
|
||||
role: "founder"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Michael Moritz]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1986
|
||||
role: "partner"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Doug Leone]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "managing member from January 2003; director of SC US (TTGP), Ltd."
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Roelof Botha]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 2025-11-04
|
||||
role: "senior steward; managing member of Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC 2007 to 2025"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Alfred Lin]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-11-04
|
||||
role: "co-steward"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Pat Grady]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2025-11-04
|
||||
role: "co-steward"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Neil Shen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "steward and head of Sequoia Capital China"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Don Vieira]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "partner, chief legal officer and chief policy officer"
|
||||
fn: 24
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Shaun Maguire]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2021-03
|
||||
role: "managing member of Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Atari]]"
|
||||
start: 1974
|
||||
role: "Valentine helped finance"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Apple Computer]]"
|
||||
start: 1977
|
||||
role: "start-up financing"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Cisco Systems]]"
|
||||
start: 1987
|
||||
role: "investor; Valentine chairman until 1996"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[PayPal]]"
|
||||
start: 1999-08
|
||||
role: "Series A, B and C investor; 9.9 percent before the 2002 offering"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Square]]"
|
||||
role: "investor through the 2010 venture funds; 5.3 percent in 2015"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Twitter]]"
|
||||
start: 2022-05
|
||||
role: "$800 million equity commitment by Sequoia Capital Fund, L.P. to Elon Musk's acquisition"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[FTX]]"
|
||||
start: 2021-07
|
||||
end: 2022-11-09
|
||||
role: "Series B investor through Global Growth Fund III and SCGE Fund; marked to zero"
|
||||
fn: 16
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[ByteDance]]"
|
||||
start: 2014-03
|
||||
role: "Sequoia Capital and Sequoia Capital China investments of about $1.4 billion"
|
||||
fn: 23
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[23andMe]]"
|
||||
role: "17,818,438 Class B shares held by Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC in 2021"
|
||||
fn: 25
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[House Select Committee on the CCP]]"
|
||||
start: 2023-10-17
|
||||
role: "letter to Roelof Botha and Don Vieira; report of February 8, 2024"
|
||||
fn: 22
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[In re FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange Collapse Litigation]]"
|
||||
role: "defendant, as Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC, one of the Domestic Investor Defendants"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
### Founding
|
||||
|
||||
[[Don Valentine]], a founder of [[National Semiconductor]] and earlier a senior sales and marketing executive at [[Fairchild Semiconductor]], founded Sequoia Capital in 1972. The [[Computer History Museum]]'s biography of Valentine states that he helped finance [[Atari]] in 1974, contributed start-up financing to [[Apple Computer]] in 1977 and saw [[Electronic Arts]] start in Sequoia's office in 1982, and that Sequoia financed [[Cisco Systems]] in 1987, after which Valentine chaired Cisco until 1996 and then became vice chairman. He also organized the start-up financing of [[LSI Logic]] and chaired [[Microchip Technology]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### PayPal
|
||||
|
||||
[[Michael Moritz]], a Sequoia partner since 1986, joined the board of X.com, later [[PayPal]], in August 1999. The prospectus for PayPal's 2002 offering describes his appointment as "a condition to the obligation of entities affiliated with Sequoia Capital to complete their investment in our Series A Preferred Stock." In August 1999 Sequoia IX funds bought 15,000,000 Series A preferred shares from [[Elon Musk]] for $5.0 million, and they later bought 6,000,000 Series B and 363,636 Series C shares. Entities affiliated with Sequoia owned 9.9 percent of PayPal before the offering. Moritz, a managing member of SC IX Management, LLC, sat on the audit committee with Musk and [[Shailesh Mehta]] and on the boards of [[Flextronics]], [[Saba Software]] and [[Yahoo]].[^2] The prospectus lists among PayPal's officers [[Peter Thiel]], [[Max Levchin]], [[David Sacks]], [[Reid Hoffman]] and the chief financial officer [[Roelof Botha]], who joined Sequoia in January 2003.[^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Square and Khosla
|
||||
|
||||
Square's Form D of September 2011, for a $100,000,052 Series C sale, lists Botha with [[Jack Dorsey]], [[Jim McKelvey]], [[Vinod Khosla]], [[Larry Summers]] and [[Mary Meeker]] as directors and [[Keith Rabois]] as an executive officer.[^4] Rabois resigned as Square's chief operating officer in January 2013 after an employee alleged sexual harassment, which he denied, and joined [[Khosla Ventures]] that year.[^5][^6] In Square's registration statement of November 2015, Sequoia's 2010 [[United States]] venture funds held 15,728,310 shares, 5.3 percent, under SC US (TTGP), Ltd., whose directors with voting and investment discretion were Botha, [[Jim Goetz]], [[Michael Goguen]], [[Doug Leone]] and Moritz. Botha sat on the compensation committee with Meeker of [[Kleiner Perkins]].[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Rabois's spouse, [[Jacob Helberg]], listed interests in Sequoia Capital U.S. Venture Fund, Sequoia Capital U.S. Venture Partners XIV and Sequoia Technology Partners XII in his 2025 nominee financial disclosure, and in his ethics agreement of May 5, 2025 committed that he and his spouse would divest them within 90 days of confirmation as Under Secretary of State.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Structure
|
||||
|
||||
Sequoia's United States funds are [[Cayman Islands]] partnerships. A Schedule 13D filed on February 27, 2024 for [[Maplebear]] (Instacart) shows each fund under a management partnership whose general partner is SC US (TTGP), Ltd., and names Leone and Botha as the directors and stockholders of SC US (TTGP) "who exercise voting and investment discretion." The filing, signed by Botha as authorized signatory, records that Sequoia managing member [[Ravi Gupta]] had joined Maplebear's board in August 2023.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is registered with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] as an investment adviser (CRD 157373, file 801-122957), with Sequoia Capital Europe LLP as a relying adviser. Its Form ADV amendment of July 17, 2026 reports $82,165,771,068 in discretionary regulatory assets in 60 accounts and lists 61 private funds. Schedule A names as direct owners and executive officers Leone (managing member since January 2003), Goetz, [[Alfred Lin]], [[Pat Grady]], [[Andrew Reed]], [[Shaun Maguire]] (managing member since March 2021), [[Stephanie Zhan]], Bogomil Balkansky, Konstantine Buhler, Sonya Huang and David Cahn, the chief financial officer Marie Klemchuk, and the chief legal and compliance officer Jung Yeon Son, together with family trusts of Lin, Grady, Zhan, Balkansky and Maguire; the Shaun Maguire Living Trust is listed as a member holding between 5 and 10 percent from December 2025. Botha is not listed.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
The same filing describes Sequoia Capital Fund, L.P., a Cayman Islands partnership registered with the [[Cayman Islands Monetary Authority]], with a gross asset value of $27,164,822,736, about 355 beneficial owners, 12 percent owned by the adviser and its related persons and 23 percent by non-United States persons.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
### Stewards
|
||||
|
||||
On January 31, 2017 Goetz wrote to Sequoia's investors that he would step aside from his leadership responsibilities, thanking "Doug and Sir Michael." [[News24]] printed the letter and reported that Botha would become one of three stewards with Leone and [[Neil Shen]], who ran the China business.[^10] Botha became senior steward in mid-2022. On November 4, 2025 Sequoia announced that Lin and Grady would succeed him as co-stewards.[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
In 2025 Maguire called the New York mayoral candidate [[Zohran Mamdani]] an "Islamist" who "comes from a culture that lies about everything"; the chief operating officer, [[Sumaiya Balbale]], resigned in August over the firm's decision not to discipline him, and Botha said in October that "we need spiky people inside of Sequoia."[^11] In January 2026 [[Julie Bort]] of [[TechCrunch]] reported that Maguire, still at the firm, had posted comments on the Minneapolis Border Patrol shooting aligned with those of Rabois, and that Lin and Grady had not commented.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Political contributions of partners
|
||||
|
||||
[[Federal Election Commission]] records for Moritz with Sequoia Capital, [[Sequoia Heritage]] or HRTG Partners as employer total $19,020,800. They include $13,800,000 to [[AB PAC]], the committee that filed as American Bridge 21st Century through the 2018 cycle, in nine gifts from February 20, 2020 to September 23, 2024, among them $4,800,000 on April 5, 2024; $2,100,000 to [[The Lincoln Project]]; $1,500,000 to [[PACRONYM]]; $450,000 to the Everytown Victory Fund; and, in 2026, $500,000 each to VoteVets and Government That Works PAC and $100,000 to Abundant Future.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Records for Leone with Sequoia Capital as employer include $125,000 to Right to Rise USA in January 2015; $100,000 to the John Bolton Super PAC in June 2017; $50,000 each to America First Action and Trump Victory in 2019; $100,000 to Security is Strength PAC and $100,900 to the Senate Georgia Battleground Fund in 2020; $893,500 to the [[Senate Leadership Fund]] in three gifts from November 2020 to February 2022; about $501,000 to the [[Congressional Leadership Fund]]; $820,900 to the McCarthy Victory Fund, in part with the employer given as "venture capitalist"; $213,500 to the [[Republican National Committee]] in two gifts on December 7, 2021; $2,000,000 to Never Back Down Inc. on April 19, 2023; $1,000,000 to America PAC on June 14, 2024; and $250,000 to the [[Trump 47 Committee]] on October 30, 2024. A $2,000,000 gift to Right for America on June 4, 2024 appears under his name with the employer given as self-employed. Botha's two gifts, of $5,000 each, went to the [[National Venture Capital Association]]'s VenturePAC.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Twitter
|
||||
|
||||
On May 5, 2022 Musk filed an amendment to his Schedule 13D for [[Twitter]] listing co-investors who had signed equity commitment letters for his acquisition. Sequoia Capital Fund, L.P. committed $800,000,000. The other commitments on the list included the Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Trust ($1,000,000,000), [[VyCapital]] ($700,000,000), [[Binance]] ($500,000,000), AH Capital Management, L.L.C. of [[Andreessen Horowitz]] ($400,000,000), [[Qatar Holding LLC]] ($375,000,000), Fidelity ($316,139,386), Brookfield ($250,000,000) and [[Witkoff Capital]] ($100,000,000).[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### FTX
|
||||
|
||||
In a profile of [[Sam Bankman-Fried]] published on Sequoia's website on September 22, 2022, the writer [[Adam Fisher]] recounted that Lin and [[Michelle Bailhe]] had studied cryptocurrency exchanges during the pandemic and contacted Bankman-Fried during FTX's Series B round in the summer of 2021, and that after a video call in which he described a financial "super-app," partners typed "I LOVE THIS FOUNDER" and "I am a 10 out of 10" in the chat window. The profile quotes FTX's head of product, [[Ramnik Arora]], saying Bankman-Fried had been "playing League of Legends through the entire meeting."[^15] On October 1, 2026 the profile's address redirected to Sequoia's FTX company page.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
Sequoia invested in [[FTX]]'s Series B in July 2021, at an $18 billion valuation; the Series C of January 2022 valued FTX at $32 billion.[^16] On November 9, 2022 Sequoia told the limited partners of Global Growth Fund III, and posted the letter publicly, that "a liquidity crunch has created solvency risk for FTX" and that it was marking the investment to zero. The letter gave a cost basis of $150 million in that fund, Sequoia Capital Global Growth Fund III, Endurance Partners, L.P., under 3 percent of its committed capital and offset by about $7.5 billion of gains in the fund, and $63.5 million invested by SCGE Fund, L.P. It stated that in 2021 FTX had generated about $1 billion of revenue and more than $250 million of operating income, "as was made public in August 2022," and that "We are in the business of taking risk."[^16][^17] SC GGF III, the same Endurance Partners fund, appears among the Maplebear reporting persons in 2024.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC was named a defendant in O'Keefe v. Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC, filed in the Southern District of Florida on February 22, 2023 against investors, auditors, banks and the law firm [[Fenwick & West]]; the case was closed on June 21, 2023 on transfer into the multidistrict litigation In re FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange Collapse Litigation before Judge [[K. Michael Moore]].[^18] In that litigation Sequoia appears among the "Domestic Investor Defendants" with Altimeter, Multicoin, Paradigm, Ribbit, [[SkyBridge Capital]], [[Thoma Bravo]] and [[Tiger Global Management]]. These defendants responded to a notice of supplemental authority in May 2025 and to the plaintiffs' motion to lift the discovery stay in June 2025, and on June 5, 2026 filed a reservation of rights on the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary approval of a second tranche of settlements.[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Sequoia Capital China and HongShan
|
||||
|
||||
On June 6, 2023 Botha, Shen and [[Shailendra Singh]] announced that Sequoia would separate into Sequoia Capital in the United States and Europe, [[Peak XV Partners]] in India and Southeast Asia, and [[HongShan]] in China by March 2024, writing that "It has become increasingly complex to run a decentralized global investment business."[^20] Peak XV's adviser registration lists it as formerly Sequoia Capital India Operations II LLC, based in Mauritius.[^21]
|
||||
|
||||
On October 17, 2023 [[Mike Gallagher]] and [[Raja Krishnamoorthi]], chairman and ranking member of the [[House Select Committee on the CCP]], wrote to Botha and to [[Don Vieira]], partner and global chief policy officer. The committee stated its understanding, from source material on file, that each of Sequoia's five entities had its own investment committee but that roughly 20 percent of the carry from each deal flowed to the top of the Sequoia family, a central compliance office in Menlo Park reviewed every deal, Sequoia Capital's chief financial officer and legal counsel retained authority over the foreign entities, and 60 to 70 percent of Sequoia Capital China's limited partners had been American, later about half. It described a screening process adopted in the summer of 2022 that covered only Chinese quantum, semiconductor and aerospace investments, named investments in EverSec, 4Paradigm, DJI and DeepGlint, and observed that the planned Treasury outbound investment rules would not reach HongShan once it was independent.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
The committee's report of February 8, 2024 states that Sequoia had partnered with local leaders in 2005 to form Sequoia Capital China; that Sequoia Capital and Sequoia Capital China had invested about $1.4 billion in [[ByteDance]] from March 2014, and Shen sat on its board; that Shen had been a "steward of Sequoia Capital" and a representative to the [[Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference]]; that Sequoia Capital China invested $36 million in [[DJI]] from August 2014 and exited in 2019 and 2021, and RMB 466 million ($76 million) plus about $5 million through a fund with American limited partners in 4Paradigm from March 2015; and that Sequoia Capital China invested about $32 million in BGI Tech, a subsidiary of [[BGI Group]], from 2013, exiting in November 2020, after an internal memo of September 2012 touted BGI's acquisition of the American sequencing company [[Complete Genomics]]. The [[Department of Commerce]] added BGI Tech to the Entity List in March 2023. Sequoia told the committee that its entry into China "coincided with expressed government policies and public positions in the US that encouraged businesses to invest in the region" and that Sequoia Capital China's renminbi funds had no American limited partners.[^23]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom]] describes Vieira as a former chief of staff of the [[National Security Division]] of the [[Department of Justice]] and counselor to the assistant attorney general for national security (2009 to 2011), an espionage prosecutor, deputy chief counsel of the [[House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence]] and staff director of its oversight subcommittee, and a Skadden national security partner from 2017 to 2019. At Sequoia he founded the Washington office and global policy function, was chief legal officer, and represented the firm on the board of the National Venture Capital Association; he also sat on the boards of Genuity Science and [[Hakluyt & Company|Hakluyt & Co.]] He returned to Skadden on September 9, 2025.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
### 23andMe
|
||||
|
||||
When [[23andMe]] became public through a merger in June 2021, Botha was a director and Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC held 17,818,438 of the 18,442,574 Class B shares attributed to him, 4.54 percent.[^25] On September 17, 2024 Botha and the six other independent directors resigned together, writing to [[Anne Wojcicki]] that they had not received "a fully financed, fully diligenced, actionable proposal" and would leave "because of your concentrated voting power."[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
### San Francisco
|
||||
|
||||
Moritz gave $300,000 in September 2020 to Neighbors for a Better [[San Francisco]], the political action committee that later spent about $4 million on the recall of District Attorney [[Chesa Boudin]]; he told [[Mission Local]] the 2020 gift was for that year's supervisorial elections.[^27] In 2024 he gave just under $1 million in January and $1.5 million in late August to the committee for Proposition D, the charter measure of [[TogetherSF]], a group he chaired and funded; Mission Local described him as a major benefactor of TogetherSF and the [[San Francisco Standard]] and reported that he had given more than $300 million to causes in the city.[^28] Proposition D, which would have capped city commissions at 65, expanded mayoral hiring and firing power and restricted police oversight, drew $9.5 million and was losing 45 to 55 percent in early returns on November 6, 2024; the mayoral candidate TogetherSF ranked first, [[Mark Farrell]], drew $5.4 million and stood fourth.[^29]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Computer History Museum, "Donald T. Valentine" (fellow profile). https://computerhistory.org/profile/donald-t-valentine/
|
||||
[^2]: PayPal, Inc., prospectus (Form 424B4), February 2002, "Management," "Certain Relationships and Related Transactions" (preferred stock table and footnote 2) and "Principal Stockholders." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1103415/000091205702006471/a2071068z424b4.htm
|
||||
[^3]: Square, Inc., Form S-1/A, filed November 16, 2015, "Management" and "Principal Stockholders" (footnotes 1, 4 and 8). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1512673/000119312515378578/d937622ds1a.htm
|
||||
[^4]: Square, Inc., Form D, filed September 30, 2011 (accession 0001512673-11-000003). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1512673/000151267311000003/primary_doc.xml
|
||||
[^5]: Edward Ngai, "Square COO, Stanford alum, resigns over sexual harassment allegations," The Stanford Daily, January 25, 2013. https://stanforddaily.com/2013/01/25/square-coo-resigns-over-sexual-harassment-allegations/
|
||||
[^6]: Affirm Holdings, Inc., Form S-1, filed November 18, 2020, "Management." https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1820953/000110465920126927/tm2026663-4_s1.htm
|
||||
[^7]: Jacob Helberg, OGE Form 278e nominee report, signed January 24, 2025, Part 6, items 60 to 62, https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rvp2G0RgF478/v0 ; Jacob Helberg to Richard C. Visek, "Ethics Undertakings," May 5, 2025, Section 5 and Attachment A, https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rOVlaP5GUdLQ/v0
|
||||
[^8]: Sequoia Capital USV XIV Holdco, Ltd. and others, Schedule 13D re Maplebear Inc., filed February 27, 2024, cover pages, Items 2 and 4, and signatures. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1579091/000119312524048200/d799472dsc13d.htm
|
||||
[^9]: Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC, Form ADV (CRD 157373, SEC file 801-122957), other-than-annual amendment of July 17, 2026, Items 1 and 5.F, Schedule A, Schedule B and Schedule D Section 7.B.(1). https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/reports/ADV/157373/PDF/157373.pdf
|
||||
[^10]: Alec Hogg, "SA prodigy, Pik Botha's 43yo grandson, to lead Silicon Valley's top VC firm," News24, February 1, 2017, reproducing the letter of Jim Goetz. https://www.news24.com/Fin24/sa-prodigy-pik-bothas-43yo-grandson-to-lead-silicon-valleys-top-vc-firm-20170201
|
||||
[^11]: Marina Temkin, "Sequoia names Alfred Lin and Pat Grady as new co-stewards as Roelof Botha steps down," TechCrunch, November 4, 2025. https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/04/sequoia-names-alfred-lin-and-pat-grady-as-new-co-stewards-as-roelof-botha-steps-down/
|
||||
[^12]: Julie Bort, "Vinod Khosla publicly disavows Keith Rabois' comments on ICE shooting," TechCrunch, January 26, 2026. https://techcrunch.com/2026/01/26/vinod-khosla-publicly-disavows-keith-rabois-comments-on-ice-shooting/
|
||||
[^13]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A receipts, queried October 1, 2026 through https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/ ; contributor "Moritz, Michael" (rows with employer Sequoia Capital, Sequoia Heritage or HRTG Partners; AB PAC C00492140, e.g. sub_id 4053020241951316444), "Leone, Doug" and "Leone, Douglas" (e.g. sub_ids 4080120231758607105, 4103020241011643180, 4021320251172522832, 4071920241978175326) and "Botha, Roelof" (committee C00150367); memo-coded rows excluded; AB PAC committee history at https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00492140/history/
|
||||
[^14]: Elon R. Musk, Amendment No. 3 to Schedule 13D re Twitter, Inc., filed May 5, 2022, Item 4 (equity commitment table). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000110465922056055/tm2214608-1_sc13da.htm
|
||||
[^15]: Adam Fisher, "Sam Bankman-Fried Has a Savior Complex, And Maybe You Should Too," Sequoia Capital website, September 22, 2022, as archived by the Internet Archive on November 9, 2022, https://web.archive.org/web/20221109025610/https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/sam-bankman-fried-spotlight/ ; live address checked October 1, 2026, redirecting to https://sequoiacap.com/companies/ftx
|
||||
[^16]: Connie Loizos, "Sequoia Capital marks its FTX investment down to zero dollars," TechCrunch, November 9, 2022, reproducing Sequoia's letter to limited partners. https://techcrunch.com/2022/11/09/sequoia-capital-marks-its-ftx-investment-down-to-zero-dollars/
|
||||
[^17]: Steve Mollman, "VC giant Sequoia writes down $214 million investment in FTX to zero: 'We are in the business of taking risk'," Fortune, November 10, 2022. https://fortune.com/2022/11/10/ftx-sam-bankman-fried-sequoia-writes-down-214-million-investment-to-zero-venture-capital-crypto
|
||||
[^18]: O'Keefe v. Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC, No. 1:23-cv-20700 (S.D. Fla.), docket (filed February 22, 2023; terminated June 21, 2023), ECF Nos. 1 and 3. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66837140/okeefe-v-sequoia-capital-operations-llc/
|
||||
[^19]: In re FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange Collapse Litigation, No. 1:23-md-03076-KMM (S.D. Fla.), ECF No. 914 (May 29, 2025), ECF No. 930 (June 16, 2025) and ECF No. 1124 (June 5, 2026). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67478547/in-re-ftx-cryptocurrency-exchange-collapse-litigation/
|
||||
[^20]: Manish Singh and Rita Liao, "Sequoia splits China and India arms from US mothership to avoid 'portfolio conflict' and 'market confusion'," TechCrunch, June 6, 2023. https://techcrunch.com/2023/06/06/sequoia-rebrands-china-india-and-southeast-asia-units/
|
||||
[^21]: SEC Investment Adviser Public Disclosure, firm search for "Sequoia Capital Operations" (Peak XV Partners Operations LLC, file 801-132249, formerly Sequoia Capital India Operations II LLC), queried October 1, 2026. https://api.adviserinfo.sec.gov/search/firm?query=sequoia%20capital%20operations
|
||||
[^22]: Rep. Mike Gallagher and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, letter to Roelof Botha and Don Vieira, Sequoia Capital, October 17, 2023, Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. https://chinaselectcommittee.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2023.10.17-letter-to-sequoia-capital.pdf
|
||||
[^23]: Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, "The CCP's Investors: How American Venture Capital Fuels the PRC Military and Human Rights Abuses," February 8, 2024, pp. 4 to 5 and note c, 7, 18, 21 and 22. https://chinaselectcommittee.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2024-02-08%20-%20VC%20Report%20-%20FINAL.pdf
|
||||
[^24]: Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, "Don L. Vieira" (professional biography), https://www.skadden.com/professionals/v/vieira-donald-l ; "Skadden Welcomes Back Don Vieira as Partner in Washington, DC," September 9, 2025, https://www.skadden.com/about/news-and-rankings/news/2025/09/skadden-welcomes-back-don-vieira-as-partner-in-washington-dc
|
||||
[^25]: 23andMe Holding Co., Form 8-K, filed June 21, 2021 (accession 0001193125-21-194255), security ownership table and footnotes 4 and 5. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1804591/000119312521194255/d187358d8k.htm
|
||||
[^26]: 23andMe Holding Co., Form 8-K, filed September 18, 2024 (accession 0001193125-24-221081), Item 5.02 and Exhibit 17. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1804591/000119312524221081/d894676dex17.htm
|
||||
[^27]: Will Jarrett, "Explore: $6M poured into Boudin recall," Mission Local, May 23, 2022. https://missionlocal.org/2022/05/explore-almost-9-million-donated-for-and-against-boudin-recall/
|
||||
[^28]: Kelly Waldron, "Follow the money: Bloomberg drops $1M on Breed, Moritz puts $1.5M into charter reform," Mission Local, September 4, 2024. https://missionlocal.org/2024/09/follow-the-money-bloomberg-drops-1m-on-breed-moritz-puts-1-5m-into-prop-d/
|
||||
[^29]: Joe Rivano Barros, "Michael Moritz sank millions into losing S.F. races. What happened?" Mission Local, November 7, 2024. https://missionlocal.org/2024/11/michael-moritz-togethersf-sf-elections-november-2024/
|
||||
107
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Skeptical Inquirer.md
Normal file
107
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Skeptical Inquirer.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,107 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Skeptics & Critics"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Publication
|
||||
- Skeptic
|
||||
- SkepticalInquirer
|
||||
- CSICOP
|
||||
- CenterForInquiry
|
||||
- Parapsychology
|
||||
- RemoteViewing
|
||||
- Stargate
|
||||
- KendrickFrazier
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Skeptical Inquirer
|
||||
- The Skeptical Inquirer
|
||||
- The Zetetic
|
||||
- SI
|
||||
summary: "Magazine of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, begun in Buffalo in 1976 as The Zetetic and renamed in 1977, edited by Kendrick Frazier for more than four decades."
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
location: "Amherst, New York"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
role: "publisher of the official journal"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Marcello Truzzi]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1976
|
||||
end: 1977-08
|
||||
role: "editor of The Zetetic"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Kendrick Frazier]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1977
|
||||
role: "editor until his death in 2022"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Stephen Hupp]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "editor"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Skeptical Inquirer is the magazine of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal ([[Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal|CSICOP]]), begun as The Zetetic in Fall/Winter 1976 and renamed after its first year. It was edited by [[Kendrick Frazier]] from 1977 until his death in 2022 and is published by the [[Center for Inquiry]] in Amherst, New York.[^1][^2][^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Zetetic
|
||||
|
||||
The first issue, Fall/Winter 1976, listed [[Marcello Truzzi]] of [[Eastern Michigan University]], Ypsilanti, as editor and [[Broady Richardson]] as managing editor. The editorial board was [[Martin Gardner]], [[Ray Hyman]], [[Paul Kurtz]], [[James Randi]], [[Dennis Rawlins]] and Truzzi. Consulting editors included [[Persi Diaconis]], [[Eric Dingwall]], [[Christopher Evans]], [[C. E. M. Hansel]] and [[Philip J. Klass]]. Subscriptions were handled by the committee's executive office at Box 29, Kensington Station, Buffalo; individual subscriptions cost 10 dollars, libraries 15 dollars and sustaining subscribers 100 dollars or more. The issue was printed by Artcraft-Burow of Buffalo and was published twice a year.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Its contents were articles by [[Roy Wallis]] on Dianetics, [[Gary Alan Fine]] on psychics, [[Ron Westrum]] on the 1975 statement "Objections to Astrology," [[Lee Nisbet]] with Kurtz on whether astronomers are qualified to criticize astrology, [[A. James Fix]] on biorhythms and [[John T. Omohundro]] on von Däniken, with a review symposium on David M. Jacobs's The UFO Controversy in America and Hyman's review of Charles Panati's The Geller Papers. The "Committee News Notes" recorded the invitation to [[Uri Geller]] of June 11, 1976, and the committee's joint sponsorship with the [[American Humanist Association]] of tests of the claims of [[Michel Gauquelin]].[^1] According to [[James Alcock]], about a thousand subscribers signed up for the first issue. The title had been used by Truzzi for a newsletter, The Zetetic: A Newsletter of Academic Research into Occultisms, in 1975.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Renaming and Editors
|
||||
|
||||
Truzzi edited the journal until August 1977 and left the committee, as CSICOP's history put it, in a dispute over whether it should be a scholarly journal that included proponents of the paranormal or a publication reaching the public.[^4] Kurtz and the committee hired as the new editor Kendrick Frazier, "formerly an editor of a popular science magazine," to change the magazine's content and format "to have greater public appeal." In June 1978 the address of the Skeptical Inquirer was P.O. Box 5, Amherst Branch, Buffalo, with subscriptions at 10 dollars a year, and that of Truzzi's new Zetetic Scholar was the Department of Sociology at Eastern Michigan.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
Frazier's editorial office was in Albuquerque, [[New Mexico]], in 1979 and 1988. The editorial board in Fall 1979 and Winter 1979-80 was Gardner, Hyman, Klass, Kurtz, Randi and Rawlins; in Fall 1988 it was Alcock, Gardner, Hyman, Klass, Kurtz and Randi. Consulting editors in 1988 included [[David Marks]], [[James Oberg]] and [[Robert Sheaffer]], and [[Barry Karr]] was public relations director.[^6] The Fall 1984 masthead stated that articles "represent the views and work of individual authors" and that their publication "does not necessarily constitute an endorsement by CSICOP or its members unless so stated."[^7] The masthead moved from Box 29, Kensington Station, to 1203 Kensington Avenue in 1979, and to Box 229, Central Park Station, with CSICOP's office at 3151 Bailey Avenue, in 1984.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Subscription prices were 15 dollars in 1979 and 16.50 dollars in 1984.[^6] The magazine was quarterly in 1979 and 1984.[^6] It was bimonthly by July 1995.[^8] In 1996 Frazier gave its circulation as 35,000 subscribers in 72 countries.[^4] Gardner's column "Notes of a Fringe-Watcher" appeared in every issue from Summer 1983, and about 120 of its articles were collected in three anthologies from Prometheus Books, in 1981, 1986 and 1991.[^4] Frazier edited the magazine for more than four decades, and [[Daniel Loxton]] wrote in 2023 that he had done so for "over forty-five years."[^9] Alcock wrote that the position was held "until his death in 2022."[^2] The committee's Fellows and Staff page lists [[Stephen Hupp]] as editor of the Skeptical Inquirer and executive director of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.[^10] The site states that the magazine is published by the Center for Inquiry and carries the Center's employer identification number, 22-2306795.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Mars Effect Issue
|
||||
|
||||
The Winter 1979-80 issue, expanded for the purpose, carried four reports on the claimed Mars effect: Kurtz, Marvin Zelen and George Abell on the results of the American test, Rawlins on the same test, Michel and Francoise Gauquelin on "Star U.S. Sportsmen Display the Mars Effect," and the authors' response to the Gauquelins. The editor's note said the claimed effect "has received international attention in recent years" and that the editors felt it "best to place the data, analyses, and different interpretations before the interested reader." Rawlins was then a member of the editorial board.[^11] Rawlins wrote in Fate in 1981 that "the last word Frazier allowed to appear" on the subject before his article was a letter from [[Lawrence Jerome]] in Fall 1980; Frazier wrote that the magazine printed Rawlins's "Remus Extremus" with responses from the Executive Council, Kurtz and Abell in Winter 1981-82.[^4][^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Parapsychology and Remote Viewing
|
||||
|
||||
The magazine's articles on parapsychology and government programs, by author and date as listed on its site, were: Hyman, review of The Geller Papers (1976); Marks and [[Richard Kammann]], "The Nonpsychic Powers of Uri Geller" (1977); Marks, "[[Remote Viewing]] Revisited" (Summer 1982); Gardner, "How Not to Test a Psychic: The Great SRI Die Mystery" (January 1983), "Koestler Money Down the Psi-Drain?" (Fall 1984) and "From SRI to Delphi: The Curious 'Mind Race'" (January 1985); [[Don Addis]], "Psychic Arms Race? Give Me a Break!" (Summer 1984); [[Martin Ebon]], "Psychic Studies: The Soviet Dilemma" (January 1986); [[Elliot H. Weinberg]], "Some Remote-Viewing Recollections" (Summer 1986); Frazier, "Improving Human Performance: What About Parapsychology?" (Fall 1988); Kurtz, "Paranormal Pandemonium in the [[Soviet Union]]" (April 1990); and, in March/April 1996, Hyman, "Evaluation of the Military's Twenty-Year Program on [[Psychic Spying]]," and [[Michael Mumford|Michael D. Mumford]], [[Andrew Rose|Andrew M. Rose]] and [[David Goslin]], "CIA Concludes No Value to the Program."[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Weinberg's contribution in Summer 1986 was introduced with a note that he had been director of research of the [[Office of Naval Research]] from 1971 to 1979. He wrote that during that period he "was asked to review the field of paranormal research, particularly what was coming to be known as 'remote viewing,'" and that he visited the [[Stanford Research Institute]] to meet [[Hal Puthoff]] and [[Russell Targ]].[^14] Frazier's 1988 summary of the National Research Council report on enhancing human performance stated that the Army Research Institute had asked the [[National Academy of Sciences]] in 1984 to form the committee and that Hyman chaired its parapsychology subcommittee, and that military officers invited to address the committee described remote-viewing experiments at SRI and "psychotronic weapons" and maintained that the Soviet Union was far ahead of the [[United States]].[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
Gardner's column "Notes of a Psi-Watcher" in Winter 1984-85, titled "From SRI to Delphi: The Curious 'Mind Race,'" reviewed The Mind Race by Targ and [[Keith Harary]] (Villard Books, 1984). Gardner wrote that Targ "has left the big Menlo Park think-tank to join Harary in founding a psi-research organization they call Delphi Associates," and that Puthoff, "once an ardent Scientologist, remains at SRI."[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
The editor's note to the March/April 1996 issue said that the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] had contracted in 1995 for an outside evaluation of twenty years of "until-then classified government-funded programs in 'remote viewing,'" that Hyman was one of two experts asked to review the research, and that the issue would print "a major portion of the Conclusions section of the report commissioned by the CIA."[^17] Hyman wrote in that issue that the CIA had supported the program from the early 1970s and "abandoned this program in the late 1970s because it showed no promise," that the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] had then continued it as Stargate until the spring of 1995, and that "a Senate committee decided to transfer the program from the DIA back to the CIA."[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
The Summer 1994 issue carried a letter by Harary, "Confusion Over Delphi Silver-Futures Trials?," answering a "Psychic Vibrations" column by Sheaffer in the Winter 1994 issue.[^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Organizations and Funding
|
||||
|
||||
The magazine's copyright notices from 1976 to 1984 name the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal as holder, and the 1979 and 1980 mastheads describe it as the committee's official journal, "CSICOP, Inc."[^6] Frazier wrote that the committee was "financed entirely through subscriptions and donations."[^4] CSICOP announced in November 1996 a ten-year Fund for the Future campaign to add 20 million dollars to the endowments of the Center for Inquiry, a combined goal for CSICOP and the Council for Secular Humanism, saying that "publishing revenues alone cannot fund the bold outreach today's challenges demand."[^19] The Center for Inquiry Inc. reported contributions of 5,628,081 dollars and total revenue of 6,992,396 dollars for 2024.[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: *The Zetetic,* vol. 1, no. 1, Fall/Winter 1976: masthead, table of contents, Truzzi editorial, "Committee News Notes." https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^2]: Alcock, James E. "Fifty Years of the Modern Skeptical Movement," *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 50, no. 1, January/February 2026. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2025/12/fifty-years-of-the-modern-skeptical-movement/
|
||||
[^3]: Loxton, Daniel. "Kendrick Frazier's Magnificent Quest," in "Remembering Kendrick Frazier," *Skeptical Inquirer,* February 2023. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2023/02/remembering-kendrick-frazier/
|
||||
[^4]: Frazier, Kendrick. "History of CSICOP," in Gordon Stein, ed., *The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal* (Prometheus Books, 1996), pp. 168-180. https://skepticalinquirer.org/history-of-csicop/
|
||||
[^5]: "Skeptics Criticized on Paranormal Issue," *The New York Times,* June 25, 1978, copy in CIA-RDP96-00787R000200080024-8. https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00787r000200080024-8
|
||||
[^6]: *The Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 4, no. 1, Fall 1979, https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/03/Issue-01-1.pdf; vol. 4, no. 2, Winter 1979-80, https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/03/Issue-02-2.pdf; vol. 5, no. 1, Fall 1980; vol. 9, no. 1, Fall 1984; vol. 13, no. 1, Fall 1988, mastheads, https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^7]: *The Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 9, no. 1, Fall 1984, masthead. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^8]: "A Skeptically Inquiring Mind" (profile of James Randi), *Scientific American,* July 1995, p. 34, CIA-RDP96-00791R000200190022-3 ("the bimonthly Skeptical Inquirer"). https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp96-00791r000200190022-3
|
||||
[^9]: Loxton, "Kendrick Frazier's Magnificent Quest," *Skeptical Inquirer,* February 2023. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2023/02/remembering-kendrick-frazier/
|
||||
[^10]: "Fellows and Staff," skepticalinquirer.org, and page footer ("is a magazine published by the Center for Inquiry ... EIN: 22-2306795"), read October 1, 2026. https://skepticalinquirer.org/fellows-and-staff/
|
||||
[^11]: *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 4, no. 2, Winter 1979-80, "News and Comment" editor's note and pp. 19-62. https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2019/03/Issue-02-2.pdf
|
||||
[^12]: Rawlins, Dennis. "sTARBABY," *Fate,* no. 34, October 1981, pp. 67-98. http://cura.free.fr/xv/14starbb.html
|
||||
[^13]: skepticalinquirer.org article index (authors and dates as listed by the site): https://skepticalinquirer.org/1976/10/the-geller-papers/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1977/04/the-nonpsychic-powers-of-uri-geller/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1982/07/remote-viewing-revisited/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1983/01/how-not-to-test-a-psychic-the-great-sri-die-mystery/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1984/07/psychic-arms-race-give-me-a-break/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1984/10/koestler-money-down-the-psi-drain/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1985/01/from-sri-to-delphi-the-curious-mind-race/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1986/01/psychic-studies-the-soviet-dilemma/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1986/07/some-remote-viewing-recollections/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1988/10/improving-human-performance-what-about-parapsychology/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1990/04/paranormal-pandemonium-in-the-soviet-union/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1996/03/evaluation-of-the-militarys-twenty-year-program-on-psychic-spying/, https://skepticalinquirer.org/1996/03/cia-concludes-no-value-to-the-program/
|
||||
[^14]: Weinberg, Elliot H. "Some Remote-Viewing Recollections: Adventures in the Land of SRI," *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 10, no. 4, Summer 1986, pp. 353-358. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^15]: Frazier, Kendrick. "Improving Human Performance: What About Parapsychology?" *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 13, no. 1, Fall 1988, pp. 34-38. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^16]: Gardner, Martin. "Notes of a Psi-Watcher: From SRI to Delphi: The Curious 'Mind Race,'" *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 9, no. 2, Winter 1984-85, p. 117 ff. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^17]: Hyman, Ray. "Evaluation of the Military's Twenty-Year Program on Psychic Spying," and Mumford, Michael D., Andrew M. Rose and David A. Goslin, "CIA Concludes No Value to the Program," *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 20, no. 2, March/April 1996, pp. 21-27. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^18]: Harary, Keith. "Confusion Over Delphi Silver-Futures Trials?" (letter), *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 18, no. 4, Summer 1994. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^19]: "Fund for the Future," advertisement, *Skeptical Inquirer,* vol. 20, no. 6, November/December 1996, p. 9. https://archive.org/details/skeptical-inquirer-1-25
|
||||
[^20]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 for tax year 2024, Center for Inquiry Inc. (object ID 202512189349301641). https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2025/2025_TEOS_XML_08A.zip
|
||||
142
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Tech Against Terrorism.md
Normal file
142
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Tech Against Terrorism.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,142 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- TechAgainstTerrorism
|
||||
- AdamHadley
|
||||
- QuantSpark
|
||||
- OnlineHarmsFoundation
|
||||
- GIFCT
|
||||
- TerroristContentAnalyticsPlatform
|
||||
- UNCTED
|
||||
- ContentModeration
|
||||
- CounterTerrorism
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Tech Against Terrorism
|
||||
- TAT
|
||||
- Online Harms Foundation
|
||||
- QuantSpark Foundation
|
||||
summary: "Counter-terrorism project begun in 2016 with the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate and ICT4Peace, now run through Adam Hadley's Online Harms Foundation and funded by Canada, the GIFCT and other governments."
|
||||
start: 2016
|
||||
location: "London, United Kingdom"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Adam Hadley]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2016
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Adam Hadley]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "executive director"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate]]"
|
||||
role: "joint project with ICT4Peace"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[ICT4Peace]]"
|
||||
role: "joint project with the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Switzerland]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "initial research project, according to Adam Hadley"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2020
|
||||
end: 2024
|
||||
role: "grants of 400,000, 400,000, 450,000, 450,000 and 214,000 dollars in the returns for 2020 to 2024"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Public Safety Canada]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019-06-26
|
||||
role: "up to 1 million Canadian dollars announced in 2019, up to 1.9 million in 2022"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Tech Against Terrorism describes itself as an independent counter-terrorism organization, "launched by the United Nations in 2016", that works with technology companies and governments and is "implemented by the Online Harms Foundation". The Online Harms Foundation is an English company limited by guarantee whose individual director is [[Adam Hadley]] and whose corporate director and controlling person is [[QuantSpark]] Limited, a consultancy of which Hadley is the sole director.
|
||||
|
||||
### Origins
|
||||
|
||||
The [[United Nations]] [[Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate]] (CTED) announced "Tech Against Terrorism" as a new initiative launched on the margins of [[RightsCon]] in [[Brussels]], the second phase of a joint project between CTED and the Swiss non-governmental organization [[ICT4Peace]], "with the support of ICT industry leaders". The announcement describes the aim as "the development of a normative framework of self-regulation that can guide responses to terrorists' use of the Internet."[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
Hadley told the West Point [[Combating Terrorism Center at West Point|Combating Terrorism Center]] in July 2025 that his master's dissertation at [[King's College London]], on a computational approach to detecting Islamic State propaganda, was "spotted by an official working at the U.N. Security Council", and that he was asked to join a research project with the United Nations "which at the time was just a very small initiative funded by the government of Switzerland." He said that he grew the project into Tech Against Terrorism while working as a freelance data scientist for private businesses in London, and that the year "ended with me founding Tech Against Terrorism and bootstrapping QuantSpark." The interviewer's note states that Tech Against Terrorism and QuantSpark were founded in 2016.[^2] QuantSpark Limited (company number 10304694) was incorporated on 1 August 2016, with Hadley as its director and person with significant control from that date.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
On 29 November 2017 the Permanent Mission of the [[Republic of Korea]], CTED and ICT4Peace held an event at the United Nations in [[New York City]] to launch the next phase of Tech Against Terrorism, a knowledge-sharing platform. The event notice describes the project as a public-private partnership bringing together "ICT industry leaders, e.g. Facebook, Google, Kaspersky Lab, Microsoft, Telefonica, and Twitter" with startups, governments and academia, and records speeches by the ambassadors of Korea, [[Spain]] and Switzerland.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The organization's website states that it operates "pursuant to four UN Security Council Resolutions" (2129, 2354, 2395 and 2396) and the 2017 Comprehensive International Framework to Counter Terrorist Narratives, that it is "supported by" CTED, and that it is "implemented by the Online Harms Foundation."[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Corporate Structure
|
||||
|
||||
QuantSpark Foundation (company number 11656320) was incorporated on 2 November 2018 as a private company limited by guarantee. Its directors were Adam Ivor Hadley and QuantSpark Limited, and QuantSpark Limited has been its person with significant control since the same date. The company is now named Online Harms Foundation; its accounts for the year to 31 July 2021 carry the heading "Online Harms Foundation (formerly QuantSpark Foundation)."[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
The foundation files unaudited accounts for years ending 31 July, with no income and expenditure account. Its notes record the following consultancy charges invoiced to it by QuantSpark Limited, "a corporate director of the company and related party by virtue of common control and a common director":
|
||||
|
||||
| Year to 31 July | Invoiced by QuantSpark Limited (pounds) | Owed to QuantSpark Limited at year end (pounds) |
|
||||
|---|---|---|
|
||||
| 2021 | not stated | 347,420 |
|
||||
| 2022 | 618,273 | 195,733 |
|
||||
| 2023 | 1,835,864 | 487,674 |
|
||||
| 2024 | 2,160,943 | 1,287,711 |
|
||||
| 2025 | 913,015 | 1,554,927 |
|
||||
|
||||
At 31 July 2025 the foundation had net liabilities of 1,435,757 pounds (1,189,680 pounds a year earlier), cash of 15,903 pounds (149,245 pounds a year earlier) and an average of six employees (one in the year before). The going-concern note states that the company "is reliant on loans received from QuantSpark Limited, a related party, for finance," and that the director of QuantSpark Limited has confirmed that the amounts due will not be recalled within twelve months.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
QuantSpark Limited's accounts for the year to 31 July 2025 show net assets of 3,961,806 pounds (3,454,472 pounds a year earlier). Its related-party note gives the invoiced amount as 913,095 pounds net of value-added tax, states that the Online Harms Foundation owed it 1,374,157 pounds for those services and that it owed the foundation 180,769 pounds for recharged expenses, and records a loan of 250,000 pounds made in the year to 31 July 2022 to CGR Trading Limited, "a connected company by virtue of common control and a common director," with 219,500 pounds outstanding at 31 July 2025.[^8] CGR Trading Ltd. (company number 09944580), incorporated on 11 January 2016, lists Hadley as its only officer and person with significant control, with a business classification of letting and operating its own or leased real estate.[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
In the July 2025 interview Hadley said that Tech Against Terrorism and QuantSpark "are separate entities, but certainly Tech Against Terrorism wouldn't have survived this long were it solely relying on government grants and tech companies," that it has had access to "an almost pro bono pool of technical specialists," and that it operates with "very limited funding."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Funding
|
||||
|
||||
The organization's website states that its funding "comes equally from both democratic governments and the global tech industry," that it receives income "through the bespoke services we offer to tech companies," that the [[Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism]] (GIFCT) contributes, and that governments including Spain, Switzerland, the [[Netherlands]], the Republic of Korea, [[Canada]], [[Australia]], [[New Zealand]] and the [[United Kingdom]] "have financially supported" it.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
GIFCT, a [[Washington, D.C.]] tax-exempt organization, files Form 990-PF as a private foundation. Its returns list two grantees in each of the five years from 2020 to 2024, King's College London for its Global Network on Extremism and Technology and the organization that carries Tech Against Terrorism:
|
||||
|
||||
| Return year | Payee for Tech Against Terrorism initiatives | Dollars | King's College London (GNET) |
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|
|
||||
| 2020 | QuantSpark Foundation, 140 Old Street, London | 400,000 | 512,230 |
|
||||
| 2021 | Online Harms Foundation, 128 City Road, London | 400,000 | 250,000 |
|
||||
| 2022 | Online Harms Foundation, 230 Blackfriars Road, London | 450,000 | 799,271 |
|
||||
| 2023 | Online Harms Foundation, 230 Blackfriars Road, London | 450,000 | 550,000 |
|
||||
| 2024 | Online Harms Foundation, 230 Blackfriars Road, London | 214,000 | 275,000 |
|
||||
|
||||
The purpose entered against each payment to the Tech Against Terrorism payee is "to support Tech Against Terrorism initiatives." The five payments total 1,914,000 dollars. The 2020 return lists as board members [[Monika Bickert]], [[Courtney Gregoire]], [[Leslie Miller]], [[Monique Meshe]] and [[Nick Pickles]] (the last through April 2020), with [[Nicholas Rasmussen]] as executive director, and records 80,000 dollars paid to Mercury Public Affairs LLC for strategy consulting. The 2024 return lists [[Naureen Chowdhury Fink]] as executive director and Gregoire, Miller, Pickles and [[Neil Potts]] as board members.[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Public Safety Canada]] announced on 26 June 2019, through the minister of public safety [[Ralph Goodale]], that Canada "will commit up to $1 million to Tech Against Terrorism to create a digital repository" that would notify smaller companies of newly detected terrorist content.[^11] On 20 September 2022, at the Christchurch Call summit in New York, Prime Minister [[Justin Trudeau]] announced up to 1.9 million Canadian dollars over three years to Tech Against Terrorism from the department's Community Resilience Fund for a second phase of the platform.[^12] The department's list of projects announced on 3 May 2023 names the recipient as "Online Harms Foundation," the project as "Terrorist Content Analytics Platform (TCAP) Phase 2" and the amount as 1,945,904 dollars.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### Terrorist Content Analytics Platform
|
||||
|
||||
The organization's transparency report for the second year of the Terrorist Content Analytics Platform (1 December 2021 to 30 November 2022) states that the platform was launched in November 2020 "with support from Public Safety Canada." In that year its analysts submitted 18,995 URLs, of which 18,048 contained Islamist and 947 far-right terrorist content, and the platform sent 10,174 alerts to 57 technology companies, 9,436 of them for Islamist and 738 for far-right content; the report gives average removal rates after alerts of 84 percent for Islamist and 61 percent for far-right content, and states that 92 percent of alerts in the year concerned Islamist entities, against 98 percent in the first year. From February 2022 all URLs submitted were hashed, with the hashes to be shared with the hash-sharing consortium of GIFCT. The platform's inclusion policy is "based on the legal designation of terrorist entities by democratic nation states and supranational institutions"; the report lists the Government of Canada's designation of [[James Mason]] among five entities added during the year.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Research
|
||||
|
||||
The organization and the [[Middlebury Institute CTEC]] published a report on two coalitions that formed on [[Telegram]] in early 2021, the [[United Acceleration Front]] and the [[National Socialist Coalition]], centred on [[Feuerkrieg Division]] and its partner [[InJekt Division]]. The report states that the two organizations collected data from June 2021 to February 2022 and that Tech Against Terrorism identified 21 entities in the network.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Honours
|
||||
|
||||
Hadley was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the King's Birthday Honours, which the organization announced on 14 June 2024.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, "Launch of 'Tech Against Terrorism': a partnership between technology companies, governments, and UN CTED" (undated). https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/ctc/node/20795
|
||||
[^2]: Don Rassler, "A View from the CT Foxhole: Adam Hadley, Executive Director, Tech Against Terrorism," CTC Sentinel, July 2025, pp. 9 to 12. https://ctc.westpoint.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/CTC-SENTINEL-072025_interview.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: Companies House, QUANTSPARK LIMITED, company number 10304694: overview, officers, persons with significant control, filing history. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10304694
|
||||
[^4]: UN Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee, "The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Korea, CTED, and ICT4Peace launch next phase of Tech against terrorism," event of 29 November 2017. https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/ctc/news/permanent-mission-republic-korea-cted-and-ict4peace-launch-next-phase-tech-against-terrorism
|
||||
[^5]: Tech Against Terrorism, "About Us," consulted 1 October 2026. https://techagainstterrorism.org/about
|
||||
[^6]: Companies House, ONLINE HARMS FOUNDATION (formerly QUANTSPARK FOUNDATION), company number 11656320: overview, officers, persons with significant control, filing history. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11656320
|
||||
[^7]: Online Harms Foundation (formerly QuantSpark Foundation), unaudited financial statements for the years ended 31 July 2021 to 31 July 2025, balance sheets, going-concern note and related-party notes, filed at Companies House (documents filed 9 May 2022, 28 April 2023, 30 April 2024, 31 July 2025 and 28 July 2026). https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/11656320/filing-history
|
||||
[^8]: QuantSpark Limited, unaudited financial statements for the year ended 31 July 2025, balance sheet and note 10, filed 15 July 2026. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/10304694/filing-history
|
||||
[^9]: Companies House, CGR TRADING LTD., company number 09944580: overview, officers, persons with significant control. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/09944580
|
||||
[^10]: Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism Inc (EIN 84-4586487), Forms 990-PF for 2020 to 2024, Part XIV and Part VII, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, object IDs 202113199349104371, 202213149349102206, 202302719349100245, 202402649349100400 and 202512749349100101. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/844586487
|
||||
[^11]: Public Safety Canada, "Government of Canada announces initiatives to address violent extremist and terrorist content online," 26 June 2019. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2019/06/government-of-canada-announces-initiatives-to-address-violent-extremist-and-terrorist-content-online.html
|
||||
[^12]: Public Safety Canada, "Government of Canada announces up to $1.9 million in funding to combat online terrorist and violent extremist content," New York, 20 September 2022. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2022/09/government-of-canada-announces-up-to-19-million-in-funding-to-combat-online-terrorist-and-violent-extremist-content.html
|
||||
[^13]: Public Safety Canada, "Government of Canada announces more than $25 million for projects to counter radicalization to violence," 3 May 2023, project table. https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2023/05/government-of-canada-announces-more-than-25-million-for-projects-to-counter-radicalization-to-violence.html
|
||||
[^14]: Tech Against Terrorism, Terrorist Content Analytics Platform Transparency Report, Year Two: 1 December 2021 to 30 November 2022. https://techagainstterrorism.org/hubfs/Tech-Against-Terrorism-TCAP-Transparency-Report-2021-2022.pdf
|
||||
[^15]: Middlebury Institute CTEC and Tech Against Terrorism, "Militant Accelerationism Coalitions: A Case Study in Neo-Fascist Accelerationist Coalition Building Online," executive summary. https://www.techagainstterrorism.org/hubfs/CTEC__TAT-Accelerationism-Report-.pdf
|
||||
[^16]: Tech Against Terrorism, "Press Release: Tech Against Terrorism Founder Appointed CBE in King's Birthday Honours List," 14 June 2024. https://techagainstterrorism.org/news/tech-against-terrorism-founder-appointed-cbe-by-king-charles-iii
|
||||
144
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/The Guardian.md
Normal file
144
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/The Guardian.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,144 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- Newspaper
|
||||
- Media
|
||||
- ScottTrust
|
||||
- Snowden
|
||||
- DSMANotice
|
||||
- GCHQ
|
||||
- WikiLeaks
|
||||
- LegaciesOfEnslavement
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- The Guardian
|
||||
- Guardian
|
||||
- Manchester Guardian
|
||||
- The Manchester Guardian
|
||||
- Guardian News & Media
|
||||
- Guardian News and Media
|
||||
- Guardian Media Group
|
||||
summary: "British newspaper founded as the Manchester Guardian in 1821 and owned through the Scott Trust, whose Snowden hard drives were destroyed under GCHQ supervision in 2013 before its deputy editor joined the D-notice committee."
|
||||
start: 1821
|
||||
location: "London"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Scott Trust]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "sole shareholder of Guardian Media Group"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Katharine Viner]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "editor-in-chief"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Alan Rusbridger]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "editor-in-chief"
|
||||
fn: 7
|
||||
- type: subject_of
|
||||
with: "[[GCHQ]]"
|
||||
start: 2013-07-20
|
||||
end: 2013-07-20
|
||||
role: "Snowden hard drives destroyed under GCHQ supervision"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee]]"
|
||||
start: 2014-05
|
||||
end: 2018-10
|
||||
role: "seat held by deputy editor Paul Johnson as Newspaper Publishers Association nominee replacing Jane Crust of the Financial Times"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[New York Times]]"
|
||||
start: 2013-09
|
||||
end: 2013-09
|
||||
role: "joint reporting on Snowden documents"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: partner_of
|
||||
with: "[[ProPublica]]"
|
||||
start: 2013-09
|
||||
end: 2013-09
|
||||
role: "joint reporting on Snowden documents"
|
||||
fn: 8
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Guardian.org Foundation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "grantor to Guardian News and Media LLC"
|
||||
fn: 19
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Guardian is a British newspaper founded in 1821 by [[John Edward Taylor]] as the *Manchester Guardian*.[^1] Guardian Media Group plc, the operating business that publishes its journalism, is wholly owned by the [[Scott Trust]] Limited, which its accounts describe as "charged with securing the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity."[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
### Ownership by the Scott Trust
|
||||
|
||||
The Scott Trust Limited (Companies House number 06706464) was incorporated on September 24, 2008 with its registered office at Kings Place, 90 York Way, [[London]]. The Scott Trust Endowment Limited (number 13856227) was incorporated on January 18, 2022.[^3] According to the accounts for the year ended March 31, 2025, the Scott Trust Limited owns Guardian Media Group plc, the operating business, and the Scott Trust Endowment Limited, which controls a portfolio of public equity, fixed income and private equity investments held to generate returns for the Guardian. The accounts record group revenue of £275.9 million (2024: £257.8 million), digital reader revenue of £107.3 million, an adjusted operating loss of £32.7 million (2024: £33.9 million), adjusted cash outflow of £24.3 million, and an endowment fund of £1,246.3 million at year end (2024: £1,274.9 million), with commitments to future investments of £178.6 million.[^2] The accounts state that the Trust agreed the sale of the *[[Observer]]* to [[Tortoise Media]], completed in April 2025, that the Trust invested in Tortoise and became one of its largest shareholders with a seat on its board, and that the Trust is the principal funder of the [[Guardian Foundation]], funds a restorative justice programme arising from the Legacies of Enslavement review, and oversees the Guardian's readers' editor.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
The corporate governance report for 2023 and 2024 states that the board of the Scott Trust Limited comprises its chair, the editor-in-chief ([[Katharine Viner]]), a director drawn from among Guardian journalists ([[Haroon Siddique]]), a member of the Scott family ([[Russell Scott]], the senior independent director) and seven independent directors, that the chairs of the two boards attend each other's meetings as observers, and that the nominations committee is chaired by Russell Scott. The endowment company's board comprises its chair, [[Tracy Corrigan]], the chair of the Scott Trust, the chief investment officer, Jonathan Evans, the general counsel and company secretary, Stephen Godsell, and two external independent members.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Ole Jacob Sunde]] joined the Scott Trust in 2015, became acting chair in March 2021 and was announced as chair on June 17, 2021. The announcement stated that he had been elected to the board of the [[Norway|Norwegian]] media group [[Schibsted]] in 2000 and had chaired it since 2002, that he also chairs the [[Tinius Trust]], and that he is a member of the Board of Visitors of the [[Columbia Journalism School|Columbia University School of Journalism]].[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The Companies House officer register for the Scott Trust Limited lists, with the dates of appointment and resignation shown, directors who include [[Alan Rusbridger]] (October 1, 2008 to May 13, 2016), [[Liz Forgan]] (September 24, 2008 to November 30, 2016), [[Jonathan Scott]] (October 1, 2008 to September 17, 2015), [[Andrew Graham]] (October 1, 2008 to November 6, 2015), [[Will Hutton]] (October 1, 2008 to February 9, 2017), [[Maleiha Malik]] (October 1, 2008 to August 6, 2014), [[Carolyn McCall]] (October 1, 2008 to June 30, 2010), [[Geraldine Proudler]] (October 1, 2008 to February 6, 2013), [[Lawrence Elliott]] (October 1, 2008 to September 7, 2011), [[Anthony Salz]] (March 9, 2009 to March 27, 2020), [[Andrew Miller]] (September 6, 2010 to June 30, 2015), [[Heather Stewart]] (September 7, 2011 to March 7, 2016), [[Emily Bell]] (December 1, 2012 to November 10, 2021), [[Alex Graham]] (December 1, 2012 to March 26, 2021), Viner (from June 1, 2015), Russell Scott, Sunde, [[Vivian Schiller]] (September 17, 2015 to November 25, 2025), [[Stuart Proffitt]] (September 17, 2015 to November 25, 2025), [[Catherine Howarth]] (September 17, 2015 to September 16, 2022), [[David Pemsel]] (September 17, 2015 to December 2, 2019), [[Sushil Wadhwani]] (September 17, 2015 to September 18, 2016), [[Nils Pratley]] (May 12, 2016 to June 15, 2022), [[David Olusoga]] (from June 11, 2018), [[Mary Ann Sieghart]] (March 27, 2020 to November 10, 2021), [[Matthew Ryder]] (from March 27, 2020), [[Annette Thomas]] (March 27, 2020 to July 1, 2021), Siddique (from June 15, 2022), [[Margaret Simons]] (from September 7, 2022), Corrigan (from November 18, 2022), [[Nabiha Syed]] (from September 28, 2023), [[Jonathan Paine]] (from October 31, 2024), [[Jane Martinson]] (from October 1, 2025) and [[Samuel Gregory]] (from November 25, 2025). The secretary since October 11, 2017 is Stephen Godsell.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Snowden files and GCHQ, 2013
|
||||
|
||||
[[Julian Borger]] reported in the Guardian on August 20, 2013 that "on Saturday 20 July, in a deserted basement of the Guardian's King's Cross offices, a senior editor and a Guardian computer expert used angle grinders and other tools to pulverise the hard drives and memory chips on which the encrypted files had been stored," watched by technicians from [[GCHQ]] who took notes and photographs and left empty-handed. The article stated that shortly after the first story's publication two senior British officials had come to the Guardian's offices to see Rusbridger and [[Paul Johnson|Johnson]], that they "made it clear they came on high authority to demand the immediate surrender of all the [[Edward Snowden|Snowden]] files," that after three weeks one of them said "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back," and that the compromise brought Paul Johnson, the deputy editor, the executive director [[Sheila Fitzsimons]] and the computer expert [[David Blishen]] to the basement to meet two GCHQ officials. The article stated that twelve days after the destruction the Guardian reported on [[United States]] funding of GCHQ eavesdropping operations.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
Rusbridger told the [[BBC]]'s *World at One* the same day that the task was "slightly pointless" because digital copies existed outside Britain, that [[Whitehall]] officials had threatened legal action "unless we handed it back or destroyed it," and that "given that there were other copies and we could work out of America, which has better laws to protect journalists, I saw no reason not to destroy this material ourselves rather than hand it back to the government."[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
On September 5, 2013 [[ProPublica]] published, in partnership with the *New York Times* and the Guardian, an article on the [[National Security Agency]]'s encryption programme that stated that the documents were "among more than 50,000 shared by The Guardian with The New York Times and ProPublica."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee
|
||||
|
||||
The Defence Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, renamed the Defence and Security Media Advisory Committee, administers the DA-Notice (later DSMA-Notice) system under a secretary appointed from the [[Ministry of Defence]]; its minutes are posted on the dsma.uk website. The minutes of the meeting of November 7, 2013, held at the Ministry of Defence with Air Vice-Marshal [[Andrew Vallance]] as secretary, state that the dominant aspect of the reporting period was the publication by the Guardian, and latterly by the *[[The Independent|Independent]]*, of information from classified documents "stolen by the [[NSA]] fugitive Edward Snowden." They state that "at the outset The Guardian avoided engaging with the DA Notice System before publishing the first tranche of information," that "as a member of the [[Newspaper Publishers Association]] (NPA), The Guardian was obliged to seek (but not necessarily to accept) DA Notice advice under the terms of the DA Notice code," that the *New York Times* was publishing the same details in parallel, and that "towards the end of July The Guardian had begun to seek and accept DA Notice advice not to publish certain highly sensitive details." The vice-chairman, [[Simon Bucks]], told the committee that "99% of the media remained committed to the DA Notice System," that "much of the material published by the Guardian fell into the former category" of embarrassment as distinct from genuine national security concerns, and that the editor "feared that if he shared details of his story with the secretariat it might potentially attract an injunction."[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
At the next meeting, on May 8, 2014, the acting chairman welcomed Paul Johnson, deputy editor of Guardian News and Media, "as the Newspaper Publishers Association replacement for [[Jane Crust]]." The minutes of November 2011 record that Crust, deputy managing editor of the *[[Financial Times]]*, had taken over from [[Hugh Carnegy]] as one of the three Newspaper Publishers Association representatives. The May 2014 minutes state that the secretariat's "engagement ... with The Guardian had continued to strengthen," with "regular dialogues between the Secretary and Deputy Secretaries and Guardian journalists"; that, "because of an agreement between The Guardian and allied publications overseas to coordinate their respective disclosures of Snowden material, advice given to The Guardian had been passed on to The New York Times and others"; and that "the process had culminated by the appointment of Paul Johnson (Deputy Editor Guardian News and Media) as a DPBAC member."[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
Johnson is listed as present at the meetings of May 8, 2014, November 6, 2014, November 5, 2015 and November 9, 2017, and as sending apologies for those of May 13, 2015, May 19, 2016, November 3, 2016 and May 17, 2018. The minutes of November 8, 2018 record that he had retired from the committee on October 30, 2018 and that the chairman thanked him, saying that he "had joined the Committee in the wake of the Snowden affair and had been instrumental in re-establishing links with the Guardian." The minutes of November 5, 2015 record that the secretary, Brigadier [[Geoffrey Dodds]], had taken part with [[Ian Cobbain]] of the Guardian and [[Chris Hughes]] of the *[[Daily Mirror]]* in a media forum on "Reporting on the Secret State" at [[Goldsmiths, University of London]], on October 29.[^11] The minutes of the eleven meetings from May 2008 to May 2013 contain no reference to the Guardian. The committee's membership page on October 1, 2026 lists media members from the [[Society of Editors]], *The Times* and *[[The Sunday Times|Sunday Times]]*, the Publishers Association, the *[[Mail on Sunday]]*, [[PA Media]], the BBC, [[Sky News]], [[ITV News]], *The [[The Daily Telegraph|Daily Telegraph]]* and others, and none from the Guardian.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
On October 31, 2016, during the period of Johnson's membership, the Guardian published an interview with [[Andrew Parker]], the director general of [[MI5]], by [[Ewen MacAskill]] and Paul Johnson, described as the first newspaper interview given by an incumbent MI5 chief in the service's history. The article stated that Parker said he was talking to the Guardian "rather than any other newspaper despite the publication of the Snowden files" and "a consistent scepticism about the need for extra powers for the security services." The committee met on November 3, 2016, the last meeting of Vallance as secretary; Johnson sent apologies.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### WikiLeaks, 2011 and 2018
|
||||
|
||||
In September 2011 [[WikiLeaks]] published an editorial accusing the Guardian reporter [[David Leigh]] of disclosing in a book by himself and [[Luke Harding]] the password needed to decrypt a file of United States diplomatic cables. Leigh told the [[Associated Press]] the claim was "time-wasting nonsense" and said that [[Julian Assange]] had given him the password for a file expected to disappear within hours, that "what we published much later in our book was obsolete and harmless," and that the Guardian had not disclosed the location of the file. WikiLeaks posted on its Twitter feed that one of Leigh's statements was false.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
On November 27, 2018 the Guardian published a report by Luke Harding and Dan Collyns stating that "sources have said" [[Paul Manafort]] visited Assange at the [[Embassy of Ecuador, London|Ecuadorian embassy]] in London in 2013, 2015 and spring 2016. The report quoted Manafort: "I have never met Julian Assange or anyone connected to him." It stated that WikiLeaks said the two had not met and that Assange described the story as a hoax. The page shows a last-modified date of February 26, 2020.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
### Richard Gott and the KGB
|
||||
|
||||
[[Oleg Gordievsky]], the former [[KGB]] colonel, wrote in *The [[The Spectator|Spectator]]* of January 14, 1995 that the Guardian had responded to the Spectator's naming of its former features editor [[Richard Gott]] as a KGB agent of influence by attacking Gordievsky, that Gott had himself admitted taking "red gold" from the KGB, and that the KGB's senior officer in London, [[Igor Titov]], had pressed the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]]'s [[International Department]] for a 1983 trip to Moscow for the newspaper's leading journalists after Gott suggested it to him. Gordievsky named Gott, Rusbridger and [[Polly Toynbee]] among the journalists on the trip and wrote that their articles "were a terrible disappointment" to the Central Committee because they were "mostly very negative." He added: "The Guardian has never been a knowing conduit for KGB propaganda."[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Legacies of Enslavement review
|
||||
|
||||
The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement Report, prepared by researchers at the [[Wilberforce Institute]] of the [[University of Hull]] following earlier research by the University of [[University of Nottingham|Nottingham]] and published in three parts, examined John Edward Taylor, the six funders of the *Manchester Guardian* it details and their business activities. Its second part states that all six funders detailed "were found to have indirect connections to transatlantic slavery," that an invoice book of the Strutt firm shows Shuttleworth, Taylor & Co. receiving raw cotton from the Sea Islands between August 14, 1822 and April 24, 1823, and that between 1817 and 1824 Taylor's firm received £2,300 1s 4d from the Strutts. The University of Hull's project page states that more than 300 enslaved people connected to the founders' plantations were named.[^17][^18]
|
||||
|
||||
### Guardian.org Foundation and other funders
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Guardian.org Foundation]] (EIN 81-2404459, [[Washington, D.C.]]) is a tax-exempt organization whose returns list Guardian News and Media LLC (EIN 99-0369208) as the recipient of grants described as support for theguardian.org "in establishing various projects." The Schedule I amounts in its returns for tax years 2016 through 2024 are $100,000, $85,000, $651,000, $1,230,000, $1,913,000, $2,050,000, $1,100,000, $3,055,000 and $1,940,000. The foundation's reported revenue rose from $552,000 in 2017 to $8,431,221 in 2024. Its board chairman for 2016 to 2018 was John Paton; from 2019 to 2024 the chairman was Asha Curran and the directors included Vivian Schiller, who was also a director of the Scott Trust Limited from 2015 to 2025, with Lois Quam, Alice Rhee and, from 2020, Cedric Brown.[^19]
|
||||
|
||||
In *[[Columbia Journalism Review]]* on August 21, 2020 [[Tim Schwab]] wrote that his review of [[Gates Foundation]] grants found more than $250 million for journalism, with recipients including The Guardian and ProPublica.[^20]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: "The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement Report," University of Hull Wilberforce Institute project page, https://www.hull.ac.uk/research/projects/the-scott-trust-legacies-of-enslavement-report (accessed October 1, 2026); The Scott Trust Limited, *Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31 March 2025*, https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2025/09/11/The_Scott_Trust_Limited_2024_25.pdf
|
||||
[^2]: The Scott Trust Limited, *Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 31 March 2025*, https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2025/09/11/The_Scott_Trust_Limited_2024_25.pdf, pp. 2-12 and the notes on financial assets.
|
||||
[^3]: Companies House, The Scott Trust Limited (06706464), overview and officers, https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/06706464 and /officers; The Scott Trust Endowment Limited (13856227), https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/13856227 (all viewed October 1, 2026).
|
||||
[^4]: The Scott Trust Limited, *Corporate Governance Report 2023/24*, https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2024/09/17/The_Scott_Trust_corporate_governance_report_23_24.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: "Scott Trust appoints new chair," *InPublishing*, June 18, 2021, https://www.inpublishing.co.uk/articles/scott-trust-appoints-new-chair-18646
|
||||
[^6]: Julian Borger, "NSA files: why the Guardian in London destroyed hard drives of leaked files," *The Guardian*, August 20, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-files-drives-destroyed-london
|
||||
[^7]: Josh Halliday, "Rusbridger: destroying hard drives allowed us to continue NSA coverage," *The Guardian*, August 20, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/aug/20/guardian-editor-alan-rusbridger-nsa
|
||||
[^8]: Jeff Larson, "Revealed: The NSA's Secret Campaign to Crack, Undermine Internet Security," ProPublica, September 5, 2013, https://www.propublica.org/article/the-nsas-secret-campaign-to-crack-undermine-internet-encryption
|
||||
[^9]: Defence Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, minutes of a meeting held at the Ministry of Defence on November 7, 2013, https://www.dsma.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/131107-DPBAC-Meeting-Minutes-Acc2v2.pdf
|
||||
[^10]: Defence Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, minutes of May 8, 2014 (paras. 2 and 8), https://www.dsma.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/140508-DPBAC-Meeting-Minutes-Acc2.pdf ; DSMA Committee minutes of November 8, 2018 (paras. 2 and 22), https://www.dsma.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/181108-DSMA-Committee-Meeting-Minutes-Acc2.pdf ; minutes of November 8, 2011, para. 2, https://www.dsma.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/111108-DPBAC-Meeting-Minutes-Acc2.pdf
|
||||
[^11]: DPBAC and DSMA Committee minutes of November 6, 2014 (141106), May 13, 2015 (150513), November 5, 2015 (Minutes-5-Nov-15-Final-Acc2), May 19, 2016 (160519), November 3, 2016 (DSMA-Committee-Autumn-Meeting-Minutes-3-Nov-16_Acc2), November 9, 2017 (171109), May 17, 2018 (180517_Minutes_DSMAC-Acc2) and November 8, 2018 (181108-DSMA-Committee-Meeting-Minutes-Acc2, paras. 2 and 22), all under https://www.dsma.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/
|
||||
[^12]: DSMA minutes of May 8, 2008 through May 9, 2012 and May 7, 2013 (080507 through 130507, eleven sets) at https://www.dsma.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ searched for "Guardian"; The DSMA Notice System, "The Committee," https://www.dsma.uk/the-committee/ (viewed October 1, 2026).
|
||||
[^13]: Ewen MacAskill and Paul Johnson, "MI5 head: 'increasingly aggressive' Russia a growing threat to UK," *The Guardian*, October 31, 2016 (updated November 1, 2016), https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/31/andrew-parker-increasingly-aggressive-russia-a-growing-threat-to-uk-says-mi5-head ; DSMA Committee minutes of November 3, 2016, paras. 1-2.
|
||||
[^14]: "WikiLeaks blames Guardian newspaper for leaks," Al Jazeera, September 1, 2011, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2011/9/1/wikileaks-blames-guardian-newspaper-for-leaks
|
||||
[^15]: Luke Harding and Dan Collyns, "Manafort held secret talks with Assange in Ecuadorian embassy, sources say," *The Guardian*, November 27, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy
|
||||
[^16]: Oleg Gordievsky, "The Guardian's KGB tactics," *The Spectator*, January 14, 1995, https://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/14th-january-1995/16/the-guardians-kgb-tactics
|
||||
[^17]: *The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement Report*, part 2, Wilberforce Institute, University of Hull, introduction and key findings, https://www.hull.ac.uk/asset-library/docs/part-2-the-scott-trust-legacies-of-enslavement-report.pdf
|
||||
[^18]: University of Hull, "The Scott Trust Legacies of Enslavement Report," project page, https://www.hull.ac.uk/research/projects/the-scott-trust-legacies-of-enslavement-report
|
||||
[^19]: Guardian.org Foundation, Form 990 and Schedule I, tax years 2016 through 2024, ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/812404459 (object IDs 201820439349300787, 201832409349300813, 201922779349300312, 202003249349300715, 202132149349300718, 202202229349300105, 202312159349300816, 202403199349304780 and 202610159349301121).
|
||||
[^20]: Tim Schwab, "Journalism's Gates keepers," *Columbia Journalism Review*, August 21, 2020, https://www.cjr.org/criticism/gates-foundation-journalism-funding.php
|
||||
303
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Thiel Foundation.md
Normal file
303
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Thiel Foundation.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,303 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- ThielFoundation
|
||||
- PeterThiel
|
||||
- PrivateFoundation
|
||||
- Section501c3
|
||||
- ThielFellowship
|
||||
- BreakoutLabs
|
||||
- Imitatio
|
||||
- LifeExtension
|
||||
- Seasteading
|
||||
- DonorAdvisedFund
|
||||
- Bilderberg
|
||||
- Palantir
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Thiel Foundation
|
||||
- The Thiel Foundation
|
||||
- Shire Philanthropic Foundation
|
||||
summary: "Peter Thiel's private foundation, named Shire Philanthropic Foundation on its 2008 return, which funded life-extension, artificial intelligence, seasteading and mimetic-theory groups, an institute at Palantir's address, and DonorsTrust."
|
||||
start: 2005-11-22
|
||||
location: "San Francisco, California (2005 to 2017); West Hollywood, California (2018 to 2022); Los Angeles, California (2023 to 2024)"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Peter Thiel]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2005
|
||||
end: 2023
|
||||
role: "substantial contributor on every Schedule B opened, 2005 to 2023"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Peter Thiel]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the returns for 2005 to 2009; chairman of the board in the returns for 2010 to 2024"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Robertson Morrow]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director and president in the returns for 2005 to 2007"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jason Portnoy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director, secretary and treasurer in the returns for 2005 to 2007"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jonathan Cain]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president in the returns for 2008 to 2014"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Hamerton-Kelly]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chairman in the return for 2009; Imitatio chair of the board in the return for 2010"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Ajay Royan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the returns for 2011 to 2023"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Sonia Arrison]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the returns for 2015 to 2023"
|
||||
fn: 18
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Mathew Alexander]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "treasurer and secretary in the returns for 2013 to 2023; director in the return for 2024"
|
||||
fn: 16
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jason Camm]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "director in the returns for 2019 to 2024"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Blake Masters]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president in the returns for 2019 and 2020; director in the returns for 2022 to 2024"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Brian Rowen]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president in the returns for 2021 and 2022"
|
||||
fn: 21
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[David Wheelock]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president in the returns for 2023 and 2024"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Institute for Security and Analysis]]"
|
||||
start: 2008-05-15
|
||||
end: 2008-05-15
|
||||
role: "1,000,000 dollars under expenditure responsibility"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]]"
|
||||
start: 2006
|
||||
end: 2015
|
||||
role: "grants to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence and its successor, 125,000 to 275,000 dollars a year"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Methuselah Foundation]]"
|
||||
start: 2007
|
||||
end: 2014
|
||||
role: "370,124 dollars in 2007; 1,221,122.75 dollars in 2008"
|
||||
fn: 4
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[SENS Research Foundation]]"
|
||||
start: 2010
|
||||
end: 2016
|
||||
role: "1,402,068 dollars in 2010; 1,250,000 dollars in 2016"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Seasteading Institute]]"
|
||||
start: 2010
|
||||
end: 2014
|
||||
role: "375,000 dollars in 2010; 675,554 dollars in 2012, marked mutual board"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[American Friends of Bilderberg]]"
|
||||
start: 2013
|
||||
end: 2015
|
||||
role: "25,000 dollars a year"
|
||||
fn: 16
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Federalist Society]]"
|
||||
start: 2008
|
||||
end: 2008
|
||||
role: "250,000 dollars"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Hoover Institution]]"
|
||||
start: 2008
|
||||
end: 2012
|
||||
role: "general support and Voegelin Visiting Scholars Fund"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Claremont McKenna College]]"
|
||||
start: 2008
|
||||
end: 2013
|
||||
role: "Leo Strauss Project and Salvatori Center"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[American Foundation for Equal Rights]]"
|
||||
start: 2010
|
||||
end: 2010
|
||||
role: "100,000 dollars general support"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Human Rights Foundation]]"
|
||||
start: 2010
|
||||
end: 2014
|
||||
role: "175,000 dollars in 2010; 500,000 dollars in 2012"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Committee to Protect Journalists]]"
|
||||
start: 2008
|
||||
end: 2013
|
||||
role: "250,000 dollars a year 2008 to 2011"
|
||||
fn: 5
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Mercatus Center]]"
|
||||
start: 2017
|
||||
end: 2021
|
||||
role: "35,000 dollars in 2017; 250,000 dollars in 2019 and 2021"
|
||||
fn: 20
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[DonorsTrust]]"
|
||||
start: 2020
|
||||
end: 2024
|
||||
role: "11,712,001 dollars labelled donor advised fund and general foundation grant"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[New Venture Fund]]"
|
||||
start: 2021
|
||||
end: 2021
|
||||
role: "3,000,000 dollars"
|
||||
fn: 21
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Thiel Foundation (employer identification number 20-3846597) is a private foundation exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, with an [[Internal Revenue Service]] ruling date of May 2006. Its first Form 990-PF covers November 22 to December 31, 2005, and reports California as the state in which it is registered. [[Peter Thiel]] is the substantial contributor named on every Schedule B or contributor statement opened for the years 2005 through 2023, and he appears as a director or as chairman of the board in every return from the first to the most recent. The Internal Revenue Service's current record for the foundation gives an address at 215 NW 24th Street, Suite 801, [[Miami]], [[Florida]].[^1][^2] The returns record grants under four program labels (general foundation grants, Imitatio, Breakout Labs, and a fellowship program that the returns call "20under20" through 2016 and the [[Thiel Fellowship]] from 2017), followed in the 2020s by grants to [[DonorsTrust]] labelled "donor advised fund" and a single grant to the [[New Venture Fund]].
|
||||
|
||||
### Incorporation, Early Officers and Addresses
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2005 reports contributions of 25,000 dollars and assets of 25,000 dollars at 555 California Street, Suite 4360, [[San Francisco]]. It lists three uncompensated directors: Peter Thiel (two hours a week), [[Robertson Morrow]] (director and president) and [[Jason Portnoy]] (director, secretary and treasurer), and names Portnoy as the person holding the books. Thiel is listed as the only substantial contributor.[^2] The return for 2006 gives an address of One Letterman Drive, Building C, Suite 400, San Francisco, the same three officers, and a contribution of 317,000 dollars from Thiel.[^3] The return for 2007 lists the same officers and two contributions from Thiel of 2,080,839 dollars and 685,687 dollars, together 2,766,526 dollars, and reports the sale on November 9, 2007 of [[eBay]] stock for a gross price of 688,698 dollars.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
In the returns for 2008 and 2009 the Schedule B address for Thiel is One Letterman Drive, Building C, Suite 420.[^5][^6] The same suite is the address given in May 2009 by Founders Fund SpaceX Fund, LP, a vehicle of [[Founders Fund]],, whose Form D lists [[Luke Nosek]], Thiel, [[Ken Howery]] and [[Sean Parker]] as its directors.[^7] The foundation remained at Suite 400 of the same building until the return for 2018, which gives 9200 West Sunset Boulevard, Suite 1110, West Hollywood. The Schedule B entries for Thiel in the returns for 2018 to 2020 give his address as Suite 320 of the same West Hollywood building. The returns for 2023 and 2024 give 2121 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 3300, [[Los Angeles]].[^8][^9][^10][^11][^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Shire Philanthropic Foundation Name
|
||||
|
||||
The first page of the return for 2008 gives the organization's name as Shire Philanthropic Foundation under employer identification number 20-3846597. The statements attached to that return (the expenditure responsibility statement, the list of officers and the schedule of grants paid) and its Schedule B carry the same name. The Form 8868 extension request filed with the return for 2009 is also in the name of Shire Philanthropic Foundation and names [[Amber Fowler]] as the person holding the books. The returns for 2005 to 2007 and from 2009 onward are filed as The Thiel Foundation. A search of the ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer index for the Shire name returns no separate organization.[^1][^5][^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### Officers and Directors
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2008 lists [[Jonathan Cain]] as president, Amber Fowler as vice-president, [[Lindy Fishburne]] as a director working 40 hours a week for 114,404 dollars plus 10,377 dollars in benefits, and Peter Thiel as a director.[^5] The return for 2009 lists Cain as president, Fowler as secretary, Lynn Fishburne as executive director (198,333 dollars plus 34,399 dollars in benefits), [[Robert Hamerton-Kelly]] as chairman (104,999 dollars), [[James O'Neill]] as treasurer and Thiel as a director.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The amended return for 2010 lists Thiel as chairman of the board, Cain as president, Fowler as secretary until November 18, 2010, [[Nate Linn]] as treasurer and secretary from November 19, 2010, and James O'Neill as "acting CEO/foundation director", paid 143,304 dollars for 20 hours a week. Its list of highest-paid employees names Lynn Fishburne as executive director (150,000 dollars) and Hamerton-Kelly as "Imitatio chair of the board" (118,137 dollars).[^13] The returns for 2011 and 2012 list Cain (president), O'Neill (director and acting chief executive, paid 50,000 dollars in 2011), Linn, Thiel (chairman), Fishburne (executive director) and, for the first time, [[Ajay Royan]] as a director.[^14][^15]
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2013 lists Thiel as chairman, Cain as president, [[Mathew Alexander]] as treasurer and secretary, and Royan and O'Neill as directors. Lindy Fishburne appears among the employees as senior vice president (340,000 dollars) and [[Hemai Parthasarathy]] as scientific director (138,125 dollars).[^16] The return for 2014 adds [[Alana Ackerson]] as chief executive officer (41,667 dollars); the return for 2015 lists Ackerson as executive director (310,753 dollars), drops Cain and O'Neill, and adds [[Sonia Arrison]] as a director.[^17][^18] The returns for 2016 to 2018 list Thiel, Alexander, Royan and Arrison.[^8][^19][^20]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Jason Camm]] appears as a director and [[Blake Masters]] as president (two hours a week) in the returns for 2019 and 2020.[^9][^10] The original and amended returns for 2021 list [[Brian Rowen]] as president with Thiel, Alexander, Royan, Arrison and Camm; the return for 2022 lists Rowen as president and Masters as a director.[^21][^22][^23] The return for 2023 lists [[David Wheelock]] as president with Thiel, Masters, Camm, Arrison, Royan and Alexander. The return for 2024 lists Thiel as chairman, Wheelock as president, and Masters, Camm and Alexander as directors, and no longer lists Arrison or Royan.[^11][^12] No return opened lists a president for 2018, and none lists Masters as president for 2021 or 2022.
|
||||
|
||||
### Funding by Peter Thiel
|
||||
|
||||
Schedule B lists Thiel as the contributor of 317,000 dollars (2006), 2,766,526 dollars (2007), 3,650,000 dollars (2008), 20,362 dollars (2009), 1,910,000 dollars (2010), 2,050,000 dollars (2011) and 35,106,000 dollars (2012).[^3][^4][^5][^6][^13][^14][^15] The return for 2013 lists 15,533,443 dollars from Thiel and corporate stock valued at 15,536,432 dollars at the end of the year.[^16] The return for 2014 lists 448,417 dollars from Thiel and 8,700 dollars from the Fox River Foundation of Naperville, [[Illinois]], the only other contributor named in any Schedule B opened.[^17] Later Schedule B entries for Thiel are 402,186 dollars (2015), 4,990,625 dollars (2016), 11,982,078 dollars (2017), 2,500,000 dollars (2018), 5,500,000 dollars (2019), 1,090,919 dollars (2020), 2,210,376 dollars and 3,000,000 dollars (2022) and 4,000,000 dollars (2023).[^8][^9][^10][^11][^18][^19][^20][^23] The return for 2021 reports no contributions, and the return for 2024 reports contributions of zero. The fair market value of the foundation's assets was 31,140,630 dollars at the end of 2013, 44,447,969 dollars at the end of 2023 and 45,244,823 dollars at the end of 2024.[^12][^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Grants, 2006 to 2009
|
||||
|
||||
The grants paid in 2006 totalled 275,000 dollars: 50,000 dollars to Africa Fighting Malaria, 75,000 dollars to the Institute on Religion and Public Life of New York for a special project, 25,000 dollars to [[Yale University]] and 125,000 dollars to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence of [[Palo Alto]], also for a special project.[^3] In 2007 the foundation paid 645,124 dollars: 370,124 dollars to the [[Methuselah Foundation]] (a non-matching grant of 167,000 dollars and quarterly matching grants of 203,124 dollars) and 275,000 dollars to the Singularity Institute (25,000 dollars for sponsorship of an artificial intelligence summit and 250,000 dollars in unrestricted grants). The return lists a further 852,907 dollars approved for payment to Methuselah as the remainder of the 2007 matching grants.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2008 lists 3,036,122.75 dollars in grants. The Methuselah Foundation, at 8021 Flint Street, Springfield, [[Virginia]], received 852,906.94 dollars (the remainder of 2007 matching), 166,790.62 dollars (first and second quarter 2008 matching), 167,000 dollars (a non-challenge donation) and 34,425.19 dollars (third quarter matching). The [[Federalist Society]] received 250,000 dollars and the [[Committee to Protect Journalists]] 250,000 dollars. [[Claremont McKenna College]] received 125,000 dollars as "Support for Leo Strauss Project", and the [[Hoover Institution]] 100,000 dollars in general support and 20,000 dollars for its Voegelin Visiting Scholars Fund. The [[Philanthropy Roundtable]] received 10,000 dollars, Leadership Public Schools 5,000 dollars, and the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund (in care of Joan Roth and Associates, Larkspur, California) 5,000 dollars. A grant of 50,000 dollars went to "WCNC Neurological Surgery" at 525 East 68th Street, [[New York City|New York]], for a memorial lectureship whose purpose line also names Eric Braverman.[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2009 lists 979,906 dollars in grants: 250,000 dollars to the Singularity Institute (described as the "2008 Segment of PT Grant Obligation"), 250,000 dollars to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 175,000 dollars to the UCSF Foundation for "Support of FOXO3A Small Molecules", 80,000 dollars to the Cornerstone Forum, 41,179 dollars to Preaching Peace, 34,954 dollars to Methuselah, 48,150 and 17,858 dollars to Carnet Nord of Paris, 26,316 dollars to The King's College, 20,449 dollars to the Association Recherches Mimétiques of Montreuil, 22,000 dollars to the Travis Research Institute of [[Fuller Theological Seminary]], 5,000 dollars to the Colloquium on Violence and Religion and 9,000 dollars to the [[University of Cambridge]] for a Darwin conference.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Institute for Security and Analysis Grant
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2008 records a grant of 1,000,000 dollars, dated May 15, 2008, to the "Institute of Security and Analysis", 100 Hamilton Avenue, Suite 300, Palo Alto, California. It is the only grant in the return reported on an expenditure responsibility statement. The statement gives the purpose as "educate on the role of technology in security and analysis", the amount expended as 1,000,000 dollars, no diversion of funds, a report and verification date of December 31, 2008, and the result "grant was fully expended by grantee for intended purpose".[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Palantir Technologies]] filed a Form D with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] on April 14, 2009, giving its address as 100 Hamilton Avenue, Suite 300, Palo Alto. The filing names [[Alex Karp|Alexander Karp]] (executive officer and director), Peter Thiel (director), [[Joe Lonsdale]] (executive officer and director), [[Stephen Cohen]] and [[Nathan Gettings]] (directors) as related persons, and reports 8,291,250 dollars sold to seven investors of a 20,000,000 dollar offering, with a first sale on March 25, 2009.[^24]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Institute for Security and Analysis|Institute For Security And Analysis]] (employer identification number 26-2379447, Palo Alto, Internal Revenue Service ruling date December 2009) filed Forms 990 as a public charity for 2008 to 2012 and Forms 990-PF as a private foundation from 2013. Its returns for 2013 and 2015 list Stephen Cohen as president and director, Joe Lonsdale as secretary, treasurer and director, and Ajay Royan as director, all at 100 Hamilton Avenue, Suite 300, Palo Alto, and report no grants paid. Its returns for 2022 and 2024 list the same three officers at 314 Lytton Avenue, Palo Alto, and report grants of 15,000 dollars and 13,000 dollars to Code for America Labs. Its reported total assets were 621,931 dollars at the end of 2011, 616,597 dollars at the end of 2013 and 323,570 dollars at the end of 2023.[^25] Royan was a director of the Thiel Foundation in 2013, 2015 and 2022. The Thiel Foundation's returns for 2014 and 2015 list an independent contractor named JDB, paid 191,682 dollars and 100,146 dollars for "General Consulting", at 314 Lytton Avenue, Palo Alto.[^17][^18] In September 2021 Royan was named as the person to receive notices for Mithril II LP, care of Mithril Capital Management of [[Austin, Texas|Austin]], in its Schedule 13D on [[BlackSky Technology]], a satellite imagery company of Herndon, Virginia.[^26]
|
||||
|
||||
### Life Extension, Artificial Intelligence and Seasteading Grantees
|
||||
|
||||
The returns for 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014 and 2015 list grants to the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, renamed the [[Machine Intelligence Research Institute]] by the return for 2014: 125,000 dollars (2006), 275,000 dollars (2007), 250,000 dollars (2009), 250,000 dollars (2010), 250,000 dollars (2012), 250,000 dollars (2014) and 250,000 dollars (2015). The return for 2011 lists a 4,000 dollar "grant match for 2010", and the return for 2010 lists 50,000 dollars to [[Singularity University]] at the [[NASA]] Ames Research Park.[^3][^4][^6][^13][^14][^15][^17][^18]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Seasteading Institute]] received 250,000 dollars and 125,000 dollars in 2010, 500,000 dollars plus a 114,866 dollar "grant match for 2010" in 2011, 675,554 dollars in 2012, 314,521 dollars in 2013 and 216,983 dollars in 2014.[^13][^14][^15][^16][^17] The relationship column of the return for 2012 reads "MUTUAL BOARD" against both the Seasteading Institute and the SENS Foundation.[^15] The Seasteading Institute's own Form 990 for 2013 lists [[Patri Friedman]] as board chair and Jonathan Cain as a board member.[^27]
|
||||
|
||||
The SENS Foundation, later the [[SENS Research Foundation]], received four grants in 2010 (413,000 dollars, 412,000 dollars, 202,068 dollars and 375,000 dollars), 340,000 dollars, 200,000 dollars and 50,000 dollars in 2011 with a 3,000 dollar match, 760,000 dollars in 2012, 450,000 dollars in 2013, 600,000 dollars in 2014, 450,000 dollars in 2015 and 1,250,000 dollars in 2016.[^13][^14][^15][^16][^17][^18][^19] The relationship column of the return for 2013 reads "Jonathan Cain on board", and that of the return for 2014 "Jonathan Cain, executive Director on Board of Directors of SENS Foundat[ion]"; Cain was the Thiel Foundation's president in both years.[^16][^17]
|
||||
|
||||
The Methuselah Foundation received 350,000 dollars in 2010 for research support and 100,000 dollars in 2014. The UCSF Foundation received 175,000 dollars a year from 2009 to 2013, described in 2010 as "Cynthia Kenyon support of FOXO3A small molecules project", and the return for 2010 lists 525,000 dollars approved for future payment to it. [[Leverage Research]] received 200,000 dollars in 2013 and 400,000 dollars in 2014, and the [[Foresight Institute]] 100,000 dollars in each of 2012 and 2013.[^13][^15][^16][^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### Think Tanks, Press Freedom and Political Philosophy Grantees
|
||||
|
||||
The Committee to Protect Journalists received 250,000 dollars in each of 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 and 75,000 dollars in 2013. The [[Human Rights Foundation]] of New York received 175,000 dollars in 2010, 250,000 dollars in 2011 with Oslo given in the purpose line, 500,000 dollars in 2012 and 200,000 dollars in 2014.[^5][^6][^13][^14][^15][^16][^17] The [[American Foundation for Equal Rights]] of Los Angeles received 100,000 dollars in general support in 2010.[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Ayn Rand Institute]] received 100,000 dollars in each of 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2015, and the return for 2011 shows a further 400,000 dollars approved for future payment. The [[Hudson Institute]] received 100,000 dollars in 2011 and 2014; the [[Acton Institute]] 50,000 dollars in 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017; the Hoover Institution 100,000 dollars in 2011 (paid to [[Stanford University]] as a "TF grant") and 100,000 dollars in 2012; Students for Liberty 100,000 dollars in 2012; the Independent Institute 50,000 dollars in 2010; and the [[Mercatus Center]] 35,000 dollars for an academic seminar in 2017, 250,000 dollars in 2019 and 250,000 dollars in 2021.[^9][^13][^14][^15][^16][^17][^18][^20][^21] Stanford also received 35,000 dollars in 2010 for "research support on empathy in neuroscience" and 110,000 dollars in 2011 "in support of the Stanford Law Center".[^13][^14]
|
||||
|
||||
Claremont McKenna College received 125,000 dollars in 2008 for the Leo Strauss Project, 125,000 dollars in 2010, 125,000 dollars in 2011 for its "Leo Strauss Center", 200,000 dollars in 2012 and 200,000 dollars in 2013 for its Salvatori Center. The [[University of Chicago]] received 50,000 dollars in 2010 and 50,000 dollars in 2011, the latter "in support of the Leo Strauss Center", and the returns for those years show 150,000 dollars and 100,000 dollars approved for future payment to it for the Leo Strauss Center. The Leo Strauss Foundation received 100,000 dollars in 2022 (Upland, California) and 100,000 dollars in 2023 (Chicago).[^5][^11][^13][^14][^15][^16][^23]
|
||||
|
||||
### American Friends of Bilderberg
|
||||
|
||||
The returns for 2013, 2014 and 2015 each list 25,000 dollars to [[American Friends of Bilderberg]], [[Washington, D.C.]] (spelled "Ameican Friends of Bildeberg" in the return for 2014).[^16][^17][^18] The Forms 990-PF of American Friends of Bilderberg (employer identification number 51-0163715, 607 14th Street NW, Washington) for the same three years list Peter Thiel as one of its directors, with [[Marie-Josée Kravis]] as president, [[James A. Johnson]] as treasurer, [[Jessica Tuchman Mathews|Jessica T. Mathews]] as secretary, and [[Henry Kissinger]], [[Craig Mundie]], [[Richard Perle]], [[Roger Altman]] and [[Klaus Kleinfeld]] as directors. They describe its activity as follows: "The entity organizes and sponsors conferences which study & discuss significant problems of the Western Alliance. It also collaborates on the Bilderberg Meetings held in Europe & North America." It reported contributions of 241,000 dollars for 2014 and 159,000 dollars for 2015.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2013 also lists 100,000 dollars each to the United States New Zealand Council, the Randolph Bourne Institute and Peers Benefit Corporation.[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Imitatio
|
||||
|
||||
The Imitatio label first appears in the returns for 2010 and 2011, alongside the payment to Hamerton-Kelly as "Imitatio chair of the board" and grants to the Association Recherches Mimétiques, the Cornerstone Forum, Preaching Peace, the Raven Foundation, Theology and Peace and individual scholars. The return for 2010 reports expenditure responsibility statements for 46,000 dollars to the Association Recherches Mimétiques for "support of education & publication efforts" and 40,000 dollars to the Raven Foundation of Glenview, Illinois, and the return for 2011 lists a 50,000 dollar Imitatio publishing grant to the foreign publisher É Realizações Editora.[^13][^14] Imitatio-labelled grants were 672,000 dollars in 2013, 728,983 dollars in 2014, 613,325 dollars in 2015, 609,000 dollars in 2016 and 548,395 dollars in 2017.[^16][^17][^18][^19][^20]
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2014 lists 152,983 dollars to the Association Recherches Mimétiques of Montreuil, [[France]], and individual Imitatio grants of 95,000 dollars to James Alison, 80,000 dollars to Benoît Chantre, 55,000 dollars to Mark Anspach of Bologna, 40,000 dollars to Jean-Pierre Dupuy of Paris and 40,000 dollars to William Johnsen of East Grand Rapids, [[Michigan]]; the return for 2013 also lists Alison as a consultant paid 98,035 dollars.[^16][^17] The returns for 2020 to 2024 list yearly payments of 80,000 dollars to the Association Recherches Mimétiques, 80,000 dollars to Chantre and 65,000 dollars to Anspach, 95,000 dollars to Alison in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2024, and 65,000 dollars to the Cornerstone Forum in each of 2019 to 2023. Glass Darkly Films received 60,000 dollars in 2021 and Imitatio grants of 45,000 dollars (2022), 80,000 dollars (2023) and 53,313 dollars (2024), the last two reported on expenditure responsibility statements.[^9][^10][^11][^12][^21][^23]
|
||||
|
||||
### Thiel Fellowship and Breakout Labs
|
||||
|
||||
Fellowship grants are labelled "20under20 fellowship" in the returns for 2012 to 2016, "Thiel Fellowship Grant" in the returns for 2017 and 2018, and "fellowship" in later returns. Fellowship totals were 2,093,046 dollars in 2013, 2,025,438 dollars in 2014, 2,369,206 dollars in 2015, 2,637,858 dollars in 2016, 2,224,071 dollars in 2017, 2,054,946 dollars in 2018, 1,650,000 dollars in 2021, 2,193,650 dollars in 2022 and 2,187,500 dollars in 2023. The returns for 2013 to 2016 list [[Dylan Field]], [[Delian Asparouhov]] and [[Vitalik Buterin]] among the 20under20 grantees.[^8][^11][^16][^17][^18][^19][^20][^21][^23] The amended return for 2021 reports fellowship grants of 100,000 dollars each on expenditure responsibility statements, and its schedule of other income includes 1,360,000 dollars labelled "grant conversion".[^22] The return for 2012 lists a grant of 200,000 dollars to David Allen Dalrymple under the general program.[^15] The returns for 2012 to 2014 list [[Danielle Strachman]] as a contractor for management of the 20under20 program, paid 275,163 dollars (2012), 250,845 dollars (2013) and 174,363 dollars (2014).[^15][^16][^17]
|
||||
|
||||
Breakout Labs grants first appear in the return for 2011 (Arigos Biomedical, 50,000 dollars). The return for 2012 lists 3Scan (340,000 dollars), Arigos Biomedical (300,000 dollars), Avetech Energy (300,000 dollars), General Genomics (350,000 dollars), Immusoft (398,607 dollars), Siva Therapeutics (350,025 dollars) and Longevity Biotech (346,726 dollars).[^14][^15] Breakout Labs totals were 1,113,513 dollars in 2013, 1,616,000 dollars in 2014 (including 350,000 dollars to Cortexyme), 1,970,000 dollars in 2015, 1,315,000 dollars in 2016, 3,775,000 dollars in 2017 and 1,775,000 dollars in 2018, and the return for 2019 lists six grants of 500,000 dollars each.[^8][^9][^16][^17][^18][^19][^20] The amended return for 2021 lists a holding in Cortexyme valued at 193,149 dollars and investments in unconsolidated entities valued at 18,477,914 dollars.[^22]
|
||||
|
||||
### Donor-Advised Fund and Other 2020s Grants
|
||||
|
||||
Entries for the San Francisco Foundation and the San Francisco Community Foundation appear in the returns for 2014 (697,400 dollars), 2016 (501,500 dollars, labelled "Ainur Fund Grant"), 2017 (790,000 dollars, Ainur Fund), 2018 (240,000 dollars, Ainur Fund), 2019 (400,000 dollars to the "SF Community Foundation Ainur Fund") and 2020 (325,000 dollars).[^8][^9][^10][^17][^19][^20]
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2020 lists two grants to Donors Trust Inc., given an address at 4 Whitney Court, Menlo Park, California, and labelled "donor advised fund": 4,345,224 dollars and 43,891 dollars.[^10] The return for 2021 lists 4,250,000 dollars to DonorsTrust with the same label, 3,000,000 dollars to the New Venture Fund of Washington, D.C., labelled "grants", and 250,000 dollars to the Mercatus Center. The return for 2022 lists 1,370,000 dollars to DonorsTrust, and the returns for 2023 and 2024 list 1,276,111 dollars and 426,775 dollars to DonorsTrust of Alexandria, Virginia, labelled "general foundation grant". The DonorsTrust entries for 2020 to 2024 total 11,712,001 dollars.[^10][^11][^12][^21][^23]
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2021 exists in an original version submitted November 15, 2022 and an amended version submitted November 21, 2023. Both report grants paid of 12,150,000 dollars on the books and 9,803,000 dollars in charitable disbursements. The amended version reports total revenue of 5,783,988 dollars against 8,783,988 dollars in the original, a difference of 3,000,000 dollars in other income. Its general explanation attachment states that other income and investments "have been updated to properly reflect a return of capital transaction that was previously reported as investment income."[^21][^22]
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2022 lists "general foundation grants" of 100,000, 120,000 and 125,000 dollars to three individuals, and the return for 2023 repeats the 120,000 dollar grant to one of them.[^11][^23] The Newbigin House of Studies in San Francisco received 500,000 dollars in 2014 and 350,000 dollars in 2015. Helen Whitney Productions received 350,000 dollars in each of 2014 and 2015, 700,000 dollars in 2016 and 100,000 dollars in 2017, the last described as support for a documentary film. The return for 2012 lists 145,000 dollars to [[Pennsylvania State University]].[^15][^17][^18][^19][^20] The return for 2014 lists Torch Communications, a media consultant, as its highest-paid contractor at 381,330 dollars.[^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "The Thiel Foundation," organization record for EIN 20-3846597 (ruling date May 2006; 501(c)(3) private foundation; IRS address 215 NW 24th Street, Suite 801, Miami, Florida), and name search for "Shire Philanthropic" (no result), accessed October 1, 2026. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/203846597.json
|
||||
[^2]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for the period November 22, 2005 to December 31, 2005 (Part I line 1; Part VII-A line 8a; Part VIII; Statement 1, list of substantial contributors). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/203/203846597/203846597_200512_990PF.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2006 (Part I; Part VIII; Statement A, grants paid; Schedule B Part I). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/203/203846597/203846597_200612_990PF.pdf
|
||||
[^4]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2007 (Part I line 1; Part IV; Part VIII statement; Part XV, grants paid and contributions approved for future payment; Schedule B Part I). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/203/203846597/203846597_200712_990PF.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: Shire Philanthropic Foundation (name on the face of the return), EIN 20-3846597, Form 990-PF for 2008 (page 1; Schedule B Part I; Statement 8, expenditure responsibility, Institute of Security and Analysis, grant date 05/15/2008; Statement 9, officers; Statement 11, grants paid). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/203/203846597/203846597_200812_990PF.pdf
|
||||
[^6]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2009 (Part VIII, Attachment 10; Part XV, Attachment 13, grants paid; Schedule B; Form 8868 in the name of Shire Philanthropic Foundation). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/203/203846597/203846597_200912_990PF.pdf
|
||||
[^7]: Founders Fund SpaceX Fund, LP, Form D filed May 15, 2009, SEC accession 0001464202-09-000001 (issuer address; related persons). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1464202/000146420209000001/primary_doc.xml
|
||||
[^8]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2018, ProPublica object ID 201933199349102743 (page 1 address; Parts VIII and XV; Schedule B). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201933199349102743/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^9]: Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2019, ProPublica object ID 202043219349107309 (Parts VIII and XV; Schedule B). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202043219349107309/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^10]: Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2020, submitted November 15, 2021, ProPublica object ID 202123199349109047 (Parts VIII and XV; Schedule B). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202123199349109047/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^11]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2023, submitted 2024, ProPublica object ID 202403209349108200 (Parts VII and XV; Schedule B; Expenditure Responsibility Statement). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202403209349108200/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^12]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2024, ProPublica object ID 202533219349106118 (Parts I, II, VII and XV; Expenditure Responsibility Statement). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202533219349106118/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^13]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2010, marked "as amended" (Part VIII and Statement 13, officers; Statement 14, expenditure responsibility; Statement 15, grants paid, total 3,857,826 dollars; Statement 16, approved for future payment; Schedule B). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/203/203846597/203846597_201012_990PF.pdf
|
||||
[^14]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2011 (Part I line 1; Part VIII line 1 statement; Part XV line 3 statement, total paid 4,207,390 dollars, and approved for future payment; Schedule B). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/203/203846597/203846597_201112_990PF.pdf
|
||||
[^15]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2012 (Part I line 1; Part VIII; Part XV line 3 statement, total paid 8,903,410 dollars; Schedule B). https://990s.foundationcenter.org/990pf_pdf_archive/203/203846597/203846597_201212_990PF.pdf
|
||||
[^16]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2013, submitted November 12, 2014, ProPublica object ID 201443169349101309 (Parts I, II, VIII and XV; Schedule B; corporate stock schedule). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201443169349101309/IRS990PF and https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201443169349101309/IRS990ScheduleB
|
||||
[^17]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2014, ProPublica object ID 201543099349100429 (Parts VIII and XV; Schedule B). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201543099349100429/IRS990PF and https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201543099349100429/IRS990ScheduleB
|
||||
[^18]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2015, ProPublica object ID 201632829349100203 (Parts VIII and XV; Schedule B). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201632829349100203/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^19]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2016, ProPublica object ID 201713179349101526 (Parts VIII and XV; Schedule B). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201713179349101526/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^20]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2017, ProPublica object ID 201813189349101446 (Parts VIII and XV; Schedule B). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201813189349101446/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^21]: Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2021, original version submitted November 15, 2022, ProPublica object ID 202213199349109531 (Parts I, VII and XV). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202213199349109531/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^22]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2021, amended version submitted November 21, 2023, ProPublica object ID 202343259349100109 (Part I; Part XV; General Explanation Attachment; Other Income Schedule; Investments schedules; Expenditure Responsibility Statement). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202343259349100109/IRS990PF and https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202343259349100109/GeneralExplanationAttachment
|
||||
[^23]: The Thiel Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2022, ProPublica object ID 202333209349101708 (Parts VII and XV; Schedule B). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202333209349101708/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^24]: Palantir Technologies Inc., Form D filed April 14, 2009 (signed April 13, 2009), SEC accession 0001321655-09-000003 (issuer address; related persons; offering and sales amounts). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1321655/000132165509000003/primary_doc.xml
|
||||
[^25]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, "Institute For Security And Analysis," EIN 26-2379447 (filing index: Form 990 for 2008 to 2012, Form 990-PF from 2013; summary assets), and Forms 990-PF for 2013 (object ID 201413219349101341), 2015 (201643209349102079), 2022 (202303189349106245) and 2024 (202523209349100227), Part VII and Part XV. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/262379447 ; https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201413219349101341/IRS990PF ; https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202303189349106245/IRS990PF ; https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/202523209349100227/IRS990PF
|
||||
[^26]: Mithril II LP, Schedule 13D on BlackSky Technology Inc., filed September 20, 2021 (event date September 9, 2021), SEC accession 0001193125-21-277424 (cover page). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1753539/000119312521277424/d234079dsc13d.htm
|
||||
[^27]: Seasteading Institute, EIN 26-2386590, Form 990 for 2013, submitted October 15, 2014, ProPublica object ID 201412889349300226 (Part VII, Section A). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201412889349300226/IRS990
|
||||
[^28]: American Friends of Bilderberg Inc., EIN 51-0163715, Forms 990-PF for 2013 (object ID 201431369349100608), 2014 (201501349349102800) and 2015 (201622229349100732), Part I line 1, Part VIII line 1 and Part IX-A. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201501349349102800/IRS990PF and https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/full_text/201622229349100732/IRS990PF
|
||||
221
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Trilateral Commission.md
Normal file
221
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Trilateral Commission.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,221 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- TrilateralCommission
|
||||
- ThinkTank
|
||||
- ForeignPolicy
|
||||
- RockefellerFamily
|
||||
- CarterAdministration
|
||||
- EstablishmentNetworks
|
||||
- CrisisOfDemocracy
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Trilateral Commission
|
||||
- The Trilateral Commission
|
||||
- Trilateral Commission North America
|
||||
- Trilateral Commission (North America)
|
||||
- The Trilateral Commission (North America)
|
||||
summary: "Body of North American, European and Japanese business, political and academic figures proposed by David Rockefeller in 1972, directed by Zbigniew Brzezinski from 1973 and publisher of the 1975 report The Crisis of Democracy."
|
||||
start: 1973
|
||||
location: "Washington, D.C."
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[David Rockefeller]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1972
|
||||
role: "organizing chairman; called for the commission in March 1972"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Zbigniew Brzezinski]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1973
|
||||
end: 1977
|
||||
role: "first full-time director"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Gerard C. Smith]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "North American chairman in December 1974 and in 1975"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[David Rockefeller]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "North American chairman in the rosters of 1980 and 1981"
|
||||
fn: 12
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[George S. Franklin]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1977
|
||||
role: "coordinator, chosen by the executive committee in 1977; North American secretary in 1975 and executive secretary in January 1977"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Meghan O'Sullivan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "chair in the return for the year to June 2023 and in the list of September 2024"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Richard Fontaine]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "executive director, 110,000 dollars reportable compensation in the return for the year to June 2023"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[David Rubenstein]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "North American trustee in the return for the year to June 2023"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: director_of
|
||||
with: "[[Henry A. Kissinger]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "North American trustee in the return for the year to June 2023; named with David Rockefeller as a founder in the list of September 2024"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Rockefeller Brothers Fund]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "180,000 dollars of the 1.67 million dollar North American budget for the three years to 1980"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Rockefeller Foundation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "100,000 dollars of the three-year North American budget to 1980"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[David Rockefeller]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1972
|
||||
role: "initial seed money, and 150,000 dollars of personal funds in the three-year North American budget to 1980"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Ford Foundation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1972
|
||||
role: "supplemented the initial seed money; listed among major financial supporters since 1973"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Kettering Foundation]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1972
|
||||
role: "supplemented the initial seed money"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Jimmy Carter]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 1977
|
||||
role: "member before his election as president; attended meetings according to Robert Scheer"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Walter Mondale]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "member, listed by the Los Angeles Times on January 24, 1977 among members in the new government"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Cyrus Vance]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "member, listed by the Los Angeles Times on January 24, 1977 among members in the new government"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Harold Brown]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "member, listed by the Los Angeles Times on January 24, 1977 among members in the new government"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[W. Michael Blumenthal]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "member, listed by the Los Angeles Times on January 24, 1977 among members in the new government"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[George H.W. Bush]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
end: 1978
|
||||
role: "member; resigned in 1978"
|
||||
fn: 11
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Trilateral Commission is a private organization of business, political, labor and academic figures from North America, Western Europe and Japan (later the Asia Pacific), with regional offices and a published series of task force reports.
|
||||
|
||||
### Formation
|
||||
|
||||
In March 1972, speaking before Chase Bank investment forums in Montreal, London, Brussels and Paris, [[David Rockefeller]] called for "an international commission for peace and prosperity composed of private citizens drawn from the [[NATO]] countries and Japan to examine such vital fields as international trade and investment; environmental problems; control of crime and drugs; population control; and assistance to developing nations." On a flight to the [[Bilderberg Group]] meeting in Belgium in April 1972 he spoke with [[Zbigniew Brzezinski]], then director of the Research Institute on Communist Affairs at [[Columbia University]], who had argued in Between Two Ages (1970) for a council linking the [[United States]], Western Europe and Japan. At the April 1972 Bilderberg meeting Rockefeller urged the Bilderberg Executive Committee to take a trilateral approach and to invite Japanese participation; the proposal was again rejected, and he pursued it in consultations with Brzezinski, [[George S. Franklin]] (his Harvard roommate and executive director of the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] from 1953 to 1971) and colleagues in Europe and Japan.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
A meeting at Pocantico Hills, New York, on July 23 and 24, 1972 was attended by C. Fred Bersten, [[Robert R. Bowie]], Brzezinski, [[McGeorge Bundy]], [[Karl Carstens]], Guido Colonna di Paliano, Francois Duchene, Rene Folk, Franklin, [[Max Kohnstamm]], Bayless Manning, [[Kiichi Miyazawa]], Kinhide Mushakoji, Saburo Okita, [[Henry Owen]], Rockefeller and Tadashi Yamamoto (names as spelled in the finding aid that records it), and the participants agreed to take steps to establish the Commission. In the fall of 1972 and early 1973 the regions designated their chairmen, Brzezinski was selected as director, and financial support was obtained from several sources, including the Kettering Foundation and the [[Ford Foundation]], to supplement the initial seed money provided by Rockefeller. The Commission was established for three years and has been renewed for successive three-year terms, the thirteenth ending in 2012. The finding aid's note on the Pocantico meeting cites a document titled The Trilateral Commission: A Proposal, dated March 15, 1973, in the records of the [[Rockefeller Brothers Fund]].[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
The first three international meetings, all of the executive committee, were held in Tokyo in October 1973, Brussels in June 1974 and [[Washington, D.C.]], in December 1974; the first plenary meeting was held in Tokyo and Kyoto in May 1975. In 1977 the Commission replaced its central director with a coordinator, George Franklin, chosen by the executive committee.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
A press guidance sheet in the Ron Nessen Papers at the [[Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library]], prepared for the executive committee's meeting with [[Gerald Ford]] on December 11, 1974, describes the Commission as "a private organization" created "in the spring of 1972 on the basis of a proposal by David Rockefeller to 'bring the best brains in the world to bear on the problems of the future.'" It gives the purposes as enhancing cooperation among the three regions, analyzing major issues and developing practicable proposals; the membership as "about 180"; the regional chairmen as [[Gerard C. Smith]] (North America), [[Takeshi Watanabe]] (Japan) and Kohnstamm (Western Europe); and the director as Brzezinski of Columbia. Task force reports to that date covered political cooperation, monetary reform, aid cooperation between industrialized and OPEC countries, energy and multilateral trade negotiations.[^2]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Robert Scheer]] of the [[Los Angeles Times]] wrote on January 24, 1977 that the Commission was "created by David Rockefeller in 1972 as an attempt to work out a common negotiating position among Western Europe, Japan and the United States vis-a-vis the rest of the world," and that "At first Rockefeller didn't get much of a response." Scheer quoted the Commission's executive secretary, Franklin, as saying that the plan came together when Rockefeller put it to the Bilderberg meeting, where [[W. Michael Blumenthal]] had said that "some kind of private group" might "do more about it." Scheer wrote that Rockefeller "provided the initial funding for the commission and Brzezinski was on the payroll as director." Brzezinski told Scheer: "Henry Kissinger worked closely but also for [[Nelson Rockefeller]]. I worked closely but with David Rockefeller. I didn't work for David Rockefeller. I consider him to be a very close friend ... but he is not my employer, nor was he ever my employer." Scheer wrote that Brzezinski had been director for three years and had first met [[Jimmy Carter]] there.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
The statement of purposes issued by the executive committee in October 1973, as quoted in a [[Library of Congress]] reference sheet, says that the Commission "will seek to promote among Japanese, West Europeans and North Americans the habit of working together on problems of mutual concern."[^4] The Commission's organization leaflet gives July 1973 as the date of its inauguration, and quotes [[Theo Sommer]] of Die Zeit on "a sort of European-Japanese-American Establishment."[^4] The 1975 report The Crisis of Democracy describes the body as formed in 1973 "by private citizens of Western Europe, Japan, and North America to foster closer cooperation among these three regions on common problems."[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
### Meeting with President Ford, December 1974
|
||||
|
||||
[[White House|The White House]] photograph log for December 11, 1974 records a meeting in the Cabinet Room between Ford and executive committee members of the Commission, with the names logged as Ford, Bonner, [[Harold Brown]], Pepin, Rockefeller, Roth, [[Elliot Richardson]], Gerald Smith, Brzezinski, Franklin, Haggerty, Reischauer, Scranton, Warnke, Woodcock, Wood, Bowie, Hockin, Coleman, Max Kohnstam, Umberto Columbo and Cesare Merlini, "et al."[^6] A [[Henry A. Kissinger]] chronology for December 1974 (HAK Chrons), as reproduced in the Central Intelligence Agency's reading room collection, lists a "Talker for Pres. from HAK" for the meeting with the executive committee members on Wednesday, December 11, in the Cabinet Room.[^7] The Commission's own records place its third international executive committee meeting in Washington in December 1974.[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### The Crisis of Democracy
|
||||
|
||||
The Commission's Task Force on the Governability of Democracies was set up in the spring of 1974 and reported in the spring of 1975. The report, by [[Michel Crozier]] (Western Europe), [[Samuel P. Huntington]] (United States) and [[Joji Watanuki]] (Japan), was discussed at the Commission's meeting in Kyoto on May 30 and 31, 1975 and published by [[New York University Press]] under copyright of the Trilateral Commission as The Crisis of Democracy. Brzezinski's introductory note, as director, lists four joint meetings: Palo Alto on April 20 and 21, 1974, where the rapporteurs and Brzezinski drew up the outline; London on November 11 and 12, 1974; New York on February 22 and 23, 1975, with experts from the three regions; and the Kyoto plenary on May 31, 1975. Those consulted included Bowie, Brzezinski, [[James Cornford]], Franklin, Representative [[Donald M. Fraser]], [[Karl Kaiser]], [[Seymour Martin Lipset]], [[John Meisel]], [[Erwin Scheuch]], [[Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.]], Gerard Smith (North American chairman), [[Yasumasa Tanaka]] and [[Tadashi Yamamoto]] (Japanese secretary).[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
In the chapter on the United States, Huntington wrote that "For twenty years after [[World War II]] presidents operated with the cooperation of a series of informal governing coalitions," that [[Harry Truman|Truman]] made a point of bringing "a substantial number of nonpartisan soldiers, Republican bankers, and Wall Street lawyers into his administration," and that "Truman had been able to govern the country with the cooperation of a relatively small number of Wall Street lawyers and bankers. By the mid-1960s, the sources of power in society had diversified tremendously, and this was no longer possible." He named the national media as "the most notable new source of national power in 1970, as compared to 1950."[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
In the concluding section Huntington wrote that "some of the problems of governance in the United States today stem from an excess of democracy," that "Needed, instead, is a greater degree of moderation in democracy," and that "the effective operation of a democratic political system usually requires some measure of apathy and noninvolvement on the part of some individuals and groups."[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
Scheer wrote that the report claims "we have too much democracy and, in particular, too much press freedom," that it "has proved an embarrassment to the commission," that Brzezinski, who had selected his former coauthor to write it, "tends to disown it" now, and that Carter "went out of his way to express disagreement."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Members in the Carter administration
|
||||
|
||||
Scheer's article lists, besides Carter and Brzezinski, the following Commission members in the new government: Vice President [[Walter Mondale]], Secretary of State [[Cyrus Vance]], Secretary of the Treasury Blumenthal, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, assistant secretaries [[Lucy Wilson Benson]], [[Anthony Lake]], [[Richard Cooper]] and [[Richard Holbrooke]], and Ambassador [[Richard Gardner]]. He wrote that Carter "took the Trilateral Commission seriously and never missed a meeting," that for Brzezinski the Commission "gave him a visible platform that did not hurt his career development," and that "the Trilateral Commission has been more successful as an establishment placement service than as a source of new policy ideas, which was its original stated purpose." Brzezinski described himself to Scheer as "a transmission belt ... between people like you, who are the elite's supported and appointed critics, and those who actually exercise power and wield it." Executive committee member William Roth told Scheer that the published output was not what mattered, but that "They provide an occasion for influential people to meet, to get to know each other and to hammer out some common positions," and Franklin said that one of the main purposes of such groups was to find out who the "good guys" are. Carter wrote in Why Not the Best that "Membership on this commission has provided me with a splendid learning opportunity."[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
Michael A. Calabrese wrote in The Harvard Crimson (the article's web address carries the date January 12, 1976, while its text refers to a President-elect and Vice President-elect, which indicates January 1977) that Carter, Mondale, Vance, Brzezinski, Brown and Blumenthal were "among the 60 original American members" of the Commission. Calabrese quoted Carter's media adviser Gerald Rafshoon as saying that Carter's selection to the Commission "was one of the most fortunate accidents of the early campaign and critical to his building support where it counted," and quoted Professor Edwin O. Reischauer as recalling Carter as an enthusiastic member who attended the regular meetings and sat in on executive committee sessions. Calabrese wrote that J. Paul Austin, chairman of the Coca-Cola Company, "originally sponsored Carter in the Trilateral and later served as his campaign finance chairman."[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
[[U.S. News & World Report]] stated on April 7, 1980 that Carter had been in the organization before his election "as were nearly 20 present or former top members of his administration," that the former Trilateralists included Mondale, Vance, Brown and Brzezinski, "the entire foreign-policy and national-security team," and that [[John B. Anderson]] and [[George H.W. Bush]] were present or former members. Bush, who "resigned from the organization in 1978," was quoted as saying that "to suggest that those that belong to the commission . . . are involved in a conspiracy is absurd." Reagan adviser [[Caspar Weinberger]] was described as a member who said that the Commission "is performing a very valuable service." The article added that members who join the executive branch "must resign, but they often rejoin when their official service ends." It reported that the full commission had met in London on March 23 to 25, 1980, with a dinner with Prince Philip, a reception with Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] and speeches by [[James Callaghan]] and [[Lord Carrington]].[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
The Commission's own roster as of July 1, 1981 lists under "Former Members in Public Service" [[William Brock]] (U.S. Trade Representative), [[Arthur F. Burns]] (Ambassador to the [[West Germany|Federal Republic of Germany]]), Bush (Vice President), [[Michael J. L. Kirby]] (Canadian Secretary to the Cabinet), [[Paul Volcker]] (Chairman of the [[Federal Reserve Board]]) and Weinberger (Secretary of Defense).[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Funding
|
||||
|
||||
U.S. News reported in 1980 that the North American share of the current three-year budget came to 1.67 million dollars: 644,000 from foundations, 530,000 from corporations, 220,000 from individuals and 84,000 from investment income. It named 180,000 dollars from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, 100,000 from the [[Rockefeller Foundation]] and 150,000 from David Rockefeller's personal funds, and stated that "There is no government money involved."[^11]
|
||||
|
||||
The Commission's list of "Current and Former Major Financial Supporters in the United States (since the founding of The Trilateral Commission in 1973)," as of March 31, 1980, carries the statement that it "has received no financial support from the United States government." The foundations listed are the William H. Donner Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, the Charles F. Kettering Foundation, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Sumitomo Fund for Policy Research Studies. The corporations are BankAmerica Foundation, Bechtel Foundation, Bechtel Power Corporation, Boeing, Cargill, Carter Hawley Hale Stores, Caterpillar Tractor, CBS, the Coca-Cola Company, Control Data, Corning Glass Works Foundation, Crown Zellerbach Foundation, Cummins Engine Foundation, Deere and Company, Exxon, Ford Motor Company Fund, General Electric, General Foods, General Mills Foundation, General Motors, W. R. Grace, Honeywell, [[IBM]], Johnson's Wax Fund, Levi Strauss Foundation, NCR Foundation, Procter and Gamble, Quaker Oats, Scott Paper, Sears Roebuck, Standard Oil of California, Texas Instruments Foundation, Time Incorporated, Wells Fargo Bank, Weyerhaeuser and Xerox. The individuals are George S. Franklin, Patrick E. Haggerty, David Packard and David Rockefeller.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
### Membership rosters
|
||||
|
||||
The U.S. News article gave the membership in April 1980 as 275 and stated that the 76 U.S. members included 8 congressmen, 3 state and local officials, 17 businessmen, 13 academicians, 7 bankers and financiers, 10 officials of nonprofit organizations, 7 lawyers, 4 trade-union officials, 3 journalists or media executives and 1 representative of agricultural interests.[^11] The Commission's organization leaflet, reprinted in the same packet, gives the membership as about 290 individuals from the three regions, with an executive committee made up of the regional chairmen and deputy chairmen and twenty-eight others (twelve from Japan, eight from the United States, one from Canada and thirteen from the European Community and Norway).[^4] The North American members of that committee as of March 1, 1980 were Robert W. Bonner (Canada), [[William T. Coleman Jr.]], Franklin, [[Robert S. Ingersoll]], Kissinger, [[Bruce K. MacLaury]], [[Charles W. Robinson]], William M. Roth and [[William W. Scranton]], with Rockefeller as North American chairman and [[Mitchell Sharp]] as deputy chairman.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
The roster of July 1, 1981 names Georges Berthoin (European chairman), Watanabe (Japanese chairman) and Rockefeller (North American chairman), with Franklin as coordinator and Charles B. Heck as North American secretary. The North American list includes Bowie, described as a former Deputy Director of the [[Central Intelligence Agency]]; [[Winston Lord]], president of the Council on Foreign Relations; [[Thomas L. Hughes]], president of the [[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]]; Bruce K. MacLaury, president of the [[Brookings Institution]]; [[Martha R. Wallace]], executive director of the [[Henry Luce Foundation]]; [[Joseph Kraft]], columnist; [[Helmut Sonnenfeldt]] of the Brookings Institution, a former counselor of the [[State Department]]; [[Robert S. McNamara]]; [[Alan Greenspan]]; [[Lane Kirkland]]; [[Robert V. Roosa]] of [[Brown Brothers Harriman]]; Richardson; [[Paul C. Warnke]]; and Kissinger.[^12] Of the twenty-four directors of the Council on Foreign Relations listed in its report for 1984 to 1985, seven (Brown, Graham Allison, Warren Christopher, Kirkland, Greenspan, Juanita Kreps and Marina Whitman) appear in this roster.[^13] Franklin, Hughes and Kraft are also among those present at the Council's January 8, 1968 discussion of covert action with [[Richard Bissell]].[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### Records
|
||||
|
||||
The Commission donated its North American records to the [[Rockefeller Archive Center]] in March 2003. The collection runs to about 217 cubic feet, and the Archive Center's finding aid, prepared by Robert Battaly in April 2011, states that material is open for research on January 1 of the sixteenth year after the date of the most recent item in each folder. Microfilm copies of the Zbigniew Brzezinski Files, the Gerard C. Smith Files and the early correspondence for 1972 to 1975 are at the [[Jimmy Carter Presidential Library]] in Atlanta. The finding aid records that initial membership consisted of approximately 190 members, that membership is by invitation decided by the executive committee on recommendations from members and staff, and that members who accept executive-branch positions must forfeit their membership. The Rockefeller Brothers Fund records at the Archive Center include Commission grant files for 1972 to 1983 (boxes 997 to 999).[^1]
|
||||
|
||||
### Filings and the 2024 list
|
||||
|
||||
The Trilateral Commission (North America) files Form 990 under employer identification number 23-7309933, with a ruling date of August 1976. The returns summarized by [[ProPublica]] show revenue of 863,577 dollars and assets of 1,362,612 dollars for the year to June 2011, and revenue of 1,008,521 dollars, expenses of 1,271,483 and assets of 2,214,585 for the year to June 2023; compensation of current officers is shown as 334,825 dollars for 2017, 80,000 for 2020 and 2021, and 110,000 for 2022 and 2023.[^15] The return for the year ended June 30, 2023 reports contributions of 967,119 dollars, 22 voting members of the governing body and 2 employees. It lists [[Meghan O'Sullivan]] as chair; [[Richard Fontaine]] as executive director, paid 110,000 dollars for 10 hours a week; and as North American trustees [[B. Marc Allen]], [[Catherine Bertini]], [[Herminio Blanco Mendoza]], [[Esther Brimmer]], [[Michael Chertoff]], [[Paula J. Dobriansky]], [[Wendy Dobson]], [[Richard Falkenrath]], [[Diana Farrell]], [[David Gergen]], [[Jane Harman]], [[Carla A. Hills]], [[Karen Elliott House]], Kissinger, [[Monique Leroux]], [[Joseph S. Nye Jr.]], [[David Rubenstein]], [[Luis Rubio]], [[Jeffrey Simpson]], [[James B. Steinberg]] and [[Frances F. Townsend]]. The donor schedule is redacted in the public copy.[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
The list of September 6, 2024 names [[Axel Weber]] as European chair, O'Sullivan as North American chair and Fontaine as North American executive director, and lists David Rockefeller and Kissinger as founders in memoriam. Its North American group includes Michael Bloomberg, [[Ian Bremmer]], [[Bruce Andrews]] of Intel, [[Michael Beckerman]] of TikTok and Marc Allen of Boeing, and it lists as "recent former members in public service" [[Anthony Blinken]] (Secretary of State), [[Jake Sullivan]] (National Security Advisor), [[Lael Brainard]] (Director, National Economic Council), [[R. Nicholas Burns]] (Ambassador to China), [[Mark Brzezinski]] (Ambassador to Poland), [[Ajay Banga]] (President of the World Bank), Douglas Beck (Director, Defense Innovation Unit), [[Joseph Kennedy III]] (Special Envoy to Northern Ireland for Economic Affairs), [[David Lipton]] (First Deputy Managing Director, International Monetary Fund), [[Scott Nathan]] (Chief Executive Officer, International Development Finance Corporation), [[Richard Verma]] (Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources) and [[Wes Moore]] (Governor of Maryland). Five fellows of the Council on Foreign Relations appear in the North American group (Robert Blackwill, Esther Brimmer, [[Heidi Crebo-Rediker]], Richard Falkenrath and [[Ken Juster]]), and five directors named in the Council's return for the year to June 2023 (Rubenstein, [[James Manyika]], O'Sullivan, Townsend and [[Daniel H. Yergin]]) are in the same group.[^16][^17]
|
||||
|
||||
### Jeffrey Epstein
|
||||
|
||||
The two undated biographical statements in the [[Department of Justice]]'s [[Epstein Files|Epstein Library]] that describe [[Jeffrey Epstein]] as "a former member of the Trilateral Commission and a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations" are EFTA00725190 and EFTA00725191. In an email of February 22, 2017 to a recipient whose name is withheld, Epstein wrote of [[Ehud Barak]] that he "is the most knowledgeable of all the players I have known. - including my stint on the Trilateral Commission." No Commission membership roll appears in the documents examined.[^18][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Rockefeller Archive Center, The Trilateral Commission (North America) Records, finding aid by Robert Battaly, April 2011: Institutional History, pp. 1 to 3 (citing David Rockefeller, Memoirs, 2002, p. 416; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages, 1970; and The Trilateral Commission: A Proposal, March 15, 1973, folder 6062, box 997, RG 3, Rockefeller Brothers Fund Records), Source of Acquisition, Related Archival Material and Existence and Location of Copies, pp. 4 to 6, Series 1 and Series 4, https://dimes.rockarch.org/collections/2KaqPEr3JRZv5WBQsf9mKn (text read from the copy at https://archive.org/download/one-world-order-new-world-order/Trilateral%20Commission%20records%20%28Rockefeller%20Archives%29.pdf)
|
||||
[^2]: Press guidance on the Trilateral Commission for the December 11, 1974 meeting with President Ford, Ron Nessen Papers, Box 125, folder "Trilateral Commission," Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, https://fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/document/0204/1513220.pdf
|
||||
[^3]: Robert Scheer, "Brzezinski: Activist Seeker of World Order" (page one, jump page 13) and "Brzezinski's Goal: Shift From Crisis Management to 'World Order' Policies" (page 14), Los Angeles Times, January 24, 1977, Part I, page image at https://archive.org/details/1977jan24losangelestimetrilateralcommisionbrzezinskicarter
|
||||
[^4]: Congressional Research Service, The Trilateral Commission, Issue Packet IP0092 (Library of Congress, 1981): The Trilateral Commission: A Selected List of References (compiled by Ruth S. Freitag, Research Services) and the Commission's organization and policy leaflet, https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/19810501_IP0092_2d3ea09e2c6068af730f41d315f4ea490bc91878.pdf
|
||||
[^5]: Michel J. Crozier, Samuel P. Huntington and Joji Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy: Report on the Governability of Democracies to the Trilateral Commission (New York University Press, 1975), title page and introductory note by Zbigniew Brzezinski, https://archive.org/details/TheCrisisOfDemocracy-TrilateralCommission-1975
|
||||
[^6]: White House Photographs, December 11, 1974, rolls A2388 to A2390, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/sites/default/files/pdf_documents/library/whphotos/19741211whpo.pdf, pp. 3 to 4
|
||||
[^7]: HAK Chrons, December 1974, Library of Congress Kissinger papers, as reproduced in the CIA Reading Room, LOC-HAK-57-1-1-6, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-loc-hak-57-1-1-6
|
||||
[^8]: Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy (1975), Huntington, "The United States," pp. 97 to 98, https://archive.org/details/TheCrisisOfDemocracy-TrilateralCommission-1975
|
||||
[^9]: Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki, The Crisis of Democracy (1975), Huntington, "The United States," pp. 113 to 114, https://archive.org/details/TheCrisisOfDemocracy-TrilateralCommission-1975
|
||||
[^10]: Michael A. Calabrese, "Carter's Trilateral Connection," The Harvard Crimson, https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1976/1/12/carters-trilateral-connection-pmondale-vance-brzezinski/
|
||||
[^11]: "We've Been Asked: What Is the Trilateral Commission?" U.S. News & World Report, April 7, 1980, p. 37, reprinted in Congressional Research Service, The Trilateral Commission, Issue Packet IP0092 (Library of Congress, 1981), https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/19810501_IP0092_2d3ea09e2c6068af730f41d315f4ea490bc91878.pdf
|
||||
[^12]: The Trilateral Commission, executive committee list as of March 1, 1980, membership roster "As of July 1, 1981" (North American, European and Japanese members; Former Members in Public Service) and "Current and Former Major Financial Supporters in the United States," as of March 31, 1980, reprinted in Congressional Research Service, The Trilateral Commission, Issue Packet IP0092 (Library of Congress, 1981), https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/19810501_IP0092_2d3ea09e2c6068af730f41d315f4ea490bc91878.pdf
|
||||
[^13]: Council on Foreign Relations, Annual Report, July 1, 1984 to June 30, 1985, Officers and Directors, p. 2, CIA-RDP90-00806R000100210066-5, https://archive.org/details/cia-readingroom-document-cia-rdp90-00806r000100210066-5
|
||||
[^14]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of Trilateral Commission (North America) for the year ended June 30, 2023, Parts I, VI, VII and Schedules B and O, IRS e-file XML object 202441359349305609, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_05A.zip (member 2024_TEOS_XML_05A/202441359349305609_public.xml)
|
||||
[^15]: ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Trilateral Commission North America, EIN 23-7309933, API record of filings for tax years 2011 to 2023 (ruling date 1976-08), https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/237309933
|
||||
[^16]: The Trilateral Commission, membership list "Last updated September 6, 2024," https://archive.org/details/tc-membership-list-sept-6-2024-1
|
||||
[^17]: Internal Revenue Service, Form 990 of Council on Foreign Relations Inc for the year ended June 30, 2023, Part VII, IRS e-file XML object 202430169349300598, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_01A.zip
|
||||
[^18]: Department of Justice, Epstein Library, "Biographical Information of Jeffrey E. Epstein," EFTA00725190, and "About Jeffrey E. Epstein," EFTA00725191, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00725190.pdf and https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00725191.pdf
|
||||
[^19]: Department of Justice, Epstein Library, email of Jeffrey Epstein, February 22, 2017, EFTA01053658, https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA01053658.pdf
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,154 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- UlsterInstituteForSocialResearch
|
||||
- RichardLynn
|
||||
- PioneerFund
|
||||
- MankindQuarterly
|
||||
- RaceScience
|
||||
- HumanBiodiversity
|
||||
- Publisher
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Ulster Institute for Social Research
|
||||
- Ulster Institute
|
||||
- UISR
|
||||
- USIR
|
||||
summary: "London publisher and research sponsor founded by Richard Lynn, paid 609,000 dollars by the Pioneer Fund from 1990 to 1996 and the publisher of Mankind Quarterly from January 2015."
|
||||
location: "London, England"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Richard Lynn]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "founder"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Richard Lynn]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "president in 2017 and 2018; director in 1997"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Pioneer Fund]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 1990
|
||||
end: 1996
|
||||
role: "grants totaling 609,000 dollars in the ledger compiled from the fund's returns"
|
||||
fn: 6
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Pioneer Fund]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2002
|
||||
end: 2006
|
||||
role: "286,372 dollars, per the Southern Poverty Law Center"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: owned
|
||||
with: "[[Mankind Quarterly]]"
|
||||
start: 2015-01
|
||||
role: "publisher of the journal"
|
||||
fn: 2
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[James Thompson]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "academic advisory council in 2017"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Gerhard Meisenberg]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "academic advisory council in 2017"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: member_of
|
||||
with: "[[Helmuth Nyborg]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
role: "academic advisory council in 2017"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
The Ulster Institute for Social Research is a [[London]] publisher and research sponsor founded by the psychologist [[Richard Lynn]], who was its president in 2017 and 2018 and died in 2023. Its website describes it as "established as a think tank for the support of research on social issues and the publication of works by selected authors in this field." It published the journal [[Mankind Quarterly]] from January 2015.[^1][^2][^3] The captured pages of its website give no company or charity registration number and list only an e-mail contact.[^4]
|
||||
|
||||
### Pioneer Fund Grants, 1983 to 1996
|
||||
|
||||
Lynn's article "The Intelligence of the Chinese and Malays in Singapore" appeared in Mankind Quarterly in October 1977 over the address "New University of Ulster, Coleraine, N. Ireland."[^5] The [[Pioneer Fund]] paid the [[New University of Ulster]] 63,186.56 dollars in 1983 and 5,000 dollars in 1986, according to the ledger of its grants that [[Barry Mehler]] compiled from the fund's [[Internal Revenue Service]] returns. A grantee entered as the Ulster Institute for Social Research first appears in 1990. The nominal payments were 72,500 dollars in 1990, 197,500 in 1991, 50,000 in 1992, none in 1993, 55,000 in 1994, 124,000 in 1995 and 110,000 in 1996. The total is 609,000 dollars, 5.7 percent of the 10,670,040.55 dollars the ledger records for all grantees from 1971 to 1996.[^6]
|
||||
|
||||
The same ledger records 74,300 dollars paid to the [[Council for Social and Economic Studies]], which published Mankind Quarterly in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]] from 1979 to 2014, in 1989, 1991, 1992, 1994 and 1995, and 944,000 dollars to the [[Institute for the Study of Man]].[^6][^7]
|
||||
|
||||
Richard Lynn of Coleraine, Northern Ireland, appears on the Editorial Committee of Mankind Quarterly from the issue of September 1979 through at least the issue of Winter 1999.[^8] In the issue of Spring 1991, in the year of the largest recorded payment, Lynn's "Race Differences in Intelligence: A Global Perspective" carried the author line "University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland," and the issue of Fall-Winter 1991 printed his "Reply to Commentaries on Racial Differences in Intelligence."[^9] A review of Lynn's book *Dysgenics* in the issue of Spring 1997 called him "Director of the Ulster Institute for Social Research in Coleraine, Northern Ireland."[^10]
|
||||
|
||||
### Pioneer Fund Directorship and Presidency
|
||||
|
||||
After Pioneer Fund president [[Harry Weyher]] died on March 27, 2002, [[J. Philippe Rushton]] was appointed president, and Weyher's widow [[Michelle Weyher]] and Lynn were appointed directors, joining [[R. Travis Osborne]] and [[Karl Schakel]]. The fund's web page of 2003 described Lynn as emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Ulster and "also a long-time grantee."[^11] The fund's Grantees page of 2003 describes Lynn's studies of regional IQ differences in the [[United Kingdom]] and France and his collaboration with the political scientist [[Tatu Vanhanen]], and also names [[Arthur Jensen]] among its grantees.[^12] The [[Southern Poverty Law Center]] reported that from 2002 to 2006 the Ulster Institute received 286,372 dollars from the fund, while Rushton received 301,326 dollars through the [[University of Western Ontario]].[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
Rushton died in October 2012. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported in October 2013 that the fund's website said Rushton had resigned as president before his death and nominated Lynn as his successor, and that in August 2012 Rushton had transferred half the fund's assets to his [[Charles Darwin Research Institute]]. The same report described the Ulster Institute as "primarily an online effort" registered to an address near London, and said Lynn did not answer its inquiries about the fund's remaining money.[^14] The fund's total assets were 1,551,404 dollars at the end of 2011 and 94,336 dollars at the end of 2014.[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
[[Hope Not Hate]] wrote in October 2024 that in 2010 the fund distributed 35,000 dollars to [[VDARE]], 110,000 dollars to Lynn and 216,376 dollars to Rushton out of 537,709 dollars in total, and that after Rushton's death Lynn "took over the organisation and among his first acts was to award himself $1.2 million."[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
The fund's returns for 2020 through 2024 list Lynn as president, with a [[Bristol]] address and two hours a week, no compensation; [[Edward Miller (Pioneer Fund)|Edward Miller]] as secretary-treasurer, with a [[Potomac, Maryland]], address; and [[Alexander Beaujean]] of [[Waco, Texas]], as a director.[^17][^18][^19][^20][^21] Grants paid were none in 2020, 11,000 dollars in 2021, 37,000 dollars in 2022, 13,200 dollars in 2023 and none in 2024. The 2021 grant went to a recipient entered as "Human," in care of [[Bryan Pesta]] of [[North Olmsted, Ohio]], for "Research"; the 2022 grant went to "Human Pheromone Diversity Foundatio," in care of Bryan Pesta at the same address, for "research Support on human Diversity"; and the 2023 grant went to the [[VDare Foundation]] of [[Litchfield, Connecticut]], for "Support of writing by Dutton."[^18][^19][^20] The fund's assets at fair market value were 295,388 dollars at the end of 2020, 359,363 at the end of 2021, 252,640 at the end of 2022, 277,873 at the end of 2023 and 304,194 at the end of 2024.[^17][^18][^19][^20][^21]
|
||||
|
||||
The [[Human Phenome Diversity Foundation]], whose returns give the North Olmsted address, lists Pesta as president and [[John Fuerst]] as vice president, each at six hours a week and unpaid. Its return for 2020 reports revenue of 4,663 dollars and expenses of 11,022 dollars, with the program description "Hire scientists to perform behavioral research." Its return for 2021 reports revenue of 65,395 dollars, 35,948 dollars in grants paid and expenses of 62,537 dollars, with programs described as grants for research, purchases of equipment for research, and funded research surveys.[^22][^23]
|
||||
|
||||
Hope Not Hate wrote that in 2021 the fund gave 11,000 dollars to Pesta, "an academic at Cleveland State University in Ohio," and nothing else, and that in four of the last ten years it gave out no money at all. The report states that the [[Human Diversity Foundation]], a limited liability company, is the fund's successor, and that [[Emil Kirkegaard]], "who has for several years been involved in Mankind Quarterly, now controls the fund."[^16]
|
||||
|
||||
### Publications
|
||||
|
||||
The institute's earliest captured page, from September 2011, announces Lynn's *Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations,* a second revised edition of the 1996 [[Praeger]] book, in 381 pages with two new chapters, "one on the decline of the world's IQ, and the other on the dysgenics of immigration." The page reproduced comments on the first edition from [[William Hamilton]] of the University of Oxford, [[Thomas Bouchard|Tom Bouchard]] of the University of Minnesota and [[Victor Serebriakov]], president of British [[Mensa]], and gave the publisher as "Ulster Institute for Social Research, London."[^10][^24]
|
||||
|
||||
By December 2013 its list included [[John Harvey]]'s *Race and Equality: The Nature of the Debate* (2012), Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen's *Intelligence: A Unifying Construct for the Social Sciences* (2012), Vanhanen's *Ethnic Conflicts: Their Biological Roots in Ethnic Nepotism* (2012), and *Race and Sex Differences in Intelligence and Personality: A Tribute to Richard Lynn at Eighty,* edited by [[Helmuth Nyborg]] and published on December 30, 2013.[^25] The institute's page for the 2011 *Dysgenics* edition, as captured in April 2012, carried reviewers' comments from [[Raegan Murphy]] of University College Cork, "Thomas Jackson, American Renaissance," and "Dr Edward Dutton, Quarterly Review."[^26] A page captured in November 2014 lists Vanhanen's *Global Inequality as a Consequence of Human Diversity: A New Theory Tested by Empirical Evidence.*[^27] The 2017 site lists as recent publications *Race and Sport: Evolution and Racial Differences in Sporting Ability* by [[Edward Dutton]] and Lynn (September 7, 2015), *The Life History Approach to Human Differences: A Tribute to J. Philippe Rushton,* edited by Nyborg (July 13, 2015), and *The Roma: A Balkan Underclass* by [[Jelena Čvorović]] (2014).[^1] *Race and Sport* runs to 423 pages and is sold as an e-book.[^28] Lynn and David Becker's *The Intelligence of Nations,* of 436 pages and reporting IQs for 128 nations, was published in 2019, and Lynn's *Memoirs of a Dissident Psychologist,* of 476 pages, in 2020.[^29][^30]
|
||||
|
||||
### Mankind Quarterly
|
||||
|
||||
Mankind Quarterly's own history states that it was published in [[Edinburgh]] from 1961, by the Council for Social and Economic Studies in Washington, "chaired by [[Roger Pearson]]," from 1979 to 2014, and from January 2015 by "the Ulster Institute for Social Research, a non-profit organization in London, England."[^2][^7] The editorial panel in April 2015 listed [[Gerhard Meisenberg]] of [[Dominica]] as editor-in-chief and Lynn of Bristol as assistant editor, with an advisory board that included [[Jüri Allik]], [[Salah Eldin Farah Attallah Bakhiet]], [[Adel Batterjee]], Jelena Čvorović, Edward Dutton, [[Lee Ellis]], [[Aurelio José Figueredo]], Edward M. Miller of [[New Orleans]] and [[Goran Štrkalj]].[^2] The panel in August 2020 listed Lynn as editor-in-chief.[^7] The Pioneer Fund's returns list an Edward Miller as secretary-treasurer; the records opened do not state whether he is the Edward M. Miller of the journal's board.[^7][^21]
|
||||
|
||||
### Officers and Advisers
|
||||
|
||||
The institute's website in February 2017 listed Lynn as president, [[Sophy Carroll]] as director, and an academic advisory council of Edward Miller, Nyborg, [[Donald Templer]], [[Andrei Grigoriev]], [[James Thompson]] and Meisenberg.[^1] Thompson is the organizer of the [[London Conference on Intelligence]] discussed below.[^31]
|
||||
|
||||
### London Conference on Intelligence
|
||||
|
||||
[[University College London]]'s investigation report on the London Conference on Intelligence, drafted in January 2018 and released in redacted form in March 2020, states that the conferences ran on the campus between 2014 and 2017 without the university's knowledge, hosted by an honorary senior lecturer, and that they were booked and paid for as an external event. The report records 16 talks in 2015, 19 in 2016 and 22 in 2017, with 13 of the 2017 presentations from people who had presented in the two previous years, and names Thompson as the organizer who paid the room charges himself.[^31]
|
||||
|
||||
[[London Student]] reported in January 2018 that Lynn, as president of the Ulster Institute, spoke at the 2015 and 2016 conferences along with four of the six members of the institute's academic advisory council, that Thompson was a member of the council, and that 82 percent of those who spoke at both the 2015 and 2016 conferences were directly associated with the institute or Mankind Quarterly. It reported that John Fuerst, "a fellow of the UISR," spoke in 2015 and 2016, and that Emil Kirkegaard attended all four conferences and designed the conference website.[^32] The Human Phenome Diversity Foundation's returns list a John Fuerst as vice president; the records opened do not state that he is the same person.[^22][^23]
|
||||
|
||||
### Ulster University
|
||||
|
||||
On February 14, 2018, [[The Irish News]] reported that the University of Ulster's student union had voted 29 to 1, with two abstentions, to call for revocation of Lynn's emeritus title. A university spokeswoman said that Lynn "no longer works for Ulster University nor does he contribute to our research and teaching," and that the university "has been actively considering" the title. The newspaper described Lynn as assistant editor of Mankind Quarterly, "which is published by the Ulster Institute for Social Research, of which Professor Lynn is president."[^33]
|
||||
|
||||
### After 2023
|
||||
|
||||
The institute's home page in August 2026 states: "Following the death in 2023 of its founder, Richard Lynn, the Institute now concentrates mainly on its book and journal publishing activities." Its latest listed publication is Lynn's memoirs.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Ulster Institute for Social Research, home page ("About"; "Institute President," "Director," "Academic Advisory Council," "Recent Publications"), capture of February 9, 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20170209064152id_/http://www.ulsterinstitute.org/
|
||||
[^2]: *Mankind Quarterly,* "About," web page with "Editorial Panel," capture of April 9, 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150409165737id_/http://www.mankindquarterly.org/about/
|
||||
[^3]: Ulster Institute for Social Research, home page, capture of August 27, 2026. https://web.archive.org/web/20260827122033id_/https://www.ulsterinstitute.org/
|
||||
[^4]: Ulster Institute for Social Research, "Contact," capture of November 16, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141116115446id_/http://www.ulsterinstitute.org:80/contact.html
|
||||
[^5]: Lynn, Richard. "The Intelligence of the Chinese and Malays in Singapore," *Mankind Quarterly* 18, no. 2 (October 1977), p. 125ff. (contributors' addresses: "Richard Lynn, New University of Ulster, Coleraine, N. Ireland"). https://archive.org/details/mankind-quarterly-the-1960-2004
|
||||
[^6]: Mehler, Barry, comp. "Pioneer Fund Grants, 1971-1996," Institute for the Study of Academic Racism, compiled from the fund's Internal Revenue Service returns; nominal-dollar tables in Part III (1981-1985, http://www.ferris.edu/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfspread/pfp3.htm, capture of February 2, 2002), Part IV (1986-1990, pfp4.htm, capture of January 29, 2002), Part V (1991-1996, pfp5.htm, capture of January 29, 2002) and Part VI (totals, pfp6.htm, capture of March 9, 2002), read at https://web.archive.org/web/20020202045118id_/http://www.ferris.edu:80/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfspread/pfp3.htm, https://web.archive.org/web/20020129112308id_/http://www.ferris.edu:80/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfspread/pfp4.htm, https://web.archive.org/web/20020129113141id_/http://www.ferris.edu:80/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfspread/pfp5.htm and https://web.archive.org/web/20020309164506id_/http://www.ferris.edu:80/isar/Institut/pioneer/pfspread/pfp6.htm
|
||||
[^7]: *Mankind Quarterly,* "About," web page with "Editorial Panel," capture of August 1, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20200801075108id_/http://www.mankindquarterly.org/about?User-Agent=Mozilla%2F5.0+%28Windows+NT+10.0%3B+Win64%3B+x64%29+AppleWebKit%2F537.36+%28KHTML%2C+like+Gecko%29+Chrome%2F60.0.3112.113+Safari%2F537.36
|
||||
[^8]: *Mankind Quarterly,* masthead listings of the Editorial Committee, vol. 20 nos. 1 and 2 (September 1979) through vol. 40 no. 2 (Winter 1999), each reading "Richard Lynn (Coleraine, Northern Ireland)"; archive.org item "Mankind Quarterly, The 1960-2004 Scans" (scans marked as licensed to unz.org). https://archive.org/details/mankind-quarterly-the-1960-2004
|
||||
[^9]: Lynn, Richard. "Race Differences in Intelligence: A Global Perspective," *Mankind Quarterly* 31, no. 3 (Spring 1991), pp. 255ff.; "Reply to Commentaries on Racial Differences in Intelligence," *Mankind Quarterly* 32, nos. 1 and 2 (Fall-Winter 1991), p. 171. https://archive.org/details/mankind-quarterly-the-1960-2004
|
||||
[^10]: Lamb, Kenneth (running head "Kevin Lamb"). "Intelligence and Fertility," review of Richard Lynn, *Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations* (Praeger, 1996), *Mankind Quarterly* 37, no. 3 (Spring 1997), pp. 335-336. https://archive.org/details/mankind-quarterly-the-1960-2004
|
||||
[^11]: The Pioneer Fund, Inc., "The Board," web page ("The Current Board of Directors"), capture of February 19, 2003. https://web.archive.org/web/20030219045452id_/http://www.pioneerfund.org:80/Board.html
|
||||
[^12]: The Pioneer Fund, Inc., "Grantees: Highlights of Pioneer Fund Research and Grantees," web page, capture of February 26, 2003. https://web.archive.org/web/20030226195940id_/http://www.pioneerfund.org:80/Grantees.html
|
||||
[^13]: Southern Poverty Law Center, "Pioneer Fund," Extremist Files, passage on grants from 2002 to 2006 (286,372 dollars to the Ulster Institute for Social Research; 301,326 dollars to J. Philippe Rushton through the University of Western Ontario). https://www.splcenter.org/resources/extremist-files/pioneer-fund/
|
||||
[^14]: Beirich, Heidi. "Pioneer Fund Assets Divided; New Leadership Appointed," Southern Poverty Law Center, Hatewatch, October 22, 2013. https://splcenter.org/hatewatch/2013/10/22/pioneer-fund-assets-divided-new-leadership-appointed
|
||||
[^15]: ProPublica, Nonprofit Explorer, API record for Pioneer Fund Inc., EIN 51-0181036, Potomac, Maryland (extracted totals for tax years 2011 and 2014). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/api/v2/organizations/510181036.json
|
||||
[^16]: Hope Not Hate, "A short history of the Pioneer Fund," October 16, 2024 (read through the capture of September 1, 2026). https://web.archive.org/web/20260901131908id_/https://investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/history-pioneer-fund/
|
||||
[^17]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-PF, Pioneer Fund Inc., EIN 51-0181036, tax period December 2020, object ID 202101169349100235 (filed 2021); Part VII officers, Part XV grants. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/510181036
|
||||
[^18]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-PF, Pioneer Fund Inc., EIN 51-0181036, tax period December 2021, object ID 202212079349100301 (filed 2022); Part VII officers, Part XV grants. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/510181036
|
||||
[^19]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-PF, Pioneer Fund Inc., EIN 51-0181036, tax period December 2022, object ID 202301569349100100 (filed 2023); Part VII officers, Part XV grants. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/510181036
|
||||
[^20]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-PF, Pioneer Fund Inc., EIN 51-0181036, tax period December 2023, object ID 202421369349100142 (filed 2024); Part VII officers, Part XV grants. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/510181036
|
||||
[^21]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-PF, Pioneer Fund Inc., EIN 51-0181036, tax period December 2024, object ID 202510919349100501 (filed 2025, signed April 1, 2025 by Edward Miller); Part VII officers, Part XV (no grants). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/510181036
|
||||
[^22]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-EZ, Human Phenome Diversity Foundation, EIN 84-2701983, tax period December 2020, object ID 202121099349200802 (filed July 2021). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/842701983
|
||||
[^23]: Internal Revenue Service, Tax Exempt Organization Search (TEOS) bulk XML, Form 990-EZ, Human Phenome Diversity Foundation, EIN 84-2701983, tax period December 2021, object ID 202221369349202747 (filed 2022). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/842701983
|
||||
[^24]: Ulster Institute for Social Research, home page announcing Richard Lynn, *Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations,* Second Revised Edition 2011 (ISBN 978-0-9568811-0-6 hardcover, 978-0-9568811-1-3 paper, 978-0-9568811-2-0 e-book), capture of September 6, 2011. https://web.archive.org/web/20110906173654id_/http://ulsterinstitute.org/
|
||||
[^25]: Ulster Institute for Social Research, "Current Publications," capture of December 27, 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20131227201211id_/http://www.ulsterinstitute.org:80/publications.html
|
||||
[^26]: Ulster Institute for Social Research, "Dysgenics: Genetic Deterioration in Modern Populations," page with reviewers' comments on the 2011 edition, capture of April 7, 2012. https://web.archive.org/web/20120407082753id_/http://www.ulsterinstitute.org:80/dysgenics.html
|
||||
[^27]: Ulster Institute for Social Research, "Global Inequality as a Consequence of Human Diversity" (Tatu Vanhanen), capture of November 4, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20141104080511id_/http://www.ulsterinstitute.org:80/globalinequality.html
|
||||
[^28]: Ulster Institute for Social Research, "Race and Sport: Evolution and Racial Differences in Sporting Ability" (Edward Dutton and Richard Lynn; ISBN 9780993000140), capture of January 20, 2025. https://web.archive.org/web/20250120031402id_/https://www.ulsterinstitute.org/raceandsport.html?ref=quillette.com
|
||||
[^29]: Ulster Institute for Social Research, "The Intelligence of Nations" (Richard Lynn and David Becker; 436 pages; ISBN 9780993000157), capture of May 19, 2019. https://web.archive.org/web/20190519062310id_/http://www.ulsterinstitute.org:80/intellofnations.html
|
||||
[^30]: Ulster Institute for Social Research, "Memoirs of a Dissident Psychologist" (Richard Lynn; 476 pages; ISBN 9780993000171), capture of October 3, 2020. https://web.archive.org/web/20201003064103id_/https://www.ulsterinstitute.org/memoirs.html
|
||||
[^31]: University College London, Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, "UCL Investigation into London Conference on Intelligence," draft report, January 2018, released in redacted form as "London Conference on Intelligence Report" (March 2020), sections 1 to 6. https://web.archive.org/web/20260908134614id_/https://www.ucl.ac.uk/about/sites/about/files/2025-10/Investigation-into-London-Conference-on-Intelligence-Mar20.pdf
|
||||
[^32]: "Exposed: London's eugenics conference and its neo-Nazi links," *London Student,* January 2018 (read through the capture of September 28, 2021). https://web.archive.org/web/20210928073551id_/http://londonstudent.coop/exposed-london-eugenics-conferences-neo-nazi-links/
|
||||
[^33]: "UU students calls for removal of former professor's title," *The Irish News,* February 14, 2018. https://www.irishnews.com/news/2018/02/14/news/uu-students-calls-for-removal-of-former-professor-s-title-1255299/
|
||||
237
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Y Combinator.md
Normal file
237
20 - ORGANIZATIONS/PRIVATE/Y Combinator.md
Normal file
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,237 @@
|
|||
---
|
||||
category: "Private Organization"
|
||||
tags:
|
||||
- Organization
|
||||
- YCombinator
|
||||
- StartupAccelerator
|
||||
- VentureCapital
|
||||
- SiliconValley
|
||||
- OpenAI
|
||||
- YCResearch
|
||||
- SamAltman
|
||||
- SanFranciscoPolitics
|
||||
- PoliticalMoney
|
||||
- Lobbying
|
||||
alias:
|
||||
- Y Combinator
|
||||
- YC
|
||||
- YCombinator
|
||||
- Y Combinator Management
|
||||
- Y Combinator Management, LLC
|
||||
- Y Combinator, LLC
|
||||
- Cambridge Seed
|
||||
- Summer Founders Program
|
||||
summary: "Startup investor founded in March 2005 by Paul Graham, Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris and Trevor Blackwell, whose research affiliate shared officers and a lender with OpenAI and whose federal PAC registered in 2025."
|
||||
start: 2005-03-11
|
||||
location: "Mountain View, California"
|
||||
relations:
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Paul Graham]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2005-03-11
|
||||
role: "cofounder; put in 100,000 dollars"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Jessica Livingston]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2005-03-11
|
||||
role: "cofounder"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Robert Tappan Morris]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2005-03-11
|
||||
role: "cofounder; put in 50,000 dollars"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Trevor Blackwell]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2005-03-11
|
||||
role: "cofounder; put in 50,000 dollars"
|
||||
fn: 1
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Sam Altman]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014
|
||||
end: 2019
|
||||
role: "president"
|
||||
fn: 9
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Geoff Ralston]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2019-05-20
|
||||
end: 2022
|
||||
role: "president and chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 10
|
||||
- type: head_of
|
||||
with: "[[Garry Tan]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2023-01
|
||||
role: "president and chief executive"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Jonathan Levy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2022-06
|
||||
role: "managing director, partnerships, per Form ADV"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Carolynn Levy]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-04
|
||||
role: "chief legal officer, per Form ADV"
|
||||
fn: 3
|
||||
- type: employed_by
|
||||
with: "[[Peter Thiel]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2015-03-10
|
||||
role: "part-time partner"
|
||||
fn: 13
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Y Combinator Research]]"
|
||||
start: 2015-10-07
|
||||
end: 2020-06-05
|
||||
role: "nonprofit research lab, renamed Open Research Lab Inc. on July 13, 2020"
|
||||
fn: 15
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[OpenAI]]"
|
||||
role: "late-stage fund, 10 million dollars in OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary, as reported by TechCrunch"
|
||||
fn: 14
|
||||
- type: funded
|
||||
with: "[[Scale AI]]"
|
||||
role: "existing investor named in the Series F announcement of 2024-05-21"
|
||||
fn: 38
|
||||
- type: founded
|
||||
with: "[[Y Combinator Management, LLC Political Committee]]"
|
||||
start: 2025-12-15
|
||||
role: "connected organization of the federal PAC known as Little Tech PAC"
|
||||
fn: 34
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[Venture Politics]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2014-09-05
|
||||
end: 2014-10-20
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist, startup visa"
|
||||
fn: 37
|
||||
- type: represented
|
||||
with: "[[The Joseph Group]]"
|
||||
reverse: true
|
||||
start: 2023-12-11
|
||||
role: "registered lobbyist"
|
||||
fn: 37
|
||||
created: 2026-10-01
|
||||
updated: 2026-10-01
|
||||
---
|
||||
|
||||
Y Combinator (YC) is a startup investment firm that [[Paul Graham]] and [[Jessica Livingston]] decided to start on March 11, 2005, walking home from dinner in [[Harvard Square]]. Graham agreed to put in 100,000 dollars, and over the following days [[Robert Tappan Morris|Robert Morris]] and [[Trevor Blackwell]] put in 50,000 dollars each, so that the firm began with 200,000 dollars. It was first called Cambridge Seed and was renamed Y Combinator before its announcement a few days later.[^1] Its standard deal is 500,000 dollars per company: 125,000 dollars for 7 percent on a post-money SAFE and 375,000 dollars on an uncapped SAFE with a most-favored-nation clause.[^2] Its investment adviser, Y Combinator Management, LLC, reports nineteen private funds with combined gross assets of about 22 billion dollars.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Founders
|
||||
|
||||
Graham and Morris started [[Viaweb]] in 1995, and [[Yahoo]] acquired it in 1998, when it became Yahoo Store.[^4] Graham wrote in 2021 that Viaweb's shopping cart was Morris's work, its order manager Blackwell's, and that Morris was a graduate student at [[Harvard University]] when they began.[^5] In the same essay Graham recalled that "my friend Robert Morris got kicked out of Cornell for writing the internet worm of 1988."[^5]
|
||||
|
||||
On November 2, 1988, Robert Tappan Morris, then a first-year graduate student in the computer science doctoral program at [[Cornell University]], released a self-replicating program from a computer at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]]; it spread through the network and caused computers at universities, military sites and medical research facilities to crash. He was convicted in the [[U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York]] under section 1030(a)(5)(A) of the [[Computer Fraud and Abuse Act]] and sentenced to three years of probation, 400 hours of community service and a fine of 10,050 dollars. The [[U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit]] affirmed on March 7, 1991, in an opinion by Judge [[Jon O. Newman]].[^6] His father, [[Robert Morris (cryptographer)|Robert Morris]], a cryptographer who had worked on Unix at [[Bell Labs]], was then chief scientist of the [[NSA|National Security Agency]]'s [[National Computer Security Center]]. John Markoff reported in the father's 2011 obituary that the agency had asked him in the late 1970s not to publish a paper on an early German cipher device, that he joined it in 1986 to work on protecting government computers and on electronic surveillance and online warfare, that he played a clandestine role in planning the electronic attacks on [[Saddam Hussein]]'s government before the [[Gulf War]] of 1991, and that after releasing the worm the son went to his parents' home in Arnold, Maryland, before turning himself in to the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]]. The younger Morris later took a doctorate at Harvard and joined the MIT faculty.[^7]
|
||||
|
||||
### Founding and Early Batches
|
||||
|
||||
The first batch was the Summer Founders Program of 2005 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Graham wrote that the second batch was funded in [[Silicon Valley]] and housed in part of a building in [[Mountain View, California]] that Blackwell owned.[^1] The first batch included the founders of [[Reddit]], [[Justin Kan]] and [[Emmett Shear]], later of [[Twitch]], [[Aaron Swartz]], and [[Sam Altman]], who became YC's second president.[^5] Graham also wrote [[Hacker News]], first called Startup News, as a test of his programming language Arc.[^5] Form D filings made with the [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] in 2015 and 2016 for two YC Continuity funds give the address 335 Pioneer Way, Mountain View.[^8]
|
||||
|
||||
### Presidents
|
||||
|
||||
Graham wrote that in 2013, after Livingston declined to become president, he, Livingston, Morris and Blackwell agreed on "a complete changing of the guard": YC had until then been "controlled by the original LLC we four had started," and if Altman accepted, he would be allowed to reorganize it, with Graham and Morris retiring and Livingston and Blackwell becoming ordinary partners. Altman at first declined because he wanted to start a company to build nuclear reactors, and agreed in October 2013.[^5] On February 21, 2014, Graham announced that Altman would become president "starting next batch," that "Sam is going to lead YC," and that Graham would "continue to do office hours." He wrote that Altman "was one of the founders in the first batch we funded, in 2005."[^9]
|
||||
|
||||
[[TechCrunch]] reported on May 20, 2019 that Altman had stepped away from the presidency two months earlier to become chief executive of [[OpenAI]], that he had been named chairman of YC on his way out, and that he would no longer hold that title and would instead be an adviser. The same day YC named [[Geoff Ralston]] president. Ralston had built RocketMail, which became Yahoo Mail in 1997, and had known Graham for twenty years from Yahoo.[^10] Altman wrote in announcing Ralston that working on OpenAI "has been more exciting (and more complex) than I ever imagined."[^11] On August 29, 2022, Ralston announced that he would leave at the end of the year and that [[Garry Tan]] would succeed him as president and chief executive. Tan had been in the summer 2008 batch, had been an engineer at [[Palantir Technologies]], had founded the blogging service [[Posterous]] and sold it to [[Twitter]], had been a YC partner, and had left in 2015 to run [[Initialized Capital]], the venture fund he cofounded.[^12]
|
||||
|
||||
YC's adviser, Y Combinator Management, LLC, has reported to the SEC as an exempt reporting adviser since October 23, 2014 (file number 802-80528). Its annual amendment of March 27, 2026 lists Tan as chief executive and president from January 2023, [[Carolynn Levy]] as chief legal officer from April 2014, and Jonathan Daniel Levy as managing director for partnerships from June 2022, and is signed by Jonathan Levy. Its largest reported funds are YC II, L.P. (gross assets of 7,828,145,069 dollars), Y Combinator ES20, LLC (3,118,959,390 dollars), Y Combinator Continuity Fund I, L.P. (2,632,819,339 dollars), YCC20, L.P. (2,259,947,049 dollars) and YCCG21, L.P. (1,582,725,829 dollars); the nineteen funds together report 21,962,163,829 dollars.[^3]
|
||||
|
||||
### Peter Thiel as a Part-Time Partner
|
||||
|
||||
On March 10, 2015, Altman announced that [[Peter Thiel]] was "joining YC as one of the (now 10!) part-time partners." The post stated that YC "generally won't bring on people that are involved with other investing firms given the obvious conflict," made Thiel an exception, and said that he would not invest in any company while it was in YC or for three months after its Demo Day, a restriction that would "apply to Peter's investment entities as well." It describes his work with technology companies "both personally and through [[Founders Fund]]." The post now begins: "Edit: Peter Thiel is no longer affiliated with Y Combinator."[^13]
|
||||
|
||||
### YC Continuity
|
||||
|
||||
Y Combinator Continuity Fund I, L.P., a Delaware limited partnership whose general partner is YC Continuity Management I, LLC, filed a Form D on June 15, 2015 signed by Jonathan Levy as a member of the general partner; it listed the offering amount as indefinite and declined to disclose its revenue range. Y Combinator Continuity Affiliates Fund I, L.P. filed a Form D on March 25, 2016 signed by Jonathan Levy as managing member of the same general partner.[^8] The adviser's 2026 Form ADV reports gross assets of 2,632,819,339 dollars for the first fund and 40,387,194 dollars for the second.[^3] TechCrunch reported in May 2024 that YC's late-stage fund had invested 10 million dollars in OpenAI's for-profit subsidiary; Graham wrote that the investment was made before Altman was full-time at OpenAI, that "This was not a very big investment for those funds," and that "obviously it wasn't influencing me, since I found out about it 5 minutes ago."[^14]
|
||||
|
||||
### YC Research and OpenAI
|
||||
|
||||
On October 7, 2015, Altman announced [[Y Combinator Research|YC Research]] (YCR), a nonprofit research lab, and wrote: "To start off, I'm going to personally donate $10 million." The post said the lab was "not doing this with the goal of helping YC's startups succeed or adding to our bottom line." A note added on June 5, 2020 states that YC Research, "now OpenResearch," and its projects "are no longer affiliated with Y Combinator" and had "been operating independently for several years."[^15]
|
||||
|
||||
Altman, [[Elon Musk]], Thiel and Livingston were among those who announced OpenAI as a nonprofit later in 2015, as TechCrunch reported.[^14] The returns on Form 990 that OpenAI Inc. (employer identification number 81-0861541) and Y Combinator Research Inc. (81-0861414, a Delaware 501(c)(3) at 469 9th Street, Oakland) filed with the [[Internal Revenue Service]] for 2016 were both prepared by Michael Fontanello of Fontanello Duffield and Otake LLP of San Francisco and carry electronic timestamps 52 seconds apart on December 11, 2017.[^16][^17]
|
||||
|
||||
The OpenAI Inc. return for 2016 lists Musk and Altman as directors, [[Chris Clark]] as director and chief operating officer, Jonathan Levy as secretary and treasurer, [[Greg Brockman]] as chief technology officer and [[Ilya Sutskever]] as research director. Schedule J reports that Clark received 40,942 dollars from OpenAI and 164,871 dollars from related organizations. The Y Combinator Research Inc. return for the same year lists Clark as president and chief operating officer at a base salary of 164,871 dollars, Levy as secretary and treasurer, and Altman and [[Patrick Scaglia]] as directors, with the investigators [[Dan Ingalls]], [[Alex Warth]], [[Bret Victor]] and [[John Maloney]]. Its mission statement reads: "YCR seeks to answer open-ended questions and develop technology that should not be owned by any one company and requires work on a very long time horizon."[^16][^17] Each return names the other organization as a related tax-exempt organization on Schedule R, and the OpenAI return reports a rental of facilities to a related organization.[^16][^17] The OpenAI return for 2017 adds [[Holden Karnofsky]] as a director and lists [[David Lansky]] as general counsel; Lansky is also listed as general counsel on the YC Research returns from 2017.[^18][^19]
|
||||
|
||||
Schedule L of each return reports loans from Altman, described as a board member and officer, to the organization for "operations," approved by the board and documented in writing. On the OpenAI return for 2016 the original principal is 3,750,000 dollars and no balance is reported; Schedule M of the same return reports a noncash contribution described as "Loan Forgiveness" of 3,784,637 dollars, valued by "Loan Balance," within total contributions of 13,784,637 dollars. On the OpenAI return for 2017 the original principal is 3,000,000 dollars and the balance due is 3,006,575 dollars.[^16][^18] On the YC Research returns the original principal is 5,200,000 dollars with a balance of 5,223,285 dollars for 2016, and 5,950,000 dollars with balances of 5,950,000 dollars for 2017, 6,726,000 dollars for 2018 and 9,581,000 dollars for 2019. The 2017 return also reports a noncash contribution described as "Forgiveness of Debt" of 15,932 dollars and a grant of 500,000 dollars to [[Watsi]].[^17][^19][^20][^21] Contributions to YC Research were 1,000,000 dollars in 2016, 5,947,540 dollars in 2017, 1,635,953 dollars in 2018 and 1,726,811 dollars in 2019.[^17][^19][^20][^21]
|
||||
|
||||
The return for 2020 states that a corporate name change from Y Combinator Research Inc. to Open Research Lab Inc. occurred on July 13, 2020, and describes the launch of its Basic Income project. It reports Altman's loan with an original principal of 14,071,725 dollars and a balance of 14,395,166 dollars, and a grant of 1,000,000 dollars for "operations" to Trialspark Inc. of Oakland, a recipient without a 501(c) designation. The 2021 return reports another "Forgiveness of Debt" of 272,767 dollars. The balance due was 14,535,883 dollars at the end of 2022 and 14,848,054 dollars at the end of 2023 (14,863,376 dollars on an amended return filed in January 2026). The return for 2024 reports no outstanding loan to or from an interested person and contributions of 18,164,914 dollars. Altman is listed as a director on every return from 2016 through 2024, and Clark as chief operating officer.[^22][^23][^24][^25][^26]
|
||||
|
||||
### Altman's Departure in 2019
|
||||
|
||||
Elizabeth Dwoskin and Nitasha Tiku of [[Washington Post|The Washington Post]] reported on November 22, 2023, citing three people familiar with the incident, that Graham flew from the [[United Kingdom]] to [[San Francisco]] in 2019 to remove Altman.[^27] On May 30, 2024, after [[Helen Toner]], a former OpenAI board member, said on the TED AI Show that the reasons for the departure had been "hushed up at the time," Graham wrote on X, as TechCrunch quoted him: "People have been claiming [Y Combinator] fired Sam Altman. That's not true." He wrote that when OpenAI announced a for-profit subsidiary of which Altman would be chief executive, Livingston told Altman he had to choose between OpenAI and YC, and that they told him "if he was going to work full-time on OpenAI, we should find someone else to run YC, and he agreed." Kyle Wiggers of TechCrunch wrote that, reportedly, some YC partners took issue with the indirect stake in OpenAI that Altman held while president.[^14] [[Federal Election Commission]] records list Altman with Y Combinator as his employer on contributions of 250,000 dollars to the super PAC SMP on May 11, 2020 and 100,000 dollars on August 17, 2022, after he had left the presidency.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
### Garry Tan and San Francisco Politics
|
||||
|
||||
On January 27, 2024, Joe Rivano Barros of Mission Local reported that Tan had written on X, in a since-deleted post, that seven named members of the [[San Francisco Board of Supervisors]], [[Aaron Peskin]], [[Connie Chan]], [[Dean Preston]], [[Shamann Walton]], [[Myrna Melgar]], [[Hillary Ronen]] and [[Ahsha Safai]], should "Die slow motherfuckers." Tan wrote afterward that he thought "everyone would get the rap reference but that wasn't a good call." Peskin called the post "unacceptable violent speech that should not be condoned in our society from anyone, particularly a tech millionaire."[^29]
|
||||
|
||||
Campaign filings published by the city of San Francisco list 49 itemized receipts from Garry Tan on Form 460 Schedule A between January 12, 2015 and May 22, 2026, totalling 487,990 dollars. Four total 100,500 dollars to committees supporting the recall of District Attorney [[Chesa Boudin]]: 500 dollars on March 13, 2021, 10,000 dollars on April 25, 2021, 40,000 dollars on May 21, 2021 and 50,000 dollars on March 11, 2022. Three total 25,001 dollars to committees for the 2021 recall of three school board members. The Coalition to Grow San Francisco (Grow SF PAC) received 25,000 dollars on March 11, 2022 for a committee opposing "Mar for Supervisor 2022" and 50,000 dollars on July 27, 2023 for one opposing "Preston for Supervisor 2024," and its late-contribution reports list four further contributions of 24,500 dollars each from Tan on July 9, 2024. Other receipts include 100,000 dollars to Affordable Homes Now San Francisco on April 7, 2022, 25,000 dollars to a committee for Proposition D (victims' rights) on May 5, 2022, 12,000 dollars to the "No on B, Stop the Cop Tax" committee in December 2023 and February 2024, 25,000 dollars to SF Guardians in January and February 2024, 25,000 dollars on July 9, 2024 to the committee for "Yes on D, No on E," 10,000 dollars on October 9, 2024 to "Yes on F, San Franciscans for a Full Police Staffing," 10,000 dollars on April 7, 2025 to a committee opposing the recall of Supervisor [[Joel Engardio]], and 10,000 dollars each on May 15 and May 22, 2026 to committees for [[Matt Dorsey]] and [[Stephen Sherrill]]. Filings from 2016 to 2022 list his employer as Initialized Capital and most from mid-2023 as Y Combinator, with Initialized Capital still appearing on some 2024 and 2025 entries.[^30]
|
||||
|
||||
Rya Jetha of the San Francisco Standard reported on February 11, 2026 that Tan was launching Garry's List, a statewide nonprofit he described as a "Rotary Club for radical centrism" that he was funding with money from friends and supporters, and that he had given nearly 40,000 dollars the previous month to the campaign for governor of [[San Jose]] Mayor [[Matt Mahan]].[^31]
|
||||
|
||||
### Federal Political Contributions
|
||||
|
||||
Federal Election Commission records list Tan, with Y Combinator as employer, giving 25,000 dollars on September 25, 2024 and 100,000 dollars on October 3, 2024 to the [[Harris Victory Fund]], with attributed amounts of 21,700 and 19,600 dollars to the [[Democratic National Committee]] and 3,300 dollars to Harris for President. He gave 10,000 dollars to the DCCC through ActBlue on September 5, 2024; 10,000 dollars on each of June 4, 2024, March 26, 2025 and May 8, 2026 to the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee; 3,500 dollars twice on November 20, 2025 to the congressional campaign of [[Scott Wiener]]; and 25,000 dollars on December 24, 2025 to Abundant Future, a super PAC in Sacramento first registered on October 3, 2025.[^32]
|
||||
|
||||
Graham gave 300,000 dollars to the [[Hillary Victory Fund]] on August 23, 2016, listing "Y Combinator, LLC" as employer, 100,000 dollars and 250,000 dollars to [[Swing Left]] on September 11, 2017 and May 8, 2018, and 500,000 dollars on October 1, 2018 to SMP (committee C00484642, a super PAC registered in 2010). Livingston gave 300,000 dollars to the Hillary Victory Fund on August 19, 2016, also listing "Y Combinator, LLC," and gave [[Tech for Campaigns]] 1,000,000 dollars on August 5, 2020, 4,000,000 dollars on September 29, 2020 and 5,000,000 dollars on September 10, 2024.[^33] Altman, listing Y Combinator as employer, gave SMP 250,000 dollars on April 6, 2018.[^28]
|
||||
|
||||
### Little Tech PAC
|
||||
|
||||
Y Combinator Management, LLC registered a connected federal political committee, the Y Combinator Management, LLC Political Committee (Little Tech PAC), on December 15, 2025 (committee C00930727), with Justin Phillips as treasurer and the address 335 Pioneer Way, Mountain View. Its reports show receipts of 120,000 dollars for December 15 to 31, 2025, 83,920.70 dollars for the first quarter of 2026 and 580.60 dollars for April 1 to May 20, 2026, a total of 204,501.30 dollars, and disbursements of 117,646.90 dollars through July 15, 2026, leaving 86,854.40 dollars in cash.[^34]
|
||||
|
||||
The receipts are forty contributions of 5,000 dollars each from individuals and 4,501.30 dollars reported as other receipts from Y Combinator Management, LLC. The first, on December 18, 2025, came from Travis Lowe, listed as YC's head of public policy, in Washington; Graham and Tan followed on December 19, Jonathan Levy, listed as managing director, on December 21, and Livingston on December 23, with group and managing partners and several spouses listed as homemakers making up most of the rest. Apart from payment processing fees, the committee's first disbursement was 1,500 dollars to Iowans for Zach Nunn on March 9, 2026. On July 1, 2026 it made 59 contributions of 1,000 to 3,500 dollars to candidate and leadership committees, among them those of Senators [[Ted Cruz]], [[Josh Hawley]], [[Bernie Moreno]], [[Tim Sheehy]], [[Ted Budd]], [[Mike Rounds]], [[Dan Sullivan]] and [[Katie Britt]], and of Representatives [[Mike Rogers (Alabama politician)|Mike Rogers]] (3,000 dollars) and [[Adam Smith]] (3,000 dollars), the chairman and ranking member of the [[House Armed Services Committee]],[^35] [[Valerie Foushee]] (3,500 dollars), [[Frank Pallone]], [[Jamie Raskin]], [[Ted Lieu]], [[Jay Obernolte]], [[Pramila Jayapal]], [[Rob Wittman]] and [[John Moolenaar]]. It had also given 1,000 dollars to Team Graham, Inc. on May 15, 2026.[^36] Eddie Kim of Gazetteer SF reported in September 2026 that the committee's designated agent is Verene Prescher, YC's head of finance, that its treasurer works for the political consulting firm [[Aristotle]], and that YC and the committee did not respond to questions about its purpose.[^35]
|
||||
|
||||
### Lobbying
|
||||
|
||||
The firm [[Venture Politics]] registered on September 5, 2014 to lobby for Y Combinator on "High Skilled Immigration Reform - Startup Visa" and filed a termination on October 20, 2014. On December 11, 2023, [[The Joseph Group]], LLC registered for Y Combinator on "Immigration reform, tech competition policy, artificial intelligence and capital formation." Its lobbyist, [[Kevin Joseph]], lists service on the [[House Energy and Commerce Committee]] from 1987 to 1989 and the [[Senate Commerce Committee]] from 1990 to 1999. Reported income was 20,000 dollars for the fourth quarter of 2023, 30,000 dollars for each of the first three quarters of 2024 and 45,000 dollars for each quarter from the fourth quarter of 2024 through the second quarter of 2026, a total of 425,000 dollars.[^37]
|
||||
|
||||
### Investment in Scale AI
|
||||
|
||||
The Series F announcement of [[Scale AI]] on May 21, 2024 lists Y Combinator among the existing investors in the 1 billion dollar round at a 13.8 billion dollar valuation, alongside [[Nat Friedman]], [[Index Ventures]], Founders Fund and the lead investor [[Accel]], and lists [[Meta Platforms|Meta]] among the new investors.[^38]
|
||||
|
||||
### Footnotes
|
||||
|
||||
[^1]: Graham, Paul. "How Y Combinator Started." paulgraham.com, March 2012. https://paulgraham.com/ycstart.html
|
||||
[^2]: Y Combinator. "What Happens at YC?" ycombinator.com/about, accessed October 1, 2026. https://www.ycombinator.com/about
|
||||
[^3]: Y Combinator Management, LLC (CRD 171730, SEC file 802-80528), Form ADV annual amendment, March 27, 2026, Items 1 and 7.B (Schedule D, Section 7.B.1) and Schedule A; Investment Adviser Public Disclosure record. https://reports.adviserinfo.sec.gov/reports/ADV/171730/PDF/171730.pdf ; https://api.adviserinfo.sec.gov/search/firm/171730
|
||||
[^4]: Graham, Paul. "Bio." paulgraham.com, accessed October 1, 2026. https://paulgraham.com/bio.html
|
||||
[^5]: Graham, Paul. "What I Worked On." paulgraham.com, February 2021. https://paulgraham.com/worked.html
|
||||
[^6]: United States v. Morris, 928 F.2d 504 (2d Cir. 1991), Docket No. 90-1336, argued December 4, 1990, decided March 7, 1991. https://openjurist.org/928/f2d/504
|
||||
[^7]: Markoff, John. "Robert Morris, Pioneer in Computer Security, Dies at 78." The New York Times, June 29, 2011 (print July 1, 2011, section B, page 15). https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/30/technology/30morris.html
|
||||
[^8]: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Form D, Y Combinator Continuity Fund I, L.P. (CIK 0001645142), accession 0001645142-15-000001, filed June 15, 2015, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1645142/000164514215000001/primary_doc.xml ; Form D, Y Combinator Continuity Affiliates Fund I, L.P. (CIK 0001670489), accession 0001670489-16-000001, filed March 25, 2016, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1670489/000167048916000001/primary_doc.xml
|
||||
[^9]: Graham, Paul. "Sam Altman for President." Y Combinator blog, February 21, 2014. https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/sam-altman-for-president/
|
||||
[^10]: Loizos, Connie. "Y Combinator promotes Geoff Ralston to president, while Sam Altman shifts to advisor role." TechCrunch, May 20, 2019. https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/20/y-combinator-promotes-geoff-ralston-to-president-while-sam-altman-shifts-to-advisor-role
|
||||
[^11]: Altman, Sam. "Geoff Ralston for President." Y Combinator blog, May 20, 2019. https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/geoff-ralston-for-president/
|
||||
[^12]: Ralston, Geoff. "Welcome Home, Garry Tan." Y Combinator blog, August 29, 2022. https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/welcome-home-garry-tan
|
||||
[^13]: Altman, Sam. "Welcome Peter." Y Combinator blog, March 10, 2015 (with later edit line). https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/welcome-peter
|
||||
[^14]: Wiggers, Kyle. "Paul Graham claims Sam Altman wasn't fired from Y Combinator." TechCrunch, May 30, 2024, quoting Graham's posts on X of the same date. https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/30/paul-graham-claims-altman-wasnt-fired-from-y-combinator/
|
||||
[^15]: Altman, Sam. "YC Research." Y Combinator blog, October 7, 2015, updated June 5, 2020. https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/yc-research/
|
||||
[^16]: OpenAI Inc. (EIN 81-0861541), Form 990 for 2016, IRS e-file object 201703459349300445, Part VII and Schedules J, L, M and R, return timestamp December 11, 2017. IRS Form 990 e-file data, download990xml_2017_2.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2017/download990xml_2017_2.zip
|
||||
[^17]: Y Combinator Research Inc. (EIN 81-0861414), Form 990 for 2016, IRS e-file object 201703459349300845, Part VII and Schedules J, L and R, return timestamp December 11, 2017. IRS Form 990 e-file data, download990xml_2017_2.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2017/download990xml_2017_2.zip
|
||||
[^18]: OpenAI Inc., Form 990 for 2017, IRS e-file object 201920719349300822, Part VII and Schedules L and R, return timestamp March 12, 2019. download990xml_2019_4.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2019/download990xml_2019_4.zip
|
||||
[^19]: Y Combinator Research Inc., Form 990 for 2017, IRS e-file object 201923539349301727, Part VII and Schedules I, L and M, return timestamp December 19, 2019. download990xml_2019_5.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2019/download990xml_2019_5.zip
|
||||
[^20]: Y Combinator Research Inc., Form 990 for 2018, IRS e-file object 202030949349300318, Schedule L. download990xml_2020_5.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2020/download990xml_2020_5.zip
|
||||
[^21]: Y Combinator Research Inc., Form 990 for 2019, IRS e-file object 202011399349301581, Schedule L. download990xml_2020_2.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2020/download990xml_2020_2.zip
|
||||
[^22]: Open Research Lab (EIN 81-0861414), Form 990 for 2020, IRS e-file object 202113209349301966, Part III and Schedules I, L and O (name change of July 13, 2020). 2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2021/2021_TEOS_XML_01A.zip
|
||||
[^23]: Open Research Lab, Form 990 for 2021, IRS e-file object 202213199349328891, Schedules L and M. 2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2022/2022_TEOS_XML_02A.zip
|
||||
[^24]: Open Research Lab, Form 990 for 2022, IRS e-file object 202323259349301112, Schedule L. 2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2023/2023_TEOS_XML_11A.zip
|
||||
[^25]: Open Research Lab, Form 990 for 2023, IRS e-file object 202403209349327670, Schedule L, 2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2024/2024_TEOS_XML_11A.zip ; amended Form 990 for 2023, object 202610309349301431, return timestamp January 30, 2026, 2026_TEOS_XML_02A.zip, https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2026/2026_TEOS_XML_02A.zip
|
||||
[^26]: Open Research Lab, Form 990 for 2024, IRS e-file object 202610309349300226, Part I, Part IV and Part VII, return timestamp January 30, 2026. 2026_TEOS_XML_02A.zip. https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/990/xml/2026/2026_TEOS_XML_02A.zip
|
||||
[^27]: Dwoskin, Elizabeth, and Nitasha Tiku. "Before OpenAI, Sam Altman was fired from Y Combinator by his mentor." The Washington Post, November 22, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/11/22/sam-altman-fired-y-combinator-paul-graham/
|
||||
[^28]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A receipts, contributor "Altman, Sam," sub_ids 4052220181566105868, 4062320201776698601 and 4092120221576376976. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/
|
||||
[^29]: Rivano Barros, Joe. "Garry Tan, tech CEO & campaign donor, wishes death upon San Francisco politicians." Mission Local, January 27, 2024. https://missionlocal.org/2024/01/garry-tan-death-wish-sf-supervisors/
|
||||
[^30]: City and County of San Francisco, Ethics Commission, campaign finance transactions (Form 460 Schedule A and Form 496), DataSF dataset pitq-e56w, queried October 1, 2026 for contributor Garry Tan. https://data.sf.gov/resource/pitq-e56w.json
|
||||
[^31]: Jetha, Rya. "Garry Tan isn't leaving California. He's launching a policy nonprofit instead." The San Francisco Standard, February 11, 2026. https://sfstandard.com/2026/02/11/garry-tan-isn-t-leaving-california-s-launching-policy-nonprofit-instead/
|
||||
[^32]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A receipts, contributor "Tan, Garry," sub_ids 4051020251190690588, 4051020251189907530, 4060420251204703693, 4060420251204704940, 4102320242081212337, 4103120241015203165, 4010720261300203985, 4081320261580938131, 4090920261595992703, 4091520261598475450, 4091520261598475452 and 4041020261435471006; committee record C00922229 (Abundant Future). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/ ; https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00922229/
|
||||
[^33]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A receipts, contributor "Graham, Paul" (sub_ids 4090120171448198341, 4021620181506028468, 4062720181571939382, 4021520191639633861) and "Livingston, Jessica" (4090120171448389113, 4022620211189209529, 4022620211189209530, 4012220251133165299); committee record C00484642 (SMP). https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/ ; https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/committee/C00484642/
|
||||
[^34]: Federal Election Commission, committee C00930727, Y Combinator Management, LLC Political Committee (Little Tech PAC), committee record and reports: Year-End 2025, https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/966/202601309794605966/202601309794605966.pdf ; April Quarterly 2026, https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/828/202604159857579828/202604159857579828.pdf ; Pre-Primary (April 1 to May 20, 2026), https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/264/202605289870302264/202605289870302264.pdf ; July Quarterly 2026, https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/209/202607139874939209/202607139874939209.pdf ; Pre-Primary (July 1 to 15, 2026), https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/400/202607239894444400/202607239894444400.pdf
|
||||
[^35]: Kim, Eddie. "Y Combinator's PAC is throwing money at a bunch of Republicans across the country." Gazetteer SF, September 18, 2026. https://sf.gazetteer.co/y-combinators-pac-is-throwing-money-at-a-bunch-of-republicans-across-the-country
|
||||
[^36]: Federal Election Commission, Schedule A (42 records) and Schedule B (72 records) for committee C00930727, two-year period 2026, queried October 1, 2026. https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_a/?committee_id=C00930727 ; https://api.open.fec.gov/v1/schedules/schedule_b/?committee_id=C00930727
|
||||
[^37]: U.S. Senate and House, Lobbying Disclosure Act filings for client Y Combinator: Venture Politics registration posted September 5, 2014, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/7f934920-3e3f-46e4-bfe0-2cd9379fbdae/print/ , and termination posted October 20, 2014, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/784b304f-43fa-4dc0-8ddc-bd1a64a8f877/print/ ; The Joseph Group, LLC registration posted December 11, 2023, https://lda.gov/filings/public/filing/cd6749cc-6a4f-4565-8b39-e4f42f395e7d/print/ , and quarterly reports for the fourth quarter of 2023 through the second quarter of 2026, https://lda.gov/api/v1/filings/?client_name=Y+Combinator
|
||||
[^38]: Wang, Alexandr. "Scale's Series F: Expanding the Data Foundry for AI." Scale AI, May 21, 2024. https://scale.com/blog/scale-ai-series-f
|
||||
Loading…
Add table
Add a link
Reference in a new issue