 | |
| Abbreviation | AAF |
|---|---|
| Formation | 2020 |
| 85-4391204 | |
| Headquarters | Washington, D.C. |
Executive director | Tom Jones |
| Website | AAF website |
The American Accountability Foundation (AAF) is an American conservative opposition research group founded in 2020 that has opposed nominees to the Joe Biden administration. [1]
The AAF's executive director and co-founder, Tom Jones, previously worked for Republican senators Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz (directing opposition research for Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign), Jim DeMint, and John Ensign. Its other co-founder, Matthew Buckham, worked in the White House Presidential Personnel Office during the first Trump presidency. [2] The New Yorker described the AAF as a dark money group [3] ("a politically active, tax-exempt nonprofit charity that doesn’t disclose its backers") that is an offshoot of another such group, the Conservative Partnership Institute, which employed Mark Meadows after he left the Trump administration. [2] [4]
The AAF describes itself as a "charitable and educational organization that conducts non-partisan governmental oversight research and fact-checking so Americans can hold their elected leaders accountable". [5] Jones told Fox News in April 2021 that he aimed to "take a big handful of sand and throw it in the gears of the Biden administration". [2] [6]
AAF is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025, [7] a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election. [8]
According to The New Yorker, the AAF "aims to thwart the entire Biden slate", and as of April 2022 had targeted 29 nominees. [2] The AAF acknowledged its role in derailing Biden's nominations of David Chipman to be director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in 2021; [9] Sarah Bloom Raskin to be vice-chair for supervision of the Federal Reserve Board in 2022; [4] and David Weil for the Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor. [2] The AAF's research was used by Republican opponents of the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson for the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022. [10]
In September 2021, the AAF filed an ethics complaint against representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for attending the Met Gala. The AAF claimed that her attendance amounted to accepting an illegal gift since her estimated $35,000 ticket was paid for by Conde Nast, a for-profit company, not a charity. The event itself is however a charitable fundraiser. [11] [12] [13]
In 2023, during Gigi Sohn's nomination to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) she faced an aggressive campaign funded by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF). Sohn, a consumer advocate nominated by President Joe Biden, aimed to expand free internet access and improve broadband competition. The AAF, not required to disclose its donors, launched an attack on Sohn, labeling her as too partisan, anti-police, and soft on sex trafficking. Despite being a historic nominee as the FCC's first openly LGBTQ+ commissioner, Sohn faced opposition from moderate Democrats, leading to her withdrawal from the race. This instance showcased how dark money and untraceable donations influenced public opinion and nominee confirmations, shaping the political landscape. Telecom industry lobbyists were reportedly involved behind the scenes to thwart Sohn's nomination, emphasizing the power of such groups in American politics. [14]
Lisa Ann Murkowski is a U.S. attorney and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Alaska, having held the seat since 2002. She is the first woman to represent Alaska in the Senate and the Senate's second-most senior Republican woman, after Susan Collins of Maine. She became dean of Alaska's congressional delegation upon Representative Don Young's death.
Peter Franz Schweizer is an American political consultant and writer. He is the president of the Government Accountability Institute (GAI), senior editor-at-large of far-right media organization Breitbart News, and a former fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) watchdog organization devoted to U.S. government ethics and accountability. Founded in 2003 as a counterweight to conservative government watchdog groups such as Judicial Watch, CREW works to expose ethics violations and corruption by government officials and institutions and to reduce the role of money in politics.
Gigi Beth Sohn is an American lawyer who is the co-founder of Public Knowledge. She previously worked for the Ford Foundation. In 2013, Tom Wheeler hired her into a senior staff position at the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). She left there shortly after Donald Trump's election in 2016. In July 2017, she held fellowship positions with Georgetown Law's Institute for Technology Law & Policy, Open Society Foundations, and Mozilla.
Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson is an American lawyer and jurist who is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Joe Biden on February 25, 2022, and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn into office that same year. She is the first black woman and the first former federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court.
Sarah Bloom Raskin is an American attorney and financial markets policymaker who served as the 13th United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury from 2014 to 2017. Raskin previously served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 2010 to 2014. She also was Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation. She was a Rubenstein Fellow at Duke University. She is currently the Colin W. Brown Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Law at Duke Law School. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Duke Center on Risk. She also serves as a Partner at Kaya Partners, Ltd., a climate advisory firm.
The Government Accountability Institute (GAI) is a conservative think tank located in Tallahassee, Florida. GAI was founded in 2012 by Peter Schweizer and Steve Bannon with funding from Robert Mercer and family. Schweizer serves as the group's president.
Leslie Carol Rutledge is an American attorney and politician who has served as the 21st lieutenant governor of Arkansas since 2023. A member of the Republican Party, she was previously the 56th attorney general of Arkansas from 2015 to 2023.
On March 16, 2016, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia, who had died one month earlier. At the time of his nomination, Garland was the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The Job Creators Network (JCN) is a conservative U.S. advocacy group founded by Bernie Marcus, the co-founder and former CEO of Home Depot.
Russell Thurlow Vought, or Russ Vought is an American former government official who was the director of the Office of Management and Budget from July 2020 to January 2021. He was previously deputy director of the OMB for part of 2018, and acting director from 2019 to 2020.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, also known by her initials AOC, is an American politician and activist serving since 2019 as the U.S. representative for New York's 14th congressional district. She is a member of the Democratic Party.
Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT), formerly the Free Market American Educational Foundation, Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust and Working for Rights to Express & Communication, is a Washington,DC–based conservative nonprofit organization specializing in advocacy regarding legal and ethical issues related to politics. Until 2017, it was run by the former Acting United States Attorney General Matthew Whitaker.
The Squad is a progressive grouping in the U.S. House of Representatives forming part of the Democratic Caucus. All are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Sarah Longwell is an American political strategist and publisher of the conservative news and opinion website The Bulwark. A member of the Republican Party, she is the founder of Republican Accountability, which spent millions of dollars to defeat then-President Donald Trump in 2020. According to TheNew Yorker, Longwell has "dedicated her career to fighting Trump's takeover of her party".
Republican Accountability (RA), formerly Republican Accountability Project (RAP) and, for the current presidential election, Republican Voters Against Trump (RVAT), is a political initiative launched in May 2020 by Defending Democracy Together for the 2020 U.S. presidential election cycle. The project was formed to produce a US$10 million advertising campaign focused on 100 testimonials by Republicans, conservatives, moderates, right-leaning independent voters, and former Trump voters explaining why they would not vote for Donald Trump in 2020. By August 2020, they had collected 500 testimonials.
Wendy Rogers is an American far-right politician of the Republican Party. First elected in 2020, she is the Arizona State Senator representing Legislative District 7.
President Joe Biden began his presidency with fewer vacancies to fill than his predecessor. He pledged to nominate people with diverse backgrounds and professional experience; further he pledged to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court of the United States.
On February 25, 2022, President Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson to the position of associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy by Stephen Breyer, who announced his retirement on January 27, 2022, at the age of 83. Jackson, a former law clerk of Breyer, was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, having been appointed by Biden in 2021. Jackson is the first Black woman in U.S. history to be nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) is a United States-based conservative nonprofit organization. The stated purpose of CPI is the professional development of conservative staffers and elected officials. Under the leadership of Mark Meadows, since 2017 the nonprofit has grown sixfold to become the "nerve center" of the MAGA movement, bolstering notable figures such as U.S. Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, according to The Washington Post. It has also been called a well-financed network of about two dozen right-wing organizations, the next Trump Administration "in waiting", and a "base of operations" for conservatives who not only target Democrats but other Republicans who they believe to be insufficiently conservative. According to one supporter, the staff of the organization have "thought deeply about what’s needed to create the infrastructure and the resources for a more anti-establishment conservative movement”.