Government Accountability Institute

Last updated
Government Accountability Institute
Founded2012 [1]
Type 501(c)(3) organization
45-4681912
Location
Area served
United States
Key people
 Peter Schweizer
Steve Bannon
Wynton Hall
Revenue
$1.7 million (2014) [2]
Website g-a-i.org

The Government Accountability Institute (GAI) is a conservative think tank [3] [4] located in Tallahassee, Florida. [5] [6] GAI was founded in 2012 [7] by Peter Schweizer and Steve Bannon with funding from Robert Mercer and family. [8] Schweizer serves as the group's president. [9]

Contents

The group's stated goal is to investigate and expose government corruption, misuse of taxpayer money, and crony capitalism. It is registered as a nonpartisan organization, [10] but is largely focused on investigations of allegations related to the Democratic Party. [11]

Overview

The Government Accountability Institute was set up by Steve Bannon as a tool for transmitting partisan dirt-digging and questionable opposition research to the mainstream media. [12] [13] "He realized that, though mainstream reporters were suspicious of partisan opinion, they were open to damning facts about public figures, regardless of the sourcing. He set out, with Schweizer, to produce material that would generate mainstream coverage, and right-wing outrage", wrote The New Yorker's Jane Mayer. [14]

While GAI claims to be "a self-styled corruption watchdog group chaired and funded by conservative mega-donor Rebekah Mercer.", [15] the group became a mainstay of Alt-right media. [16]

Members of GAI's board of directors include Steve Bannon, Peter Schweizer, Hunter Lewis, Ron Robinson (president of Young America's Foundation), and Wynton Hall. [17] Former U.S. representative Jason Chaffetz joined the GAI as a distinguished fellow in 2021. [11]

Funding

Between 2012 and 2014, GAI received donations of almost $4 million from the Mercer Family Foundation and the Koch brothers-affiliated Donors Trust. [18] [19]

In 2019, the New Yorker reported that most of the GAI's funding came from tax-exempt donations from the family foundation of Robert Mercer, and that in the organization's 2017 tax filings listed his daughter Rebekah as chairman of the GAI board. [14]

Activities

The organization published several reports and books with premises and claims that were debunked after—or even before—publication. [20] [21] [22]

One is Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, a 2015 book that makes false claims about donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities, paid speeches made by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the Clintons' personal enrichment since leaving the White House in 2001. [23]

In October 2012, GAI released a report insinuating that the Obama campaign had received unlawful contributions. [24] Citing no evidence, it claimed that "campaigns that aggressively raise money online are soliciting donations from people around the world-whether they intend to or not," and asserted that the Obama campaign had lacked "rigorous screening for donors' citizenship" (it is illegal for non-U.S. citizens to contribute to U.S. campaigns). Multiple media sources had debunked the claim and found no supporting evidence. [25]

Another debunked [26] book is Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends, which was the first printed source about the false Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory. [1]

Bush Bucks: How Public Service and Corporations Helped Make Jeb Rich, an e-book published in October 2015, raises questions about the millions of dollars former Florida Governor Jeb Bush earned after leaving office from companies that benefited from Bush's policy while he was serving as Florida's governor. [27] [28]

A November 2016 investigation by The Washington Post detailed ties between the Government Accountability Institute and the conservative website Breitbart News. Three GAI employees received full-time compensation while simultaneously being employed elsewhere. [29] From 2012 to 2015, GAI co-founder and executive chair Steve Bannon received $376,000 for working 30 hours a week. He simultaneously served as executive chairman for Breitbart News. [18] GAI communications strategist Wynton Hall received $600,000 during the same time. Hall worked as a writer for Breitbart News and was promoted to managing editor in 2013. GAI president and treasurer Peter Schweizer, also an at-large editor and writer for Breitbart News, was paid $778,000 by the GAI from 2012 to 2015. [18]

The Post noted that GAI's political advocacy raises questions about whether the 501(c)(3) public charity has illegally intervened in political campaigns. The Washington Post report also found that, from 2013 to 2015, GAI purchased over $200,000 in advertising from Breitbart's website. [18] [30]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Schweizer</span> American writer

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patrick Caddell</span> American public opinion pollster (1950–2019)

Patrick Hayward Caddell was an American public opinion pollster and a political film consultant who served in the Carter administration. He worked for Democratic presidential candidates George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, Gary Hart in 1984 (primary), Walter Mondale in 1984, Joe Biden in 1988, and Jerry Brown in 1992. He also worked for Mario Cuomo, Bob Graham, Michael Dukakis, Paul Simon, Ted Kennedy, Harold Washington, Andrew Romanoff and Donald Trump.

Aaron Klein is an American-Israeli conservative political commentator, journalist, strategist, bestselling author, and senior advisor to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He served as campaign manager for several of Netanyahu's election campaigns and chief strategist for Netanyahu's 2020 election campaign that resulted in a rotating unity government with Netanyahu at the helm and his 2022 campaign in which Netanyahu won a full-term. Klein was Netanyahu's full-time strategic advisor in government from 2020 to 2021, during the period Netanyahu was prime minister of Israel's 36th government and he serves as a strategic advisor to Netanyahu during Israel's 37th government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Counselor to the President</span> American political position

Counselor to the President is a title used by high-ranking political advisors to the president of the United States and senior members of the White House Office.

<i>Breitbart News</i> American far-right news and opinion website

Breitbart News Network is an American far-right syndicated news, opinion, and commentary website founded in mid-2007 by American conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart. Its content has been described as misogynistic, xenophobic, and racist by academics and journalists. The site has published a number of conspiracy theories and intentionally misleading stories. Posts originating from the Breitbart News Facebook page are among the most widely shared political content on Facebook.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Thiessen</span> American conservative author

Marc Alexander Thiessen is an American conservative author, political appointee, and weekly columnist for The Washington Post. Thiessen served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush from 2007 to 2009 and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld from 2001 to 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Fernandez</span> American businessman

Miguel B. "Mike" Fernandez is an American health care industry businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is the founder of MBF Healthcare Partners, a private equity firm founded in 2005 in Coral Gables, Florida. Fernandez is a major Republican donor.

Robert Leroy Mercer is an American hedge fund manager, computer scientist, and political donor. Mercer was an early artificial intelligence researcher and developer and is the former co-CEO of the hedge fund company Renaissance Technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Bannon</span> American media executive and political strategist (born 1953)

Stephen Kevin Bannon is an American media executive, political strategist, and former investment banker. He served as the White House's chief strategist for the first seven months of U.S. president Donald Trump's administration, before Trump discharged him. He is a former executive chairman of Breitbart News and previously served on the board of the now-defunct data-analytics firm Cambridge Analytica.

<i>Clinton Cash</i> 2015 book by Peter Schweizer

Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich is a 2015 New York Times bestselling book by Peter Schweizer in which he investigates donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities, paid speeches made by Bill and Hillary Clinton, and the state of the Clintons' finances since leaving the White House in 2001. It was published by Broadside Books, a division of HarperCollins, and was adapted into both a film and a graphic novel.

During Hillary Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, a number of individuals, organizations, and countries allegedly contributed to the Clinton Foundation either before, or while, pursuing interests through ordinary channels with the U.S. State Department.

Rebekah Mercer is an American heiress and Republican political donor, and director of the Mercer Family Foundation.

Make America Number 1 is a right-wing super PAC that supported the presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election. During the primary campaign, the super PAC was known as Keep the Promise I. In the general election, it informally termed itself Defeat Crooked Hillary PAC, but was not allowed to officially use this term and chose the name Make America Number 1. The PAC is run by Rebekah Mercer, the second daughter of its largest donor Robert Mercer.

<i>Devils Bargain</i> Book about Donald Trumps 2016 presidential campaign

Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the Storming of the Presidency is a 2017 book by Bloomberg Businessweek journalist Joshua Green about the partnership between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon that led to their 2016 political victory and the putative rise of the alt-right. Prior to writing the book, Green had worked as a journalist for The Atlantic and Bloomberg, where he garnered experience reporting on conservatives. He had previously written a profile on Bannon in 2015, and interviewed Bannon for the book.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uranium One controversy</span> Alleged US political scandal

The Uranium One controversy involves various conspiracy theories promoted by conservative media, politicians, and commentators that characterized the sale of the uranium mining company Uranium One to the Russian state-owned corporation Rosatom as a $145 million bribery scandal involving Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. No evidence of wrongdoing was ever found.

From 2017 through 2021, Donald Trump was the 45th president of the United States; he is the only American president to have no political or military service prior to his presidency, as well as the first to be charged and convicted with a felony after leaving office. He is regarded by historians as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citizens of the American Republic</span>

Citizens of the American Republic (COAR) was an American 501(c)(4) non-profit organization founded by Steve Bannon in 2017.

America's Great Divide: From Obama to Trump is a 2020 two-part television documentary film about the political divide between the United States Democratic and Republican Party in the early 21st century. Produced by the investigative journalism program Frontline on PBS, it charts how the two major political parties became increasingly adversarial to each other due to factors of race, media, and misinformation, from the 2008 presidential election to the presidency of Donald Trump. The film was directed by Michael Kirk and written by Kirk and Mike Wiser, and was first aired on PBS in two parts on January 13 and 14, 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reclaim New York</span> Government watchdog group in NY

Reclaim New York is a government watchdog group in New York State. It was founded in 2013 by hedge fund manager and computer scientist Robert Mercer, his daughter Rebekah Mercer, and Breitbart co-founder Steve Bannon, to track what they saw as excessive public spending. They were soon joined by conservative lawyer and legal activist Leonard Leo, and Bush-administration veteran Tom Basile. Reclaim New York describes itself as a non-partisan good government group. Most leadership roles have been filled by individuals with connections to the Republican party or other conservative groups. It has been accused by state Democrats and liberal groups of being a vehicle for the Mercers to achieve their political goals. As per its tax filings, Mercer provides nearly all of Reclaim New York's funding. It shared office space in New York City with data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica, which also received investments from the Mercer family. Reclaim New York, a 501(c)(3), launched a lobbying arm in 2016, the 501(c)(4) Reclaim New York Initiative. Reclaim New York downsized its operations in 2019, which was attributed by its opponents to its lack of success in influencing state politics.

References

  1. 1 2 Green, Joshua (October 8, 2015). "This Man Is the Most Dangerous Political Operative in America". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 8 October 2015.
  2. ↑ "2014 Form 990" (PDF). GuideStar. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
  3. ↑ Gold, Matea (March 17, 2017). "The Mercers and Stephen Bannon: How a populist power base was funded and built". The Washington Post . Retrieved 2018-09-30.
  4. ↑ Rutenberg, Jim (2020-09-30). "How Trump's 'Voter Fraud' Lie Is Disenfranchising Americans". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-09-30.
  5. ↑ Thiessen, Marc (September 10, 2012). "Marc Thiessen: Why is Obama skipping more than half of his daily intelligence meetings?". Washington Post. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  6. ↑ Nader, Ralph (2014). Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. Nation Books. ISBN   9781568584553.
  7. ↑ Thiessen, Marc (September 10, 2012). "Why is Obama skipping more than half of his daily intelligence meetings?". Washington Post. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  8. ↑ Zuckerman, Gregory, Keach Hagey, Scott Patterson and Rebecca Ballhaus, "Meet the Mercers: A Quiet Tycoon and His Daughter Become Power Brokers in Trump’s Washington" (subscription), The Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2017. Retrieved 2017-01-08.
  9. ↑ "CNN Report on "Legalized Extortion": Politics, Money and Influence". Real Clear Politics. January 22, 2014. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  10. ↑ Davies, Dave (October 9, 2019). "How a Political Hit Job Backfired, and Led to Trump's Impeachment Peril". Fresh Air . NPR.
  11. 1 2 Schwarz, D. Hunter (March 16, 2021). "Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz just joined this conservative think tank". Deseret News .
  12. ↑ Tillman, Seth Barrett (2022). "Disqualification from the Presidency and a Trump Plea Bargain". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.4194941. ISSN   1556-5068.
  13. ↑ Green, Joshua (2017). Devil's bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the storming of the presidency. Penguin. p. 155.
  14. 1 2 "The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine". The New Yorker. 2019-10-04. Retrieved 2021-11-12.
  15. ↑ Korte, Gregory; Mider, Zachary (3 October 2019). "Trump's Story of Hunter Biden's Chinese Venture Is Full of Holes". Bloomberg. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
  16. ↑ Gold, Matea (March 17, 2017). "The Mercers and Stephen Bannon: How a populist power base was funded and built". Washington Post. Retrieved 2023-06-17.
  17. ↑ "About". Government Accountability Institute. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
  18. 1 2 3 4 O'Harrow Jr., Robert (November 23, 2016). "Trump adviser received salary from charity while steering Breitbart News". Washington Post.
  19. ↑ Schweers, Jeffrey (November 23, 2016). "Breitbart chief Bannon got nearly $400k from nonprofit he created". Tallahassee Democrat.
  20. ↑ Erichsen, Kristen; Schrock, Douglas; Dowd-Arrow, Benjamin; Dignam, Pierce (2020-07-16). "Bitchifying Hillary: Trump Supporters' Vilification of Clinton during the 2016 Presidential Election". Social Currents. 7 (6): 526–542. doi:10.1177/2329496520941022. ISSN   2329-4965.
  21. ↑ Mayopu, Richard G.; Wang, Yi-Yun; Chen, Long-Sheng (2023-04-20). "Analyzing Online Fake News Using Latent Semantic Analysis: Case of USA Election Campaign". Big Data and Cognitive Computing. 7 (2): 81. doi: 10.3390/bdcc7020081 . ISSN   2504-2289.
  22. ↑ Geoghegan, Peter (2018-10-18), "Covering Trump: Reflections from the Campaign Trail and the Challenge for Journalism", Trump’s Media War, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 101–112, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-94069-4_7, ISBN   978-3-319-94068-7 , retrieved 2023-06-17
  23. ↑ Benkler, Yochai; Faris, Robert; Roberts, Hal (2018-11-29), "Mainstream Media Failure Modes and Self-Healing in a Propaganda-Rich Environment", Network Propaganda, Oxford University PressNew York, pp. 189–222, doi:10.1093/oso/9780190923624.003.0006, ISBN   978-0-19-092362-4 , retrieved 2023-06-17
  24. ↑ Mike Burns, Fox Hypes Unsubstantiated Claim That Obama May Be Receiving Illegal Foreign Donations, Media Matters for America (October 9, 2012).
  25. ↑ Dwyer, Devin (October 9, 2012). "Group Warns of Foreign, Fraudulent Donors to Obama Campaign". ABC News. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  26. ↑ Mayer, Jane (2019-10-04). "The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine". The New Yorker. ISSN   0028-792X . Retrieved 2023-06-17.
  27. ↑ Bender, Michael C. (October 20, 2015). "New Peter Schweizer E-Book Questions Jeb Bush's Earnings". Bloomberg Politics. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  28. ↑ "Report Traces Jeb Bush's Ties to Companies That Had Business With Florida". New York Times. October 21, 2015. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  29. ↑ Wyland, Michael (November 28, 2016). "Trump Adviser Double-dipping from Breitbart and Nonprofit Foundation| Nonprofit Quarterly". Nonprofit Quarterly.
  30. ↑ Smilowitz, Elliot (November 23, 2016). "Fla. charity paid Bannon, other Breitbart employees: report". The Hill.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.