It is significant that a big beneficiary of Soros largesse, in addition to CAP, is the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which currently represents WikiLeaks and is hoping to forestall a Justice Department indictment of founder Julian Assange on charges of espionage stemming from his alleged conspiracy with accused Army traitor Bradley Manning to steal and release classified U.S. counter-terrorism and intelligence information.
Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media
via Trevor Loundon’s New Zeal
1/6/2012
Philip Ellender, a representative of the libertarian Koch brothers, has issued a statement saying that, “Contrary to unfounded speculation by Politico and others, neither Charles Koch nor David Koch, nor any Koch company has provided funding to or has any involvement with the Center for American Freedom.”
The categorical statement seems to put to rest the innuendo from Politico, which has set the left-wing blogs on fire, that the billionaire Koch brothers are behind a new conservative start-up organization designed as a response to the liberal/left Soros-funded Center for American Progress (CAP).
The new conservative group is supposed to be launching an on-line publication called the Washington Free Beacon.
Politico’s Ben Smith insinuates that Orion Strategies, a Washington, D.C. lobbying firm run by Randy Scheunemann, a former foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain, was somehow involved in the creation of the Center for American Freedom. He writes that the chairman of the new group, Michael Goldfarb, was a vice president of Orion, “where his clients include Charles and David Koch.” Goldfarb had been Deputy Communications Director of the McCain 2008 presidential campaign.
But here’s where it gets interesting, at least for conservatives. It turns out that Scheunemann, not mentioned in the Politico article, has himself represented the Open Society Policy Center, founded and funded by George Soros, on Capitol Hill. Scheunemann has personally registered as a lobbyist for the Soros group.
In fact, the lobbying disclosure documents on file with the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives and reviewed this week by Accuracy in Media show that, as late as last year, Scheunemann was still a registered lobbyist for Soros interests on Capitol Hill.
The Open Society Policy Center is one of dozens of Soros-funded progressive groups and was once run by the controversial Morton Halperin, a former official in various Democratic Administrations whose appointment to a senior post in the Defense Department in the Clinton Administration was opposed by Scheunemann’s old boss, Senator McCain…
…Justin Elliott of Salon.com wrote about the Scheunemann-Soros connection on November 12, 2010, “Top Palin aide is on Soros’ payroll,” noting that Scheunemann was also advising Sarah Palin, who had been McCain’s running mate in the 2008 presidential campaign…
The entire article is at New Zeal.
Updated
