Major U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials stated on Thursday that the organization is riled by a number of unique Breitbart News reports on a blossoming legislative investigation into the alleged business group’s financing of its connected foundation, the Hill .
More than$ 12 million in donations to the organization over the course of many years were revealed in duty files from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, which were discovered by Breitbart News in March. A number of left-wing sponsors contribute to the Tides Foundation, including George Soros, who is currently leading the Open Society Foundations. Additionally, this classic story revealed that the U.S. Chamber had hired Democrat employees, including a senior adviser to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s unsuccessful 2016 Democratic presidential campaign, according to the organization’s foundation tax filings. The income from the Tides Foundation, as Breitbart News reported, went to support the U. S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s work on its” Hiring Our Heroes” soldiers work plan.
Because the Tides Foundation is what is known as a “donor-advisory account,” exactly who gave the money and why is a big source of contention.
” Training the path of money through a donor-advised fund is similar to tracing its course through a cleansing machine.” It is nearly impossible to follow the income from beginning to end using publicly available information, such as a large donor-assisted bank like Tides, which finally distributes the funds as grants to organizations like the Chamber, according to Taylor Giorno of the Hill on Thursday. ” Tides took in almost$ 574 million and distributed$ 667 million in grants in 2022, according to its most recent , Form 990. According to its most recent Form 990, which detailed offers for particular programs related to the Chamber, its base, or Hiring Our Soldiers, Open Society Foundations reported giving Seas of$ 1.4 million in 2022.
After that initial Breitbart News history, in the ensuing months, House Ways and Means Committee’s chair Rep. Jason Smith ( R- MO ) began investigating the matter. This investigation is not a joke because the Ways and Means Committee has a lot of power and controls the revenue code’s policy. According to a separate inquiry launched by Smith, which gave the Chamber and its associated foundation until early next week to respond to information requests regarding the donations, as Breitbart News even specifically reported a few weeks ago.
A senior official with the Chamber repeatedly criticizing Breitbart News for reporting these information is then quoted in the Hill‘s larger part on the subject, which was published on Thursday.
” Chairman Smith raised a series of queries based on an article published by Breitbart that was technically false, and we appreciate , the opportunity to set the record straight about this false and misleading post”, Neil Bradley, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce’s executive vice president, told the Hill.
Bradley once more takes Breitbart News after in the item.
The Chamber will discuss with all of our friends about how Breitbart got it wrong, the crucial work of Hiring Our Heroes, and the numerous expressed priorities, including preserving aggressive tax policies that raise income and wages for Americans, according to Bradley.
Incidentally, while Bradley says the Breitbart News reports on this were “false and misleading”, “factually inaccurate”, and that Breitbart News “got it wrong”, he does not explain everywhere where there was any alleged scientific error in any of the Breitbart News reports. When the content in issue are in fact accurate as they are in this case, this is a common tactic used by political insiders, which is to blame the publication for disclosing the truth in public revenue records in an effort to refute the reporting. Bradley does not contest the fact that the Chamber’s foundation received more than$ 12 million from the Tides Foundation, nor does he dispute the hiring of a top Clinton campaign veteran. The only issue is where exactly the money came from via the Tides Foundation, which the congressional panel is currently looking into, and which parties have so far refused to reveal. The good news is that more than one does not seem to be buying what the Chamber of Commerce is selling despite Bradley’s constant whining about the Breitbart News stories in question the relevant players from the Hill newspaper to the Ways and Means Committee chairman.
Giorno claimed that Smith “made it abundantly clear he was not happy with the initial response.” Bradley claims in the second quote that the Chamber would “respond to” Smith in the article that it would not disclose where exactly the Tides Foundation donations came from. However, he is quoted earlier in the article saying that the Chamber’s response will not include any details.
When Giorno asked the Chamber if it would disclose the ultimate source of Tides grants,” there is a pretty strong left-center-right consensus about the importance of First Amendment freedom of associational rights and not being required to disclose,” Bradley said.
Smith, meanwhile, is quoted in the Hill , story as saying that not disclosing the funding source for the Tides Foundation donations would be unwise for the Chamber of Commerce. ” They’ll want to disclose all their funding”, the Ways and Means Committee chairman told the newspaper.
” The mission statement for the Chamber is pretty obvious: to help American businesses”, Smith also said. ” Getting$ 12 million from Tides and then trying to say it’s really not from Tides, it’s from someone else, that makes me want to look harder”.
The Chamber of Commerce and the Tides Foundation both supported the inquiry, blaming it as” a politically motivated PR tactic… driven by actors who oppose the social justice work of Tides and our partner organizations.”
As this congressional investigation grows, program president Eric Eversole is likely to become a significant figure, according to sources with knowledge of the matter. Eversole makes an appearance in the Hill , story as well on Thursday:
The Chamber and the foundation say the probe is based on a misunderstanding. The funds the foundation received were” charitable contributions from corporations made to the donor advised fund,” a charitable giving mechanism that makes it nearly impossible to trace the ultimate source of the funds, according to Eric Eversole, president of the foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program,  .
However, the most important aspect of all of this is that, as Breitbart News has reported and as Giorno noted in her piece on Thursday, this investigation represents a significant departure from the Republican Party’s pro-corporate past. Brody Mullins, a lobbyist for The Wall Street Journal, tweeted that this investigation shows that “our political world is turning around.” Mullins compared this complete reshaping of American politics to being like former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a leading Democrat, choosing to investigate labor unions:
The most recent indication that the political landscape is changing is an important Republican lawmaker looking into Big Business. This is like Nancy Pelosi launching a probe of labor unions … this type of stuff just does n’t happen … https ://t.co/IdbRcCP3on
— Brody Mullins ( @BrodyMullinsDC ) May 16, 2024
” A decade ago, a Republican committee chair investigating Washington’s biggest business advocacy organization would have been unthinkable”, Giorno wrote. ” But times have changed”.
Giorno added that this is a “major shift” that could significantly impede the Chamber of Commerce’s efforts to lobby for members on important policy issues on Capitol Hill.
Giorno wrote,” If Republicans control the House, Smith is expected to run the House committee charged with tax policy and retain the Ways and Means gavel.” A negative relationship with Smith might impair the Chamber’s ability to influence the panel’s 2025 tax debate and other issues that are important.
