Government Accountability Institute

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Not to be confused with Government Accountability Project or Government Accountability Office.
Government Accountability Institute
Founded2012[1]
Type501(c)(3) organization
45-4681912
Location
Area served
United States
Key people
Peter Schweizer
Steve Bannon
Wynton Hall
Revenue
$1.7 million (2014)[2]
Websiteg-a-i.org

The Government Accountability Institute (GAI) is a conservative think tank[3][4], known for spreading lies and false conspiracy theories,[5][6] located in Tallahassee, Florida.[7][8] GAI was founded in 2012[9] by Peter Schweizer and Steve Bannon with funding from Robert Mercer and family.[10] Schweizer serves as the group's president.[11]

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,[12] but largely focused on spreading lies about the Democratic Party,[13] Hillary Clinton[14] in 2016 United States presidential election, and Joe Biden before the 2020 election.[15]

Overview

According to researchers the Government Accountability office was set up by Steve Bannon as a tool for transmitting partisan dirt-digging and questionable opposition research to the mainstream media.[16][17] While GAI claims to be "a self-styled corruption watchdog group chaired and funded by conservative mega-donor Rebekah Mercer."[18], the group became a mainstay of Alt-right media.[19] Bannon felt reporters were more willing to report on public figures involved in scandals compared to partisan opinion, regardless of the sourcing.[20]

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.[21]

Funding

Between 2012 and 2014, GAI received donations of almost $4 million from the Mercer Family Foundation and the Koch brothers-affiliated Donors Trust.[22][23]

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.[20]

Activities

The organization published the debunked[24][25] [26]Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, Bush Bucks: How Public Service and Corporations Helped Make Jeb Rich, as well as the debunked[27] book 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]

The debunked book Clinton Cash, published in May 2015, is a false conspiracy 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.[28]

Bush Bucks, 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.[29][30]

In October 2012, GAI released a report, with no evidence that the Obama campaign had received any unlawful contributions,[31] which 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). Mutliple media sources had debunked the claim and found no supporting evidence.[32].

In December 2013, a GAI analysis found that from July 12, 2010, to November 30, 2013, President Obama's public schedule showed zero one-on-one meetings between Obama and then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, though the study concedes that there was one instance of Secretary Sebelius meeting jointly with the President and Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner.[33]

The GAI largely avoided investigating the presidential administration of Donald Trump, although it did release a report on potential conflicts of interest of Trump's Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross.[13]

Former U.S. representative Jason Chaffetz joined the GAI as a distinguished fellow in 2021.[13]

Links to Breitbart News

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.[34] 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.[22] 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.[22]

As a 501(c)(3) public charity, GAI's political advocacy has raised the question of whether the organization had been illegally intervening 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.[22][35]

References

  1. ^ a b 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. ^ Groch-Begley, Hannah (2015-04-21). "Who Funds Peter Schweizer's Government Accountability Institute?". Media Matters for America. Retrieved 2023-06-17.
  6. ^ Swaine, Jon (2017-11-07). "Offshore cash helped fund Steve Bannon's attacks on Hillary Clinton". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-06-17.
  7. ^ 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.
  8. ^ Nader, Ralph (2014). Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State. Nation Books. ISBN 9781568584553.
  9. ^ Thiessen, Marc (September 10, 2012). "Why is Obama skipping more than half of his daily intelligence meetings?". Washington Post. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ "CNN Report on "Legalized Extortion": Politics, Money and Influence". Real Clear Politics. January 22, 2014. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  12. ^ Davies, Dave (October 9, 2019). "How a Political Hit Job Backfired, and Led to Trump's Impeachment Peril". Fresh Air. NPR.
  13. ^ a b c Schwarz, D. Hunter (March 16, 2021). "Former Rep. Jason Chaffetz just joined this conservative think tank". Deseret News.
  14. ^ Green, Lloyd (2022-01-29). "American muckrakers: Peter Schweizer, James O'Keefe and a rightwing full court press". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2023-06-17.
  15. ^ Mayer, Jane (2019-10-04). "The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2019-10-06.
  16. ^ Tillman, Seth Barrett (2022). "Disqualification from the Presidency and a Trump Plea Bargain". SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.4194941. ISSN 1556-5068.
  17. ^ Green, Joshua (2017). Devil's bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and the storming of the presidency. Penguin. p. 155.
  18. ^ 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.
  19. ^ Gold, Matea. "The Mercers and Stephen Bannon: How a populist power base was funded and built". Washington Post. Retrieved 2023-06-17.
  20. ^ a b "The Invention of the Conspiracy Theory on Biden and Ukraine". The New Yorker. 2019-10-04. Retrieved 2021-11-12.
  21. ^ "About". Government Accountability Institute. Retrieved 17 August 2015.
  22. ^ a b c d O'Harrow Jr., Robert (November 23, 2016). "Trump adviser received salary from charity while steering Breitbart News". Washington Post.
  23. ^ Schweers, Jeffrey (November 23, 2016). "Breitbart chief Bannon got nearly $400k from nonprofit he created". Tallahassee Democrat.
  24. ^ 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.
  25. ^ 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.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link)
  26. ^ 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, ISBN 978-3-319-94068-7, retrieved 2023-06-17
  27. ^ 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.
  28. ^ 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, ISBN 0-19-092362-8, retrieved 2023-06-17
  29. ^ Bender, Michael C. (October 20, 2015). "New Peter Schweizer E-Book Questions Jeb Bush's Earnings". Bloomberg Politics. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  30. ^ "Report Traces Jeb Bush's Ties to Companies That Had Business With Florida". New York Times. October 21, 2015. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  31. ^ Mike Burns, Fox Hypes Unsubstantiated Claim That Obama May Be Receiving Illegal Foreign Donations, Media Matters for America (October 9, 2012).
  32. ^ Dwyer, Devin (October 9, 2012). "Group Warns of Foreign, Fraudulent Donors to Obama Campaign". ABC News. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  33. ^ Schweizer, Peter (December 5, 2013). "When Barry Met Kathy". Politico. Retrieved 24 July 2014.
  34. ^ Wyland, Michael (November 28, 2016). "Trump Adviser Double-dipping from Breitbart and Nonprofit Foundation| Nonprofit Quarterly". Nonprofit Quarterly.
  35. ^ Smilowitz, Elliot (November 23, 2016). "Fla. charity paid Bannon, other Breitbart employees: report". The Hill.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Government_Accountability_Institute&oldid=1160645843"