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The Secret Donors Behind the Center for American Progress and Other Think Tanks

John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and the head of Obama's first transition team, founded the Center for American Progress in 2003. Last year, Podesta stepped down as CAP's president—he remains its chair and counselor—and was replaced by Neera Tanden, who served in both the Obama and Clinton administrations. Former Virginia Congressman Tom Perriello heads the CAP Action Fund, an advocacy unit, which operates out of the same offices and shares personnel.

CAP has emerged as perhaps the most influential of all think tanks during the Obama era, and there's been a rapidly revolving door between it and the administration. CAP is also among the most secretive of all think tanks concerning its donors. Most major think tanks prepare an annual report containing at least some financial and donor information and make it available on their websites. According to CAP spokeswoman Andrea Purse, the center doesn't even publish one.

Purse told me that CAP "follows all financial disclosure requirements with regard to donors…. We don't use corporate funds to pay for research or reports." But she flatly refused to discuss specific donors or to provide an on-the-record explanation for why CAP won't disclose them.

After growing rapidly in its first few years, tax records show, CAP's total assets fell in 2006 for the first time, from $23.6 million to $20.4 million. Assets started growing again in 2007 when CAP founded the Business Alliance, a membership rewards program for corporate contributors, and then exploded when Obama was elected in 2008. According to its most recent nonprofit tax filing, CAP's total assets now top $44 million, and its Action Fund treasury holds $6 million more.

A confidential CAP donor pitch I obtained describes the Business Alliance as "a channel for engagement with the corporate community" that provides "the opportunity to…collaborate on common interests." It offers three membership levels, with the perks to top donors ($100,000 and up) including private meetings with CAP experts and executives, round-table discussions with "Hill and national leaders," and briefings on CAP reports "relevant to your unique interests."

CAP doesn't publicly disclose the members of its Business Alliance, but I obtained multiple internal lists from 2011 showing that dozens of major corporations had joined. The lists were prepared by Chris Belisle, who at the time served as the alliance's senior manager after having been recruited from his prior position as manager of corporate relations at the US Chamber of Commerce. According to these lists, CAP's donors included Comcast, Walmart, General Motors, Pacific Gas and Electric, General Electric, Boeing and Lockheed. Though it doesn't appear on the lists, the University of Phoenix was also a donor.

Incidentally, Scott Lilly, a Hill veteran who joined CAP in 2004 as a senior fellow covering national security, simultaneously served as a registered lobbyist for Lockheed between 2005 and 2011. Rudy deLeon, CAP's senior vice president for national security and international policy, was a Boeing executive and directed the company's lobbying operations between 2001 and 2006, before joining the think tank the following year.

Foreign governments and business entities can also join the Business Alliance, whose membership list includes the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office—which functions as Taiwan's embassy in Washington and retains many lobbyists, including former Oklahoma Republican Senator Don Nickles and former Missouri Democratic Representative Richard Gephardt—and the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey (TUSKON).

In 2010, CAP issued a report, "Ties That Bind: U.S.-Taiwan Relations and Peace and Prosperity in East Asia," which warned that the partnership between the two countries had stagnated and suggested that the United States maintain arms sales to Taiwan, increase economic and diplomatic cooperation, and otherwise "seek ways to deepen their relationship." That same year, CAP's Scott Lilly gave an address at the American Institute in Taiwan, in which he hailed the ties between the two nations as "one of the more important bilateral relationships in the world" before calling for additional arms sales to Taiwan. Lockheed, whom Lilly lobbied for at the time, is a leading arms merchant to Taiwan.

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OBAMA’S FAVORITE THINK TANK: WE SHOULD PREPARE TO BOMB IRAQ

As the White House debates whether to strike ISIS inside Iraq, a Washington think tank deeply connected to the Obama administration is recommending that the United States start getting ready now for U.S. air strikes.

A new report by the Center for American Progress, the left-leaning policy organization that maintains close ties to the White House, says the U.S. should “prepare for limited counterterrorism operations against ISIS, including possible air strikes.” That is just one of the steps CAP is recommending to help keep Iraq from crumbling and fight the scourge of ISIS and other extremist groups festering in Iraq and Syria.

Several sources at Washington policy organizations told The Daily Beast that top administration officials have been calling around Washington think tanks for days to solicit advice and consultation on the substantive options for responding to the ever-deepening crisis in Iraq.

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Several sources at Washington policy organizations told The Daily Beast that top administration officials have been calling around Washington think tanks for days to solicit advice and consultation on the substantive options for responding to the ever-deepening crisis in Iraq.

Quoted from sanfordy2

no time in recent memory...think tank? jeeze hows about just starting with a thinking politician? lol...kinda like corporations are people? insane