Think Tanker Used Think Tanks to Help Spy for South Korea

Here is more from the New York Times:

Sue Mi Terry, a prominent voice on American foreign policy, had a refined palate, a love for top-shelf sushi and a taste for designer labels. She liked coats by Christian Dior, handbags by Bottega Veneta and Louis Vuitton, and Michelin-starred restaurants.

And, according to federal prosecutors in Manhattan, she accepted such luxury goods and other gifts in exchange for serving the South Korean government in Seoul.

Ms. Terry, a former Central Intelligence Agency analyst and a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, is accused in a 31-page indictment released Tuesday of a yearslong effort to assist South Korean spies. The indictment says she even introduced the spies to congressional staff members, an action that she described as “bringing the wolf in.”

In April 2023, Ms. Terry hosted an event at a think tank where she invited congressional staff members and worked to study South Korea’s alliance with the United States at the request of the South Korean National Intelligence Service. Ms. Terry then invited the staff members to a happy hour where South Korean intelligence officers were present, allowing the officers to “spot and assess” potential recruits, according to the indictment.

 

Before her current position as a Senior Fellow for Korea Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Terry worked at the Wilson Center and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

CFR has reportedly put Terry on unpaid administrative leave.

Terry's husband, Max Boot, a Russian-born naturalized American, has not been charged with any crime.  Boot is also a Senior Fellow at CFR.

Boot, who co-wrote a series of opinion pieces with Terry,  has signed a $500,000 "appearance bond" using the couple's Manhattan residence as collateral to keep Terri out of prison until her trial begins.

Think Tank Quickies (#500)

• CFR launches new China program.  It will pore through Chinese-language material for better-informed policy.
  
• Joshua Wright, a law professor who seduced his students and was considered Big Tech's proudest ally, had a $250,000 contract with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
  
• Oren Cass will become chief economist at American Compass and is launching a new Substack, Understanding America.  Abigail Ball is taking over as executive director of the think tank, which is also relaunching its publication The Commons. 
• Former Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissel, who danced with Vladimir Putin at her 2018 wedding, moved to Russia in 2023 where she runs a think tank.  The Russian air force helped mover her household, including her ponies.
  
• Heritage Foundation gave American Accountability Foundation a $100,000 grant to post 100 names of government workers to a website to show a potential Trump administration who might be standing in the way of a second-term Trump.
  
• New CSIS report: China's military could isolate Taiwan, cripple its economy, and make the democratic island succumb to the will of Beijing’s ruling Communist Party without ever firing a shot.
• Jennifer Harris, the "Queen Bee of Bidenomics," now works at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she helps fund people who are proposing new solutions to economic problems, including the think tank American Compass.
• Paul Manafort used think tanks to shape the image of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, according to new book on lobbying The Wolves of K Street.
• The Pacific Institute: "A global water think tank."
• AEI has been a client of Echelon Insights.
  

Project 2025 Reported to IRS

Here is more from Newsweek:

TikTokers are urging people to report the conservative think tank behind Project 2025 to the Internal Revenue Service for allegedly violating the rules of its tax-exempt status.

Project 2025 is spearheaded by The Heritage Foundation with input from dozens of conservative-leaning groups and ex-officials from former president Donald Trump's administration. It has published a 900-page road map for a new Republican administration that includes plans to overhaul the federal government and oust thousands of government workers so that loyalists can be installed in their place.

Some TikTok creators have suggested that publishing the document, as well as engaging in political activity, is a violation of the IRS code for tax-exempt organizations.

The IRS website states that 501(c)(3) organizations "may not publish or distribute printed statements or make oral statements on behalf of, or in opposition to, a candidate for public office. Consequently, a written or oral endorsement of a candidate is strictly forbidden."

 

Meanwhile, Heritage has been backing a bill banning TikTok.

Heritage's Project 2025 Gets Hacked

Here is more from Newsweek:

A group of "gay furry hackers" has targeted right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation—which is behind Project 2025—by releasing the passwords, usernames, and user logs of its users.

The activists, known as SiegedSec, posted approximately two gigabytes of data online that it says was retrieved from the foundation's servers.

The Saturday hacking of the influential policy group came after it made headlines with its controversial Project 2025 document, which seeks to guide a future conservative administration to radically transform the federal government with a far reaching right-wing agenda.

In a Telegram post on Tuesday by SiegedSec, the group of self-described "gay furry hackers" wrote: "Project 2025 threatens the rights of abortion health care and LGBTQ+ communities in particular. so of course, we won't stand for that! ^-^"

SiegedSec is an established cyber-activist group that has previously targeted anti-abortion states. This is the second time it has targeted The Heritage Foundation this year.

 

The Heritage Foundation was also hit by a cyberattack in April. 

Update: The "gay furry hackers" have reportedly been feuding with Heritage Foundation executive Mike Howell.

New Conservative Brain Trust Resettling Across America

Here is more from the New York Times:

The Claremont Institute has been located in Southern California since its founding in the late 1970s. From its perch in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, it has become a leading intellectual center of the pro-Trump right.

Without fanfare, however, some of Claremont’s key figures have been leaving California to find ideologically friendlier climes. Ryan P. Williams, the think tank’s president, moved to a suburb in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in early April.

His friend and Claremont colleague Michael Anton — a California native who played a major role in 2016 to convince conservative intellectuals to vote for Mr. Trump — moved to the Dallas area two years ago. The institute’s vice president for operations and administration has moved there, too. Others are following. Mr. Williams opened a small office in another Dallas-Fort Worth suburb in May, and said he expects to shrink Claremont’s California headquarters.

 

Here is more about the Claremont Institute from the Washington Post.

Heritage Foundation May Try to Use Litigation to Keep Biden as Democatic Nominee

President Joe Biden's biggest ally as he tries to remain the Democratic presidential nominee after an abysmal debate performance may surprisingly be the Heritage Foundation.

Here is more from NOTUS:

President Joe Biden’s Democratic allies could get a boost to keep him on the ticket from some unlikely partners: Republicans.

Led by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, Republicans are currently looking to guarantee that Biden will be the Democratic nominee — and to make it so that, if Biden withdraws, it won’t be easy to replace him on ballots.

About four months ago, after special counsel Robert Hur’s report raised more concerns about Biden’s health, staffers at Heritage’s Oversight Project started researching laws in states across the country for replacing a nominee. They laid out just how difficult it would be for Democrats to replace Biden in key swing states in a memo that was compiled in early April and released last week ahead of the debate.

“If the Biden family decides that President Biden will not run for re-election, the mechanisms for replacing him on ballots vary by state,” reads the memo. “There is the potential for pre-election litigation in some states that would make the process difficult and perhaps unsuccessful.”

The upshot was that replacing Biden on the ticket would be “extraordinarily difficult” and that “we would make it extraordinarily difficult,” Oversight Project Executive Director Mike Howell, who authored the memo, told NOTUS this week.

With Biden’s odds of winning looking longer by the minute, organizations like Heritage are pledging litigation to make replacing Biden close to impossible. They suggested they — or their allies — would challenge efforts to replace Biden on the ballot, which would already be difficult given the timing.

 

Mr. Howell previously served as the Heritage Foundation's liaison to the Trump Administration.

In other Heritage Foundation news, former President Donald Trump has been distancing himself from the think tank's Project 2025 plan.

And Heritage President Kevin Roberts has been making waves with his comment about an ongoing second American revolution that will "remain bloodless if the left allows it to be."

The Rise of the Manhattan Institute

Here is more from Bloomberg:

Over the past decade, business figures led by hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer have poured nearly $200 million into a New York think tank that’s now projecting its own vision for Trump’s America. Powered by wealthy donors, the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research has become an intellectual staging ground for the American right.

One head-spinning result: a growing number of Republican statehouses are effectively outsourcing the job of drafting laws about race and gender to policy wonks centered in Manhattan, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 10:1. 

Over the years, the Manhattan Institute has counted among its well-heeled backers hedge-fund managers Cliff Asness, Dan Loeb and John Paulson. Others include Republican megadonor Harlan Crow and Breitbart super-conservatives Robert and Rebekah Mercer. 

By the institute’s own count, 11 states – Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming – have codified into law ideas from “model” legislation the institute has drafted since January 2023. In all, more than 60 separate bills touching on those anti-DEI proposals for universities have been introduced in 25 states.

 

Reihan Salam has been president of the think tank since 2019.

Think Tank Quickies (#499)

• New report from ETZ Zurich's Center for Security Studies: China is targeting the US with hacking contests.
  
• The Chinese Embassy in Washington dispatches officials to almost all of the key DC think tank seminars that cover foreign affairs these days.
  
• The Heritage Foundation celebrated its newly-renovated Barb Van Andel-Gaby building with a ribbon-cutting.  The think tank now has office space for 400+ employees.
• Why Chinese think tanks' reports will only escalate South China Sea tensions.
  
• Tony Jonson, currently special assistance and intelligence adviser to the deputy secretary of Defense, will be president and CEO of The Truman National Security Project and Truman Center.
• Africa Center for Strategic Studies: "A think tank funded by America's defense department."
• New Argentine President Javier Milei served as a financial analyst for think tanks, banks, and private companies. 
• ECFR: Imagining 6 Trump 2.0 scenarios.
• Flashback: The issue attention cycle was described in 1972 by Brookings economist Anthony Downs.  The 5 phases of the cycle mark the rise, peak, and decline in public salience of major environmental (and other) problems.
  
• David Boaz, senior fellow and EVP of Cato Institute, dies.
  

Think Tank Gets Donation from Heiress Giving Away Her Money

Here is more from Time:

Marlene Engelhorn, an Austrian heiress who inherited tens of millions of euros from her grandmother, opted to let strangers decide where to give away €25 million ($27 million)—at least 90% of her fortune—over the past six weeks. Engelhorn has long criticized the Austrian policy of not placing any taxes for inheritances, since she feels being born into a wealthy family is a matter of luck and she did not earn the money.

In an attempt to give away her fortune in as democratic of a way as possible, Engelhorn sent out emails to approximately 10,000 randomly selected Austrians, and chose 50 people who were designed to be as representative as possible of Austria’s demographics in terms of gender, ethnicity, and income. 

The group was developed into an organization called the Good Council for Redistribution, and chose 77 different organizations, revealed on Tuesday, to which Engelhorn’s wealth would be distributed. 

The largest distribution of cash went to the Austrian society for nature conservation, which received the equivalent of $1.7 million. The second largest distribution of $1.6 million went to an organization called Neunerhaus, which offers aid to homeless people. Other organizations that received money included climate charities, the left-wing think tank Momentum Institute, and religious organizations. 

 

The Momentum Institute, based in Vienna, Austria, was founded in 2019.

Former House Candidate Launches Crypto Think Tank

Here is more from Punchbowl News:

A prominent D.C. crypto advocate and one-time Republican House candidate in New York is launching a think tank focused on crypto policy.

Michelle Bond, who lost a Republican primary to Rep. Nick LaLota (N.Y.) in 2022, will lead Digital Future. The think tank will focus on “promoting the development of the next generation of the financial services industry,” per a news release.

Prior to this launch, Bond led a crypto advocacy organization called the Association for Digital Asset Markets.

Here is a press release about the Digital Future launch.

Canadian Report Warns of US Civil War

Here is more from Politico:

When Justin Trudeau meets Joe Biden at the G7 summit in Italy this week, Trudeau will probably not ask whether the United States is at risk of erupting in civil war in the next few years.

A think tank housed within Trudeau’s government is already pondering that question.

In a spring report titled “Disruptions on the Horizon,” a quiet office known as Policy Horizons Canada proposed American civil war as a scenario that Ottawa should consider preparing for.

This hypothetical was tucked into the middle of the 37-page document, which sketched the possibility in 15 spare words: “U.S. ideological divisions, democratic erosion, and domestic unrest escalate, plunging the country into civil war.”

 

Dr. John McArthur, a Canadian citizen and Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at the Brookings Institution, sits on the Policy Horizons steering committee and is the only US think tanker to do so.

Think Tank Quickies (#498)

• Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) is joining the Hudson Institute as a distinguished fellow; Nikki Halley makes her inaugural appearance as Walter P. Stern Chair at Hudson. 
• Brian Deese (formerly at CAP), Richard Bush (Brookings), Laura Rosenberger (CNAS and GMF), and Richard Armitage (CSIS) sent as delegation to Taiwan's presidential inauguration.
  
• A "startling new study" by RAND that was commissioned by the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment.
  
• Those attending the McCain Institute's annual Sedona Forum include: Antony Blinken, Janet Yellen, Mitt Romney, and Dasha Navalnaya. 
• Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who served as chief of staff to VP Dick Cheney and as senior vice president at the Hudson Institute, is joining the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) as a distinguished fellow.
  
• "The Zachor Legal Institute, a legal think tank representing StopAntisemitism."
• The role of think tanks under China's Xi Jinping, via MERICS.
  
• Why foundations that back progressives are funding a leading conservative think tank.
• Jennifer Gould named VP of Communications and External Affairs at RAND Corp.
• The think tank laying the groundwork for a Labour government in the UK.
  

Pro-Trump Think Tank Paid Millions to Companies Tied to Its Own Leaders

Here is more from the New York Times:

The Conservative Partnership Institute, a nonprofit whose funding skyrocketed after it became a nerve center for President Donald J. Trump’s allies in Washington, has paid at least $3.2 million since the start of 2021 to corporations led by its own leaders or their relatives, records show.

One was led by the institute’s president, Edward Corrigan, and another by its chief operating officer. At a third contractor, the board members included the group’s senior legal fellow Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who supported Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

 

The Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) was founded in 2017 by former US Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), after he was ousted as President of the Heritage Foundation.

Think Tanks Targeted in Latest North Korean Email-Based Cyberattacks

Here is more from UPI:

North Korean hackers are exploiting an email security flaw in attacks used to gather sensitive intelligence and information, a new U.S. cybersecurity advisory warned.

The advisory, issued Thursday by the FBI, State Department and National Security Agency, said that members of the Pyongyang-backed hacking collective Kimsuky are sending spearphishing emails to individuals at think tanks, academic institutions and media organizations.

In one example, a hacker pretending to be a think tank staffer invited a U.S. government official to give a keynote address at a conference on North Korea. In another, a Kimsuky agent posed as a journalist seeking comment on geopolitical issues related to North Korea. 

Kimsuky is believed to operate under the North's premier military intelligence organization, the Reconnaissance General Bureau. The hacker group is also known as Emerald Sleet, Thallium and Velvet Chollima by private-sector cybersecurity researchers.

 

There is no word yet on which think tanks have been impacted. 

Also, Iranian-backed cyber spies are are continuing to impersonate think tanks.

Think Tank Accidentally Exposes Personal Info. From Job Applicants

Here is more from the Washington Free Beacon:

The right-wing group that leads a recruitment effort for Capitol Hill offices and allied nonprofits, the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI), has for months left exposed the sensitive personal information of applicants to its online "jobs bank," the Washington Free Beacon found, including members of the U.S. intelligence community, congressional aides, former Trump administration officials, and campaign operatives.

Led by former Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint and one of his former aides, Ed Corrigan, as well as by former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, who the New York Times reported is paid $847,000 to serve as the organization's "senior partner," the Conservative Partnership Institute has exposed the social security numbers, home addresses, private client names, and other personal details of over 1,500 job applicants, including several who hold the highest level security clearance—known as a top secret/sensitive compartmented information (TS/SCI) clearance—in a public online storage system on an Amazon cloud. With basic web-scraping software, the records can be viewed by anyone, including America’s foreign adversaries.

 

The news site notes that the records were stored in open Amazon S3 buckets, which are publicly accessible unless the owner takes steps to make them private.

New Think Tank Quickies (#497)

• Eric Schmidt-backed pro-America "think tank" (America's Frontier Fund) has launched a VC firm.
• New report from Special Competitive Studies Project, an Eric Schmidt-backed think tank, says the US intelligence community "risks surprise, intelligence failure, and even attrition of its importance" unless it embraces AI's capacity to process huge amounts of data. 
• Donald Abelson: Rethinking the Role and Influence of US Defense and Foreign Policy Think Tanks.
• Steven Bennett, previously the COO of Brookings, will be CFR's new EVP and chief administrative officer.
• Luxe membership club Ned to open within a six-building DC complex owned by the Milken Institute, which plans to open the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream next year.
  
• "A new global think tank - the merger of the International House of Japan (I-House) established by John D. Rockefeller III to repair US-Japan ties after WWII and the Asia Pacific Initiative, set up by Yoichi Funabashi, the former newspaper editor, author and national security expert."
• Gordon Gray is launching the Pinpoint Policy Institute to advocate for free markets and policies that promote economic growth.  He was most recently VP for economic policy at the American Action Forum (AAF). 
• The Roosevelt Institute has hired Elly Kugler as managing director for government relations and Hannah Groch-Begley to serve as director of the think tank.
• Did China just go after a powerful Aussie think tank?
  
• The man (Mohammed Soliman) whispering the Middle East's future into Washington's ear.
  

Third Way's Secret Battle to Stop No Labels

Here is more from NBC:

Once upon a time, before the multimillion-dollar negative campaigns and allegations of running “a conspiracy to commit extortion, voter intimidation, and other criminal behavior,” they were friends. Good friends.

The people who run No Labels and Third Way, two of the most prominent centrist organizations in Washington, had all come up together in the small world of Clinton-era center-left politics.

Nancy Jacobson, an early Bill Clinton hire and the founder of No Labels, helped raise the initial money and secure the necessary political blessings to start Third Way. The think tank was co-founded by Jon Cowan, whom Jacobson viewed as something of a mentee. Cowan, now Third Way's president, even signed the ketubah (the Jewish wedding contract) at Jacobson's wedding to Mark Penn, whose firm conducts No Labels’ polls.

Then came the 2024 election — and No Labels’ decision to try to field a bipartisan “unity ticket” against both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, backed by a reported budget of $70 million. Third Way, which may be centrist but is firmly Democratic, viewed this as a misguided, no-hope effort that could only spoil the election for Biden and help to re-elect Trump, with potentially disastrous consequences.

 

The article notes that No Labels was so incensed by the anti-No Labels campaign that the group lodged a complaint the the US Justice Department, accusing them of violating anti-racketeering laws.

It also says that Third Way lost a board member who sided with No Labels, and its leaders received word from several unhappy donors that they should not expect any more funding.

"Alpha Male" Nick Adams Creating Awkward Moment for Wilson Center Board

Here is more from the Washington Post about conservative political commentator and author Nick Adams:

He [Nick Adams] is a presidential appointee to the board of Washington’s Woodrow Wilson Center, which, according to its website, “provides nonpartisan counsel and insights on global affairs to policymakers.” Donald Trump, who bestowed him with that honor during his last term, has recently made Adams an official campaign surrogate as the former president attempts to regain control of the White House.

At the Wilson Center, Adams is known as a quiet presence, attending board meetings regularly but speaking so little that some people didn’t even know he had an Australian accent. He is an active member, even traveling on a Wilson Center trip to Israel last year, where he participated in a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

There are members of the center’s staff, “especially young women,” who think his presence on the board is an “embarrassment” and “may be also be damaging our reputation,” according to a Wilson Center employee who would speak openly about a current board member only on the condition of anonymity.

After I started making inquiries about Adams with people who worked at the Wilson Center, the director, Mark Green, tried to allay any concerns among the staff about the Alpha Male in their midst.

A lot of politics can be performative, Green told other staffers during a regularly scheduled meeting, according to multiple people present. The center’s official response to my interest in Adams was prim: “Nick is a member of the board in good standing and regularly attends board meetings,” it said in a statement. “Beyond that, the Wilson Center’s policy is to not comment on board members and their activities.”

The Wilson Center may have good reason to want to remain in good standing with Adams. Because the center needs Congress and the president to approve federal funding to support operating costs, he may be its best ally if Trump’s GOP takes control of Washington next year.

 

Here is a full list of the Wilson Center's board of trustees, and here is Adams' official appointment announcement by Mr. Trump.

Adani Group to Fund Public Policy Think Tank

Here is more from The Economic Times:

Gautam Adani-led Adani Group plans to set up a think tank that will aid policy thinking in three critical areas - energy transition and climate change, economics and trade, and geopolitics and strategic affairs, according to people familiar with the development, who said the unit might be kicked off as early as May.  The think tank will be called Chintan Research Foundation and will be incubated with an initial funding of ₹100 crore.

The move pitches the infrastructure conglomerate in direct competition with RIL-backed Observer Research Foundation, or ORF, a think tank that took shape in 1990.  ORF, based in New Delhi, has emerged in recent years as one of India's most high-profile think tanks.

In collaboration with the Ministry of External Affairs, ORF organizes the Raisina Dialogue, India's flagship conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics.

Screening and interviews are underway for a chairperson, members of advisory board, and research staff for the foundation, which will be headquartered in New Delhi.  Outposts in Washington and London are part of the plan.

 

Gautam Adani is currently worth $103 billion, while Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) chairman Mukesh Ambani is worth $113 billion, according to Bloomberg.

Gautam Adani-led Adani Group plans to set up a think tank that will aid policy thinking in three critical areas - energy transition and climate change, economics and trade, and geopolitics and strategic affairs, according to people familiar with the development, who said the unit might be kicked off as early as May. The think tank will be called Chintan Research Foundation and will be incubated with an initial funding of ₹100 crore.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/after-museum-gallery-adani-group-to-fund-policy-thinktank/articleshow/109205076.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

 

Gautam Adani-led Adani Group plans to set up a think tank that will aid policy thinking in three critical areas - energy transition and climate change, economics and trade, and geopolitics and strategic affairs, according to people familiar with the development, who said the unit might be kicked off as early as May. The think tank will be called Chintan Research Foundation and will be incubated with an initial funding of ₹100 crore.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/after-museum-gallery-adani-group-to-fund-policy-thinktank/articleshow/109205076.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Gautam Adani-led Adani Group plans to set up a think tank that will aid policy thinking in three critical areas - energy transition and climate change, economics and trade, and geopolitics and strategic affairs, according to people familiar with the development, who said the unit might be kicked off as early as May. The think tank will be called Chintan Research Foundation and will be incubated with an initial funding of ₹100 crore.

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/after-museum-gallery-adani-group-to-fund-policy-thinktank/articleshow/109205076.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

Heritage Foundation Handpicked by NATO Chief for Major Speech

Here is more from CNN:

When NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg visited Washington in January, he gave a speech on the future of NATO at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that is a bastion of the Republican foreign policy establish in Washington.

The location was handpicked by Stoltenberg’s team, an effort to reach out to Republicans given the possibility of Trump winning in November and amid concerns about his commitment to NATO, explained sources familiar with the planning.

The speech, which emphasized the collective strength of NATO ahead of its 75^th anniversary this summer, was well-received, the sources said.

“The logic of doing it at Heritage was not lost on us,” said Victoria Coates, a deputy national security advisor to former President Trump who is now a vice president at the think tank.

 

Here is a full transcript of the Heritage speech.

Think Tank Quickes (#496)

• House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) asks NGOs, including Open Markets Institute, New America, and the Center for Digital Democracy, to preserve communications with USTR related to the agency's decision to rethink its digital trade stance.
  
• The Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network, a pair of left-leaning philanthropies that aim to see a "post-neoliberal" economic consensus, have collectively invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the think tank American Compass. 
• The Palantir Foundation for Defense Policies & International Affairs to hold inaugural conference in Washington, DC on May 16.
  
• CFR launches RealEcon to reimagine American economic leadership.
  
• Liberal watchdog group Accountable.US launches new campaign to target Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. 
• Quincy Institute on FDD: "Why No One Should Take This Hawkish Think Tank Seriously."
• Capital Research Center: "A right-wing investigative think tank that has portrayed American Compass as a puppet of progressive philanthropists."
• The People's Policy Project, a left-wing think tank founded by Matt Bruenig. [The only think tank funded by tiny monthly donations.]
  
• CFR tapped Millie Tran, previously at Conde Nast, as vice president and chief digital content officer.
• Meredith Sumpter, wife of Brookings China scholar Ryan Hass, to become President and CEO of FairVote.

Nikki Haley Joins Hudson Institute

Here is more from a Hudson press release:

Hudson Institute today announced that Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations, will be the next Walter P. Stern Chair.

Hudson inaugurated the Walter P. Stern Chair in 2020 to commemorate the achievements of former Chairman Walter “Wally” Stern, who was instrumental in making Hudson one of Washington’s most respected research organizations.

Haley received Hudson’s Global Leadership Award in 2018.

 

Hudson had revenues of around $22 million in 2022, with 39% coming from individuals, 38% from foundations, 14% from corporations, and 9% from governments.  

Major donors that give $100,000 or more to the think tank include: All Nippon Airways (ANA), American Petroleum Institute (API), Amway, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, META Platforms, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Northrup Grumman, Qualcomm, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO), and Walmart.

Heritage Foundation Hit With Cyberattack

Here is more from TechCrunch:

Conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation said on Friday that it experienced a cyberattack earlier this week.

A person with knowledge of the cyberattack told TechCrunch that efforts at Heritage were underway to remediate the cyberattack, but said that it wasn’t immediately known what, if any, data was taken.

Politico, which first reported the news of the cyberattack on Friday, cited a Heritage official as saying the organization “shut down its network to prevent any further malicious activity while we investigate the incident.”

The news outlet quoted the Heritage official as saying that the cyberattack likely came from nation-state hackers, but did not provide evidence of the claim.

 

TechCrunch notes that the Heritage Foundation was hit by a cyberattack in 2015 in which hackers stole internal emails and and the personal information of its donors.

Little-Known Australian Think Tanker is "The China Whisperer"

Here is s short clip from The Wire China:

Garnaut Global is, in many ways, a typical “strategic consultancy” firm: For decades, former government officials like Pottinger and Garnaut have cashed in by serving as political or regulatory advisors for the private sector. Attempting to read the tea leaves of open-source Chinese Communist Party (CCP) texts, meanwhile, is commonplace in think tanks and academia. But Garnaut has married the two approaches in a kind of Moneyball style, and his clients praise his unique ability to translate deep readings of Marxist ideology into actionable advice.

Garnaut also enjoys special status in the current moment of Western-China relations, because he is one of the men most responsible for bringing the current moment about. Although he was very much a child of the “engagement” era, Garnaut, 49, was one of the first “China watchers” to call foul and argue that a new era was upon us.

 

The firm was founded by John Garnaut, a former journalist-cum-Australian official.  Garnaut was a Senior Fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).

Matthew Pottinger, a former US deputy national security advisor, is also a part of the firm.  He is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Chairman of the China Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).  He's also a Senior Advisor at The Marathon Initiative.

Think Tank Quickies (#495)

• ECFR launches DC office.
  
• TikTok has think tank friends.
  
• Trump threatens to kick out "nasty" Australian Ambassador Kevin Rudd, a former PM and think tanker who's been critical of Trump, if he returns to the White House.
• Ukrainian, British think tanks expose supplies of raw materials to Russia for ammo production.
  
• The global elite just gathered at a secretive mini Davos. Meet Global.Minds.
  
• Billy Pizer will be the next president and CEO of Resources for the Future (RFF).
• Rush Doshi and Sue Mi Terry (formerly as the Wilson Center) joined CFR as fellows.
  
• Biden Labor Dept. relies on union-funded think tanks to push pro-union agenda.
• New York think tank taps Martin Kimani, Kenya's outgoing Permanent Representative to the UN, to build bridges of justice.
• DoD: "Table of Knowledge acts as think tank for Project Convergence Capstone 4."

Trump's Secret Plan to End the Ukraine War Hatched at Think Tank Event?

Here is more from the Washington Post:

Former president Donald Trump has privately said he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine by pressuring Ukraine to give up some territory, according to people familiar with the plan. Some foreign policy experts said Trump’s idea would reward Russian President Vladimir Putin and condone the violation of internationally recognized borders by force.

Word of Trump’s plan for Ukraine circulated in Washington last November at a meeting at the Heritage Foundation between right-of-center foreign policy figures and a visiting delegation from the European Council on Foreign Relations. Former Trump White House aide Michael Anton described the expected contours of Trump’s peace plan as Ukraine ceding territory in Crimea and Donbas, limiting NATO expansion and enticing Putin to loosen his growing reliance on China, according to multiple people present for the meeting, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private discussion.

 

WaPo notes that James Carafano, a Heritage fellow and senior counselor to the think tank's president, convened the meeting.  Meanwhile, Jeremy Shapiro, head of the Washington office of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), brought the group's delegation to the November meeting.

Michael Anton is a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute.

How a Right-Wing Texas Think Tank Ducked Property Taxes

Here is more from Texas Monthly:

The Texas Public Policy Foundation, a right-wing think tank with ties to the state’s most powerful politicians and political donors, has long lobbied legislators to abolish property taxes. So far, this effort has failed. But TPPF has succeeded in another ambitious goal: ducking its own property taxes.

For the past decade, Texas Monthly has learned, the think tank hasn’t paid a single dollar in taxes on its lavish, limestone-fronted, six-story headquarters, just two blocks from the Capitol in downtown Austin. The building’s appraised value is $18 million. How did TPPF manage this feat? 

Under state law, exemption from property taxes is reserved only for some nonprofit organizations, including orphan-aid groups and animal shelters. A well-funded think tank that promotes the interests of the oil-and-gas industry and undermines support for public schools, among other causes, would not seem to qualify. Indeed, TPPF was twice denied an exemption. But it persisted by appealing to the comptroller’s office, the statewide tax agency.

 

The article notes that TPPF, which has an annual budget of around $21.5 million and 150 staffers, has so far avoided paying around $3 million in taxes on its headquarters.

TPPF's former CEO, Brooke Rollins, now runs America First Policy Institute (AFPI).  Another former TPPF CEO, Kevin Roberts, now runs the Heritage Foundation.

How Billionaire Megadonors Use Think Tanks

Here is more from CNN:

When Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft jumped into the state’s gubernatorial race last year, the Republican vowed to tackle a slew of culture war issues, promising to fight the “woke politics” of “left-wing” banks and touting how he used his position to enact a regulation targeting those financial firms.

Ashcroft also said candidates shouldn’t focus on issues that let the one percent “force their beliefs on 99 percent of the population.”

While Ashcroft positioned himself as a champion for working class voters, emails obtained by CNN and the progressive watchdog group Documented show that he was steered toward adopting his “anti-woke” investment regulation by a little-known, right-wing think tank with deep ties to conservative billionaires. The communications show that officials with the Foundation for Government Accountability suggested regulatory language to Ashcroft and even wrote an op-ed article that Ashcroft published in a national conservative magazine under his own name. 

The emails not only reveal FGA’s influence over Ashcroft, they offer a snapshot of the group’s growing influence across the country, particularly in red states. And that influence can carry a high cost for workers and taxpayers. 

The group’s communications with Ashcroft...give a rare glimpse into how billionaire megadonors use think tanks like FGA to advance their causes out of public view. Federal tax laws allow such donors to channel millions of dollars anonymously, through nonprofit foundations, to activist organizations that lobby for and work behind the scenes to enact legislation that reflects partisan political goals. 

 

CNN notes that even though FGA's tax exempt status requires it not to engage in "substantial" lobbying, the group has closely coordinated with a variety of state officials and legislators to advance their causes. 

The Heritage Foundation is one of the many allies of FGA, and it is one of the 100+ coalition partners on Heritage's Project 2025.

FGA, based in Naples, Florida, was founded in 2011 by Tarren Bragdon, a former Maine legislator and past CEO of the free-market think tank Maine Heritage Policy Center.

Major FGA donors include the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Searle Freedom Trust, Donors Trust, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and The 85 Fund, a nonprofit connected to conservative legal activist Leonard Leo.

Think Tank Quickies (#494)

• Heritage Foundation raised a record-breaking $150 million in 2023. 
• Heritage announces formation of National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism.
• Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project sues DHS for targeting the think tank.
• Former AEI president Christopher DeMuth becomes Distinguished Fellow at Heritage.
• Former ODNI Director John Ratcliffe becomes Visiting Fellow at Heritage.
  
• What are think tanks thinking about EU defense issues?
• Event: How can think tanks make themselves heard in the election campaign?
• Wilson Center launches Indo-Pacific program.
• Meet Cecilia Rouse, new Brookings president; official announcement from 2023.
  
• Brookings appointed Colin Kahl as the Sydney Stein, Jr. Scholar in Foreign Policy.
• Brookings launches Center for Economic Security and Opportunity.
• Brookings unveils new website.
  

Report Attacking Nippon Steel Tied to Think Tank Pair

In a bid to sink Nippon Steel's acquisition of US Steel, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) recently used a report from a pair of think tankers to urge the White House to investigate Nippon's ties to China.

Brown reportedly raised those concerns based on a report by consultancy Horizon Advisory.  Brown sent Horizon's report to President Biden.

Horizon Advisory was co-founded by two senior fellows at the hawkish think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD): Nathan Picarsic and Emily de La Bruyere.  

FDD was founded in 2001 by Clifford May, who writes a weekly "Foreign Desk" column for The Washington Times.  Its sister lobbying arm, FDD Action, was founded in 2019.  FDD has close ties to Israel and Gulf Arab states. 

In 2022, Horizon published a report on forced labor risks in China's aluminum sector.  In 2021 it published a pair of reports on China's industrial policy for the automotive sector as well as steel sector.  In 2020 it published a report on the so-called "China Standards 2035" strategy.

This year it published a report on China's dominance in the global solar market, which received praise from a number of anti-China groups, including the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA).

Think Tanks Unearth Efforts by China to Influence US Election

Here is more from the New York Times:

Covert Chinese accounts are masquerading online as American supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, promoting conspiracy theories, stoking domestic divisions and attacking President Biden ahead of the election in November, according to researchers and government officials.

The accounts signal a potential tactical shift in how Beijing aims to influence American politics, with more of a willingness to target specific candidates and parties, including Mr. Biden.

“I’ve never seen anything along those lines at all before,” said Elise Thomas, a senior analyst at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit research organization that uncovered a small group of the fake accounts posing as Trump supporters.

Ms. Thomas and other researchers have linked the new activity to a long-running network of accounts connected with the Chinese government known as Spamouflage. Several of the accounts they detailed previously posted pro-Beijing content in Mandarin — only to resurface in recent months under the guise of real Americans writing in English.

In a separate project, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a research organization in Washington, identified 170 inauthentic pages and accounts on Facebook that have also pushed anti-American messages, including pointed attacks on Mr. Biden.

 

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is a London-based think tank specializing in combating alleged online disinformation.  Here is its recent report on Spamouflage.

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a Washington, DC-based think tank focusing on national security and foreign policy.

The Think Tanker Trying to Destroy TikTok

Here is more from The Intercept:

Among the many hawks on Capitol Hill, few have as effectively frightened lawmakers over Chinese control of TikTok as Jacob Helberg, a member of the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission. Helberg’s day job at the military contractor Palantir, however, means he stands to benefit from ever-frostier relations between the two countries.

Helberg has been instrumental in the renewed legislative fight against TikTok, according to the Wall Street Journal. “Spearheading the effort to create the bipartisan, bicoastal alliance of China hawks is Jacob Helberg,” the Journal reported in March 2023. The paper noted collaboration between Helberg, previously a policy adviser at Google, and investor and fellow outspoken China hawk Peter Thiel, as well as others in Thiel’s circle. The anti-China coalition, the Journal reported this past week, has been hammering away at a TikTok ban, and Helberg said he has spoken to over 100 members of Congress about the video-sharing social media app.

At a February 2023 panel event, a representative of America’s Frontier Fund, a national security-oriented technology investment fund that pools private capital and federal dollars, said that a war between China and Taiwan would boost the firm’s profits by an order of magnitude. Private sector contributors to America’s Frontier Fund include both Thiel and former Google chair Eric Schmidt, whose China alarmism and defense-spending boosterism rivals Thiel’s — and who similarly stands to personally profit from escalations with China.

 

Helberg is an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and an Adjunct Senior Fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).  He is also co-chairing the Brookings Institution China Strategy Working Group, as well as that think tank's US-France Working Group on China, according to his personal website.

House Select Committee on China Chairman Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) has worked closely with Helberg in recent months as part of the effort to ban TikTok from operating in the US while under Chinese ownership.  Gallagher is leaving Congress to take a job at Palantir.

A leading member of Gallagher's "personal brain trust" is Matthew Turpin, a senior adviser at Palantir.  Turpin is a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution.

Think Tank Quickies (#493)

• Self-described independent think tank Caspian Policy Center quietly backs Central Asian governments, in particular Azerbaijan. 
• Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) described by NYT as a "nerve center for the right wing."
  
• France's DGRIS international relations directorate audited as it revamps think tank.
• "The Centre for Policy Research (CPR), a think tank in Delhi, drafted many of the policies that have made India a laboratory of anti-poverty schemes.  Since coming into power in 2014, Narendra Modi's administration has shut down thousands of [NGOs].  CPR, which produced over 600 articles in 2022-2023, has laid off all but a handful of its 200 researchers and may not survive."
  
• The group American Commitment: "Designed to fill the capabilities gap between think tanks engaged in pure public policy work and grassroots organizations engaged in mobilizing citizen activists."
• Artomatic will take over the former Urban Institute headquarters in Washington, DC.
  
• Centennial Institute: "Colorado Christian University's think tank, mobilizing ideas on faith, family, and freedom to strengthen America's future."
• Institute for Progress (IFP): "A think tank for accelerating scientific, technological, and industrial progress." 
• Is China outpacing the US defense industrial base?  (via CSIS)
  
• Flashback: Is the Asia Foundation a front for the CIA?

Conflict Resolution Think Tank Hires Lobbyist for FARA Fight

Here is more from Politico:

NGO HIRES MERCURY: A conflict resolution think tank that three House Republicans accused of potentially acting as an unregistered foreign agent last month has boosted its presence in Washington as it pushes back against the criticism.

— International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based NGO, retained Mercury Government Affairs earlier this month for help “introducing the organization to policymakers” and talking the organization up as a “trusted resource on foreign relations matters,” according to a disclosure filing.

— Patrick Costello, the head of Mercury’s NGO and think tank practice and former chief executive of the national security think tank American Security Project, will work on the account for Mercury, according to the filing. It’s the first time the group has reported lobbying Washington since 2015, per a PI analysis of disclosures.

— At the beginning of February, Reps. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland to request an investigation into whether International Crisis Group’s ties to Iranian groups — around the time that Crisis Group was lobbying on the Iran nuclear deal — had violated FARA.

— The lawmakers cited reporting from Semafor about an agreement the group had struck with a think tank run out of Iran’s foreign ministry to work together on research. Months earlier, Semafor had reported that Crisis Group researchers “were involved in an Iranian-backed research group … which Tehran hoped to use to advance its positions on the nuclear issue beginning in 2014.”

 

Costello was hired by Mercury in 2022 to lead the firm's NGO/Think Tank engagement practice.  Costello spent more than a decade at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), including as director of its Washington External Affairs.  He is a Life Member at CFR.  In 2021, he became the CEO of American Security Project (ASP).

Taiwan Gets Slew of Think Tank Delegations

A number of think tank delegations have been visiting Taiwan in recent weeks, as the US says that all signs suggest that China is sticking with its ambitions to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027.

On March 11, President Tsai Ing-wen received a delegation of think tankers from Washington, DC.  That group, led by Bonnie Glaser, Managing Director of the German Marshall Fund's Indo-Pacific program, included American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Senior Fellow Zack Cooper and Jude Blanchette, Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).  It also included Rick Waters of Eurasia Group.

Blanchette recently co-wrote a piece for CSIS along with Brookings Institution scholar Ryan Hass and CSIS scholar Lily McElwee entitled "Building International Support for Taiwan."  That report was sponsored by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States (TECRO).

The next day, Tsai received a delegation from the Center for American Progress (CAP), led by Tom Daschle, chair of CAP's board of directors.  Daschle is the Founder and CEO of The Daschle Group (TDG), which has a $25,000 per month contract with TECRO.  In that contract, TDG says it will help TECRO and the administration in Taipei with outreach to think tanks and others.  TDG is a public policy advisory of Baker Donelson.

Meanwhile, a delegation from the US Naval War College recently visited Taiwan, holding a joint seminar with the Institute for National Defense and Security Research (INDSR), a military-backed think tank in Taipei.  The two sides reportedly discussed China's People's Liberation Army and its Navy.  The CEO of INDSR recently participated in a CSIS event on Taiwan.

Scholars have noted that Taiwan's absence of diplomatic relations with most countries means that think tanks play an increasingly important role in bringing Taiwan closer to other countries.

Here is a 2020 piece from Eli Clifton entitled "Taiwan Funding of Think Tanks: Omnipresent And Rarely Disclosed."  China's media often comments on the flood of Taiwanese money going to US think tanks.