Think Tank CEI Lobbying to Weaken Dishwasher Regulations

Who knew that think tanks have become dishwasher lobbyists?

Here is more from the New York Times:

The Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group that disputes that climate change is a problem, has promoted the effort to roll back dishwasher regulations, filing a petition that directly prompted the dishwasher review. As a nonprofit organization, the Competitive Enterprise Institute isn’t required to disclose its donors, though a recent gala organized by the institute showed that the institute counts among its donors groups that have long been aligned with fossil fuel interests.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) has deep ties to the Trump Administration and has been extremely influential the past couple of years in helping roll back various US regulations.

Here is a recent Think Tank Watch post about Google defending its funding of the think tank. Here is more about CEI's donors.

Paul Ryan Launches New Think Tank

Here is more from The Hill:

Former Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Monday launched a nonprofit organization that will focus on his legislative priorities during his two decades in Congress: fighting poverty, boosting economic opportunity and promoting “evidence-based” reforms on issues like welfare, foster care and criminal justice.

The American Idea Foundation, which will have offices in his hometown of Janesville, Wis., will partner with community organizations, academics and lawmakers. Ryan will serve as president of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

Here is a link to the American Idea Foundation website.

Roll Call notes that Ryan has funded his new think tank largely through his political action committee (PAC).

The Washington Examiner notes that the think tank plans to partner with other think tanks to address poverty, drug addiction, education, upward mobility, and other reforms Ryan worked on in Washington.

In September, Ryan joined the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow.

Milken Institute Influencing Treasury on Taxes, May Profit From It

Here is more from the New York Times:

In the 1980s, Michael Milken embodied Wall Street greed. A swashbuckling financier, he was charged with playing a central role in a vast insider-trading scheme and was sent to prison for violating federal securities and tax laws. He was an inspiration for the Gordon Gekko character in the film “Wall Street.”

Mr. Milken has spent the intervening decades trying to rehabilitate his reputation through an influential nonprofit think tank, the Milken Institute, devoted to initiatives “that advance prosperity.”

These days, the Milken Institute is a leading proponent of a new federal tax break that was intended to coax wealthy investors to plow money into distressed communities known as “opportunity zones.” The institute’s leaders have helped push senior officials in the Trump administration to make the tax incentive more generous, even though it is under fire for being slanted toward the wealthy.

Mr. Milken, it turns out, is in a position to personally gain from some of the changes that his institute has urged the Trump administration to enact. In one case, the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, directly intervened in a way that benefited Mr. Milken, his longtime friend.

Think Tank Watch recently reported that the Milken Institute is opening a Washington, DC branch that will be the closest think tank to the White House.  The Times reports that Milken's family spent more than $85 million to buy three buildings opposite the White House and Treasury Department for the DC office.

Think Tank Quickies (#363)

• US State Dept. now requiring Chinese diplomats to notify US authorities before meetings at US research institutions. 
• Vice President Mike Pence headlines first-ever Heritage Honors gala; Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivers remarks at Heritage Foundation.
• The Koch Foundation is influencing foreign policy with think tanks.
• Think tank CEI compiles decades worth of dire climate predictions.
• Inside Aspen Institute's Executive Seminar: the mountain retreat for the liberal elite.
• Washingtonian piece on Open Markets Institute. 
• Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), dies.
• LSE IDEAS event: Think tanks and their role in the age of digital and political disruption. 
• Think tank writer temporarily suspended by Twitter because of Turkish troll campaign?
• Hybrid Analytica: Pro-Kremlin expert propaganda in Russia, Europe, and the US - a case study of think tanks and universities.

JPMorgan Chase Starts New Policy Center in DC

Here is more from Fortune:

JPMorgan today is announcing several major steps to encourage second-chance hiring for those with criminal records. The bank is officially "banning the box"—removing all questions about criminal records from its job applications. It will steer more than $7 million toward organizations that provide job- and life-skills training to the formerly incarcerated. The bank is also launching a new “policy center,” a think tank of sorts that will design and advocate for regulatory changes around certain economic issues. Its first agenda item: reforming rules that effectively bar former felons from employment, in finance and elsewhere.

The new think tank, JPMorgan Chase PolicyCenter (website here), will be run by Heather Higginbottom, a former US Deputy Secretary of State under President Barack Obama.  She is also a founder and former executive director of national security think tank American Security Project (ASP).

In 2015, JPMorgan launched a think tank (JPMorgan Chase Institute) dedicated to delivering data-rich analysis and expert insights for the public good.

Inside Stephen Miller's Secret Think Tank

Here is more from Axios:

Stephen Miller "was running a sort of secret immigration think tank out of the West Wing," the N.Y. Times' Julie Davis and Mike Shear report in "Border Wars: Inside Trump's Assault on Immigration," out Tuesday.

An excerpt from the book says that the group, which usually met on Fridays, was part of "a quiet but methodical effort...to seize control of the machinery of government and use it to make good on the president's immigration agenda."

As Think Tank Watch has previously noted, Miller is likely the largest consumer of think tank reports in the entire White House.

Here is a previous post about another internal White House think tank in the Trump era.

New Report Documents UAE's Deep Ties to Think Tanks

The Center for International Policy's (CIP) Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative (FITI) has published a new report showing the United Arab Emirates' (UAE) deep connection to US think tanks.

Among other things, the report found that UAE foreign agents had contacted 200 congressional offices, 18 think tanks, and most mainstream media outlets in 2018. Those 18 think tanks were contacted a total of 85 different times last year (and that is just contacts that were reported).

The top five think tanks most contacted by UAE foreign agents were:

1. Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP): 18
2. Middle East Institute (MEI): 14
3. Center for American Progress (CAP): 11
4. American Enterprise Institute (AEI): 10
5. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): 5

The report says that UAE foreign agents "directed their efforts towards some of the most prominent and influential think tanks in D.C. and towards experts at think tanks the UAE was directly or indirectly funding."  In turn, the report added, "UAE foreign agents often help to distribute the work of these experts at think tanks the UAE is funding."

Over the past year, there has also been a significant effort to track Saudi influence at US think tanks.

Fake Tinder Profiles Used by NATO Think Tank to Test Ranks

Here is more from EURACTIV:

When NATO’s Centre for Strategic Communication in Riga discovered how easy it was to dupe its soldiers online, it has started looking for ways of countering false information, which comes, in large part, from Russia.

On Tinder, a popular dating app, some even communicated with a woman, sending pictures of themselves in uniform. One evening, two soldiers even arranged to meet the virtual woman. They both left their post for her, a move which proved to be a mistake.

The website for soldiers and the Tinder profile was tested by a group of men and women in a low-rise building in Riga, in NATO’s Centre for Strategic Communication, which is supported by Germany.

Janis Sarts, who previously worked for the Latvian defence ministry, is now leading a group of 50 people in the NATO centre, which analyses disinformation campaigns, also called ‘Fake News’.

Here is the website for the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (NATO StratCom COE), which became functional in January 2014.

The think tank has run a similar operation using Facebook and Instagram.

A number of foreign governments have been using fake LinkedIn profiles (including fake think tank experts) to lure legitimate think tankers and others into spying for them.

Think Tank Quickies (#362)

• Think tanks give support for President Trump impeachment probe. 
• Len Blavatnik and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).
• Center for Public Integrity: Inside the shadowy think tank pushing to kick 3.1 million people off food stamps.
• American Prospect: Washington's "freedom promoting" think tanks that ignore Jamal Khashoggi's murder.
• Think tanks behind the climate denial movement.
• Bruce Bartlett: Right-wing think tanks no longer deny climate change, but they argue that the free market will fix it. 
• Jared Yates Sexton: "The Republican Party used to get its principles and strategies from DC think tanks.  Now it comes from 4chan, 8chan..."
• Parnell Palme McGuinness: Think tanks and the death of the power of ideas.
• India's External Affairs Minister Jaishankar's 7-day, 7-think tank blitz in DC.
• Energy think tank accuses Conservatives in Canada of misusing their research in ad.
• Robbie Jaeger: "Think tank is a polite way of saying a group of insiders and elites are going to start of 501c3/4 (often funded by 1%ers) and use back channel communications and funds to concoct narratives that coordinate and manipulate public perception.

Lobby Shop Will Help Congo With Outreach to Think Tanks

Here is more from Politico:

The Republic of the Congo has hired Michael Sullivan and Kimberly West of the Ashcroft Law Firm to lobby Congress and the Trump administration, work on "media outreach and strategy" and seek the support of thought leaders and think tanks, according to a Justice Department filing. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the firm's founder, hasn't registered to do any work for the country. The contract is worth $75,000 a month.

Foreign governments (as well as individuals and corporations) often pay think tanks both directly and indirectly (through lobbying firms, law firms, and consulting firms) to influence their work and help shape policy and perceptions.

Bulgaria Charges Think Tanker With Spying for Russia

Here is more from Reuters:

A Bulgarian investigation into alleged espionage involving Russian non-governmental organizations is not intended to influence relations with Moscow, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said on Wednesday.

Prosecutors charged the head of a Bulgarian non-governmental organization (NGO) on Tuesday with spying for Russia as part of a scheme they said aimed to draw Bulgaria away from its Western allies and towards Moscow.

Prosecutors said Nikolai Malinov, 50, head of the National Russophile Movement, had worked for the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, run mainly by former foreign intelligence officials, and also for another Russian NGO, the Double-Headed Eagle, since 2010.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch piece on the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISS), a think tank that has been accused of trying to sway the 2016 US presidential election.  Malinov has been accused of accepting payments for transferring Bulgarian state secrets to RISS.

Among other things, Mr. Malinov was also accused of planning to create internet sites, a TV channel, an influential think tank, and a political party to encourage Bulgarians to form more positive views of Russia.

Goulard Gets Tripped Up With Connection to US Think Tank

Here is more from the New York Times:

The French nominee for a top European Union job was rejected by the European Parliament on Thursday, a stinging defeat for President Emmanuel Macron, who has been criticized for bypassing the continental legislature, even as his power has been growing within the bloc.

Sylvie Goulard, a former minister under Mr. Macron and a longtime member of the European Parliament, was rejected after grueling hearings at the hands of her former colleagues.

During her nomination hearings, other lawmakers also questioned the lucrative consulting work that she did for the Los Angeles-based Berggruen Institute, a research organization founded by the billionaire German-American investor Nicolas Berggruen, while she served in the European Parliament from 2013 to 2016. 

The Associated Press reports that Goulard was paid around $11,000 per month for her work at Berggruen.

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post of the Berggruen Institute.

Think Tank Quickies (#361)

• Brookings releases new style guide with updates to racial and ethnic terms.
• Buttigieg's white-paper cites a few think tanks, including CAP and Third Way.
• Lee Fang: Think tank CSIS celebrates climate strike with ritzy event funded by BP.
• Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: Amazon should stop funding climate denying think tanks like CEI.
• Andrea Baertl on think tanks and the private sector.
• Pic: Working at the Urban Institute.
• Modi's foreign minister's son sent to head newly opened DC branch of Indian think tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF).
• Hewlett Foundation: Can African think tanks help strengthen gov't use of data and evidence?
• ExxonMobil funding Democratic think tank Progressive Policy Institute (PPI).
• ThinkProgress was always doomed?
• Pic: Exclusive footage of scenes at certain Washington think tank over firing of John Bolton.

Google Defends Funding of Climate Change-Denying Think Tanks

Here is more from The Verge:

Google makes “substantial” donations to climate change-denying Washington think tanks, according to a new report from The Guardian on Friday. The revelation comes only a few weeks after Google announced its support for political action to fix the climate crisis.

Google contributes to conservative political organizations and lobbies that are in support of regulatory efforts that benefit the company. Defending the donations to organizations like the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) that were cited in the report, Google said that it might not endorse every policy position of an organization when it makes a contribution.

“We’re hardly alone among companies that contribute to organisations while strongly disagreeing with them on climate policy,” a Google spokesperson told The Verge.

According to people at Google, The Guardian said that people at the company said that it makes these donations in hopes of influencing conservative lawmakers and pushing forward a deregulatory agenda, something that has become ever more important in recent months as Congress works to craft data privacy legislation.

Google funding is very important to many think tanks, and policy shops will often go out of their way to defend the search giant's contributions.

Update: Over 100 mothers and babies have blockaded Google's offices by staging a mass feed-in over their donations to climate deniers.

Volker Resigns as Head of McCain Institute

Here is more from Politico:

Kurt Volker, the president’s former special envoy to Ukraine, has stepped down from yet another post, his executive directorship of the McCain Institute, amid the fallout from House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

Volker resigned from his role at the State Department a little over a week ago, and his resignation as the head of the D.C.-based think tank came days after he appeared as Democrats’ first witness in their widening impeachment probe, turning over damaging text messages that appeared to undermine President Donald Trump’s claims that he did not seek to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political opponents.

In a statement released Monday announcing his departure, Volker specifically referenced the growing Ukraine scandal and the ensuing media frenzy. 

“Today, I informed ASU President Crow and Mrs. McCain that I believe the recent media focus on my work as U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations risks becoming a distraction from the accomplishments and continued growth of the Institute, and therefore I am stepping down as Executive Director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership,” he said, referring to the wife of the late Sen. John McCain, for whom the think tank was founded, and the president of Arizona State University, which is a partner of the institute. 

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on Volker and the McCain Institute.

According to CNN, Volker told staff at the Institute last week that he had no plans to resign.

In a statement, Cindy McCain said the executive committee of the trustees has asked Fran Townsend to serve as trustee representative of the think tank to coordinate the transition to a new executive director.  In the meantime, Nick Rasmussen has been asked by ASU leadership to serve as acting executive director.

Atlantic Council Gets Tangled in Impeachment Probe

Here is an excerpt from Breitbart:

A staffer for Rep. Adam Schiff's House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence took a trip to Ukraine last month sponsored and organized by the Atlantic Council think tank.

The Atlantic Council is funded by and routinely works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

The Schiff staffer, Thomas Eager, is also currently one of 19 fellows at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Congressional Fellowship, a bipartisan program that says it “educates congressional staff on current events in the Eurasia region.”

Eager’s trip to Ukraine last month was part of the fellowship program and included nine other House employees. The bi-partisan visit, from August 24 to August 31, was billed as a “Ukraine Study Trip,” and culminated in a meeting with former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

The dates of the pre-planned trip are instructive. Eager’s visit to Ukraine sponsored by the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council began 12 days after the so-called whistleblower officially filed his August 12 complaint about President Donald Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Kurt Volker, who has just resigned as the Trump Administration's special representative for Ukraine, is a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council and also heads the McCain Institute.

Max Blumenthal says that the Atlantic Council has become a "clearinghouse for legal corruption."

Update I: (from Brietbart): "Impeachment star witness William Taylor has has long relationship with Burisma-backed think tank." 

Update II: Second Schiff staff linked to Atlantic Council.

Ex-California Gov. & China Launch Think Tank to Fight Climate Change

Here is more from Bloomberg:

Two of President Donald Trump’s biggest foils are teaming up on an issue he loves to scoff at: climate change.

Former California Governor Jerry Brown and China’s chief climate official, Xie Zhenhua, are launching a think tank to push policymakers on both sides of the Pacific to jointly develop better ways to cut greenhouse gases. A key part of the effort, based at the University of California, Berkeley, is trying to block Trump’s plan to roll back vehicle emissions standards.

Brown, a Democrat, said one of his goals for the initiative, called the California-China Climate Institute, is to push China to toughen its own vehicle emissions standards. The move, he said, would make it “very likely” that automakers continue to make low-emission vehicles even if Trump succeeds in rolling back American standards.

The initiative at Berkeley will work with government agencies in California and China, as well as the Institute of Climate Change and Sustainable Development at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Here is a link to the think tank's new website.

Think Tank Quickies (#360)

• Suspected North Korean cyber campaign targets think tanks. 
• John Bolton slams Trump's North Korea policy at think tank CSIS.
• Brookings among the think tanks receiving Chinese money.
• It must be said (get the think tank's name right). 
• Jeet Heer: In an age of policy boldness, think tanks have become timid.
• The Nation: How far-right operatives manufactured the "crisis" of free speech with think tanks.
• Chinese Embassy working with consultants to embrace think tanks.
• Rocky Mountain Institute offers prize to encourage engineers to build a more efficient air conditioner.
• ReFED: A think tank that works to reduce food waste.
• Data & Society Research Institute: "A think/do tank in New York City dedicated to addressing social, technical, ethical, legal, and policy issues that are emerging because of data-centric technological development.”

Head of McCain Institute Steps Down as Envoy to Ukraine

Here is more from the Arizona Republic:

Kurt Volker, executive director of the Arizona-based McCain Institute, resigned Friday as the Trump administration's special envoy to Ukraine amid questions over his dealings with the president's attorney and ahead of a congressional interview stemming from the impeachment inquiry.

Volker quit the unpaid position with the State Department, according to Arizona State University President Michael Crow, who told The Arizona Republic his staff discussed the matter with Volker.

Volker will remain with ASU's McCain Institute for International Leadership, said Luke Knittig, an institute spokesman.

Volker has headed the McCain Institute since its founding in 2012.  He has been a Senior Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University and a Senior Advisor at the think tank Atlantic Council since 2009.

Here is his biography from the McCain Institute.

The Largest Consumer of Think Tank Reports in the White House

Stephen Miller, a senior advisor for policy for President Donald Trump, may be the largest consumer of think tank reports in the entire White House.  Here is more from the Washington Post:

[Stephen] Miller often launches into pedantic arguments with others in the White House, citing lengthy, arcane statistics that he mentally stores like munitions.  He reads "every economic analysis, every think tank paper, every Wall Street Journal editorial on immigration," said a colleague.

That appears to be the opposite of President Trump, who is not the biggest fan of think tanks.

CFR Flags Fake Think Tanker

Here is what Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) scholar Robert Knake unearthed:

Despite what his profile says, Sean Brown does not work at the Council on Foreign Relations. I know this because I work there. But LinkedIn doesn’t actually know that either.

Sean Brown in fact appears not to exist. The photo does not match any existing photos that Google’s photo search picture could identify. Analysis by fotoforensics, if I’m interpreting the analysis correctly, suggests that the image has been heavily photoshopped. Sean Brown is likely one of the accounts created by foreign intelligence agencies for recruitment as documented recently in the New York Times.

I reported the account as fake about a week ago, as did CFR’s CIO. But Sean Brown’s profile is still up, and he is slowly building connections. Right now, a lot of people are likely suspicious of the request to connect given his low number of connections. But as a few at a time connect, his profile will soon seem very real.

The profile has now been removed, although many other fake profiles are out there.

Think Tank Watch has written extensively about fake think tanks and fake think tank scholars.

Think Tank Quickies (#359)

• Stock image sites don't know what a think tank is. 
• WaPo: Women are mysteriously missing from DC think tanks' foreign policy panels.
• CSIS finds new military technology being developed by North Korea.
• Think tank warning from Pew: A majority of Americans (58%) say they trust scientific findings less if they know the research was funded by industry groups.
• Japanese think tank estimate of cost of Fukushima disaster drastically different from government estimate.
• Name a job that you can completely suck at and still keep your job.  Max Blumenthal: Beltway think tank senior fellow.
• Dr. James McGann releasing new think tank book: "Think Tanks: The New Knowledge and Policy Brokers in Asia."
• Bernie Sanders slams think tanks again.
• Some people not happy at think tank jobs.
• Eleanor Barkhorn observation: Many fitness trainers in DC work as think tankers.

BBC Updates Editorial Guidelines to Improve Scrutiny of Think Tanks

Here is more from DeSmog UK:

The BBC has altered its editorial guidelines after persistent calls for the organisation to improve transparency around the commentators to which it gives a platform.

The broadcaster has now added “think tanks” to a list of groups that it says presenters and producers should “not automatically assume … are unbiased”.  “Appropriate information about their affiliations, funding and particular viewpoints should be made available to the audience, when relevant to the context,” the guidelines say.

The change could have significant ramifications for representatives of anti-regulation, pro-Brexit think tanks and campaign groups based in and around offices at 55 Tufton Street, including the UK's principal climate science denial campaign group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, on which DeSmog has extensively reported.

This follows pressure from journalists including the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr. She has long fought for the funding and ideology of groups including Vote Leave, Leave.EU, the Institute of Economic Affairs, Taxpayers’ Alliance, and other Tufton Street groups to be made clear when they appear on the BBC’s programmes.

BBC's guidelines concerning impartiality, including those related to think tanks, can be found here.

Think Tank Quickies (#358)

• Inside a Trump-era purge of military scientists at a legendary think tank (Jason).
• How a trio of conservative think tanks rewired American political thought.
• Therapist: What mental goals do you set for yourself?  Me: I start every day out by unsubscribing from at least three think tank email lists.
• Knight Foundation invests $6 million in three think tanks to support research on the future of US technology policy.
• FBI Director: Need help of think tanks to raise US's resilience. 
• Thread from Justin Logan (formerly of Cato) about think tank ethics.
• Jessica Trisko-Darden, former model and beauty queen who is a fellow at AEI, joins GWU Program on Extremism.
• CGSS: The role of think tanks in nation-building.
• JPMorgan Chase Institute brings think tankers together for second annual Conference on Economic Research.

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan to Join AEI

Politico is reporting that former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) is joining the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the practice of public policy.

There had been many rumors that Ryan would become president of the conservative think tank after Arthur Brooks left, but instead, Robert Doar was tapped for that position.

It was recently reported that Ryan is leaving his home of Janesville, Wisconsin to rent a house in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC.  Politico also noted that Ryan has some type of new think tank-like entity called the American Idea Foundation that will remain in Wisconsin.

Update: Here is a press release from AEI.

CFR Used to Promote Dubious Philanthropy?

Think tanks are often used by companies and other entities to promote an idea, proposal, or philosophy.  Other times, they are used for more nefarious reasons.  Here is more from the New York Times:

In 2014, Ghislaine Maxwell spoke at a Council on Foreign Relations event in Washington, D.C. She was there in her capacity as the founder of the TerraMar Project, an oceanic conservation group she started in 2012, according to a C.F.R. spokeswoman.

The C.F.R. is one of the world’s most prestigious nonprofit think tanks. Among its officers and directors then were David Rockefeller, one of the modern era’s most revered philanthropists; Colin Powell; and Robert Rubin, the secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton.

The TerraMar Project was an organization with an opaque website and a founder who happened to be the ex-girlfriend of Jeffrey Epstein, the mysterious money manager who — in addition to being one of the C.F.R.’s “Chairman’s Circle” donors for at least six years — had pleaded guilty in 2008 to state charges of soliciting prostitution from a minor.

The article goes on to note that in 2013, Ms. Maxwell went to Iceland for a conference about the Arctic Circle, an event attended by Scott Borgerson, a onetime CFR fellow.  He reportedly appeared with Ms. Maxwell at the 2014 talk at CFR and became her boyfriend.

Update: The Washington Post has reported that in his 15 years as a member of CFR, Epstein attended only two events but had given the think tank $350,000 in the group's top-level donor category, the Chairman's Circle.

Iran Sanctions Think Tank FDD and US Think Tankers Fight Back

In a rare move, Iran has sanctioned a little-known US think tank that has played an outsized role in imposing US sanctions on Iran.  Here is more:

Iran has blacklisted the US-based think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies and its chief Mark Dubowitz on accusations of being behind “economic terrorism” against the Islamic Republic.

The Iranian foreign ministry said in a statement issued late Saturday that it had “added the so-called Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and its director to the sanctions list.”

“The American institution with the deceitful name” and Dubowitz were accused of being involved in “designing, imposing and intensifying the impacts of economic terrorism against Iran,” it said, without detailing the specific alleged actions.

Here is a statement on the sanctions from Iran's Tasnim News Agency.

In response, 70 think tank scholars have come out in support of FDD.  All the signatories can be found here.

How did a small think tank get so famous in Iran?

Here is a previous Think Tank Watch post on how FDD sank the Iran nuclear deal.

Here is WaPo's Jason Rezaian in a piece entitled "Death to think tanks?  The latest in Iran's pointless campaign."

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and its ambassador to the US, Yousef al-Otaiba, have close ties to FDD.

In related news, Negar Razavi writes that there is a systematic problem of Iran expertise in Washington think tanks.

Think Tank Quickies (#357)

• Is Washington more of a college town than a think tank town?
• Prospect think tank awards have arrived.
• How Tope Folarin of Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) went from policy wonk to novelist.
• New CNAS study: China's military power close to parity with US.
• Alice Rivlin spent much of her career bouncing back and forth between Brookings and top government posts. 
• What does a libertarian think tank art show look like?
• Why crowded think tank conferences make you so tired.
• Victoria Nuland, former US Assistant Secretary of State, joins Brookings, and so does former prime minister of Italy, Paolo Gentiloni.
• Carnegie Endowment launches new cybersecurity tool; Hewlett Foundation gives Carnegie $2 million for work on international cyber policy.
• Richard Fontaine becomes executive director of Trilateral Commission.

Think Tank Unirule Cracks Under Chinese Pressure

Here is more from Bloomberg:

One of China’s most prominent independent think tanks will cease operations after years of attempts by government officials to silence it.

The Unirule Institute of Economics, which advocated free-market economic theories and is well known in U.S. academic circles, has decided to shut down after district officials in Beijing declared that it was operating without authorization, the organization said in a statement dated Aug. 26. Although Unirule said it intends to fight the government determinations, it will nonetheless halt its activities and stop updating its website apart from notices relevant to the winding-down process.

The end of Unirule closes down one of the last venues for open debate on economic issues in China. Founded in the early 1990s by a pair of celebrated Chinese economists, Mao Yushi and Sheng Hong, Unirule once enjoyed a broad following in business and political circles, producing widely read analyses of government policies and financial issues. But that changed dramatically under President Xi Jinping, who has implemented a broad crackdown on dissent since taking power in 2012.

Here is how the Wall Street Journal reported on Unirule's closing, and here is what The Economist had to say.

Members of Congress Advising Epstein-Connected Think Tank

Here is more from the conservative Daily Caller:

Democratic representatives Adam Schiff, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Maxine Waters are just three elected officials who sit on the congressional advisory board of a foreign policy think-tank led by Jeffrey Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein.

Co-founded by socialite heiress Constance Milstein in 1988, the Humpty Dumpty Institute works closely with the United Nations, the State Department, and “various countries” to “put the pieces back together” in parts of the world ridden with conflict.

Mark Epstein has played a significant role in this mission. According to the organization’s website, Jeffrey Epstein’s brother serves as Humpty Dumpy’s vice chairman, and has represented the group abroad on delegations alongside members of Congress and U.N. dignitaries.

While Humpty Dumpty lists over thirty elected officials on their advisory board, only four are Republicans.

Did Jeffrey Epstein give millions of dollars to think tanks?