Foreign money, much of it dark, dominates the Swamp. And the big money think tanks are prime examples of this, according to a new report. A January paper issued by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft spells out details of a dirty secret uber-connected establishment organizations – such as the Atlantic Council, Aspen Institute, and the Brookings Institution – don’t want Americans to wonder about.
“Think tanks are increasingly reliant on special interests and governments – both the US and foreign governments – for funding,” the executive summary to the Quincy report states. “A growing body of evidence suggests that funding often comes with strings attached, leading to censorship, perspective filtering and, in rare cases, even outright pay-for-research arrangements with donors.”
One Way to Gain Access
It’s a deliberate intent to influence policymakers in Washington, Quincy emphasizes. “As one internal report from a foreign government noted: ‘Funding powerful think tanks is one way to gain such access, and some think tanks in Washington are openly conveying that they can service only those foreign governments that provide funding.’”
The dollar amounts are substantial.
“In the past five years, foreign governments and foreign government-owned entities donated more than $110 million to the top 50 think tanks in the United States,” the report continues. “The most generous donor countries were the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Qatar, which contributed $16.7 million, $15.5 million, and $9.1 million to U.S. think tanks, respectively.”
“The Atlantic Council, Brookings Institution, and German Marshall Fund received the most money from foreign governments since 2019: $20.8 million, $17.1 million, and $16.1 million, respectively,” Quincy relates. Surely it’s just a coincidence that the top recipients of this green avalanche happen to be three entities overwhelmingly committed to supporting geopolitical globalism, i.e., “the rules-based international order.”
Ready for a chuckle? In 2018, Facebook “partnered” with the Atlantic Council on a censorship campaign ostensibly aimed at reducing foreign “misinformation” meant to interfere with US elections. Yes, the think tank that has raked in $20.8 million from foreign governments over the past half-decade and still lists Burisma, the Ukrainian company that infamously “employed” Hunter Biden, on its “honor roll of contributors” on its website, was extremely concerned about undue influence on American governance from abroad.
As with the ever-growing number of big-box media outlets that take money from partisan donors that they also report on, progressive establishment powerhouse the Brookings Institution seeks to make any hint of grave compromise magically disappear by means of disclaimer.
“Brookings and all its personnel are governed by robust policies on research independence that do not permit outside parties to undermine or compromise the independence of Brookings’s research or its recommendations,” a FAQ page “about Brookings’s approach to foreign funding” declares. “As a globally-oriented nonprofit, Brookings is grateful for support from a diverse network of funders outside the United States who appreciate Brookings’s mission and value our approach to trusted, independent analyses.”
They wrote it, so it must be true.
Think Tanks in a Company Town
Much of the foreign money is not publicly accounted for. “Out of the 50 think tanks analyzed in this paper, 18 of them are almost entirely opaque when it comes to donors and received a score of zero,” Quincy reveals. “[T]hink tanks are not obligated to publicly identify the sources of donations, which typically make up the vast majority of their funding.”
What makes all this so disturbing is the close working relationship these think tanks have with institutional power in America today. NBC News has an open partnership with The Aspen Institute, and its star anchors regularly “moderate” Aspen events. And what of congressional hearings, which often lean on the testimony of readily available DC think tank “experts”?
“Between 2021 and 2024, 34 percent of all think tank witnesses before [the House Foreign Affairs Committee] came from dark money think tanks,” the report relates. “For example, 11 analysts from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which does not disclose any information about its donors, testified to HFAC during that period.”
It gets more alarming than that.
“Private funders paid for a member of the US House of Representatives or their staff to travel overseas more than 4,000 times in the past decade,” Capital News Service reported in September. “The bill for the vast majority of those trips was footed by nonprofit organizations, including prestigious think tanks such as the Aspen Institute and German Marshall Fund, according to an analysis of House travel disclosures by the University of Maryland’s Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.”
In essence, DC think tanks can act as a valuable buffer for foreign governments courting US elected officials with enticing luxury vacations.
“When a foreign government funds a trip, there may be more perceived risk of the lawmaker or congressional staffer appearing to be unduly influenced by foreign interests,” Anna Massoglia, editorial and investigations manager at campaign finance watchdog site OpenSecrets, told CNS. “Travel sponsored by a think tank can give more of an appearance of independence and objectivity, which may help avoid any negative associations with direct funding from foreign governments.”
It appears American lawmakers are fully aware of this advantage.
“The Howard Center analysis found a House member or staff member reported taking an international trip funded directly by foreign governments approximately 270 times from 2012 through 2022,” Capital News Service writes. “They took nearly four times as many foreign trips, just over 1,000, that were sponsored by think tanks that disclosed on their websites that they received foreign government funding.”
This is how the game is played in Washington, DC. The money is always moving around, but ultimately it’s locked into one gigantic establishment trough that all connected mouths get to feed on.
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