Joy Reid gushes over Sen. Whitehouse's dark money crusade; doesn't ask about liberal dark money
MSNBC host praises Rhode Island lawmaker; ignores problem on the left
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MSNBC host Joy Reid held an effusive interview with Senate Judiciary Committee member Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, during which she asked the Democrat about the impact of "dark money" and the impact of the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers have had in that arena.
However, Reid failed to ask about the multiple organizations supportive of Democrats that have private donor lists or other "dark money" attributes.
Reid began by pointing to an Al Jazeera report that global warming has reached an "irreversible" tipping point, before transitioning to a critique of "big oil" and the Kochs, whom she said have supported "climate change denying" organizations.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Younger brother David H. Koch died in 2019, while Koch Industries Chairman Charles G. Koch is 85. Koch owns Georgia-Pacific paper company, and various other concerns in the fields of energy and commodities.
Reid told Whitehouse that the Kochs helped found the conservative Americans For Prosperity, an influential political advocacy organization that previously helped elevate the Tea Party as an effective political foil to President Barack Obama.
"The Koch brothers and a couple of other creepy right-wing Republican billionaires have basically built out what in the intelligence community you’d call a massive covert operation," Whitehouse claimed. "[I]t began as to propagate climate denial and block climate legislation in its most powerful sense."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Whitehouse went on to attack right-wing "dark money" groups that also supported the tobacco industry and claimed they use "front groups" and "disinformation"
The Rhode Island lawmaker criticized various other organizations such as Heritage Action For America, a conservative advocacy group that utilizes both lobbying and a nationwide grassroots effort to effect change on Capitol Hill; pressing for limited government and traditionalist social values.
Later, Reid continued the interview by declaring that S. 1, the sweeping election reform bill sponsored by Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., is an "anti-dark-money bill," and lamented that two moderate Democrats – Sen. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, aren't yet onboard with it.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Reid accused Americans For Prosperity of helping convince Manchin not to support it.
Whitehouse, meanwhile, compared the "network" of right-wing dark money to keys on a piano that someone could "dial-up" a pianist to play at any given time.
But, Reid neglected to press Whitehouse on his party's use or connections to "dark money," or even breach the topic.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In March, Whitehouse himself presided over a Senate hearing touted as a critique of dark money that featured at least two purported players in liberal dark money organizations as his witnesses.
Witnesses before the Judiciary Committee's "What's Wrong with the Supreme Court: The Big Money Assault on Our Judiciary" hearing included Ben Jealous, a former NAACP chair and Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate who now leads People for the American Way. PFAW is a progressive 501(c)4 group founded by "All in the Family" and "Good Times" producer Norman Lear.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The hearing also included Harvard Law Professor Michael Klarman, who has ties to "Take Back the Court" and who has claimed Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., "stole a [Supreme Court] seat in 2016."
Nonpartisan political watchdog OpenSecrets reported that the 2020 presidential election saw $1 billion in dark money spent, while prominently declaring that "liberal dark money groups overshadow conservatives."
President Joe Biden was aided by $174 million in supposed "dark money," which dwarfed Donald Trump's $25 million haul, the watchdog reported in March.