Conservatives have long wondered where noted NeverTrumper Bill Kristol, the editor-at-large of The Weekly Standard, was getting the funding for his multi-year crusade against President Trump. The mystery now appears to have been solved.
According to Julie Kelly of American Greatness, the sugar daddy funding much of Kristol’s NeverTrumper activities is left-wing billionaire Pierre Omidyar, the co-founder of eBay.
NeverTrump “conservatives” like Kristol have lately united with the left in opposing Trump’s appointment of Matthew Whitaker, former attorney general Jeff Sessions’ interim replacement. The Kristol-founded group “Republicans for the Rule of Law” sponsored ads attacking the acting attorney general on several Sunday morning political shows last weekend, Kelly reported.
The group’s primary role so far appears to be pimping for the Mueller probe, a political witch-hunt that Kristol and his fellow NeverTrumpers pray will lead to the impeachment and removal of the president. The Left and their NeverTrump footsoldiers fear Whitaker will thwart the special counsel’s investigation instead of rubber stamping Mueller’s ever-expanding investigation as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has done over the past 18 months.
Incredibly, Kelly was unable to find any Republican donors to “Republicans for the Rule of Law,” but did discover that an affiliate of one of Omidyar’s nonprofits had given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kristol’s NeverTrump group.
According to the report, Omidyar’s group Democracy Fund awarded nearly $9 million in grants in 2015, “many of which went to left-wing organizations.”
An affiliate of that fund disclosed on its website that it has given as least $600,000 to Kristol’s umbrella group, Defending Democracy Together, since May.
In a tweet linking to American Greatness Wednesday afternoon, Kristol did not deny Kelly’s claim. Instead, he tacitly admitted it by lauding the “public spiritedness” of the left.
Grateful to all—left, right, and center—who are willing to step up to defend liberal democracy and the rule of law. Nothing would make me happier if such impressive examples of public-spiritedness on the left inspired more public-spiritedness on the right! https://t.co/kIHPULt2A9
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) November 14, 2018
According to Kelly, other NeverTrumpers involved in Republicans for the Rule of Law include National Review contributor Mona Charen, Republican strategist Linda Chavez, and former Republican governor Christine Todd Whitman. The group operates under the purview of Defending Democracy Together.
It will not come as a surprise that Omidyar has also bankrolled Evan McMullin’s anti-Trump activities, as the Daily Caller reported late last year. What brought these alleged “conservatives” and the left-wing billionaire together was their mutual hatred of Donald Trump, apparently. But was that all?
Since 1999, Omidyar has reportedly given more than $500,000 to mostly Democrat candidates.
The Omidyars have also been among the most prolific supporters of left-wing causes for years. According to a 2014 report by the Media Research Center, “Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett, Pierre Omidyar, Tom Steyer and George Soros’s son, Jonathan are major funders of the left. Together, they have contributed at least $2.7 billion since 2000 to groups pushing abortion, gun control, climate change alarmism and liberal candidates.”
Omidyar has also donated millions to left-wing billionaire George Soros’s pet projects, “including the Open Society Foundations, a main funder of Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the Center for American Progress,” Kelly reported.
The Open Society Foundations lists as its goals: “creating a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, cutting the number of prison inmates by 50%, enacting comprehensive immigration reform, increasing welfare handouts, and raising taxes to redistribute wealth.”
The billionaire also donated $250,000 to the NeverTrump PAC in 2016.
Calling Trump a “dangerous authoritarian demagogue” during the presidential primaries, the Iranian-born entrepreneur proclaimed that “endorsing Donald Trump immediately disqualifies you from any position of public trust.” His Twitter timeline—much like Kristol’s—is an ongoing diatribe against the president and his allies. He recently has claimed the president is suffering from a “failing mental capacity” and called him “corrupt and incapacitated.”
No principled conservatives would align themselves with someone who has dedicated his life to defeating conservative causes. But Kristol, who now actively opposes Republican candidates and tweets about his “inner socialist,” clearly is no longer a conservative.
The GOP tax bill's bringing out my inner socialist. The sex scandals are bringing out my inner feminist. Donald Trump and Roy Moore are bringing out my inner liberal.
WHAT IS HAPPENING?— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) November 21, 2017
Join the conversation as a VIP Member