Latest news with #CapitalResearchCenter
Fox News
09-08-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Networks pounce on Republican redistricting. They didn't care when Democrats did it
Redistricting is an issue for political junkies. Your average American doesn't obsess over district maps, even when they help determine who's in the majority. They passed a redistricting plan out of committee in Texas on August 2, prompting Texas Democrats to flee to Illinois and other blue states to deny a legislative quorum. Parker Thayer of the Capital Research Center tickled me by tweeting: "Going to Illinois to protest gerrymandering is like going to Wisconsin to protest cheese." Redistricting in blue states is never national "news," because maximizing Democrat seats is considered wonderfully just and humane. These networks aren't referees or moderators or reformers who just want sensible districting in the public interest. They are a partisan adjunct that only consider gerrymandering outrageous when Republicans are accused of doing it. On November 23, 2021 – the Tuesday before Thanksgiving that year – Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed off on a redistricting map for Illinois that shamelessly gerrymandered out Republicans, especially poor Adam Kinzinger, who was busily doing Nancy Pelosi's bidding on the stilted January 6 committee. ABC, CBS and NBC aired nothing. Only the "PBS News" Hour touched it briefly. Their guest Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report was blunt: "This is a pretty aggressive Democratic gerrymander ... it just goes to show the lengths to which parties go to, to try and entrench their advantage." Texas Democrats also traveled this week to New York, where Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul claimed "this is a war! We are at war." She's not at war with criminals or terrorists. She's at war with Republicans. She promised to redistrict New York. But wait – Hochul signed a gerrymandered map just last year – on February 28, 2024. Network coverage last year? Zero. Zippy. On ABC's George Stephanopoulos show on Sunday, there was panic over Texas. Former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder warned "Our democracy is really threatened by what the Republicans are proposing to do in Texas right now." Stephanopoulos could only ask: "Is there any way to stop it?" Democrats claim that democracy is strong or weak depending on whether they're in power or not. When they lose, democracy is dying. All three networks leaped on the Texas story on Monday morning. "CBS Mornings" queen Gayle King used the D-word: "Texas Democrats flee to Illinois over what they call a power grab by Republicans, a fight with huge implications for Congress and democracy. ... It's a showdown that could have a big impact on democracy in this country." ABC's Jonathan Karl was the only one to note this isn't just a Republican tactic: "Democrats have played the game, too, in the states they control. In deep-blue California, for example, 38% voted Republican last year, and out of 52 congressional districts, only nine are held by Republicans." On NBC's "Today," co-host Craig Melvin announced: "Our top story on this Monday morning, that growing showdown in Texas over a controversial redistricting plan." The networks decide what is "controversial" and what is not. Anything they don't like is "controversial." Everything they like is just fine, as fine as former President Joe Biden's mental state. At least Melvin asked reporter Ryan Chandler: "How much of this is just a stunt? "Or is there some indication that this move could actually work by Democrats?" Chandler said it's only temporary, it won't last. On Monday August 4, Chandler led off by touting warnings from Democrat Governors Kathy Hochul and Gavin Newsom that they too would pursue new congressional maps to further skew toward their party … leaving out the fact that they've already tried to gerrymander to the max. On "CBS Evening News," reporter Ed O'Keefe noted what Democrats have done: "If you look here in Illinois, they have drawn their map in such a way that Republicans barely have any seats." Bizarrely, the toughest broadcast pushback on Pritzker came from CBS comedian Stephen Colbert, who held up a map of Illinois's congressional map and told Pritzker, "If you're considering doing a little more redrawing in Illinois, you already have some crazy districts in Illinois." "PBS News Hour" is still drawing on taxpayer money as it promotes the Democrat party line, especially the part about how it's "disenfranchising" minorities. On Monday, PBS's Stephanie Sy relayed: "Besides what Democrats see as a brazen power grab, the new map could disproportionately disenfranchise Black and Latino voters." At least Melvin asked reporter Ryan Chandler: "How much of this is just a stunt? Or is there some indication that this move could actually work by Democrats?" Chandler said it's only temporary, it won't last. On August 5, PBS anchor Geoff Bennett repeated it: "Some of the Democrats are in Illinois. They said today that the redrawn map would disenfranchise voters of color and that they're not backing down." By this definition, if you're Black and you don't get to vote for Texas Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett, your voting rights are denied. It's explicitly racial: if Blacks don't get to vote for a Black Democrat, we're back in Jim Crow times. Polls show the Democrats are a mess. The socialist Bernie bros (and gals) hate the party establishment, because it's never woke enough. It's not destroying capitalism and police departments fast enough. It's not resisting deportations enough. It's not supporting Islamists against Israel enough. Now they're in danger of not gerrymandering enough. But you can't win a majority if your polls are in the toilet.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
First on Fox: New study reveals 'pro-Palestinian' groups promote violence and anti-Americanism
FIRST ON FOX: Anti-American and anti-police rhetoric has increased 186% among "pro-Palestinian" groups while perpetuating a 3,000% surge in calls for violence since the October 7th attacks on Israel, a new study by Capital Research Center, "When Charities Betray America: How 'Pro-Palestinian' Protest Groups Promote Anti-Americanism" revealed. The "pro-Palestinian" movement, which has gained traction on college campuses since October 7th, has become an "anti-American and anti-police movement with sharply radicalizing rhetoric that advocates terrorism and sedition on U.S. soil," Investigative Researcher Ryan Mauro revealed in the new study released today and shared first with Fox News Digital. The study analyzed thousands of social media posts from 496 of the most active "pro-Palestinian" groups and activists. The term maintains quotation marks throughout the study because that is how the groups identify, but Capital Research Center does not "concede that such extremist groups are genuinely pursuing an agenda that would benefit innocent Palestinians." Many of the groups in question are connected to charities or nonprofits and receive federal funding. The analysis found the "pro-Palestinian" movement has become a "permanent presence" that will "not fade when issues surrounding Israelis and Palestinians lose prominence" but evolve and expend to exploit other popular social issues – all while "inserting anti-Americanism, hatred of Israel, anti-Semitism, anti-Westernism, and anti-police bigotry into those causes' narrative." Israeli Hostages' Families Sue Mahmoud Khalil, Columbia Organizers As Alleged 'Hamas' Propaganda Arm' In Nyc Capital Research Center compared posts on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Telegram in the 15-month periods before and after October 7, 2023, using 14 common keywords or phrases that express hatred of the United States, the U.S. government and U.S. law enforcement. Keywords include: American imperialism, Belly of the beast, Globalize the intifada, Pigs, Defund the police, AmeriKKKa and So-Called United States. Those keywords chosen delineated the delegitimization of U.S. domestic and foreign policy, denial of the United States' right to exist and domestic unrest. Read On The Fox News App Teachers Union Sues Trump Administration Over $400M Cuts To Columbia University "What we found was that after October 7th, there was a 3,000% increase in calls to violence, and the target of that violence in most cases is the United States and police. We found a 186% increase in the amount of anti-American rhetoric and hatred from these groups. Based on the data, I think it's clear that we can conclude safely that this isn't just a pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel movement, this is truly an anti-American and anti-police movement if you look at the organizations and the nonprofits that the movement consists of," Mauro told Fox News Digital in an interview ahead of the study's release. In addition to the drastic increase in anti-American, anti-police and violent rhetoric, the study found a connection between anti-Israel tropes and anti-American themes. "One of the most important things to understand is that they don't hate the United States because of Israel, they hate Israel because they hate the United States," Mauro said. The study found that "pro-Palestinian" groups delegitimize Israel's right to exist as much as they villainize the United States' sovereignty. Both Israel and the United States are deemed imperialist "settler-colonial" states by the activist groups on social media. "The movement's groups and activists frequently state that, just as Israel should be destroyed and replaced by Palestine, the United States and its 'colonial borders' should be abolished and replaced by Turtle Island, a mythical land that some Native American traditions claim once encompassed North and Central America," the study found. Capital Research Center also found "pro-Palestinian" groups equate U.S. law enforcement to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), referring to them collectively as "occupation forces." Mauro argues this is dangerous because "almost all of these groups and activists support violent attacks on the Israeli military." "The increase in violent rhetoric that we're seeing is a new threat environment that Americans have to contend with. Do you want your future to look like what the Israelis have to face, where you have very frequent small attacks, maybe not on 9/ 11, but very frequent terrorist attacks, acts of violence, harassment, vandalism going on so much that it just becomes commonplace in your way of life? Is that really what we want? Because if we don't do something about this, that's what we're looking at," Mauro warned. As anti-American and anti-police rhetoric has permeated college campuses, the study found "pro-Palestinian" groups often receive taxpayer funding. "Of these so-called 'pro-Palestinian' groups that we found were actually anti-American in their rhetoric, about 30 of them were chapters on college campuses. Sometimes they're connected to nonprofit organizations, and sometimes they actually get money from the budgets of the universities, and the universities often receive taxpayer money." "What that means is that taxpayer money can go to the schools, and then the schools use their taxpayer-funded budgets to give money out to individual groups, which include these pro-terrorism and anti-American groups, so your taxpayer money is funding a lot of the chaos that you're seeing on college campuses," Mauro added. Among the 78 groups and 30 activists analyzed for "malicious speech in their posts," the study found that 35 were college chapters of national organizations, two of the groups operate as a "social welfare" nonprofit, 15 groups have "unknown legal status," and 26 operate as "charities." The study advises that any charities or nonprofits linked to "pro-Palestinian" groups who support violent or anti-American, anti-police rhetoric are "at risk of adverse legal consequences, including loss of tax-exempt status." "Yes, it's good to deport radicals. Yes, it's good to prosecute people that illegally support terrorism. But we have the equivalent of the atom bomb to dismantle this movement, and those are the IRS regulations that they are violating. If we want to cut off the fundraising stream to these guys, all we have to do is educate the people at the Treasury Department, the IRS about how to do it and which groups to go after. And very quickly, this threat could recede if we do the right things," Mauro said. The study concludes that the "pro-Palestinian" movement would be more accurately described as "anti-American or anti-Western and, increasingly, anti-police and pro-violence." While acknowledging there are supporters of the Palestinian movement who would reject this assertion, Capital Research Center points to the consistent messaging from the movement's leadership and influencers, including about 500 top organizations and article source: First on Fox: New study reveals 'pro-Palestinian' groups promote violence and anti-Americanism
Fox News
26-03-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
First on Fox: New study reveals 'pro-Palestinian' groups promote violence and anti-Americanism
FIRST ON FOX: Anti-American and anti-police rhetoric has increased 186% among "pro-Palestinian" groups while perpetuating a 3,000% surge in calls for violence since the October 7th attacks on Israel, a new study by Capital Research Center, "When Charities Betray America: How 'Pro-Palestinian' Protest Groups Promote Anti-Americanism" revealed. The "pro-Palestinian" movement, which has gained traction on college campuses since October 7th, has become an "anti-American and anti-police movement with sharply radicalizing rhetoric that advocates terrorism and sedition on U.S. soil," Investigative Researcher Ryan Mauro revealed in the new study released today and shared first with Fox News Digital. The study analyzed thousands of social media posts from 496 of the most active "pro-Palestinian" groups and activists. The term maintains quotation marks throughout the study because that is how the groups identify, but Capital Research Center does not "concede that such extremist groups are genuinely pursuing an agenda that would benefit innocent Palestinians." Many of the groups in question are connected to charities or nonprofits and receive federal funding. The analysis found the "pro-Palestinian" movement has become a "permanent presence" that will "not fade when issues surrounding Israelis and Palestinians lose prominence" but evolve and expend to exploit other popular social issues – all while "inserting anti-Americanism, hatred of Israel, anti-Semitism, anti-Westernism, and anti-police bigotry into those causes' narrative." Capital Research Center compared posts on X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Telegram in the 15-month periods before and after October 7, 2023, using 14 common keywords or phrases that express hatred of the United States, the U.S. government and U.S. law enforcement. Keywords include: American imperialism, Belly of the beast, Globalize the intifada, Pigs, Defund the police, AmeriKKKa and So-Called United States. Those keywords chosen delineated the delegitimization of U.S. domestic and foreign policy, denial of the United States' right to exist and domestic unrest. "What we found was that after October 7th, there was a 3,000% increase in calls to violence, and the target of that violence in most cases is the United States and police. We found a 186% increase in the amount of anti-American rhetoric and hatred from these groups. Based on the data, I think it's clear that we can conclude safely that this isn't just a pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel movement, this is truly an anti-American and anti-police movement if you look at the organizations and the nonprofits that the movement consists of," Mauro told Fox News Digital in an interview ahead of the study's release. In addition to the drastic increase in anti-American, anti-police and violent rhetoric, the study found a connection between anti-Israel tropes and anti-American themes. "One of the most important things to understand is that they don't hate the United States because of Israel, they hate Israel because they hate the United States," Mauro said. The study found that "pro-Palestinian" groups delegitimize Israel's right to exist as much as they villainize the United States' sovereignty. Both Israel and the United States are deemed imperialist "settler-colonial" states by the activist groups on social media. "The movement's groups and activists frequently state that, just as Israel should be destroyed and replaced by Palestine, the United States and its "colonial borders" should be abolished and replaced by Turtle Island, a mythical land that some Native American traditions claim once encompassed North and Central America," the study found. Capital Research Center also found "pro-Palestinian" groups equate U.S. law enforcement to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), referring to them collectively as "occupation forces." Mauro argues this is dangerous because "almost all of these groups and activists support violent attacks on the Israeli military." "The increase in violent rhetoric that we're seeing is a new threat environment that Americans have to contend with. Do you want your future to look like what the Israelis have to face, where you have very frequent small attacks, maybe not on 9/ 11, but very frequent terrorist attacks, acts of violence, harassment, vandalism going on so much that it just becomes commonplace in your way of life? Is that really what we want? Because if we don't do something about this, that's what we're looking at," Mauro warned. As anti-American and anti-police rhetoric has permeated college campuses, the study found "pro-Palestinian" groups often receive taxpayer funding. "Of these so-called 'pro-Palestinian' groups that we found were actually anti-American in their rhetoric, about 30 of them were chapters on college campuses. Sometimes they're connected to nonprofit organizations, and sometimes they actually get money from the budgets of the universities, and the universities often receive taxpayer money." "What that means is that taxpayer money can go to the schools, and then the schools use their taxpayer-funded budgets to give money out to individual groups, which include these pro-terrorism and anti-American groups, so your taxpayer money is funding a lot of the chaos that you're seeing on college campuses," Mauro added. Among the 78 groups and 30 activists analyzed for "malicious speech in their posts," the study found that 35 were college chapters of national organizations, two of the groups operate as a "social welfare" nonprofit, 15 groups have "unknown legal status," and 26 operate as "charities." The study advises that any charities or nonprofits linked to "pro-Palestinian" groups who support violent or anti-American, anti-police rhetoric are "at risk of adverse legal consequences, including loss of tax-exempt status." "Yes, it's good to deport radicals. Yes, it's good to prosecute people that illegally support terrorism. But we have the equivalent of the atom bomb to dismantle this movement, and those are the IRS regulations that they are violating. If we want to cut off the fundraising stream to these guys, all we have to do is educate the people at the Treasury Department, the IRS about how to do it and which groups to go after. And very quickly, this threat could recede if we do the right things," Mauro said. The study concludes that the "pro-Palestinian" movement would be more accurately described as "anti-American or anti-Western and, increasingly, anti-police and pro-violence." While acknowledging there are supporters of the Palestinian movement who would reject this assertion, Capital Research Center points to the consistent messaging from the movement's leadership and influencers, including about 500 top organizations and activists.
Boston Globe
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
With orders, investigations and innuendo, Trump and GOP aim to cripple the left
A small group of White House officials has been working to identify targets and vulnerabilities inside the Democratic ecosystem, taking stock of previous efforts to investigate them, according to two people familiar with the group's work who requested anonymity to describe it. Advertisement Scott Walter, president of the conservative watchdog group Capital Research Center, which monitors liberal money in politics, recently briefed senior White House officials on a range of donors, nonprofit groups, and fund-raising techniques. The White House group is said to be exploring what more can be done within the law. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up It is not unusual for partisans in Congress, or their outside allies, to push for investigations into political groups on the other side of the aisle. But using the levers of government to target the opposition has long been considered an abuse of power, sometimes leading to prosecution. Trump himself was impeached in 2019 for pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens. Trump's continued willingness to defy that norm — including in a grievance-filled speech at the Justice Department on Friday, during which he name-checked a litany of critics and called them 'horrible people,' 'thugs,' and 'scum' — has Democrats sounding the alarm. 'The breadth is breathtaking,' said Cole Leiter, executive director of Americans Against Government Censorship, a coalition of progressive groups and labor unions created last year to defend against an anticipated Republican assault. Taken together, Leiter said, the efforts amounted to an attempt 'to cut the legs out from their opposition.' It may 'sound conspiratorial,' Leiter said, 'but the reality is it's a sober description of what they're trying to do.' Advertisement Harrison Fields, a White House spokesperson, did not directly address the accusation that the administration's actions were aimed at crippling the left. 'The Democrats don't need President Trump to dismantle the Democratic Party,' he said in a statement. 'They are self-destructing with their radical policies.' Undermining the left would amount to follow-through on Trump's campaign promises to seek 'retribution' against his perceived enemies. The sentiment has been echoed and expanded upon by some of Trump's closest advisers. Billionaire Elon Musk, the top Trump donor leading the administration's cost-cutting initiative, has appeared to encourage investigations of institutions that form the financial backbone of the left. They include ActBlue, the donation platform that helps fund virtually the entire Democratic Party and that congressional Republicans are already probing, and Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm that manages difficult-to-trace 'dark money' groups that collectively have spent billions of dollars helping Democrats and their causes. 'Something stinks about ActBlue,' Musk wrote March 7, in one of several social media posts about the platform. A day later, he claimed without evidence that ActBlue was funded by Democratic megadonors including Herb Sandler, who died in 2019. Megan Hughes, an ActBlue spokesperson, denied that the group was funded by the people Musk named, living or dead. 'The only funders that ActBlue has are small-dollar donors that work sacrificially to fund worthy campaigns and causes,' she said in a statement. At the recent White House briefing, according to a person familiar with it, Walter presented research about ActBlue and major Democratic donors, leaving behind materials including copies of a book he published last year about Arabella. Congressional officials say the Trump administration has signaled that it intends to throw its weight behind investigations of ActBlue in the House. And Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, has suggested that ActBlue might have criminal exposure. He has also demanded documents from and threatened to subpoena another key company providing digital infrastructure for the left, Bonterra, which runs a crucial Democratic voter database system and supplies much of the party's organizing software. Advertisement For now, Republicans are making wild claims about illegal activity at ActBlue with little to no evidence. But congressional Republicans believe the Trump administration will be far more cooperative in providing financial records to fuel their investigations than the Biden administration was. 'This is not a partisan issue,' said Jonathan Wilcox, deputy chief of staff for Republican Representative Darrell Issa of Calif., 'and we're optimistic this Treasury Department will demonstrate a completely different commitment to public transparency and government oversight.' Last week, several Republican lawmakers urged Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to investigate ActBlue or to help them do so. Issa sought information on claims that ActBlue had assisted groups accused of supporting terrorism. Representative James Comer of Kentucky, Nick Langworthy of New York, and Bryan Steil of Wisconsin requested reports about suspicious activity related to ActBlue. The Treasury Department did not respond when asked if it was cooperating with the Republican congressmen. But the terrorism accusation -- even without evidence -- is notable. A bill that passed the House, over objections from most Democrats and many in the nonprofit world, would have allowed the Treasury secretary to strip a charitable group of its tax-exempt status if it was deemed a 'terrorist-supporting' organization. The FBI declined to say if it was acting on a request last week by Republican Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, for an investigation of whether ActBlue had allowed Democrats 'to skirt the integrity of federal campaign finance laws,' including by processing donations that originated in hostile foreign countries. But Kash Patel, the new FBI director and a Trump loyalist, has reportedly expressed willingness to work aggressively to comply with Republican congressional oversight, and a close Trump ally predicted Monday at an event with Donald Trump Jr. that the FBI would take action 'soon' on ActBlue. Advertisement The group has denied Republican claims of wrongdoing. Hughes said ActBlue was 'meeting this moment with the same resilience and determination that have fueled our work for decades.' But Democrats worry that ActBlue may offer a harbinger of what is in store for other important Democratic institutions. This article originally appeared in
New York Times
19-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
With Orders, Investigations and Innuendo, Trump and G.O.P. Aim to Cripple the Left
Executive actions intended to cripple top Democratic law firms. Investigations of Democratic fund-raising and organizing platforms. Ominous suggestions that nonprofits aligned with Democrats or critical of President Trump should have their tax exemptions revoked. Mr. Trump and his allies are aggressively attacking the players and machinery that power the left, taking a series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats' ability to compete in elections for years to come. So far, the attacks have been diffuse and sometimes indiscriminate or inaccurate. But inside the administration, there are moves to coordinate and expand the assault. A small group of White House officials has been working to identify targets and vulnerabilities inside the Democratic ecosystem, taking stock of previous efforts to investigate them, according to two people familiar with the group's work who requested anonymity to describe it. Scott Walter, president of the conservative watchdog group Capital Research Center, which monitors liberal money in politics, recently briefed senior White House officials on a range of donors, nonprofit groups and fund-raising techniques. The White House group is said to be exploring what more can be done within the law. It is not unusual for partisans in Congress or their outside allies to push for investigations into political groups on the other side of the aisle. But using the levers of government to target the opposition has long been considered an abuse of power, sometimes leading to prosecution. Mr. Trump himself was impeached in 2019 for pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens. Mr. Trump's continued willingness to defy that norm — including in a grievance-filled speech at the Justice Department on Friday, during which he name-checked a litany of critics and called them 'horrible people,' 'thugs' or 'scum' — has Democrats sounding the alarm. 'The breadth is breathtaking,' said Cole Leiter, executive director of Americans Against Government Censorship, a coalition of progressive groups and labor unions created last year to defend against an anticipated Republican assault. Taken together, Mr. Leiter said, the efforts amounted to an attempt 'to cut the legs out from their opposition.' It may 'sound conspiratorial,' Mr. Leiter added, 'but the reality is it's a sober description of what they're trying to do.' Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, did not directly address the accusation that the administration's actions were aimed at crippling the left. 'The Democrats don't need President Trump to dismantle the Democratic Party,' he said in a statement. 'They are self-destructing with their radical policies.' Undermining the left would amount to follow-through on Mr. Trump's campaign promises to seek 'retribution' against his perceived enemies. The sentiment has been echoed and expanded upon by some of Mr. Trump's closest advisers. The billionaire Elon Musk, the top Trump donor leading the administration's cost-cutting initiative, has appeared to encourage investigations of institutions that form the financial backbone of the left. They include ActBlue, the donation platform that helps fund virtually the entire Democratic Party and that congressional Republicans are already probing, and Arabella Advisors, a consulting firm that manages difficult-to-trace 'dark money' groups that collectively have spent billions of dollars helping Democrats and their causes. 'Something stinks about ActBlue,' Mr. Musk wrote March 7 in one of several social media posts about the platform. A day later, he claimed without evidence that ActBlue was funded by Democratic megadonors including Herb Sandler, who died in 2019. (Megan Hughes, an ActBlue spokeswoman, denied that the group was funded by the people Mr. Musk named, living or dead. 'The only funders that ActBlue has are small-dollar donors that work sacrificially to fund worthy campaigns and causes,' she said in a statement.) At the recent White House briefing, according to a person familiar with it, Mr. Walter presented research about ActBlue and major Democratic donors, leaving behind materials including copies of a book he published last year about Arabella. Congressional officials say the Trump administration has signaled that it intends to throw its weight behind investigations of ActBlue in the House. And Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has suggested that ActBlue might have criminal exposure. He has also demanded documents from and threatened to subpoena another key company providing digital infrastructure for the left, Bonterra, which runs a crucial Democratic voter database system and supplies much of the party's organizing software. Some of the president's allies have welcomed the moves as payback for Democratic congressional investigations of Mr. Trump and Republican political networks. 'Democrats ran breathless investigations of Republican dark money for years, and I hope that this is a concerted effort to go after the left's dark money,' said Mike Davis, a former Republican congressional aide who founded a group using what he calls brass-knuckle tactics to assail Mr. Trump's critics. For now, Republicans are making wild claims about illegal activity at ActBlue with little to no evidence. But congressional Republicans believe the Trump administration will be far more cooperative in providing financial records to fuel their investigations than the Biden administration was. 'This is not a partisan issue,' said Jonathan Wilcox, deputy chief of staff for Representative Darrell Issa of California, 'and we're optimistic this Treasury Department will demonstrate a completely different commitment to public transparency and government oversight.' Last week, several Republican lawmakers urged Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to investigate ActBlue or to help them do so. Mr. Issa sought information on claims that ActBlue had assisted groups accused of supporting terrorism. Representatives James Comer of Kentucky, Nick Langworthy of New York and Bryan Steil of Wisconsin requested reports about suspicious activity related to ActBlue. The Treasury Department did not respond when asked if it was cooperating with the Republican congressmen. But the terrorism accusation — even without evidence — is notable. A bill that passed the House over objections from most Democrats and many in the nonprofit world would have allowed the Treasury secretary to strip a charitable group of its tax-exempt status if it was deemed a 'terrorist-supporting' organization. The F.B.I. declined to say if it was acting on a request last week by Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona for an investigation of whether ActBlue had allowed Democrats 'to skirt the integrity of federal campaign finance laws,' including by processing donations that originated in hostile foreign countries. But Kash Patel, the new F.B.I. director, a Trump loyalist, has reportedly expressed willingness to work aggressively to comply with Republican congressional oversight, and a close Trump ally predicted Monday at an event with Donald Trump Jr. that the F.B.I. would take action 'soon' on ActBlue. The group has denied Republican claims of wrongdoing. Ms. Hughes said ActBlue was 'meeting this moment with the same resilience and determination that have fueled our work for decades.' But Democrats worry that ActBlue may offer a harbinger of what's in store for other important Democratic institutions. Mr. Musk last week highlighted a Fox News segment that accused the billionaire-backed groups managed by Arabella Advisors of falsely portraying themselves as a grass-roots resistance to Mr. Trump. In an appearance on Mr. Cruz's podcast that was filmed inside the White House, Mr. Musk claimed that Arabella's groups and ActBlue were part of a 'left-wing N.G.O. cabal' that was organizing and funding protests of his electric automaker Tesla. He called the protests, which have included vandalism of Tesla dealerships and charging stations, 'terrorist activity,' and Mr. Cruz suggested it should be prosecuted. Arabella said in a statement that it simply provided 'operational and administrative support to philanthropists and organizations' and that it did not 'have donors, make grants or engage in political activity.' While some Republican students of left-wing political financing have been puzzled by Mr. Musk's claims, they are hoping to harness his interest to generate more sustained investigations by the Trump White House and Congress. Mr. Trump himself appeared to call into question the charitable tax-exempt status of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, a Democratic-aligned watchdog group that has long been among the more aggressive litigants against him and is currently suing to force the release of records related to Mr. Musk's cost-cutting. 'CREW is a charitable organization, and that's a political thing,' Mr. Trump said on Friday at the Justice Department, singling out Norm Eisen, a former board member, as a 'vicious and violent' person who has 'been after me for nine years.' (Mr. Eisen's new group, State Democracy Defenders Fund, has also fought some of the new administration's actions in court.) Jordan Libowitz, a CREW spokesman, declined to comment on Mr. Trump's mention of the group. Personal grievance also figured heavily into directives Mr. Trump recently issued restricting access to government information and contracts for lawyers at firms associated with his critics. The targeted firms include Perkins Coie, which was paid about $5 million by the Democratic National Committee and other party committees during the 2024 elections. It had earned Mr. Trump's ire by facilitating funding for since-discredited research on behalf of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the D.N.C. into his team's dealings with Russia. Covington & Burling, which received nearly $8.6 million from the D.N.C. and former Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign in the 2024 campaign cycle, was targeted by a presidential memorandum stripping security clearances from lawyers who represented Jack Smith, the former special counsel who pursued two separate indictments of the president in 2023. The D.N.C. declined to comment on Mr. Trump's moves against the law firms and its vendors, including ActBlue. A third law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, was the subject of an executive order Friday restricting its business activities because one of its lawyers, Mark F. Pomerantz, had tried to build a criminal case against Mr. Trump several years ago when Mr. Pomerantz worked at the Manhattan district attorney's office. Perkins Coie has lost 'significant revenue' as a result of the order, lawyers for the firm said in a lawsuit that prompted a judge to halt parts of the order. On Friday, Mr. Trump singled out Mr. Pomerantz and Marc Elias, a former Perkins Coie lawyer who had been the firm's point person on the Russia research. Calling them 'radicals' and 'really bad people,' Mr. Trump confusingly claimed that the lawyers had 'tried to turn America into a corrupt Communist and third world country.' On MSNBC afterward, Mr. Elias said, 'I'd be an idiot not to be worried.' But he vowed to continue battling Mr. Trump. 'The question is not whether we are worried,' he said, adding, 'The question is what do we do.'
