Media Matters’ David Brock expands empire
In a major power play that aligns liberal muscle more fully behind the Democratic Party — and Hillary Clinton — the self-described right-wing hitman-turned-Clinton enforcer David Brock is taking over a leading watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Brock was elected chairman of the group’s board last week after laying out a multifaceted expansion intended to turn the group into a more muscular — and likely partisan — attack dog, according to sources familiar with the move.
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The ambitious plans, which began being implemented this week, also seem to cement Brock’s role as among the leading big money operatives in all of American politics.
Brock confirmed the basics of the shakeup in an interview. The reconfigured CREW, which is searching for a new executive director, will add a more politically oriented arm, expand its focus into state politics and donor targeting and will operate in close coordination with Brock’s growing fleet of aggressive Democrat-backing nonprofits and super PACs — Media Matters, American Bridge and the American Independent Institute.
“CREW gives us some potentially powerful tools in the tool box,” said Brock, who founded his flagship organization Media Matters in 2004. “We have been in the accountability for 10 years very successfully. It is kind of a one-stop-shop now.”
And Brock’s army will be supplemented still further by the formation of a new overtly partisan watchdog group called The American Democracy Legal Fund, which is already preparing complaints against high-profile Republicans, including Michigan GOP Senate candidate Terry Lynn Land. That group will be run by Brad Woodhouse, the president of American Bridge, and will be registered under section 527 of the Tax Code — allowing it to engage in more political activity than CREW’s traditional portfolio. CREW has operated as a nonprofit registered under a section of the Tax Code — 501(c)3 — that prohibits partisan activity; under Brock’s leadership it will add a new more politically oriented arm registered under section 501(c)4.
CREW was founded in 2003 by former federal prosecutor Melanie Sloan and white-collar lawyer Norm Eisen, who went on to serve as President Barack Obama’s chief ethics lawyer and is now his ambassador to the Czech Republic. It carved out a reputation as a leading watchdog by relentlessly pursuing litigation and ethics complaints against primarily — though not exclusively — Republican public officials. It had its heyday during the Bush administration, when its complaints and investigations played major roles in the Jack Abramoff scandal and the downfalls of powerful GOP Reps. Tom Delay and Bob Ney.
But under the stewardship of Sloan, who serves as CREW’s executive director, the group went out of its way to demonstrate that it would not pull punches when it came to Democratic corruption. It boasts in a mission statement on its website, “we work to ensure government officials — regardless of party affiliation — act with honesty and integrity and merit the public trust,” and it also pursued broader good-government initiatives.
CREW wins media attention each year with its annual “Most Corrupt Members of Congress” report, which it started in 2005 and which has included 25 Democrats among its 88 featured members. It called for the resignations of embattled New York Democratic Reps. Anthony Weiner and Charlie Rangel, and has pending requests for investigations into the Obama administration, including its use of private emails to conduct government affairs.
Its unwillingness to toe the party line miffed some Democrats, including, sources say, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, whose members occasionally found themselves in CREW’s cross hairs.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/08/david-brock-citizens-for-responsibility-and-ethics-in-washington-110003.html#ixzz3BgyOpuAQ