Home Depot founder’s quiet $10 million right-wing investment

Monday, Aug 5, 2013 04:34 PM EST
Home Depot founder’s quiet $10 million right-wing investment
A hawkish think-tank also nets millions from Sheldon Adelson and Paul Singer in previously unpublished filings
By Eli Clifton


If George W. Bush’s early — and adventurous — foreign policy was staffed by the American Enterprise Institute, the next generation of hawkish Republican undersecretaries of this or that might come from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The group has risen since its 2001 founding to become Washington’s premiere hawkish think-tank. But what has been less known is exactly who has been funding the outfit, and how much they’ve donated.

In the past, FDD President Clifford May, a former communications director at the Republican National Committee, said his organization garnered support from “all kinds of donors, who are interested in defending democratic societies around the world from their sworn enemies.” But, now, previously unpublished financial filings reveal that, by the end of the 2011 tax-year, FDD was primarily funded by a handful of Republicans—the party’s heavy-weight donors, fundraisers, and outspoken critics of the Obama White House’s foreign policy – including one donation nearing $11 million. The filing, an IRS “Schedule A” form, divulges the origins of over $20 million in contributions to FDD between 2008 and 2011.

Home Depot founder Bernard Marcus topped the list of donors, contributing $10,745,000. A public critic of the Obama administration, blasting it as “amateurs in the White House” and “amateurs surrounded by amateurs” in a 2011 Wall Street Journal interview, Marcus maxed out his personal contributions to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign. He also contributed $20,000 to Restore Our Future—a Super PAC supporting Romney—and over $60,000 to the Republican National Committee in the lead-up to the November 2012 elections.

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http://www.salon.com/2013/08/05/home_depot_founder%E2%80%99s_quiet_10_million_right_wing_investment/