One conservative group has taken it upon itself to expose the money trail left by a left-wing billionaire furthering progressive causes.
John Arnold, a former executive at Enron, has been quietly pumping millions of dollars into leftist wish-list items like “equity” and “criminal justice reform.”
He has primarily done this through his LLC Arnold Ventures, and one of his top beneficiaries has been The National Academy for State Health Policy, an ostensibly “nonpartisan” healthcare organization that reliably supports liberal policies.
Arnold’s activities have been highlighted in an ad titled “John Arnold: Fount of Bad Ideas,” released Wednesday by Americans for Limited Government.
The ad is currently running in six states and doesn’t hold back in calling into question Arnold’s ethics.
“America’s criminals have a secret benefactor, John Arnold,” the ad relates, going on to declare that “Arnold got filthy rich off Enron. It bankrupted people, turned off their lights. With his dirty money, John Arnold’s not just hanging around financial crooks. He’s helping violent criminals.”
The ad further says that “Arnold spent millions eliminating cash bail. His policies are so good for the bad guys, even New York liberals are rolling them back. A career helping crooks. Now John Arnold’s funding radical healthcare groups. Watch out.”
The Washington Examiner detailed Arnold’s work in New York:
Arnold Ventures has given more than $45 million to groups in New York working on criminal justice reform, according to grants in the company’s database. In 2019 alone, Arnold and his wife, Laura Arnold, shelled out roughly $40 million for bail reform initiatives, records show.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a 2019 law that stripped cash bail for most nonviolent felony and misdemeanor charges — but critics have charged that the law led to a crime surge in the Empire State. Since 2016, Arnold Ventures has donated over $13 million to the Vera Justice Institute, a left-wing nonprofit group that supported the 2019 Cuomo law.
A spokesman for Arnold Ventures told the Washington Examiner that the LLC is a “nonpartisan organization that seeks evidence-based solutions to America’s biggest problems.”
The Arnold Ventures spokesman fired back at Americans for Limited Government, remarking that “Our work often attracts the ire of special interest groups who seek to polarize, divide and confuse. We welcome the mysterious donors we have been told are funding this front group to reach out to us directly to have a serious and civil discussion about how we can work together toward a better America.”
Another notable instance of giving by Arnold Ventures was a $2 million donation to the Innocence Project. This legal group backed Cuomo’s bail reform law even as it was widely condemned for contributing to rising crime in the state. The Brennan Center for Justice, the notorious left-wing think tank, also defended Cuomo’s law. Not surprisingly, the center received about $1.6 million from Arnold Ventures.
Then there’s the above-mentioned National Academy for State Health Policy, which records show took in $7.8 million from Arnold Ventures. One of the group’s biggest contributions to the liberal cause has been promoting the expansion of Obamacare subsidies.
Since 2016, Arnold Ventures has given $8.5 million to the New Venture Fund, which is run by the Washington, D.C.-based dark-money network Arabella Advisors.
The New Venture Fund is tied to left-wing mega-donor George Soros. The Community Resource Hub for Safety and Accountability (CRH), which has gotten millions from Soros’ Open Society Foundations and compiles resources for local leftist activists in order to help them make transformative change to the criminal-justice system (including materials on abolishing and defunding the police), is a sponsored project of the New Venture Fund.
Although the Left often positions itself as being for the “working people,” the reality is that its causes are always propped up by big money.
This was the case recently in Massachusetts, where, by a narrow margin, citizens of the state voted to amend their constitution to impose an additional four-percent tax on income over $1 million, with proceeds going toward education, roads and bridges, and public transportation.
And who was behind the tax? None other than the teachers unions, which together coughed up $20.5 million to help the amendment across the finish line.
