JUST IN: Senate Finance Committee launches bipartisan investigation into conservative think tank

[MelissaB]

THIS JUST IN: Senate Finance Committee launches bipartisan investigation into conservative think tank over Maria Butina meetings with senior U.S. administration officials in 2015.

Story TK

Link to tweet

[No Vested Interest]

1. What conservative think tank are they investigating? There are so many.

Unfortunately CSPAN broadcasts many of meetings of conservative think-tanks, giving them and their rantings/opinions too much visibility.
There are very few, if any, progressive or even moderate think-tanks.
I guess it takes money to pay the "thinkers."

[modrepub]

2. "Liberal" Thinkers Tend To Be "Open Source" Types

They generally don't need dark money to fund astroturf-type ground operations.

[MelissaB]

3. NPR article here:

Link to tweet

Senate Panel Launches Bipartisan Probe Into Think Tank Linked To Butina, Torshin
... snip

The documents reveal that Paul Saunders, then the Executive Director of the Center for the National Interest, reached out to the Federal Reserve in order to set up meetings for Torshin. In a letter to Dimitri Simes, the CEO of the Center for the National Interest think tank, the committee requested records related to meetings Torshin and Butina had in 2015 with the Federal Reserve Vice Chairman and the Treasury Department Undersecretary for International Affairs.

Republican Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Ranking Member Ron Wyden of Oregon also sent letters to the Treasury Department and Federal Reserve to find out more about these meetings and to receive more details about their policies regarding meeting with foreign officials.

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by NPR, which the Federal Reserve responded to the day before the Senate Finance Committee made public its intention to investigate, answers some of the questions being posed by the committee.

More: https://www.npr.org/2019/02/15/695295458/senate-panel-launches-bipartisan-probe-into-think-tank-linked-to-butina-torshin?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=politics&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20190215

[MelissaB]

4. A bit more:

NPR's FOIA request also yielded an internal memorandum that summarizes the meeting held between Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer, Torshin and Butina in April 2015.

The memo reveals that back in Spring 2015, both Torshin and Butina were already touting their relationships with the National Rifle Association — and reveals the meetings with senior officials were an offshoot of their primary trip purpose: to attend the yearly NRA conference.

[spanone]

5. Republicans are in charge of these investigations in the senate

bipartisan in the sense they have to include democrats....do i sound cynical?