Article by Victoria Taft in "PJMedia":
They sound like Leftists. They act like Leftists. And now we learn that the Never-Trumper group called “The Lincoln Project” is funded by a Leftist billionaire, according to a new book on the subject.
The project features, among others, GOP political strategists Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, the Washington Post’s “conservative” columnist Jennifer Rubin, former “Weekly Standard” editor Bill Kristol, and disgruntled attorney, George “Mr. Kellyanne” Conway, who spends nearly all of his time trying to ruin his wife’s White House career.
Judging by their antics, the anti-Trump collective is like a latter-day mix of political saboteur Donald Segretti, lawless Yippie Abbie Hoffman, yellow gossip columnist Walter Winchell and political monkey-wrencher Saul Alinsky. Their goal is to do everything they can to cost Donald Trump the White House in 2020 in order to burn the GOP brand. So that’s why they’re supporting Joe Biden.
“Do your job, Mr. President.”
Orange Man Bad
Their apparent goal in life is to depict everything President Trump says as bad.
To that end, they’ve decided they’ll deprive the president, who has accomplished more conservative goals since Ronald Reagan, of their support. They just don’t like the guy.
See? Donald Trump wants America’s children to go back to school but “The Lincoln Project” says the president is Satan and he wants to kill your children.
Trump doesn’t care whether your kids live or die.
‘Disloyal’ Trump Opposition
In her new book, Disloyal Opposition: How the NeverTrump Right Tried―And Failed―To Take Down the President, reporter Julie Kelly looks into this group of out of work and out of favor politicos – left on the sidelines after a Trump 2016 victory. She wonders how they got the money to begin their political monkeywrenching operation against Trump after the Weekly Standard, a reliable home for the “Resistance,” went bust.
It turns out –je suis surprise! – that the anti-Trump group shares the same goal with the Democrats, such as electing Joe Biden.
In an excerpt of her book in the “Spectator USA,” Kelly says that for Kristol it wasn’t much of a philosophical switch.
In print, on its website, and on various cable news shows, writers and editors affiliated with the Standard kept up a steady drumbeat of anti-Trump sentiment. Rather than embrace the rarity of a Republican White House, a Republican House of Representatives, and a Republican Senate — a political jackpot that had eluded the GOP for a decade — the Standard instead worked to undermine that power trove.
Not only did the Standard continue to peddle a phony depiction of a nonconservative president, but the publication hypocritically echoed Democratic talking points about Republicans.
The Anti-Trump Money Man
Kelly assembled the pieces of the Kristol and company money machine puzzle and winds up with a picture of a Silicon Valley billionaire. She depicts the relationship as one of basically paymaster and servant.
Kristol and most of his NeverTrump cohorts are on the dole of a left-wing philanthropist generously underwriting any cause or influencer committed to ending the Trump presidency. This billionaire benefactor has tried to stop Trump since 2016; he’s buying off so-called conservatives to create the illusion of broad intra-party disgust with Donald Trump, an illusion that does not exist but that NeverTrump is paid — handsomely — to represent.
Pierre Omidyar is a very rich man.
Kelly reports that Omidyar is the founder of eBay and the publisher of “The Intercept.” He was a billionaire at the age of 31 and is throwing around his money like his idol, George Soros.
The tech titan runs an extensive operation of nonprofits through the Omidyar Network, based in Silicon Valley. In 2017 alone, his foundation donated roughly $85 million to a variety of causes around the world. As one would expect from a Bay-area billionaire, Omidyar is anything but conservative. He, along with like-minded tycoons such as George Soros and Tom Steyer, promotes a far-left radical agenda.
Kelly reports that Kristol and other Trump haters have created or run several groups, including Defending Democracy Together and the Niskanen Center, which also receives Soros funding and which is full of well known Republicans.
Niskanen houses a who’s who of NeverTrumpers. Gabe Schoenfeld, author of a hit piece on Victor Davis Hanson, and writer Linda Chavez are senior fellows. Its advisory board includes McMullin, Finn, David Frum and Tom Nichols. In December 2018, Niskanen hosted a daylong seminar entitled ‘Starting Over: The Center-Right After Trump’. Panelists included conservatives-turned-lefties Jennifer Rubin, David Frum and Bill Kristol.
Anti-Trump Trolling for Dollars
Rick Wilson announced that the anti-Trump group raised nearly $17 million to this quarter to continue their Trump hate programs. And now they’re working to get rid of Republican Senators, just like the Democrats.
Consider this group a force-multiplier for the Democrats.
The Never-Trumpers are making a splash this week after apparently orchestrating the outrageous USA Today “fact” check that floated the idea that the American eagle used on a Trump t-shirt was a Nazi symbol. That’s right, an American eagle. Worse, as I reported here, the people who “first noticed” the “similarity” were an antifa militant in one Facebook post and – wait for it – “The Lincoln Project.” That troll dove-tailed with a laudatory Washington Post story and several others predicting that the group of Trump haters would be a force to be reckoned with this election. So it looks like that billionaire money is paying off in free media.
https://pjmedia.com/columns/victoria-taft/2020/07/14/wow-gop-never-trumpers-are-paid-by-a-radical-leftist-billionaire-n640740