The Family Foundation Undermining Election Integrity Today

With an assist from the CIA

Good morning, premium pal!

I come to you this morning fresh from the rabbit hole of corporate-influence-over politics history. Gee whiz, there’s a lot of dirty money down there.

I’m still editing next week’s episode, so there won’t be a video teaser today. Still, the story below about the master puppeteer behind efforts to manipulate the results of future US elections should act as a tasty preview.

Today’s story comes from Jane Mayer’s truly astonishing work

As you may know, 19 states have passed new democracy-eroding voting laws in the past six months that favor Republicans. Benjamin Ginsberg, a Republican lawyer who for years led the GOP’s election-law fights, recently conceded, “A party that’s increasingly old and white whose base is a diminishing share of the population is conjuring up charges of fraud to erect barriers to voting for people it fears won’t support its candidates.” A fairly cut and dry explanation. 

But here’s a question: where is all the money coming from to fund efforts to pass new voting laws? Make no bones about it, a nationwide campaign to restrict people’s right to vote is very expensive. Well, strap on your tinfoil hat, because to answer that question, we ought to first explore a partnership between the CIA and a family-run company in the 1950s and 60s.