The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has decided to defy a powerful House Republican chairman who is investigating the source of funding for the Chamber’s foundation, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
A House Ways and Means Committee aide told Breitbart News that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce failed to provide relevant information to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Jason Smith (R-Missouri), by a deadline earlier this month about more than $12 million donated to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation through Tides Foundation over the past few years. As Breitbart News and other outlets have reported, Smith’s investigation into the matter marks a major step in Republican investigations of the business world’s largest lobbying agency. It comes as questions emerge about who is funding the Chamber’s foundation arm and why it uses donor-advised funds like Tides Foundation instead of donating directly. Doing so conceals the donors’ identities, raising questions about the source and purpose of the money, especially since it was given to programs aimed at hiring veterans.
In a statement to Breitbart News, Smith said that Tides Foundation Role in funding approval He contacted various groups behind anti-Semitic protests on university campuses and stepped up his demands for information from them.
“The Chamber of Commerce has taken worrying positions in recent years that are counter to the goal of promoting American business. Given that the Committee is working on the expansion of the tax-exempt sector and the sources of funding that support the proliferation of anti-Semitism on college campuses, we are surprised by the Chamber’s partnership with the Tides Foundation,” Smith said. “It is important to expose the web of liberal dark money that funds the rise of anti-Semitism on college campuses and influences American politics, and we know that the Tides Foundation is a key part of that larger web. The Chamber cannot escape public scrutiny, and our demands for an explanation for this partnership should not surprise anyone.”
The revelation that the Chamber is not cooperating with congressional investigations into these financial matters comes as the Chamber Public documents published The company warned on its website that it would ignore the requests through what it called “false claims and facts.”
In the document, the Chamber does not dispute any of the specific Breitbart News reports or the facts presented by Ways and Means Committee Chairman Smith. The Chamber is simply trying to reframe the debate, arguing that the Foundation has no obligation to be transparent about the true source of the funds sent to it. Most importantly, the Chamber states in the document that it is a “false assertion” that “the Chamber has an obligation to disclose further information to get to the bottom of this matter.”
Instead, the Chamber argues it doesn’t have to provide any more information. “The Chamber Foundation has fully complied with its donor disclosure obligations,” the Chamber’s letter states. “Requiring further disclosure would violate the constitutional right to privacy of nonprofit donors.”
It remains to be seen what will happen next and whether a broader Ways and Means Committee investigation with subpoenas to compel document production is on the horizon. But the fact that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is so publicly and brazenly defying congressional investigators is an interesting development, to say the least. Smith’s comments seem to suggest that the next phase of congressional investigations into these issues will focus on the Tides Foundation’s role in funding left-wing protests on college campuses and whether the Chamber has any ties to them. It’s worth pointing out that defying congressional investigators rarely works for anyone doing so, especially when they escalate from simple requests to more complex pressures such as compelling cooperation through subpoenas.
