Leonardo Munoz/AFP/Getty Images
On Sunday, Politico published a story suggesting that foundations tied to several top Democratic donors have been funding the pro-Palestine protest groups dogging President Joe Biden wherever he goes. “Pro-Palestianian protesters are backed by a surprising source: Biden’s biggest donors,” read the headline.
The story quickly went viral — Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), for instance, posted on X that the piece confirmed “anti-Israel astroturfing.” Fox News cited the report to write that “President Biden’s biggest Democratic donors are also funding some anti-Israel protests that have taken over college campuses.”
However, a Rolling Stone review of the numbers and filings cited in the Politico report raises questions about many of its claims.
For one, the story attempts to trace relatively small donations through a massive black box, a group that acts as a pass-through entity, into specific recipients’ coffers — something that dark money reporters generally know to avoid. Making matters worse, the foundations named in the story all disclose online where the donations ultimately ended up. In other words, there’s no reason to guess.
Lastly, the story leaves out a few publicly-available details that would help substantiate its overall premise.
Politico reported Sunday that donors to pro-Palestine groups protesting Biden “include some of the biggest names in Democratic circles: Gates, Soros, Rockefeller and Pritzker.”
“Two of the main organizers behind protests at Columbia University and on other campuses are Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow,” the outlet wrote Sunday. “Both are supported by the Tides Foundation, which is seeded by Democratic megadonor George Soros as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and it in turn supports numerous small nonprofits that work for social change.”
The Tides Foundation is a sprawling liberal donor-advised fund, meaning that donors give funds to the group and then direct where they want their money to go. Tracing money from individual donors, through a donor-advised fund, to any ultimate grant recipient is unwise, and particularly so when the donations involve a large group like the Tides Foundation. The group reported $573 million in contributions in 2022.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donated $300,000 to the Tides Foundation in 2022. The Tides Foundation donated roughly $100,000 that year to the pro-Palestine protest groups, Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow.
Attempting to connect the $300,000 going into the organization, as part of its $573 million in contributions, to the $100,000 going out to these groups is unrealistic, to say the least, without any specific indication from the donor. Politico wrote that “Gates did not return a request for comment.”
However, the Gates Foundation notes in a grant spreadsheet linked on its website that the $300,000 it gave to the Tides Foundation was “to establish a social outcomes market that unlocks greater philanthropic capital.” This description hardly fits with the protest work led by IfNotNow or Jewish Voice for Peace.
“We don’t have any active grants with the Tides Foundation or to the entities named in the story,” says a spokesperson for the Gates Foundation. “We’ve reached out to Politico for correction.”
A Politico spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
Then there’s the connection made with George Soros, the liberal billionaire and conservative bogeyman. His Open Society Foundations have made significant massive donations to the Tides Foundation. But the foundations’ website specifies the Tides Foundation projects these donations are intended to support, none of which appear to relate to Jewish Voice for Peace or IfNotNow.
Not…
This article was originally published by a www.rollingstone.com . Read the Original article here. .