How J-Street Duped Me
Writing at TheAtlantic.com, Chris Good takes J-Street to task for their "half truths and non truths" about receiving funds from George Soros.
Earlier today, I wrote a post about J Street's funding. There is more to the story.
A set of half-truths, non-truths and ambiguities from J Street lead a reasonable person to conclude that the group tried to conceal that George Soros has been one of its largest donors for years, and to falsely claim that it had been "open" about those donations over the past three years. J Street also seemed to distort the fact that it received a large contribution from a donor in Hong Kong. Some of this happened on the phone with me earlier today.
J Street called me up this morning and disclosed that it had successfully grown its fundraising since forming in 2007 and that Soros and his family have given the group $250,000 a year over the past three years, a fact that was in the process of being verified and reported by The Washington Times' Eli Lake.
"That was very public," J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami told me of J Street's history with Soros, explaining that Soros came to an earlier donor conference and told the group he wouldn't give money at first. "What he said was, if you get going, I'll take a look at it again."
This was after a J Street spokesman told me on the phone today that Soros's donations are something the group has "always been up front about." This point was reiterated on a three-way call with spokesman Matt Dorf and Ben-Ami. The group has been "open" about it over the past three years, J Street told me.
Last night, on its website, J Street had this to say about Soros donations: that Soros had not been a founding or primary funder of the group, and that it would be happy to take his money were he to offer it. Which implies that Soros was not giving money to J Street, even though he was.
From the J Street website:
Myth:
Liberal financier George Soros founded and is the primary funder of J Street.
Fact:
George Soros did not found J Street. In fact, George Soros very publicly stated his decision not to be engaged in J Street when it was launched - precisely out of fear that his involvement would be used against the organization.
J Street's Executive Director has stated many times that he would in fact be very pleased to have funding from Mr. Soros and the offer remains open to him to be a funder should he wish to support the effort.
J Street has thousands of donors, large and small. The supporters of the political action committee (JStreetPAC) can be publicly reviewed on the website of the Federal Election Commission. The top donors to J Street are members of the organization's Finance Committee - listed in its annual report on page 9 (PDF). Many of its major donors are also members of its Advisory Council.
The part of the website dealing with Soros had not been updated for three years, until last night.
Click here to read more.