heritage

Leaked Files Show How the Heritage Foundation Navigates the Reactionary Views of Wealthy Donors 

J.K. Trotter · 09/09/15 02:20PM

Late last month, a strange file appeared on an Amazon server belonging to the Heritage Foundation, an influential Washington, D.C.-based think tank that remains widely regarded as one of the country’s most serious and respectable conservative institutions. The file—which appears to have been unintentionally uploaded by a Heritage staffer, rather than obtained by an intruder—offers a remarkable window into how Heritage maintains this reputation. It contains hundreds of emails and thousands of pages of internal fundraising reports documenting how the foundation navigated the flood of conservative conspiracy-mongering that followed Obama’s election in 2008, and how its staffers discussed the increasingly bizarre ideologies of its donor class with puzzlement and occasional derision.