The American Conservative Union (ACU) – which hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) – took a six figure donation from a leading left-wing fund for the purposes of “civil rights, social action, advocacy,” according to the fund’s financial records dated 2020, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.
The New Venture Fund, whose mission statement revolves around “Race, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Commitment,” issued a cash grant of $183,250 to the ACU, run by Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, in 2020. The fund is known for its work supporting anti-Trump, anti-conservative initiatives.
The ACU refused to comment when approached by The National Pulse. The full 990 can be read here.
The New Venture Fund was started in 2006 and ungirds much of the political left’s activities in America today. It’s President, Lee Bodner, is a former managing director of Arabella Advisors, which even the Atlantic magazine described as a “Massive Progressive Dark-Money Group” which has targeted former President Donald Trump, his administration officials, as well as issuing over a billion dollars a year to left-wing groups and astro-turfed political operations. Bodner is also described as building “strategic partnerships with nonprofits, including the Clinton Foundation”.
In 2019 the Capital Research Center revealed these left-wing funds are indeed all part of the same network “operating under the aegis of ‘philanthropy.’ Their work concluded: “…this network is housed in and staffed by a for-profit, privately held consultancy called Arabella Advisors, LLC.* Arabella manages four nonprofit entities—the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund—each of which shares an address and interlocking officers with Arabella.”
“Arabella’s network often plays host to highly influential groups on the Left. For example, the Democracy Alliance, a network of donors co-founded by billionaire George Soros, has used the New Venture Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund to host at least eight projects that don’t disclose their original funders”
– Hayden Ludwig, Capital Research Center
The news of Schlapp’s Soros-linked cash comes as the eight-year-long ACU Chairman went to bat for transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. Thomas has dominated against biological female competitors, despite being born a man. Schlapp took to Twitter late Monday night to insist: “No matter what one thinks of Lia’s ability to swim with women her story deserves our compassion. It will be interesting to hear Lia’s pov in 30 years.”
Schlapp was soon taken to task by conservative commentators such as Jenna Ellis, former attorney for President Trump as well as The Blaze’s Allie Stuckey.
The National Pulse can also reveal that in recent months, the American Conservative Union pulled from its website a letter sent to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) criticizing them for their pro-transgender sports position. The letter was originally widely circulated, but hurriedly pulled down a few months later. It is still available via the Wayback Machine, here.
The letter appears to have been pulled down at roughly the same time Schlapp promoted communications staff Regina Bratton, who called Joe Biden “our last hope” against Donald Trump, and insulted the former President’s intelligence. Bratton has lauded political activists such as Alyssa Milano, the Lincoln Project, Liz Cheney, Meghan McCain, Mitt Romney, The Daily Show, Joy Reid, Amy Klobuchar, and others.
Schlapp – a former White House Director for Political Affairs under President George W. Bush – has come under a mountain of criticism in recent years for turning the once-lauded CPAC into a playing field his political family and their finances. Multiple sources have revealed to The National Pulse they now believe the event to be a “pay for play” scenario, wherein the largest donors and sponsors receive stage-time over the conservative movement’s best and brightest.
Schlapp himself seemed to confirm the matter in his tweets to Jenna Ellis on the matter of transgenderism. Instead of addressing the point, Schlapp callously fired back: “Jenna this is a false controversy. You are upset w @CPAC bc we didn’t invite you to speak.”
In the immediate aftermath of January 6th, Schlapp appeared on Fox News to state that veteran Ashli Babbitt – who he misidentified as a 16-year-old – “maybe deserved to be shot”.
“I understand there’s a 16-year-old young woman who was shot. Now maybe she was doing terrible things and deserved to be shot,” Schlapp said. “We’re the party that talks about law and order and respecting cops.”
The ACU failed to respond to multiple comment requests from The National Pulse, dated Feb 23rd and March 8th.
