THE DAILY SIGNAL: A company run by a liberal billionaire dubbed by some as the “next George Soros” employs former senior Republican staffers on Capitol Hill in what a watchdog group warns is an effort to sway GOP lawmakers to move to the left.
Arnold Ventures LLC is a private company founded by left-leaning philanthropists John Arnold and his wife Laura, who have a net worth of $3.3 billion, according to Forbes.
Arnold Ventures says it focuses on issues such as criminal justice reform, prescription drug prices, contraception, and tax policy geared at “minimizing injustice.”
Most prominently, Arnold Ventures employs three well-connected Republicans:
—George Callas, who was a senior staffer for former House Speaker Paul Ryan, the Wisconsin Republican who was the GOP’s 2012 vice presidential nominee.
—Kevin Ring, a former staffer for the Republican Study Committee, the caucus of House conservatives, who authored books on the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon, and was convicted in a corruption scandal.
—Andrew Moylan, who formerly worked for two conservative-leaning organizations, the National Taxpayers Union and R Street.
These individuals are “rent-a-Repub” for Arnold Ventures, said Thomas Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative watchdog group.
“This is a new level of sophistication of lobbying by mega-liberal billionaires,” Jones told The Daily Signal.