Washington, D.C. — Capital Research Center, the dark-money slop machine that feeds Oversight Republicans their talking points, is busy laughing along with conspiracy theories about manufactured pandemics on conservative radio. Elsewhere, the Trump administration is building a surveillance apparatus aimed squarely at Americans who disagree with it.
Capital Research Center’s “Experts” Feeding Congressional Investigations Are Trafficking in Conspiracy Theories
Capital Research Center has spent years eroding its credibility as a simple watchdog organization, reliably supplying House Oversight Chairman James Comer with ammunition to investigate progressive organizations, up to and including briefing White House officials directly. But before White House officials use Capital Research Center’s fruit of the poisonous tree, they’d be wise to ask: who exactly is doing this research, and what do they believe?
Capital Research Center’s investigative researcher Parker Thayer recently appeared on the Federalist Radio Hour, where host Matt Kittle speculated openly about whether “the left and the scientists” would “release some sort of virus again” ahead of the midterms. Thayer’s response to the unhinged, baseless theory? He laughed along.
That same appearance featured Thayer describing the millions of ordinary people who turned out in their communities for No Kings protests as people who “have nothing better to do,” who lack “jobs,” “families,” or “important things.” He added that “there’s a lot of mental illness among the young people who are showing up.”
This is the voice Comer’s committee treats as a credible source. This is the organization whose briefings reach the White House. Rather than a “transparency watchdog,” Capital Research Center is a nothing more than a partisan operation that demeans ordinary civic participation and nods along when its media allies float bioterrorism fever dreams about the political opposition.
The next time Capital Research Center hands Congress a dossier on a progressive nonprofit, reporters and lawmakers alike should ask: is this research, or is it just the latest dispatch from the fever swamp?
Trump’s FBI Built a “Pre-Crime Center.” The Targets Are People Who Disagree With Him.
Buried in Trump’s FY2027 budget is funding for a new FBI-led unit called the NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center, a ten-agency operation dedicated to proactively identifying Americans the government classifies as “domestic terrorists.” In practice, it’s a supersized political enemies list with a federal badge behind it.
The qualifying red flags, per the budget document, include “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
The criteria are so sweeping that they hand the administration a pretext to target virtually any progressive nonprofit, civil society organization, labor union, or faith community it dislikes, none of whom are violent and none of whom are terrorists. The unit is already operational, with a watchlist reportedly listing some 5,000 Americans. The administration is now seeking $166 million and hundreds of new positions to fully build it out.
This is the infrastructure of authoritarian targeting, and Congress cannot stay silent. Republicans who claim to care about civil liberties need to explain why they’re standing idly by while the FBI constructs a “pre-crime” surveillance apparatus aimed at Americans whose only offense is disagreeing with this administration.
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