The Council for National Policy is an influential and highly secretive networking group for major conservative donors and activists, right-wing religious extremists, and Republican lawmakers. It is currently one of the nexuses of the religious right.
One of CNP’s original founders claimed that CNP’s architects “thought that communists were going to take over the U.S. government and that Christianity in America needed staunch defenders.” Other founders claimed that “they were seeking to create a Christian conservative alternative to what they believed was the liberalism of the Council on Foreign Relations.”
According to The New York Times, CNP’s “membership list is ‘strictly confidential.” CNP’s guests can only attend meetings with the universal approval of its executive committee, and members are advised not to refer to the group by name in emails. This has failed to prevent numerous leaks over the years revealing that many leaders of the 20th and 21st-century conservative movement have belonged to the CNP. According to an insider, CNP “has always aimed at providing a forum where certain conservative elites could socialize and strategize — and raise money from wealthy donors”. Presidential hopefuls such as George W. Bush, Donald Trump, and Mitt Romney have gone before CNP to ask for their support.
This mission allows high-profile CNP guests and members, which have included sitting presidents and vice presidents, to mingle with the numerous other CNP members that have ties to recognized hate groups, particularly anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim groups. The Southern Poverty Law Center described the CNP as “a body that mixes large numbers of ostensibly mainstream conservatives with far-right and extremist ideologues, mostly from the far fringes of the religious right.”
CNP also has a 501(c)(4) arm, CNP Action. CNP Action was a crucial incubator for anti-COVID-19 lockdown protests as well as efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
CNP’s list of past and present members stretches into the thousands and includes a who’s who of conservative leaders of the past half-century. Notable members have included, among others:
Powerful politicians and public officials who have spoken at CNP events who are not confirmed members include George W. Bush, Donald Trump, Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Other prominent conservative figures who have spoken at CNP include American Legislative Exchange Council CEO Lisa Nelson, Project Veritas Founder James O’Keefe, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
In addition to those listed below, other founders of CNP include oil moguls Cullen Davis and Nelson Bunker Hunt as well as beer magnate Joseph Coors.
Investigative watchdog Documented published a searchable list of CNP’s 2022 membership.
A longtime leader and strategist in the American conservative movement, Viguerie is a founder of CNP and was listed as its senior executive committee member in 2022. Viguerie has been called the “funding father” of the American conservative movement and the “godfather of the New Right” for pioneering direct mail political fundraising in the 1970s and 80s. He was known for retaining his client’s fundraising lists and turning them “into a formidable power base of the conservative movement.”
Viguerie rose to prominence for his role in supporting Barry Goldwater and his failed 1964 presidential campaign, which brought ultra-conservative views into the mainstream and signaled a reorientation of American political geography over the civil rights movement. As a part of his early pro-Goldwater organizing, Viguerie founded Young Americans For Freedom with William F. Buckley, a fierce segregationist and one of the most important conservative figures of the 20th century.
After Goldwater’s failed campaign, Viguerie founded his first direct mail company that focused on “anti-Communist national defense conservatives and economic conservatives who had supported Goldwater.” His client list expanded to include some of the most important groups of 20th-century conservatism including the Conservative Caucus, the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, the National Conservative Political Action Committee, the National Right to Work Committee, the American Conservative Union, [sic] and Gun Owners of America. Viguerie has supported a number of extremist candidates, including white supremacist politicians such as famed segregationist George Wallace and Jesse Helms, who was called “the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country.” Vigurier boasted that he raised $12 million for George Wallace’s 1976 presidential run.
In 1977, The New York Attorney General’s office investigated a group that employed Viguerie’s direct mailing organization, the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation. The KCFF was accused of siphoning off a majority of the $1.5 million it raised from a fundraising campaign on the pretense of supporting starving children in Asia. Viguerie’s firm was paid $920,302 for running the campaign.
KCFF’s campaign was commissioned with anti-communist intent by someone with prominent ties to the South Korean Unification Church, which has been accused of being a cult and brainwashing its followers. The Church also runs the conservative outlet The Washington Times. Viguerie did a substantial amount of business with organizations connected to the Unification Church outside of the KCFF campaign.
In the 21st century, Viguerie was a supporter of libertarian Ron Paul, the Tea Party movement, Donald Trump, and Steve Bannon.
Far-right conspiratorial cable news outlet One America News Network, known for pushing conspiracies about the 2020 election, debuted in partnership with The Washington Times.
The late Tim Lahaye is a founder of CNP, an evangelical minister, and an activist who is best known for writing the Left Behind book series. In a speech at CNP’s 40th anniversary, LaHaye claimed that CNP“could help bring America back to moral sanity.”
Lahaye was a leader of the early political evangelical movement, encouraging influential religious right leader Jerry Falwell to found the influential Moral Majority movement. His wife founded the right-wing religious women’s group Concerned Women for America. In 2001, Lahaye was named the most influential evangelical of the past quarter century by the Evangelical Studies Bulletin.
He was also linked to the John Birch Society, a conspiratorial secret society that believed that communists had captured elements of the church, the government, the media, and the education system in a plot to turn America into “a human race of enslaved robots, in which every civilized trait has been destroyed.”
LaHaye is remembered for his anti-Catholic and extreme anti-gay views. He wrote a book called What Everyone Should Know About Homosexuality that called the LGBTQ community “militant, organized” and “vile.” He was also a conspiracy theorist who believed that the Illuminati was secretly controlling the world. LaHaye once claimed that he co-founded CNP to counter “the liberalism of the Council on Foreign Relations.”
Weyrich is a founder of some of the most important organizations in the conservative movement including the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Heritage Foundation, and CNP. He also coined the term “moral majority,” which became a rallying cry for the rise of the religious right and cultural conservatives in the last quarter of the 20th century.
In his obituary, The New York Times called Weyrich “one of the Republican Party’s leading antagonists from the right.” His followers described him as “the Lenin of social conservatism.” He was also called “the Robespierre of the Right” by The New Republic. Weyrich attempted to sue the magazine for libel over this title.
Weyrich was an outspoken enemy of political correctness, which he claimed was a part of the “Cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory. In his own words, “Cultural Marxism” is “an alien ideology, an ideology bitterly hostile to Western culture.” The conspiracy, which has taken on new popularity with the rise of far-right “anti-woke: figures in the 21st century, has been called anti-semitic by The New York Times, Jewish Currents, The Guardian, The Southern Poverty Law Center, and others.
Weyrich balked at accusations that he wanted to turn the U.S. into a theocracy, a common sentiment held by his critics. However, he did not hide his anti-democratic tendencies. At a 1980 gathering of religious right leaders, Weyrich told the crowd, “I don’t want everyone to vote… As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
McEwen is a former U.S. congressman from Ohio in the 1980s and a distinguished fellow at The Gold Institute where co-hosts a weekly breakfast for leading U.S. ambassadors. Since exiting public office, McEwen is perhaps best known for his role at CNP. He also was criticized for lobbying Congress on behalf of Ivory Coast leader, Laurent Gbagbo, who was accused of committing crimes against humanity.
Leaks from both 2020 and 2022 showed Fitton was the head of CNP’s executive committee. In 2020, Fitton was an important player in efforts to dispute and overturn the results of the presidential election.
Fitton is the longtime leader of Judicial Watch, a right-wing group founded in the mid-90s as part of the groundswell of opposition to the Clinton family, The organization became infamous as an early promoter of conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Clinton White House staffer, Vince Foster. Under Fitton’s stewardship, Judicial Watch has become a key player in promoting conspiratorial legal battles to purge voter rolls – including a high-profile effort to remove 800,000 voters from Pennsylvania’s rolls in the runup to the 2020 election.
Fitton is also known for his inflammatory and conspiratorial statements:
Before leaving office, President Trump appointed Fitton to the D.C. Commission on Judicial Disabilities and Tenure, which works to “maintain public confidence in an independent, impartial, fair, and qualified judiciary, and to enforce the high standards of conduct judges must adhere,” in November 2020. Fitton will serve a five-year term until 2025.
Blackwell is a key member of CNP, serving at both its 501(c)(4) arm, CNP Action, and on its executive committee.
Blackwell has long been active in Republican politics. Blackwell served as the ”mayor of Cincinnati, Treasurer and Secretary of State for Ohio, undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.” He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at the recognized anti-LGBTQ hate group, Family Research Council. He was formerly a board member at the NRA and the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund.
Blackwell was involved in various high-profile controversies as the Secretary of State for Ohio – including multiple involving the 2004 presidential election.
Blackwell handled domestic policy issues as a member of Donald Trump’s 2016 transition team and a member of Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission On Election Integrity, which sought to investigate allegations of voter fraud in the 2016 election. The commission was created following unfounded claims by Trump that three to five million fraudulent votes were cast in the election–comparable to the margin by which he lost the popular vote. The commission faced bipartisan backlash from state election officials as the commission asked for comprehensive voter roll information – including social security numbers. The commission ultimately found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
Martin is the president of Tea Party Patriots and secretary of CNP as of 2022. Martin rose to a prominent position at CNP and “became the go-to woman for organizing campaigns, including political canvassing and public protests” according to The New Republic.
Martin’s Tea Party Patriots claims to be the nation’s largest grassroots Tea Party organization and was listed as one of the sponsors of the March To Save America Rally, which immediately preceded the Capitol riot.
Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is a prominent member of CNP and a board member of CNP Action since 2019. According to The New York Times, “no spouse of a sitting Supreme Court justice has been as overt a political activist as Ginni Thomas.” She founded the Tea Party group, Liberty Central, and worked with the right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation to identify potential staffers for the George W. Bush Administration while the legal fight over the 2000 election was still ongoing. Clarence Thomas has also attended and spoken at CNP events.
Thomas is most infamous for her prolonged and conspiratorial push to overturn the 2020 election, during which she used CNP as a springboard for her attempt.
Days after the 2020 election, CNP Action circulated a potential strategy for challenging the results with a call to action titled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?” The plan was to pressure Republican lawmakers to use legal challenges to dispute the election results and appoint alternative slates of state electors to hand the election to Trump. If such a maneuver was attempted, it would likely would have landed before Clarence Thomas and the Supreme Court. Prominent election fraud conspiracist and CNP member, Cleta Mitchell, also worked with CNP to develop plans involving alternate state electors in the run-up to the election.
Ginni Thomas personally pressured lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin via email to toss out the popular vote in their states and appoint alternate electors. She also repeatedly texted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows conspiracy theories about the election, some of which were related to QAnon, and urged the Trump campaign to work with conspiracist Sidney Powell to overturn the election.
Thomas was also corresponding with John Eastman, a lawyer who presented a six point plan to overturn the election to the Trump administration on January 4th, 2021, and then spoke at the January 6th rally preceding the Capitol Riot, about efforts to overturn the election. Because of this correspondence, Thomas was asked to testify before the House Committee On January 6th. She declined to testify but was later interviewed by the committee.
Ginni Thomas also promoted a #StopTheSteal rally on Facebook and attended the #StopTheSteal rally on January 6, 2021 that preceded the Capitol Riot. In 2021, she attended an event hosted by the group FrontLiners For Liberty, which CNBC said Thomas appeared to be running. At that event, a speaker declared that Trump was still the “legitimate president.”
Ginni and Clarence Thomas are also good friends with CNP member and right-wing judicial activist, Leonard Leo.
Scribante has held a leadership role at CNP since 1995 according to his LinkedIn. He currently manages multiple real estate brokerage firms but was a long-time executive at Orion Energy Systems in the 2000s and 2010s, which manufactures LED lights and lighting systems.
Johnson, the former president of the National Religious Broadcasters, was listed as a CNP executive committee member in 2022. Johnson is also a member of the Federalist Society and a leader in the Southern Baptist church.
Farris was listed as a CNP executive committee member in 2022. Farris is the founder of right-wing religious college, Patrick Henry College, which was christened “God’s Harvard” by the Financial Times for producing politically powerful alumni. He is also the founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association and served as the CEO and general counsel of the recognized hate group, Alliance Defending Freedom, from 2017 to 2022.
Farris was a member of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In 2021, Farris held events that called on his followers to support efforts to roll back voting rights nationwide.
Hallow was listed as a CNP executive committee member in 2022. She is also the secretary of the National Foundation For Women Legislators and is a long-time employee at the NRA. Prior to working at the NRA, Hallow pled guilty to felony theft for stealing funds from the District Of Columbia while serving as the executive director D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities.
Hallow was the longtime assistant to NRA executive and prominent CNP member Wayne LaPierre. Hallow diverted more than $40,000 from the NRA to pay for her son’s wedding and other personal expenses, but was kept on at the organization despite being embroiled in the NRA’s financial scandal.
Nance is the CEO and president of Concerned Women for America, a member of Trump’s “Life Advisory Council,” and was listed as a CNP executive committee member in 2022. CWA is a conservative women’s organization that describes its goal as “helping our members across the country bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy.” CWA opposes same-sex marriage, abortion, emergency contraception, and access to gender-affirming healthcare. CWA is also closely tied to fellow CNP member and right-wing judicial strategist Leonard Leo, whose 85 Fund gave nearly half a million dollars to CWA between July 2020 and June 2021.
Prior to the 2020 election, CWA stoked fears of widespread voter fraud. In February 2021, Concerned Women for America launched its “election integrity scorecard” which “ranks each state by looking at the way they handle three important areas: (1) voter identification, (2) absentee/mail-in ballots, and (3) absentee ballot verification.” States that grant voters greater access to the ballot box (for example, through mail-in voting and third-party ballot return) received lower scores.
Phillips was listed as a CNP executive committee member in 2022. In 2018, Phillips was described in a CNP directory as a “conservative donor and activist” who is based in Dallas, Texas. She is the wife of the late Texas billionaire Gene E. Phillips.
A 2022 CNP directory showed that Boykin, who serves as the executive Vice President at the recognized hate group Family Research Council, is on the executive committee at CNP. Before working at FRC, Boykin worked in the Department of Defense under George W. Bush. While at the defense department, President Bush was forced to publicly distance himself from Boykin’s claim that the war on terror was a Christian struggle against Satan.
FRC is known for his extreme anti-LGBTQ stances including, but not limited to:
A 2022 CNP directory listed Connelly as a member of CNP’s executive committee. Connelly is the former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and a former candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. He later served as the director of the Republican National Committee’s Faith Engagement Initiative and is the founder of Faith Wins, a group that seeks to mobilize right-wing religious voters.
The New Republic said Connelly’s messaging is evocative of “Christian nationalist rhetoric” and compares elections to a “contest against absolute evil, and the consequences of failure almost too dire to imagine.”
Connelly was implicated in a “preliminary investigation” into allegations of embezzlement by South Carolina law enforcement authorities. He was later cleared of any involvement in the investigation.
Lindsey is the wife of Pepsi heir James Lindsey, the founder and president of Lindsey Communications, and an executive committee member at CNP as of 2022. She is a major funder of religious right activism via the James and Lindsey Family Foundation and a funder of fellow CNP executive committee member Chad Connelly’s Faith Wins organization. Faith Wins has been criticized for promoting messaging reminiscent of Christian nationalism and stoking election integrity conspiracies that laid the groundwork for efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
In 2020, Lindsey signed a letter urging state legislators in key swing states to overturn their election results to help Donald Trump remain president – a legal strategy incubated by CNP.
Arthur Ally is a member of CNP’s executive committee member as of 2022 and the founder and president of Timothy Plan, “the nation’s leading Biblically based, pro-life, pro-family mutual fund group.”
A 2022 directory showed that Jim DeMint, who founded the Conservative Partnership Institute in 2017, was a member of CNP’s executive committee. DeMint was a figurehead in the Tea Party movement, known for “being a right-wing bomb thrower willing to upset his party’s leadership by supporting conservative primary challengers to mainstream Republicans.” As a senator, DeMint called for the abolition of the IRS and was the sole vote against the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2008, a bill that extended unemployment insurance benefits, funded higher education costs for veterans, and blocked new Medicaid rules that cut state funding. DeMint is an adversary of LGBTQ rights and strongly opposed efforts to legalize same-sex marriage.
In 2013, DeMint became president of the Heritage Foundation, one of the leading think tanks in the conservative movement. Under DeMint’s stewardship, Heritage Action, Heritage’s affiliate group, led campaigns to block the Obama administration’s agenda. Before a 2013 procedural motion to allow for continued funding of the Affordable Care Act, Heritage Action announced that it would rank lawmakers based on how they voted. According to TIME magazine, “Heritage’s willingness to take aim at its own party… irked more mainstream Republicans” who had reservations about fully defunding the ACA. Ultimately, Heritage’s move helped drive GOP leadership to try to repeal the ACA. DeMint also critiqued the Obama administration on other grounds, reportedly claiming that President Obama “took race back to the ’60s, as far as I’m concerned.”
As Trump gained power in the conservative movement, putting strains on conservative coalitions, DeMint aligned Heritage closely with Trump. In May 2017, Heritage’s board of trustees unanimously decided to oust DeMint from the organization, partly for his efforts to push the think tank outside the bounds of its reputation as a respected think tank rather than a partisan tool. Independent reporting on DeMint’s resignation revealed the board of trustees “became convinced that DeMint was incapable of renewing the foundation’s place as an intellectual wellspring of the conservative movement.” Within two months of leaving Heritage, DeMint became chairman of the newly-formed Conservative Partnership Institute.
Mitchell is a long-time activist who has played a key role in right-wing circles for decades. She is known for her legal activism around election laws and her belief in rampant voter fraud, a claim that has been called “a myth” by legal experts. Her former colleagues characterized her as the “fringe of the fringe” and someone who told “clients what they wanted to hear, regardless of the law or reality.” She was a key Trump advisor during his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and currently serves on the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. She is also a member of the Federalist Society.
Mitchell is a member of the CNP, and the group served as a key incubator for Mitchell’s plan to convince state legislators to overturn the popular vote in the 2020 election and for Mitchell and her allies to develop the potential for legal challenges should Trump fail to win the 2020 election.
Mitchell played a major role in driving American conservative politics into increasingly far-right and conspiratorial territory, particularly regarding election security and systematic voter fraud:
Leonard Leo serves on the board of governors for CNP. Leo was “widely known as a confidant to Trump” and served as Trump’s Supreme Court Advisor during the nominations of Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, and Neil Gorsuch. During the Kavanaugh nomination, Leo assured a group of top Koch network donors that it was “just the beginning of an even bigger effort to load up the federal judiciary with conservative judges.”
Leo is considered “arguably the most powerful figure in the federal justice system” with his “network of interlocking nonprofits” that aggressively support conservative judges.
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins is the “immediate past president of the Council for National Policy.” Perkins has served as the president of FRC, which is recognized as a hate group for its anti-LGBTQ views, since 2003. He is the longest-serving president of the organization. Perkins has a longstanding history of making controversial statements about the LGBTQ community, abortion rights, and religious minorities. In addition to serving at FRC, Perkins was named the head of the Louisiana Law Enforcement Commission in 2013.
Perkins was closely tied to the Trump Administration, advising on key policies, such as the Administration’s plan to exclude trans individuals from serving in the military, and serving as the Chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom. Perkins also called on state lawmakers to overturn the 2020 election and led events with CNP executive committee member Michael Farris where they called on their followers to support efforts to roll back voting rights nationwide.
Perkins’ history is tied to white supremacists:
Perkins spoke at events that celebrate Hungary’s family policies. These policies aim to restrict immigration and promote more native birth. Hungary’s family policies have been compared to the white supremacist “great replacement theory,” a conspiracy that alleges non-white immigrants are “replacing” white people in Western countries. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has explicitly echoed the “great replacement theory.” He called the European Union’s immigration policies “a suicidal attempt to replace the lack of European, Christian children with adults from other civilizations.”
In May 2019, more than a year before the 2020 election, CNP member Cleta Mitchell gave a speech at the organization where she warned that Democrats were registering “the disenfranchised” to vote, saying “they know that if they target certain communities and they can get them registered and get them to the polls, then those groups . . . will vote ninety percent, ninety-five percent for Democrats.” Mitchell posed a potential counter-strategy: convince state legislators to invoke the independent state legislature theory – a fringe legal theory that posits that only state legislatures have the power to regulate federal elections. This would allow states with conservative state legislatures but a Democratic presidential popular vote to invoke concerns of fraud and choose Electoral College electors who would swing the election for Trump.
In both February and August of 2020, CNP held meetings in preparation for the 2020 election.
Legal experts interviewed by the Washington Post about the events said “that participants’ comments at the event raise potential issues of compliance with election laws and charity rules.”
Days after the 2020 election, CNP Action circulated a potential strategy for challenging the results in a document titled “Election Results and Legal Battles: What Now?” It posed a maneuver similar to that pitched by Mitchell in 2019 – CNP members would use their influence to pressure lawmakers to raise the prospect of fraud to appoint alternative slates of state electors to hand the election to Trump. If the plan succeeded, it would likely be litigated at the Supreme Court where, Clarence Thomas, husband of CNP Action board member Ginni Thomas and frequent guest at CNP events, would help steer the ruling.
Mitchell was a key player in efforts to overturn the election, including as a participant in Trump’s infamous phone call where he pressured Georgia election officials to “find” exactly enough votes for him to win the state in 2020. She also promoted unfounded evidence that the election was stolen from Trump. She has since been subpoenaed by the House Committee investigating January 6th for her role in the insurrection as well as by a Fulton County, Georgia special grand jury investigation concerning potential criminal interference in the election.
Ali Alexander, a CNP member, was one of the primary forces behind the #StopTheSteal movement. Alexander helped ratchet up the violent rhetoric of the #StopTheSteal movement in the run-up to the Capitol riot on January 6th, 2021. Two hours before rioters breached the Capitol, Alexander posted a video saying “I don’t disavow this. I do not denounce this.” Alexander was the target of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation and a House subpoena for his role in the events.
Other groups tied to CNP, including FreedomWorks (whose president Adam Brandon is on the board of CNP Action), the Heritage Foundation, and CNP Secretary Jenny Beth Martin’s Tea Party Patriots, were also involved in promoting early #StopTheSteal protests in swing states.
Groups linked to CNP members including Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, Ed Martin’s Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, and Tea Party Patriots, were sponsors of the rally preceding the January 6th Capitol riot.
In March 2021, CNP held a summit where its members discussed how to coordinate efforts to combat the expansion of national voting rights. One visible outcome of that coordination was the rise of the Conservative Partnership Institute’s Election Integrity Network. CPI, where CNP member and key insurrectionist Cleta Mitchell is a senior official, was described by The New Republic as a “public-facing front for CNP ideas.”
CPI acts as an incubator for right-wing advocacy groups and has held “election integrity” summits in Georgia, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Michigan since Biden assumed office. At those summits, CPI screened a documentary by the Capital Research Center about how Mark Zuckerberg “manipulated” the 2020 election and held panels promoting false claims of fraud and conspiracies about mail-in and absentee voting. Mitchell uses these summits to train right-wing activists to act as election monitors. Volunteers trained by Mitchell have reportedly harassed and undermined local election boards while they search for and promote tenuous evidence of systematic voter fraud.
CNP also launched efforts to oppose the passage of a House bill called H.R. 1 (also known as the “For the People Act”), which would have expanded voting rights. Additionally, prominent CNP member Marjorie Dannenfesler of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America launched the Election Transparency Initiative, which opposed HR1 as well as the Electoral Count Act, which would make tactics attempted by the Trump campaign to overturn the 2020 election more difficult.
In 2022, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Moore v. Harper – a case that could legalize the independent state legislature theory. Groups connected to CNP members, such as CNP board member Leonard Leo’s Honest Elections Project and Cleta Mitchell’s Public Interest Legal Foundation have filed amicus briefs in Harper. That same year, CNP screened a film called at one of its summits titled Capital Punishment which claimed that “everything that we are being told [about the insurrection] is a lie and Americans are being persecuted to support that lie.”
CNP has immense influence on the conservative movement. Powerful figures have frequently appealed to the CNP to realize their political ambition.
CNP is also connected to one of the most infamous scandals in modern American history. Former NRA head Oliver North, then serving Reagan’s National Security Council, went to the CNP in the 1980s to build support for direct payments of the anti-communist contra rebels in Nicaragua – despite congressional bans on doing so. Four CNP members would fund North’s off-the-books mission to Nicaragua which was at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal.
CNP was a key incubator of Trump’s 2016 campaign and his administration’s policies. During his primary campaign, he looked to shore up support within the religious right – which was skeptical of him – by appealing to CNP. After a June 2016 meeting where Trump promised CNP an Evangelical Advisory Board on his campaign that would feature CNP members a leading role in determining the Republican party platform and federal judicial nominations, he emerged with their full support for the general election.
A delegation from CNP would meet almost every week with Trump administration officials during his presidency. CNP was instrumental in convincing Trump to implement his Muslim travel ban and pushed him to institute ‘religious freedom’ policies.
According to Columbia University researcher Anne Nelson “CNP has been strategizing to dominate the Supreme Court for decades.” CNP member Leonard Leo, who has been called “arguably the most powerful figure in the federal justice system,” gave a speech to CNP leaders in 2016 where he said “we’re going to have to understand that judicial confirmations these days are more like political campaigns.” Leo and his allies at CNP would go on to execute successful advocacy campaigns to appoint and confirm Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett to the court. Leo’s aggressive campaigns to influence the court were influenced by his commitment to promoting religious conservative values – paralleling the Christian conservative roots of CNP.
Prior to the Senate vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, CNP held a meeting to coordinate future plans for the court and to lament the coverage of the credible accusations of sexual assault and misconduct against Kavanaugh. Participants at the meeting included recognized anti-LGBTQ hate group Family Research Council, late Trump surrogate Herman Cain, Leonard Leo’s CRC Advisors, as well as CNP leaders T. Cullen Davis and Bob McEwen.
15 members of CNP were present at the White House party celebrating the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. CNP was an important part of the fight that ensured her confirmation to the bench, as were CNP-affiliated groups such as Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and Concerned Women for America.
In 2022, CNP held a summit where a leaked meeting program said that “this term of the Supreme Court could be one of the most consequential ever, and CNP Members have been central to some of the landmark cases being decided.”
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, whose wife Ginni Thomas is a member of CNP Action’s board, is a regular guest at CNP events.
In March 2020, then-Vice President Mike Pence wrote a letter in March 2020 thanking the CNP for their “support and for consistently amplifying the agenda of President Trump and our Administration.”
CNP and its sister 501(c)(4), CNP Action, was an important part of forming the conservative and right-wing response to COVID-19 in 2020. Starting in April 2020, CNP Action hosted weekly conference calls to coordinate pandemic policy response. A notable figure on these calls was Heritage Foundation fellow, Stephen Moore, an economist who was a key advisor to the Trump Administration’s COVID response. Lisa Nelson, CEO of the powerful corporate “bill mill” American Legislative Exchange Council and a CNP member, sent links to anti-lockdown protests organized by anti-LGBTQ group Eagle Forum in an email scheduling one of these calls.
CNP also organized the Save Our Country Task Force (aka Save Our Country Coalition) which included Moore, Trump economic advisor Art Laffer, and former CNP president Bill Walton. The American Legislative Exchange Council and Tea Party Patriots, which both would play notable roles in efforts to challenge the 2020 election, were also coordinating with the Save Our Country Task Force. Save Our Country Task Force downplayed risks from the virus.
In May 2020, the Trump 2020 campaign coordinated with CNP Action and the Save Our Country Task Force to recruit “extremely pro-Trump” doctors to go on TV to downplay risks from COVID-19 and push for reopening from lockdown restrictions without waiting for CDC approval.
In July 2020, Save Our Country Task Force affiliate, Tea Party Patriots, appeared to organize a press conference for the group America’s Frontline Doctors. The press conference promoted the misleading claims that hydroxychloroquine was an effective COVID-19 treatment and that masks were unnecessary. Videos of the conference went viral among right-wing influencers, conspiracy theorists, and anti-vaccine groups despite the efforts of major social media companies to stop its spread. It was also shared by Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr. One of the doctors connected to the conference was later arrested due to their involvement with the Capitol riot. Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, America’s Frontline Doctors went on to spread misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.
According to data combed from 990s and resources such as SourceWatch and Conservative Transparency, major donors to CNP since 1994 have included notable right-wing incubators such as The Bradley Foundation, DonorsTrust, the Mercer Family Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the Castle Rock Foundation (which merged with the Adolph Coors Foundation in 2011). Other notable megadonors who have funded CNP include Art Pope (a North Carolina-based conservative megadonor who funds the John William Pope Foundation), the DeVos family (which includes former Trump Administration Education Secretary and evangelical megadonor Betsy DeVos), and the late Foster Friess (an early donor to right-wing youth organizing group Turning Point USA).
The National Christian Charitable Foundation, which has been criticized for funding recognized hate groups, has given nearly $275,000 to CNP over the past three decades. Judicial Watch, which is run by CNP executive committee President Tom Fitton, is also a major donor to CNP.
| Donor Name | Amount Donated 1994-2021 |
| The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation | $790,000 |
| John William Pope Foundation | $522,500 |
| DonorsTrust | $501,000 |
| Castle Rock Foundation | $440,000 |
| National Christian Charitable Foundation | $272,760 |
| DeVos Urban Leadership Initiative | $240,000 |
| Mercer Family Foundation | $225,000 |
| Judicial Watch | $190,500 |
| American Values | $133,795 |
| Sarah Scaife Foundation | $108,000 |
| Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation | $100,000 |
| Holman Foundation | $90,000 |
| Armstrong Foundation | $85,000 |
| It Takes A Family Foundation | $81,800 |
| Media Research Center | $40,950 |
| Dick and Betsy DeVos Family Foundation | $14,750 |
| Foster Friess Family Foundation | $13,333 |
| The Vernon K. Krieble Foundation | $12,000 |
| Family Research Council | $5,000 |
| William E. Simon Foundation | $5,000 |
| TOTAL | $3,871,388 |
The Center For Media Democracy leaked a list of individual funders following CNP’s 40th-anniversary event in 2021.
Despite the millions it receives from individual megadonors, CNP raises most of its funding via membership dues. From 2010 to 2020, CNP received nearly eight times as much revenue from membership dues as it did from all other types of contributions.
| Year | Membership Dues | All Other Contributions* |
| 2021 | $2,049,624 | $410,515 |
| 2020 | $1,911,863 | $444,555 |
| 2019 | $2,272,553 | $87,000 |
| 2018 | $1,915,446 | $103,495 |
| 2017 | $1,874,301 | $35,200 |
| 2016 | $1,705,264 | $123,590 |
| 2015 | $1,488,293 | $100,000 |
| 2014 | $1,385,295 | $154,584 |
| 2013 | $1,382,038 | $392,100 |
| 2012 | $1,239,822 | $219,300 |
| 2011 | $1,305,193 | $316,772 |
| 2010 | $1,281,423 | $205,485 |
| TOTAL | $19,811,115 | $2,592,596 |
* In 2021, CNP received $144,257 in unspecified government grants not reflected in this total. In 2020, CNP received $8,000 in unspecified government grants not reflected in this total.
According to an analysis of FEC records, political organizations and campaigns have paid CNP at least $221,708 since 2000. Notable donors include the Republican National Committee, the PAC of former U.S. House member and current CNP member Jim DeMint, and the campaigns of Rep. Jody Hice and Rep. Barry Loudermilk. These donations are comprised of membership dues, direct contributions, and registration fees. See below some of the largest contributions from political campaigns and organizations to CNP:
| Donor Name | Year | Donation Type | Amount |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2009 | MEMBERSHIP | $10,000 |
| MINT POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEE (MINT PAC) | 2014 | CONTRIBUTION | $6,144.47 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2011 | MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2012 | MEMBERSHIP | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2012 | MEMBERSHIP | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2013 | MEMBERSHIP – J CORSI | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2014 | MEMBERSHIP | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2014 | MEMBERSHIP – J. CORSI | $5,000 |
| REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE | 2013 | REGISTRATION FEE | $5,000 |
| REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE | 2014 | REGISTRATION FEE | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2016 | CORSI CNP MEMBERSHIP | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2015 | JEROME CORSI MEMBERSHIP FEE | $5,000 |
| REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE | 2016 | REGISTRATION FEES | $5,000 |
| REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE | 2015 | REGISTRATION FEES | $5,000 |
| TEA PARTY PATRIOTS CITIZENS FUND | 2015 | PAC MEMBERSHIP DUES | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2017 | DR CORSI MEMBERSHIP | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2018 | PAC MEMBERSHIP DUES | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM’S DEFENSE FUND | 2019 | PAC MEMBERSHIP DUES | $5,000 |
| PROJECTHEALTHSOLUTIONS PAC – PHSPAC | 2022 | DONATION | $5,000 |
| AMERICAN GRIT PAC | 2021 | PAC FACILITY RENTAL/ CATERING | $3,175 |
| BOB BARR LEADERSHIP FUND, THE | 2006 | DONATION | $2,500 |
| PAUL BROUN COMMITTEE | 2007 | DONATION | $2,500 |
| FRIENDS OF CONGRESSMAN STEVE STOCKMAN | 2013 | FUNDRAISING EVENT | $2,500 |
| SENATE CONSERVATIVES FUND | 2014 | PAC CONFERENCE FEES | $2,500 |
| SENATE CONSERVATIVES FUND | 2015 | PAC MEMBERSHIP FEE | $2,500 |
| LOUDERMILK FOR CONGRESS | 2015 | MEMBERSHIP DUES | $2,500 |
| LOUDERMILK FOR CONGRESS | 2016 | MEMBERSHIP DUES | $2,500 |
| LOUDERMILK FOR CONGRESS | 2018 | MEMBERSHIP DUES | $2,500 |
| JODY HICE FOR CONGRESS | 2018 | MEMBERSHIP DUES | $2,500 |
| JODY HICE FOR CONGRESS | 2017 | MEMBERSHIP DUES | $2,500 |
| LOUDERMILK FOR CONGRESS | 2019 | MEMBERSHIP DUES | $2,500 |
| JODY HICE FOR CONGRESS | 2020 | MEMBERSHIP DUES | $2,500 |
| LOUDERMILK FOR CONGRESS | 2020 | MEMBERSHIP DUES | $2,500 |
| JODY HICE FOR CONGRESS, INC. | 2022 | MEMBERSHIP DUES | $2,500
|
Be the first to know when there is new information and updates.