The Latest Rent-a-Republican Scam

We’ve often remarked upon the truth of the dictum from our late friend Stan Evans regarding Republicans who run for Congress as conservatives and then abandon conservative principles that “too often when our guys get to Washington, they suddenly stop being our guys.”

And that goes double for the unelected staffers hired by allegedly conservative members of Congress.

The latest example of this venality is the ruse by Arnold Ventures LLC, a private company founded by Far-Left philanthropists John Arnold and his wife Laura, who have a net worth of $3.3 billion, according to Forbes.  

According to the Daily Signal, John Arnold is a former trader at Enron, the energy company that collapsed in the early 2000s amid a corruption scandal. Arnold wasn’t implicated in wrongdoing.

He spent $40 million over a decade to help elect liberal prosecutors, reported The Washington Free Beacon, which said Arnold is “on track to replace George Soros as the largest donor in the fight to remake America’s criminal justice system.”

Arnold Ventures, which presents itself as a “bipartisan” organization has hired three well-connected Republicans to try to paper over Arnold’s decidedly Far Left agenda:

—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 Institute.

These individuals are “rent-a-Repub” for Arnold Ventures, said our friend Tom Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation, a conservative watchdog group.

“This is a new level of sophistication of lobbying by mega-liberal billionaires,” Tom Jones told The Daily Signal.

“John Arnold has enlisted Republicans with a dump truck full of cash,” he said. “I don’t think the institutional Left has tried this before.”

John Arnold has been dubbed “the next George Soros” and Arnold Ventures says it focuses on issues such as criminal justice reform, prescription drug prices, contraception, and tax policy geared at “minimizing injustice.”

The only thing “bipartisan” we see in that agenda is the cash flowing from hard Left Democrat Arnold to principle-free lobbyists marketing their alleged connections to Republicans.

Fortunately, Jones and the American Accountability Foundation contacted the legislative director of every Republican member of Congress. One of his emails about the Republican lobbyists said John Arnold is “angling to be the next George Soros and conservatives need to be on guard.”

In his Feb. 7 email message to GOP legislative directors on Capitol Hill, Jones wrote:

You need to have George Callas on your radar screen. George Callas is another left-wing advocate who is trying to peddle his previous Republican employment as a cover for Arnold’s left-wing advocacy. If BLM [Black Lives Matter], RCV [ranked choice voting], etc. wasn’t enough, Callas piles on with more radical policy and extreme NeverTrump-ism.

John Arnold thinks you’re either dumb enough or ignorant enough to believe someone is a true conservative if they’ve got a Republican job squirreled away in their past no matter how lefty the policy is that they’re peddling.

Callas is listed as executive vice president for public finance with Arnold Ventures. His 15-year career on Capitol Hill included being a senior tax counsel for Ryan in the House speaker’s office and for the House Ways and Means Committee, where Ryan was the top Republican member before becoming speaker.

The Daily Signal reported another Jan. 31 email message from Jones to GOP legislative directors on Capitol Hill says: “Does your boss support soft-on-crime policies? How about Black Lives Matter? Maybe defunding the police? What about canceling student debt? Mass aerial surveillance of major cities?  Is ranked choice voting more your speed?”

“I suspect your answer to all these questions was no, and that’s unsurprising because they’re the top priorities for liberal billionaire John Arnold—policies he is funding through his shady LLC, Arnold Ventures,” the message from Jones and the American Accountability Foundation continues, adding:

Unfortunately, John Arnold understands access and money are the lifeblood of the swamp and has hired faux conservative Andrew Moylan to shill for him in Washington. …

Moylan is a former National Taxpayers Union staffer who is using his history working with conservatives to give credibility to Arnold’s leftist policies.  … At some point Moylan is going to come knocking on your door – I would hope your answer to Andrew is the same as your answer to the questions above—No.

Moylan, vice president of public finance at Arnold Ventures, is a former executive director of R Street, a center-right think tank. Before that, he was executive vice president for the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, a fiscally conservative organization.

The same message from Jones also references Ring, the former Republican Study Committee staffer on the Hill, in what Jones writes is a “hiring you’d swear was parody.” Ring now is vice president of criminal justice advocacy for Arnold Ventures.

Not mentioned on the company’s bio page is that Ring was convicted in 2010 of providing gratuities to government officials as part of the larger lobbying corruption scandal surrounding Jack Abramoff.

We suggest Republican congressional offices slam the door on any corporations supporting radical Left policies, such as paying travel costs for employee abortions, supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, promoting radical gender theory and gender modification of children, canceling student loan debt, defunding the police, and the rest of the Arnold Ventures agenda, especially if Rent-a-Republicans like George Callas, Kevin Ring and Andrew Moylan come knocking representing those corporations.

Go here to learn more or contribute to the American Accountability Foundation.

• Arnold Ventures LLC

• Far-Left philanthropists John Arnold and his wife Laura

• George Soros

• congressional staffers

• Enron trader

• Former Speaker Paul Ryan

• George Callas

• Kevin Ring

• Andrew Moylan

• American Accountability Foundation

• Tom Jones

• Republican lobbyists

• leftists causes

• Black Lives Matter