The connection between WSJ opinion and the Bradley Foundation

William Cohan of Vanity Fair writes about the connection between the Wall Street Journal opinion writers and the Bradley Foundation, which has given $1 million in prizes to those writers.

Cohan writes, “During these highly polarized times, drawing links between the Journal editorial board and the Bradley Foundation is treacherous, especially for an author whose books have been reviewed in the Journal—without much favor—and who has tried, and failed repeatedly, to get opinion pieces published in the Journal. It could be that a quarter of a million dollars doesn’t buy much fealty these days for top journalists. But it certainly seems that Strassel, Gigot, and others at the Journal have had no problem defending the goals of the Bradley Foundation in recent years without disclosing fully their ties to the Bradley Foundation.

“‘There are deep ties between the editorial board and the Wall Street Journal and the Bradley Foundation, and also some other foundations as well,’ says Graves. ‘It certainly seems like they are obsessed with Senator Whitehouse, who is so courageous in speaking out about the dark money that has surrounded the courts, in terms of trying to install people onto the court with a goal of those judges reversing precedent.’ She is disturbed by the relationship. ‘Whatever the veneer of journalistic integrity that exists on the surface at the Wall Street Journal, the idea that they’re so close to these foundations that are advancing is very troubling,’ she concludes. ‘I think it would be troubling on the left or the right.’

“‘The wider problem in our society as a whole is the appalling way that a small group of big special interests have taken advantage of Citizens United and the various dark money opportunities to try to have their way secretly and against the popular will,’ Whitehouse says. ‘I described it as basically a covert op, like an intelligence operation that they’re running against and within their own country, and I see this series of Wall Street Journal editorials as part of a smokescreen that gets thrown up to try to discredit what I’m saying or deter other people from joining me and try to protect the dark money operation.'”