tackett, "how mcconnell mastered the senate an lost his party." book notes is available on the free mobile app or wherever you get your podcasts. democracy, it isn't just an idea, it's a process, a process shaped by leaders, elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with regarding its basic principles and where debates unfold and decisions made and the nation's courts is charted. democracy in real time. this is your government at work. this is c-span, giving you your democracy unfiltered. >> a conversation now on think tank funding with ben freeman.

we should probably start by explaining what the quincy institute for responsible state craft is. are you a think thank? having m. it is a think tank and nonprofit nun partisan action tank because we are not just thinking we are trying to get stuff done. our purpose is to reduce the military decision of foreign policy appear critical we try it call out special interests diving foreign policy. host: how are you funded? guest: we have a had the of small donors, big donors, foundation. we are in the funded by foreign governments off u.s. government and defense contractors. this really frees us it offer a clear unbuy why issed view of

the policy. host: is this unusual? are most think tanks taking money from one of those they places? guest: absolutely. we are on unisland we are surrounded by other think tanks had do take money from foreign governments, u.s. government and defense contractors. many think tanks take a considerable amount of funding from those. host: what is the any tank funding tracker? guest: to me it is a labor of love something we have been been working on a website where anybody of your viewers friends in the media and congress can go to find out how the top think tanks are funded. it provides details about the

funding, what year it was received. if a fortune government, which branch of the government and whenever opinion the exact dollar amount. host: what should viewers know in the atlantic council? guest: many things. i think what they can find in about that is they are helpful furnisheded by fern governments. when fond at the received more money from foreign governments. more than dollar 20 million and contractor funding. they get a had the of funding from the top defense contractors. sort of what we see with the they can council this huge amount of money coming in from some foreign governments and

defense contractors and when try to trace it back it what the atlantic council was doing and it was mixing recommendation this is with benefit the funders. host: who are the foreign governments this give the most to american think tanks? guest: by and large it is our democratic friends, friends in nitto and united kingdom capped. you look at the top 10 it is mostly filled with democratic regimes that are allies of the u.s. but at the very top foreign govern is the united arab emirates. they guy more. they are a authoritarian regime and complicit in war chromosome.

and fund the r.s.f. who were tkhreurg genocide so we see them donating millions of dollars every year it the top foreign policy think tanks in the u.s. we also see or they are taren regimes look saudi arabia and third highest fortune government was qatar weisner authoritarian regime in the middle east the human rights issues and qatar and u.a.e. have been cut meddling the u.s. process and can tar is giving mechanicals of dollars it think thanks in the u.s. so it is important it know that and have a clear vision of the cards on the table when they

are looking at analysis in think tanks. host: the unless from your report valuable at quincy inst.org united arab emirate nearly $17 million. united kingdom $15.5. qatar $9 million, canada 8.6 million, germany 8.5 million. how were you able to track this money and how easy was it come up with these numbers? guest: it feels painfully hard. think tanks are not required to disclose their funding and when found this more than a third of them disclose tock about their funding we call them dark money

think tanks. but most of those who disclose we get sort of a partial transparency this they might release the numbers of funders but no dollar amount or release some dollar amounts but you don't relevance know how much funding is coming in. but we had it scour their websites annual reports being the financial documents where we could track it we did. you can see system of the sources for every donation you see the source where we got the information but it was really hard to do and this process took almost a year to put together. one of the goals is we look or virus it not tack a year or

something it found them and just go to or website and if they have a suspicion of somebody with a conflict of interest income go to our website and look it up in a hurry so they don't have to be a nerd like my. host: you mentioned the atlantic council. it has a donor accept temperatures policy. acceptance of any contributions is at the discretion of the council and it is isn't to a condition and anything of $250 that stipulate hs the they can l is acceptingt on the ion retains independence and control over any subscribe consistent with the independence policy. will do you mac of that? guest: it is nobel of them it put out a disclosure like this.

those independence policies are in the we also know a lot of these think tanks that put out these policies, they will allow the owners to preview the research before it is published, to make comments on that research. in some cases to provide this for that research. some of these top think tanks are doing what we call pay for play research. they pay money to get a specific report done that they have created. they are literally paying for the products that some of these think tanks are doing. the atlantic through leaked emails we learned that the uae ambassador had access to some of the atlantic council reports before they were published. the opportunity to provide his

comments to scholars. our concern is that when donors are given that kind of opportunity, it really allows them to play sensor. they come back to scholars and they have unfavorable recommendations, we worry that some of this research might be bent to the winds of these foreign funders. host: it is 9:30 on the east coast. the director of -- director of the foreign policy initiative there. phone lines for you to call in, it is split by political party. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001 independents, (202) 748-8002. he is with us until the end of our program, 10:00 a.m. this morning. the top 10 think tanks that receive funding from the u.s.

government include iran corporation at $1.4 billion, the wilson center to the tune of $52 million. the atlantic council, center for new american security, the marshall fund, carnegie endowment, brookings institution, and inter-american dialogue. why is the united states government giving money to think tanks? guest: it is a very good question. in some cases the money is going to think tanks because the federal government needs answers to some very hard questions. the top recipient of that funding, ran is known as a federally funded research center. it is really a fancy way of saying these are the government nerds who help the government answer these tough questions that they might have.

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