Arabella Advisors

Arabella's dark money network.^[1]

Arabella Advisors was founded by Eric Kessler,^[2] a former Bill Clinton appointee and member of the Clinton Global Initiative Kessler also acts as president of the Sixteen Thirty Fund.^[3] Arabella Advisors has been described as a for-profit firm that manages four nonprofits which in turn sponsor hundreds of “fake” groups: websites designed to look like standalone activist organizations.^[4] These four in-house nonprofits, Sixteen Thirty Fund,^[5] New Venture Fund,^[6][7] Hopewell Fund, and Windward Fund, have created over 300 pop-up groups which are typically just logos, websites, and political ads.^[8] They pop into existence to serve a political agenda and pop out of existence when no longer needed.^[9]

Through its four charities, Arabella Advisors has sponsored a veritable ant heap of front groups, such as

• Lady Parts Justice
• Lady Parts Justice League
• Abortion Access Force
• Abortion Access Front
• Abortion on Our Own Terms
• All Above All
• All Above All Action Fund
• Center for American Progress
• Center for Popular Democracy^[10]
• Demand Justice^[11]
• Democracy Alliance^[12]
• Economic Security Project^[13]
• Fix the Court
• Health Care for America Now
• Latino Victory Fund
• National Institute for Reproductive Health
• North Carolinians for a Fair Economy
• Restore Public Trust

Between 2007 and 2017, Arabella's four nonprofit Funds paid a combined $76 million in management fees to Arabella Advisors. Between 2013 and 2017, the Arabella network received a staggering $1.6 billion in contributions to advance its donors’ agendas through dozens of “pop-up” groups and “astroturf ” initiatives.

Arabella Advisors has been accused of funding paid protesters through front groups the 2017 Charlottesville false flag riot, the 2018 Brett Kavanaugh hearings protests, and the 2021 Capitol false flag riot. Paid protesters for a day's work can be recruited by a front group through Craig's List.^[14]

Pop up groups[edit]

Arabella Advisors creates websites designed to appear as standalone activist groups. Many of these websites give the impression of depth when in fact they're little more than Potemkin Villages which can disappear as quick as their campaign began. They give the illusion that they're more than just a small digital space owned by a much larger entity.

Because these groups can pop up at the speed it takes to publish a website, they tend to be run as short-term, high-intensity media campaigns targeting the news cycle. This was perhaps most obvious during the effort to derail the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in October 2018, when a crowd of activists—led by a newly “popped-up” group called Demand Justice—waved glossy pre-printed signs that read “Stop Kavanaugh.” At a glance, Demand Justice was an activist group like any other. But closer inspection of its website showed that the group was really a front for the Sixteen Thirty Fund. Filings posted by the Federal Election Commission later confirmed this.^[15]

References[edit]