Chapter Three

The Smear Industrial Complex:
Smear Merchants and Scandalmongers

I’ve encountered more smear artists than I can count.

In 2010, I’m doing investigative reporting for CBS News when I get a call from a Capitol Hill staffer.

“I’m from the office of [Congressman so-and-so],” says the man on the other end. “I have some important material you really should see.”

“Can you email it and I’ll take a look?” I ask.

“No, it’s better that I see you in person.”

We arrange a time to meet at the CBS News Washington, D.C., bureau, on M Street. When I greet him in the lobby, he’s accompanied by two other young men, also congressional staffers. One of them carries a folder under his right arm. I take them into the CBS News greenroom. We settle into chairs and I ask what they want to talk about. They hand me the folder. I open it and scan the pages inside. It’s a collection of opposition research they’ve done on a candidate running for office—someone from the opposing party. There’s a background report and copies of news clippings. It seems the candidate has gotten caught up in some scandals covered in the local news. It’s nothing particularly newsworthy to me, as a national investigative reporter. Besides, I don’t typically cover politics. Nine out of ten times, this is how my meetings end up. You take them because, once in a while, it leads to something important. I politely explain to the trio that this “story” is not for me. As I walk them out, I’m curious.

“What exactly are your job titles?” I ask the Hill staffers.

“What do you mean?” the main one answers.

“Is this your job . . . doing opposition research on political opponents?”

“Yes,” he answers enthusiastically. “We have lots more of the same, if you’re interested!”

I let the thought swirl around in my head. These men are being paid tax dollars to supposedly serve the public interest working for a member of Congress. Instead, they’re using time on the clock to smear political enemies.

What would the public think of their tax dollars financing oppo research? How many are masquerading as Hill staffers while functioning as private eyes and smear artists?

Today’s smear artists are sophisticated strategists. Well-paid front men for rich and powerful interests. They research and monitor targets using every available weapon of modern technology. They employ surreptitious tactics to exploit vulnerabilities. Execution is crucial. They must persuade people to form strong opinions. The audience must get angry or become suspicious so they’re motivated to take action. The message must be repeated so many times in so many venues, it’s unthinkingly accepted without question. It must take root and burrow deeply into the public consciousness. Some smears involve entirely fabricated material. But many believe the most effective smears include an element of fact to provide a patina of credibility. Media Matters had figured that out with its takedowns of Don Imus and Glenn Beck.

As the great smear octopus has grown unchecked, it’s proven unstoppable precisely because of the tenets that define our society: free enterprise and free speech. Few ordinary Americans could manage the time and legwork necessary to disassemble various smear efforts. The multibillion-dollar cottage industry attracts both ideologues and hatchet men willing to work for whoever pays the most.

“I’m a contractor for hire,” one operator tells me in fall of 2016, when he gets picked up by one of the U.S. presidential campaigns. He’s smeared in the past for liberals, conservatives, and corporate interests.

The public has no idea of the extent to which news is influenced by smear merchants. They operate from a byzantine playbook to exploit today’s weak-kneed and corporate-owned media. It’s one reason why it’s increasingly difficult to find fair, in-depth reporting at so many formerly hard-hitting news outlets.

“The best smear artists are sociopaths without conscience, without regret,” a player in the game tells me. “They’re able to suspend all pretense of fairness and logic.” The ends justify the means. Facts exist to be rewritten, twisted, or discarded if they don’t fit the agenda.

As it happens, there are countless applicants who fit the job description. That’s partly because it pays so well. The smear industry has become a massive enterprise in Washington, D.C., and New York City.

Several players in the field describe to me how they work the system. I’m already intimately familiar with their moves, of course, having been on the receiving end of such efforts, but it’s enlightening to hear the operators directly describe their MO.

Step One: Mine and Pump

The wheels are set in motion when political, corporate, or special interests catch wind of a news story that may shed a negative light on them or their agenda. They use a wide range of tactics to obtain as much information as they can about the story in progress so they can identify pressure points. They try to get the reporter on the phone and question him. They’d rather not leave a written email trail. They try to go off the record on the phone, so that they can plant seeds of doubt without being quoted. They provide information, innuendo, and rumor that may be irrelevant, unproven, or false to personally disparage a source the reporter may be using. They have no intention of providing the reporter with an on-the-record interview or any useful information, but they hold out hope like a carrot on a stick as they cajole information from the reporter. What’s your angle? they demand. What’s the thesis? Whatever the answer, they set about arguing that it’s wrong. Not worthy of a story. Old news. Disproven. Settled science. They find out the names of producers and editors who have influence over the script. They try to determine the date and time the story may be published. This tells them how much time they have to spin and obfuscate. They try to find out who the other “voices” in the story are. Who are the reporter’s sources? Who else is being interviewed and what are they saying?

Step Two: Connect

Smear outfits often hire ex-journalists for their contacts in the news industry and compensate them generously for connections to their former universe. These ex-journalists know who’s weak and who’s susceptible to pressure tactics in their former news organizations. Who to call. Who will buckle. Who can they use to discredit the planned story and the reporter who’s on it. Smear groups also conduct opposition research to build negative dossiers on opponents. That includes the reporter.

Step Three: Deploy and Discredit

Now they’re ready to deploy. For example, PR flacks representing a pharmaceutical company trying to stop a negative story may contact a news outlet’s sales department and complain, or threaten to pull advertising. They contact the story editors directly to argue against the story. Their law firms call the news organization’s general counsel with threatening rhetoric. They raise rational-sounding objections to the story, though one-sided and often entirely false. They take verbal off-the-record swipes at the journalists pursuing the story, whispering disparaging side comments to chip away at the reporter’s reputation in the eyes of his colleagues. They send out missives against the reporter on social media and through partners in the blogosphere. If they can’t stop the story, they work to quickly discredit it before it’s published. That may include calling upon willing partners in the media to write scathing attacks of the reporter and news item, or preempting the story with a one-sided counterpoint.

An insider from the smear group Media Matters once bragged about how easy it is to yank a reporter’s chain by targeting him. “If you hit a reporter, say a beat reporter at a regional newspaper . . . all of a sudden they’d get a thousand hostile emails,” said the unnamed source in an interview published in the Daily Caller. “Sometimes they’d melt down. It had a real effect on reporters who weren’t used to that kind of scrutiny.”

Other hired hands reach out to the news organization’s anchors, managing editor, senior producers, bureau chief—anyone who might be able to shape or kill the story. They undermine and float veiled threats. Controversialize. Over time, the repeated attacks take their toll.

“I know it’s not your story,” the operators might tell the coworker of a targeted reporter. “And I don’t like speaking ill of one of your colleagues, but I’d hate for your network to get hung out to dry on bad reporting and I’m afraid that’s where you’re headed. . . .”

It’s a bit like throwing darts and hoping one will stick. These forces need to connect with only one sympathetic ear at the news organization, whether it’s in the legal office, sales department, or newsroom. It might be a manager who’s risk averse and has neither the time nor stomach to do battle, especially when the adversary is perceived to be well financed or well connected. Suddenly internal roadblocks to the story go up. Today reporters can assume that behind-the-scenes dealings like the ones I’ve just described are to blame when their bosses are gung ho on a story line for days or weeks—then abruptly lose interest.

In October 2011 it had already grown difficult to get my stories about “Operation Fast and Furious” on the CBS Evening News. I’d broken the news several months earlier about federal agents secretly letting thousands of weapons be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels. But the story was subject to the sort of organized pushback attempts I’ve just described. (In the face of overwhelming documentary evidence and testimony, the Justice Department would later acknowledge the so-called gunwalking campaign and would admit to having given false information to Congress. The story would become the investigative reporting story of the year, receiving an Emmy and the Edward R. Murrow Award.) The Justice Department, which had authorized Fast and Furious, desperately tried to stop my reporting by attempting to pressure me and discredit my work. When that failed, they began searching for a weak link.

On the morning of October 4, 2011, Justice Department PR flack Tracy Schmaler writes a lengthy email to my CBS bureau chief, Chris Isham, arguing that my reporting is inaccurate and unfair. Three minutes later, Schmaler fires off a copy to CBS anchor Bob Schieffer in New York. “Been a few years since last chatted,” Schmaler writes Schieffer. “Probably when I was making the rounds w. Chairman Leahy during the SCOTUS hearings. I’m now at Justice. I hope you’re well. I’m sorry to be reaching out under these circumstances but feel compelled to flag Sharyl’s report last night.”

Schieffer replies, “Hi Tracy, I remember you well and we will look into this.”

Throwing darts. They only need one to stick.

Another time at CBS News, a broadcast executive once viewed a video story I had ready for air. She said she “loved” it, and that it was “important” and “absolutely vital.” But within a week, without explanation, the story fell off the schedule. When I called to ask why, the executive searched for reasons. “Um, well, I’m not sure it’s really all that interesting,” she stammered awkwardly. In a matter of days it had gone from “important” and “vital” to dull and meaningless. I knew that important people had made carefully placed calls.

On another occasion, I was assigned to look into fires that were breaking out on Boeing Dreamliner airplanes due to their lithium ion batteries. It wasn’t lost on me that Boeing is America’s biggest exporter and the top lobbyist among defense contractors. One battery expert after another that I contacted told me they had been warned by somebody associated with Boeing: don’t talk publicly about the Dreamliner fires or else you’ll never get another Boeing-related job. Plans for a congressional hearing on the fires mysteriously evaporated.

My producers and I were still able to produce a strong and compelling investigative report about the Boeing Dreamliner fires, which our network lawyers and senior producer signed off on. It drew accolades from those who internally reviewed it. Late the afternoon before it was scheduled to air, I got word that it was being canceled. The decision had been made at a high level without input from me or my producers who helped with the story. We knew the drill. When I pressed for an explanation, one executive told me, “Let’s wait and see what the government investigation turns up and report on it then.”

Other excuses I’ve heard when a hot story gets shelved?

“Let’s wait and cover it when there’s a congressional hearing.”

“Let’s wait until ‘everybody’ is covering it.”

Under the definition of original and investigative reporting, it’s neither original nor investigative if “everybody’s” covering it. But as a reporter, when you hear these excuses, you suspect somebody got to them. You just don’t know who. Unless you have sources inside your own company who murmur these things to you.

One smear operator tells me that “getting a story reined in [at a news organization] is not too hard.” He’s had success in softening and shaping news narratives. Today, he says, raising doubt about a reporter’s impending story can be as easy as picking up the phone and calling the news outlet.

“It helps to call,” he remarks. On the call, when he casts doubt about a story or a reporter, “the general counsels get really, really skittish. So sometimes it’s best to skip the editor and go right to the lawyers.” In fairness, the way he sees it he’s simply defending his clients from smears by others.

“I think that’s fair game. You’re in the crosshairs and somebody’s trying to ruin your life. You have the right to petition,” he tells me. “You call the [news division’s] attorney, you call the general counsel, and you say ‘Do you understand what you’re doing?’ And you rein in some irresponsible actors. We’ve killed several stories by using that method.”

Of all the smear artists I’ve met, and the ones I interviewed for this book, I’ve wondered what makes them tick. Do they have common personality traits that set them up to be successful in this nebulous sphere of influence?

For one, I’ve learned they’re people who like being in-the-know or feeling as though they’re on the inside. In much the same way that journalists are addicted to being the first to learn the news, these influencers have a deep desire to be privy to behind-the-scenes dealings. That may include secret meetings with members of Congress or their staff. It could mean a private phone call with the editor of an online publication. Or maybe it’s being among the first to get clued in on a developing political scheme or strategy.

Another common trait of smear artists: they’re polarizing figures who often find themselves in conflict with others on the same team. I know more than a few who’ve worked paid positions for one interest only to vehemently oppose that same interest at their next gig. One operator (who doesn’t want to be identified in this book) had a committed and well-paying engagement with a political interest that he felt later “betrayed” him by talking about him behind his back. “I can burn those motherfuckers,” he told me. “I just might do it if they don’t stop bad-mouthing me.”

Some of the most successful character assassins tend to speak and think in paranoid undertones—justifiably so. After all, they operate in a realm where people really are out to get one another. They know what’s possible. Although they often appear to be deeply committed ideologues, they’re willing to adjust their belief systems to fit to circumstances that are most advantageous to themselves. You could call it opportunist pragmatism.

And lastly, smear artists often share a compulsion to take credit for their handiwork. Although they often operate under the radar, they sometimes can’t help but take credit for a job, even when it’s ill-advised to do so. Several operators who didn’t want to be attached to some of their dastardly projects by name for this book nonetheless wanted to make sure I knew they were responsible for the various deeds.

Swift Boating

During the early 2000s, some of the best-known character assassinations come from political campaigns. Perhaps the most famous of these occurs in 2004, when the Swift Boat becomes a ship that launches a thousand smears.

At the time, Senator John Kerry, a Democrat, is running against incumbent president George W. Bush. Kerry’s supporters believe his military service in Vietnam uniquely qualifies him to be commander in chief, versus an opponent who served during the same war in what critics portray as the less prestigious—and less dangerous—Air National Guard reserve force. Kerry had served on a Swift Boat, a fifty-foot-long navy patrol boat, on the way to three Purple Hearts, awarded to soldiers wounded or killed in action.

But Kerry has some ghosts in his service background. First, upon his discharge from the military, he returned to the United States and became an antiwar demonstrator. In 1971, he announced he had thrown symbols of his service, his award medals or ribbons, over a fence in front of the U.S. Capitol in protest.

“In a real sense, this administration forced us to return our medals because beyond the perversion of the war, these leaders themselves denied us the integrity those symbols supposedly gave our lives,” Kerry said at the time. (As a senator, he later claims he was always proud of his war awards.) Second, critics question the circumstances surrounding his awards, and the extent of his service-related injuries, which garnered him prompt discharge.

Interests supporting Bush hatch a plan to disparage Kerry’s Vietnam-era service in the media. If they can twist Kerry’s military advantage into a liability, Bush wins. The smear vehicle of choice is a nonprofit called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

It begins with hundreds of Vietnam Swift Boat sailors signing a caustic public statement accusing Kerry of exaggerating his service and misrepresenting the military’s Vietnam effort. How were all those Swift Boat sailors located three decades after the fact to sign the statement? As the porn king Flynt had done in going after Clinton’s critics in the 1990s, the Swift Boat group had hired an ex–FBI agent private eye, according to the Dallas Observer. His directive was “to locate swift boat vets and to dig up whatever he could regarding Kerry’s service record.”

The Swift Boaters call a press conference. Then they release a book, TV ads, and a documentary. All of them hammer away at Kerry’s service record and controversial anti–Vietnam War activities. Is he a patriot who honorably served the country? Or an ungrateful flip-flopper who rejected his service? On Vietnam and other topics, Kerry’s image as a war hero is magically transformed into that of a weak waffler. The meme is reinforced by video that captures Kerry windsurfing off the coast of Nantucket. Bush strategists quickly incorporate the video into an attack ad.

“Kerry voted for the Iraq War, opposed it, supported it, and now opposes it again,” says the ad’s narrator as Kerry’s surfboard changes direction with the wind. “He bragged about voting for the $87 billion to support our troops before he voted against it . . . John Kerry. Whichever way the wind blows.”

To this day, there’s debate over how much of the Swift Boat smear was true. Regardless, it proved to be so damning, so effective, so brilliant, so horrible—depending on your view—it gave rise to a new verb: swiftboating.

The Swift Boat smear’s role in Kerry’s subsequent defeat leaves a lasting impression on both sides. One lesson learned is that a quick, coordinated response and counteroffense are essential in today’s Web-centric environment. Mounting resources after the attack is too late. Waiting even a day is too long. Operatives would soon devise plans to have crisis response teams in place, ready to strike within minutes of a threat. In the future, these teams would also be tasked with anticipating attacks in advance, responding to them—or deflecting from them—before they’re uttered. Or preventing them entirely. That kind of operation takes money. The war chest has to be full.

Blumenthal Redux

Meantime, Sidney Blumenthal has remained in the mix long after the Clintons’ time in the White House. Following a stint at left-leaning Salon.com, Blumenthal goes back on the Clinton payroll as a senior campaign adviser for Hillary in 2008, helping her spin and smear as she seeks the presidency.

Known as “Sid Vicious” among some of his detractors for his ruthless techniques, Blumenthal’s unofficial job description on the 2008 Hillary campaign requires smearing Senator Barack Obama. The mission sends Blumenthal on an obsessive search to locate something referred to as the “whitey tape,” according to Mark Halperin and John Heilemann in their 2010 book, Game Change:

The “whitey tape” was a persistent rumor in 2008 that a videotape existed of either Barack or Michelle Obama making racially incendiary remarks, referring to whites as “whitey,” that would irreparably damage Obama’s presidential bid. Blumenthal was obsessed with the “whitey tape” and so were the Clintons, who not only believed that it existed but felt that it might emerge in time to save Hillary. “They’ve got a tape, they’ve got a tape,” she told her aides excitedly.

No such tape ever surfaces.

No matter. According to the Huffington Post, Blumenthal maniacally emails around anti-Obama rumors, no matter how “batshit.” He even distributes conservative gossip and innuendo.

“The original source of many of these hit pieces [against Obama] are virulent and sometimes extreme right-wing websites, bloggers, and publications,” declares a HuffPo writer. “But they aren’t being emailed out from some fringe right-wing group that somehow managed to get my email address. Instead, it is Sidney Blumenthal who, on a regular basis, methodically dispatches these email mudballs to an influential list of opinion shapers—including journalists, former Clinton administration officials, academics, policy entrepreneurs, and think tankers—in what is an obvious attempt to create an echo chamber that reverberates among talk shows, columnists, and Democratic Party funders and activists.”

Some credit—or blame—Blumenthal with forwarding the original “birther” smear of Obama. According to McClatchy news bureau chief James Asher and one of his reporters, it was Blumenthal who suggested in 2008 they check out rumors that Obama was born in Kenya, which would disqualify him as a presidential candidate. Clinton and Blumenthal have denied any role in stoking the conspiracy theory, which would later persist throughout Obama’s presidency though it’s largely considered debunked.

Blumenthal is also linked to efforts in 2008 to publicize Obama’s relationship with controversial Chicago pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright. During the campaign, videotapes of Wright’s racially charged sermons surface on the Internet. Of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Wright said “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” He also blamed the U.S. government for spreading AIDS among African Americans, claimed “God damn America” was written “in the Bible,” and referred to the United States as the “U.S. of K.K.K. A.” Blumenthal also circulates material highlighting Obama’s supposed ties to radical activist Bill Ayers, founder of the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground.

In the end, Blumenthal’s efforts don’t get Hillary to the White House in 2008. And they come back to haunt him when Obama ends up president. Obama appoints Hillary as secretary of state and she wants Blumenthal to be one of her top aides. But high-ranking Obama officials threaten to quit if Blumenthal is allowed into the administration after what he’s done to disparage Obama in the primary. The White House bans Hillary from hiring Blumenthal.

Shut out of the administration, Blumenthal is promptly installed as a paid consultant to the Clinton Foundation, according to Politico, and later collects paychecks for his work as a consultant to various pro-Hillary smear groups. He maintains a close association with Hillary while she’s secretary of state, defends her missteps, and continues attacking her political enemies.

One such instance comes in 2011, after Secretary of State Clinton successfully pushes President Obama to intervene militarily to topple Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. When the strategy appears to be successful, Blumenthal is a cheerleader for Hillary and sees a political windfall. He emails her, “First, brava! You must go on camera. You must establish yourself in the historical record at this moment. . . . You are vindicated.” (The emails are revealed later in a congressional investigation into Clinton’s email practices.)

Yes, Libya is Clinton’s baby and she would tout it as a success story. Her success story. But it would soon become one of the most monumental foreign policy disasters of the decade. Obama and Clinton had no effective plan for post-Qaddafi Libya. In the ensuing vacuum, ISIS was born and Libya became a failed state. A breeding ground for Islamic extremist terrorism. Not only do the subsequent September 11, 2012, terrorist attacks against Americans in Benghazi, Libya, threaten to spoil President Obama’s perfectly good campaign claim that he’s sent terrorists on the run, but they also stand to derail Hillary’s presidential hopes and dreams. The services of a professional smear artist are desperately required.

Clinton and other Obama officials initially respond to the Benghazi attacks by misleading the public as to their nature and origins. They push the false narrative that Muslim terrorists aren’t at fault. They blame and smear a Christian immigrant from Egypt who made an anti-Muslim-extremist YouTube video.

Deny everything. Accuse someone else.

Selling this fabricated narrative to the public requires Blumenthal’s mastery. Clinton is delighted when, three days after the Benghazi attacks, Blumenthal emails her an article that his son, Max, has written for the British Guardian newspaper, focusing attention on the false narrative that blames the video. It’s titled “Inside the Strange Hollywood Scam That Spread Chaos across the Middle East.”

“Your Max is a mitzvah!” replies Hillary, indicating Sid’s son has done a good deed.

“Max knows how to do this and [is] fearless,” Blumenthal concurs. “Hope it’s useful and gets around, especially in the Middle East.”

He then advises Hillary to maintain her defense of the disastrous outcome of the Arab Spring, democratic uprisings across the Arab world beginning in 2011 that largely devolved into chaos and opportunities for Islamic extremist terrorists to gain a foothold.

“Keep speaking and clarifying,” Blumenthal prompts. “Your statements have been strong. Once through this phase, you might clarify history of US policy on Arab Spring, what has been accomplished, US interests at stake, varying relations with Libya & Egypt, etc.”

Next, Blumenthal launches a trademark, vicious diatribe against Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Romney, of course, is contemptible on a level not seen in past contemptible political figures. His menace comes from his emptiness. His greed is not limited simply to mere filthy lucre. The mixture of greedy ambition and hollowness is combustible. He will do and say anything to get ahead, and while usually self-immolating, he is also destructive. Behind his blandness lies boundless ignorance, ignited by consistently wretched judgment.

He signs off with a tender kiss and hug “xo Sid.”

The biggest victim of the post-Benghazi smear is Nakoula Nakoula, producer of Innocence of Muslims, the YouTube video the Obama administration incorrectly blamed for sparking the Benghazi assaults. Shortly after the attacks, when Clinton briefly meets with families of the American heroes murdered in Benghazi, they say she doesn’t pledge to catch the terrorists responsible. Instead she reportedly tells them, “We’re going to find the maker of that awful YouTube video.”

There’s nothing illegal about making a video, and Clinton never explained what crime she thought Nakoula could be charged with. But he was subsequently arrested and jailed in California for an unrelated probation violation. Many observers theorize he never would have ended up behind bars if it weren’t for the fact that Obama and Clinton had made him into a villain.

In 2013, I spoke to Nakoula on the phone when he was awaiting release from a halfway house. He told me that the attacks against him and his video were so vicious, he and his family received regular death threats. He told me he’d arranged that upon his release he would be taken to a secret, secure location where he’d have to live in hiding for his own safety.

The Smear Industrial Complex

As we’ve seen, the smear is nothing if not versatile; a shapeshifter that can be transformed accordingly for use against targets identified by corporations, competitors, governments, politicians, or candidates for elected office. As the influence of the Internet expands in the early 2000s, the power of the smear grows exponentially. Each player in the smear industrial complex is anxious to build upon tactics of the recent past and pioneer new strategies for the future.

You may ask, How big is this smear industry of which you speak? It’s impossible to quantify with precision. But we do know it employs tens of thousands of people and is an economy of billions upon billions of dollars. The remarkable scope is extrapolated by considering a few of the sectors that hire agents to operate as scandal mongers.

PR Firms

When it comes to public relations firms in the smear game, there are thousands of powerhouses controlling incredible sums of money. The biggest PR firm in the world in 2016, Edelman, collected $854 million in fees in 2015 and employed six thousand people. And for most PR firms, an important fee generator is the smear. The actual duties might be filed under the headings of “crisis and risk,” “strategic communications,” “rapid response,” “public engagement,” or “reputation management.” Each one of the top twenty public relations behemoths brings in $100 million a year or more. We can learn something of how they operate from instances where their surreptitious roles were exposed in astroturf or smear campaigns.

In 2006, a YouTube user posted a spoof critical of the global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, created by former vice president Al Gore. The two-minute-long parody is titled “Al Gore’s Penguin Army.” It’s the one and only video posted by a someone calling himself “toutsmith.” The Wall Street Journal does a little detective work and traces routing information in an email from toutsmith to a computer registered to Washington, D.C., PR firm DCI Group. DCI Group wouldn’t answer whether it was responsible for making the penguin video on behalf of a client.

Also in 2006, PR firm Edelman Communications is caught manufacturing “news” on behalf of Wal-Mart, without disclosing the sponsorship. It starts with a supposedly grassroots blog called Wal-Marting Across America, ostensibly written by a couple of ordinary Joes who chronicle their travels in an RV parked in Wal-Mart parking lots. But in a matter of weeks, the blog is exposed as a promotional tool for Wal-Mart’s “Working Families for Wal-Mart” campaign, launched by Edelman.

In 2009, PR and lobby firm Bonner & Associates is outed for sending letters to a member of Congress under the fabricated letterhead of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and a Hispanic nonprofit called Creciendo Juntos. The letters urge Congress to vote against a bill to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Once discovered, Bonner & Associates blame the forgeries on a temporary employee and say the person was fired.

DCI Group also figures into a cloaked attempt to kill financial reforms after the big bank bailouts in 2010. Even a Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist, Simon Johnson, is suckered in. Johnson tells reporters he was originally approached by DCI Group to take part in a conference call with an organization called Stop Too Big To Fail. Based on the name, he says he believed the group, like him, opposed taxpayer bailouts of giant Wall Street banks that were in financial trouble after their risky and sometimes fraudulent loan practices. After the conference call, Stop Too Big To Fail posts Johnson’s photo on its website, as if he were a supporter, to confer legitimacy to their “consumer movement.” Johnson says he is shocked to learn Stop Too Big To Fail is actually part of a $1.6 million ad campaign by a financial industry front group called Consumers for Competitive Choice. When he learns their real agenda is to discourage financial reform, he tells reporters, “These guys made the KGB look like amateurs, and I used to work in Russia quite a lot.” In a previous iteration, Consumers for Competitive Choice used to be Consumers for Cable Choice, a front group funded by telecom giants such as Verizon, fighting to deregulate the cable industry.

Another example of a PR firm working in the background is an online newspaper called the Richmond Standard, which blends real news with features like one titled “Major Inaccuracies in KPIX 5 Story on Chevron Richmond Modernization Project.” Readers may not know it, but the California-based publication is the product of a PR firm for oil and gas giant Chevron. Its newsroom reportedly consists of an account executive from the PR company who functions as both reporter and editor. A subsection called “Chevron Speaks” is devoted to articles that advance Chevron’s interests, “introduce” Chevron employees to the public with flattering profiles, and attack reporters who do investigative reports on the company.

The corporate nature of the Richmond Standard is the subject of critical reporting by a blog called DeSmog, which is itself a website led by a PR professional and is dedicated to clearing “the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change.” DeSmog says the Richmond Standard has grown dramatically in readership since it began in 2013 and that “its successes are now garnering attention from other fossil fuel companies.” In a public statement, a Chevron official defends the PR newspaper, saying it “was widely panned when it was first started, it was called corporate journalism . . . I mean, it was highly criticized. . . . But now it’s to the point it gets more traffic than the San Francisco Chronicle.” Chevron adds that its corporate sponsorship is transparent. “And we believe the content speaks for itself and invite people to read it for themselves and draw their own conclusions,” says a spokesman.

During its second term, the Bush administration became embroiled in a scandal over using tax dollars to pay a PR firm to surreptitiously advance a political agenda and secretly track reporters who were off message. The controversy involved the administration paying public relations company Ketchum Communications $700,000 to “rate” journalists on the tone of their reporting about the No Child Left Behind education law, and to produce a video that was used by some TV stations as if it were real, independent news. The administration also got caught paying conservative syndicated program host and columnist Armstrong Williams to promote the No Child Left Behind agenda. PR firm Ketchum brokered the deal and acted as middleman for nearly a quarter million dollars in payments to Williams under a contract with the U.S. Department of Education. As part of the agreement, Williams’s company produced radio and TV ads featuring the education secretary and publicly supported the law, without disclosing his financial ties. Once exposed in 2005, Williams apologized for the conflict of interest but insisted he did nothing wrong.

In 2011, PR firm Burson-Marsteller gained notoriety in a covert smear campaign called Whisper-Gate. At the time, Internet giants Google and Facebook were competing in a $28 billion online advertising market. A PR agent from Burson-Marsteller reached out to a tech blogger named Christopher Soghoian and asked him to write a critical op-ed about a Google product. Recounting the story Soghoian says Burson-Marsteller offered to “draft” the op-ed for Soghoian and get it published in a “top-tier” outlet like the Washington Post, Politico, the Hill, Roll Call, or the Huffington Post. In other words, Burson-Marsteller wanted to use Soghoian as a stooge to publish a critical piece about Google. Soghoian deduced Burson-Marsteller’s client was a Google competitor. It’s a shady way for a PR firm to operate.

In an email, Soghoian asks Burson-Marsteller, “Who’s paying for this (not paying me, but paying you)?” The Burson-Marsteller agent replies, “I’m afraid I can’t disclose my client yet.” Soghoian smells a rat and goes public with his outrage. Burson-Marsteller later admits it was working on behalf of Facebook.

“No ‘smear’ campaign was authorized or intended,” insists the PR firm.

This clumsy attempt at a disguised smear should make you think every time you read an op-ed. Op-eds are often nothing more than cloaked propaganda efforts generated by paid or political interests, published under someone else’s name.

One infamous conservative PR character in the dirt industry is consultant Rick Berman, known for his stealthy tactics on behalf of corporate clients. In 2007, 60 Minutes correspondent Morley Safer profiled Berman, beginning with some unflattering adjectives.

“Sleazy. Greedy. Outrageous. Deceptive. Ineffective, except when it comes to making money for yourself,” says Safer, as Berman listens patiently. “Corporate lackey who is one of the scariest people in America. . . . [T]he booze and food industry’s 6′4″, 64-year-old weapon of mass destruction . . . You’re a hired gun.”

Berman’s catchiest nickname of all is Dr. Evil, as in the Austin Powers comedy flick whose lead villain has a ludicrous penchant for shooting the messenger. Berman’s PR goal is to destroy the reputation of those delivering the wrong message. “Shooting the messenger means getting people to understand that this messenger is not as credible as their name would suggest,” Berman explains to Safer.

Will Tucker, of the Center for Responsive Politics, tells me Berman is an expert smear artist who’s learned how to navigate the system to his clients’—and his own—advantage. Tucker provides some insight into how Dr. Evil operates.

“Berman starts his own nonprofit groups that have their own credible-sounding names and their donors are kept secret,” says Tucker. “[He works by] confusing voters and muddling policy debates by throwing hyperbolic misinformation into the media mix.”

Berman’s clients and supporters have reportedly included Coca-Cola, Outback Steakhouse, Tyson Chicken, and Wendy’s fast-food restaurants. Like some other smear artists, he operates a network of nonprofit “educational” groups that attack ideological enemies like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD. Who would be against MADD? Berman’s American Beverage Institute (ABI), a restaurant trade association that supports “the protection of responsible on-premise consumption of adult beverages.” ABI has worked to discourage people from donating to MADD, claiming the nonprofit is guilty of waste and diversion of funds.

Berman has profited handsomely from his network. His PR firm reportedly made nearly $900,000 in 2008 from his own Enterprise Freedom Action Committee, a dark-money nonprofit where he serves as president and director. His five nonprofits together reportedly paid his for-profit business $15 million from 2008 to 2010. The practice of nonprofits doing big business with related for-profit companies owned by the same person isn’t illegal, but it is controversial. Berman’s nonprofits have been the subject of numerous “Donor Advisories” issued by the charity watchdog Charity Navigator. One states that in 2011, more than half of the functional expenses for Berman’s Enterprise Freedom Action Committee went to his own for-profit management company.

“We find the practice of a charity contracting for management services with a business owned by that charity’s CEO atypical,” reports Charity Navigator. It goes on to say it has issued donor advisories for other Berman-affiliated nonprofits: American Beverage Institute, Employment Policies Institute Foundation, Center for Union Facts, and Center for Consumer Freedom. Berman has defended the arrangements between his business and his nonprofits, saying they are disclosed, reviewed, and approved annually by independent officers and directors; they “comply with conflict of interest policy”; and the “financial statements are audited each year by an independent CPA.” He also counters criticism by insisting he argues using facts and is simply defending entities who have themselves been targets of unfair smears.

In 2016, Berman is linked to a new PR campaign called “China Owns Us.” It’s run by the Center for American Security, under one of Berman’s nonprofits. The effort opposes Chinese purchases of American movie theaters and other assets. Part of the campaign includes posting billboards calling movie theater company AMC “China’s Red Puppet,” writing op-eds, and posting videos on YouTube warning of China’s insidious influence on American culture. Berman is evasive when asked who’s funding the push. In a Washington Post article, he refers to two unnamed “wealthy donors.”

Super PACs and Dark Money

After the PR industry, a second influential sector to consider in the smear universe is made up of super PACs and dark money groups. Both categories of groups raise money for political candidates and causes. Their donors might not be disclosed, or their donation trails can be murky or hidden: “dark.” They employ teams of opposition researchers, campaign trackers, and character assassins that operate around the clock to deflect, distract, and attack. By mid-December 2016, 2,408 super PACs reported raising nearly $1.8 billion in the campaign cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The largest single super PAC by far, in terms of cold, hard cash, was the pro-Hillary Priorities USA Action, which attracted more than $192 million in the 2016 election cycle. Priorities USA Action reportedly spent more than $69 million on media buys, including TV, radio, and Web ads, in the 2016 campaign. Coming in second place in terms of money was the conservative Right to Rise, backing Republican Jeb Bush. In what may go on record as the most epic fail of a single super PAC when it comes to bang for the buck, Right to Rise spent all that money only to have Bush plummet from front-runner to flameout by March 2016.

Super PACs are a powerful campaign funding vehicle made possible through the January 2010 Supreme Court decision known as Citizens United. Unlike a candidate’s official fundraising operation, super PACs are not permitted to coordinate directly with a candidate, but they can collect unlimited political donations. What’s more, the Supreme Court ruled corporations and unions can make super PAC donations.

A staple of these groups is negative advertising; they do the dirty work while the candidates maintain a more positive public façade. The huge sums they spend is one indication of just how massive (and lucrative) the smear industry is. In the 2014 election cycle, the total number of campaign ads topped 2.2 million and the vast majority were negative: more than 70 percent of the pro-Republican ads in Senate races, more than 90 percent on the Democrats’ side.

One infamous super PAC smear in 2012 was a pro-Obama campaign ad attacking Republican candidate Mitt Romney for his work at private equity firm Bain Capital. Priorities USA earmarked $20 million for the effort, which included a controversial ad suggesting Romney was responsible for a woman’s cancer death. In the television commercial, a widower tells how his wife, the cancer victim, died “a short time after” Romney’s Bain Capital shut down the steel plant where the man had been employed, leaving him with no health coverage. FactCheck.org found claims in the ad misleading, and PolitiFact determined the ad to be false. An even larger Priorities USA campaign devoted $30 million to ads disparaging Romney’s performance as governor of Massachusetts.

For his part, Romney had a super PAC called Restore Our Future on his side. Major backers included Las Vegas casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and one of the conservative activist Koch brothers, Bill. The super PAC’s staff included the man behind the “Willie Horton” ad, which successfully scuttled the candidacy of Democrat Michael Dukakis for president in 1988. Dukakis had supported a prison furlough program that inadvertently freed Horton, a convicted murderer. Horton went on to rape and assault new victims. The campaign manager for Republican candidate George H. W. Bush was quoted as saying, “By the time we’re finished, they’re going to wonder whether Willie Horton is Dukakis’ running mate.” Since Horton was black, Democrats called the ad campaign racist.

In 2012, Restore Our Future plopped down a huge sum of money during the final week of the Obama vs. Romney presidential campaign: more than $20 million. The ad buy included commercials challenging President Obama on his economic record. One was an ominous offering titled “Flatline” and featured a heart monitor.

“If you saw this line in the ER, you’d be panicked,” says the ad. “Well, this flatline is Barack Obama’s economy. . . . If you don’t jump-start America’s economy now, your economy stays dead four more years.”

Following the money in this environment can be a near-impossible task. Take the example of three Republican social welfare groups: 60 Plus Association, the American Future Fund, and Americans for Job Security. Under federal law, such groups must disclose the source of donations for any cash earmarked for political activities such as ads. In 2010, the three groups failed to disclose that money for some ads they bought came from an organization financed by the conservative Koch brothers. The funding was unmasked in a news interview when a Koch official admitted he not only decided which races the money would be spent on, but also subcontracted to produce and develop some of the commercials. In 2016, the Federal Election Commission fined the groups, saying they should have disclosed the Koch donations.

Nonprofits, Think Tanks, and LLCs

After PR firms and dark-money groups, the third major sector to consider when measuring the size and scope of the smear industry is the nebulous universe of tax-exempt nonprofits, including “charities,” limited liability companies (LLCs), and think tanks that engage in smears, often funded by conservative and liberal billionaires or corporate interests who prefer to stay in the shadows. The revenue from these organizations has expanded vastly since the 1990s—more than doubling—partly due to their utility as mechanisms for propaganda and smears, according to insiders who use them for those purposes. The structures of the organizations provide multiple advantages, from lax federal oversight to great flexibility in purpose and appeal. And since many get tax-exempt status, you help pay for them. As with PR firms, these entities don’t publicly report how much they spend on smears. But even a small portion can be a significant sum when you consider there were 1.41 million registered nonprofits in 2013, with a combined $1.73 trillion in revenue.

A typical nonprofit involved in a smear campaign might begin by issuing a press release or “news article” with an epigrammatic title to grab attention and define the parameters. In just a few words, the headline tells who or what you should question or turn against—and why. The article gets distributed via email and social media to reporter lists. A few well-placed calls are made to alert key journalists to the “story.” Partners in the blogosphere disseminate the requisite talking points and quote “experts” who agree that the public should be angry. Or suspicious. Or question. Or hate. The experts have been trained, and sometimes paid, by smear groups. They gladly provide the necessary speculation and opinion. They quote one another and call it proof that their claims against the chosen target are true. The “experts” are hired guns, but some in the news media will blindly accept.

Volume and speed are pivotal to creating the impression that it’s all a grassroots reaction. The movement must appear to be organic. No fingerprints. Pretty soon there are memes, hashtags, and pithy one-liners advancing the smear. It takes on a life of its own. People see the fuss on social media, on TV, and in popular online publications. They’re convinced that they’re receiving special insight on the topic that makes them part of an exclusive group. A smarter group. People just like you and me agree. . . .

If nonprofits aren’t always what they seem to be, neither are think tanks. To most Americans, think tanks are mysterious groups whose work is given a great deal of weight by politicians and the media. Think tank experts and their reports are quoted in news articles and used as ammunition on Capitol Hill to argue for or against policies. Think tanks are passed off as independent research bodies that confer legitimacy to the topics about which they publish and speak.

There are countless think tanks in Washington, D.C., and together they make up their own industry. The State Department goes so far as to list fifty-nine “useful” foreign policy think tanks, such as the Brookings Institution, Cato Institute, RAND Corporation, Nixon Center, and Heritage Foundation. They are places many ex-diplomats, politicians, generals, bureaucrats, and administration officials end up when their government jobs end. The hand of government washes the hand of the think tanks, and vice versa. Like many associations in politics, the relationships are mutually beneficial.

Many think tanks do produce worthwhile investigation and analysis. But, as you might imagine, special interests have increasingly figured out ways to get their nose under this tent, too. They’ve learned how to execute smears by exploiting the legitimacy that think tanks confer, surreptitiously shaping public opinion, policies, and laws to the advantage of special interests. Critics say some think tanks have put their prestige and influence up for sale.

In 2002, the George W. Bush White House apparently assisted in a bizarre effort to smear its own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) with the help of a think tank. The revelation came in an email exchange obtained by the London Observer. One of the email parties was Bush official Phil Cooney, a former oil industry official. In the email, Cooney is communicating with Myron Ebell, director of the oil-industry-funded think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The two are devising ways to discredit an undesirable EPA report that supports the notion of global warming (while the Bush White House opposes it).

“Thanks for calling and asking for our help,” Ebell writes to Cooney. “[W]e made the decision to do as much as we could to deflect criticism [of the EPA report] by blaming the EPA for freelancing. It seems to me the folks at EPA are the obvious fall guys and we would only hope that the fall guy (or gal) should be as high up as possible. . . . Perhaps tomorrow we will call for [EPA administrator Christine Todd] Whitman to be fired.”

It would seem they found their “fall gal.” Whitman soon resigned after seventeen months on the job, becoming the shortest-serving EPA administrator to date in the agency’s thirty-year history.

The Bush administration further worked to smear the EPA report in question by allegedly engaging in “a secret initiative” to sue itself over the findings, but under the name of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, according to Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat who demanded an inquiry by the White House. White House officials and the CEI denied any inappropriate behavior.

“We do not have a sweetheart relationship with the White House,” insisted a CEI official at the time.

Around the same time, emails show Bush officials heavily engaging multiple conservative groups involved in messaging, lobbying, propaganda, and smears—and not only on the topic of global warming. The administration reportedly sends representatives to attend at least two regular, weekly meetings of various conservative coalitions. Conservative strategist Grover Norquist, head of the lobby group Americans for Tax Reform, leads the 10 a.m. Wednesday meetings and is pleased by the high-level White House interaction. “There isn’t an ‘us’ and ‘them’ with the Bush administration,” Norquist remarks publicly. “ ‘They’ is ‘us.’ ‘We’ is ‘them.’ ” The Wednesday meetings are followed by weekly lunches with a second group of conservative influencers, also attended by Bush officials. An executive at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank boasts that he consults with Bush political adviser Karl Rove a couple of times a week. And the head of the conservative think tank and lobby group Family Research Council brags, “We are afforded access to the highest senior officials.”

Think tanks also sometimes assist their corporate donors in ways that aren’t fully transparent and, in this way, become part of the subtle mechanisms that sway public policy and advance narratives of the powerful. In August 2016, the New York Times and Center for New England Investigative Reporting wrote about the impossibly blurred lines between some think tanks and the projects they launch on behalf of corporate donors. One example they gave was that of a home building giant that donated $400,000 to the Brookings Institution. Internal documents show Brookings offered “a productive, mutually beneficial relationship” including offering a prestigious Brookings “senior fellow” slot to one of the donor’s executives. Brookings then worked on think tank initiatives that ended up advancing the company’s $8 billion revitalization project. Responding to allegations of conflict of interest, a Brookings official told the Times, “We do not compromise our integrity. . . . We maintain our core values of quality, independence, as well as impact.”

The Times also examined the Brookings relationships with Microsoft, Hitachi, and JPMorgan Chase (which shelled out a massive $15.5 million contribution). Brookings sometimes provided assurances that donors would receive “ ‘donation benefits,’ including setting up events featuring corporate executives with government officials,” reported the Times.

Another case the newspaper examined is the Atlantic Council think tank’s partnership with FedEx. After FedEx donated to the Atlantic Council, the think tank issued a policy report driving home the very same points FedEx had raised to promote a beneficial free-trade agreement. These think tank reports are often used to lobby lawmakers and regulators because they’re widely viewed as independent and are therefore more persuasive than information coming directly from a corporation.

Yet another think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), received donations from drone manufacturers Boeing and Lockheed Martin, then produced a report that supported the industry’s desires, according to the Times. CSIS even helped set up meetings with, and convince Pentagon officials and congressional staff, to promote its recommendations. CSIS says its efforts did not amount to lobbying.

It’s easy to see how the priorities of ordinary Americans often get lost in Washington. Agendas are set by those who can bring their persuasive arguments before power brokers. They advance their own interests and attack their enemies, becoming particularly convincing when they use third-party nonprofits and think tanks perceived as being independent.

Lastly, LLCs, or limited liability companies, are an emerging tool in the political smear trade. They don’t have to disclose the names of their donors and can conduct any sort of political activity, so they’re convenient for those who want to fund political efforts but keep their names secret. The downside to LLCs is that, as for-profit enterprises, they must pay taxes on the contributions they receive—something super PACs and other tax-exempt nonprofits don’t have to do. LLCs also have to spend more than half their time on non-election-related activity, and their primary purpose must be something other than election spending, or else they become a political committee in the eyes of the law and have to disclose donors.

LLCs are playing an increasingly important role in campaign financing for both Democrats and Republicans. “The way LLCs are intersecting with money and politics right now is that we are increasingly seeing contributions coming from LLCs to super PACs,” says Will Tucker of the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s totally legal, he says, as long as the LLC isn’t just a paper company. If, however, it’s set up to take money and then direct that money to a super PAC, “that becomes really problematic,” he says. “Lawyers consider that to be a straw donation. A straw donation is when a donor gives money to another donor to give money for them, keeping their name off of the campaign reports.”

Tucker says LLCs especially deserve a skeptical review when they’re set up in places like Delaware or Wyoming. “Both of those states have really lax laws on disclosure for their companies, which makes it really attractive for people who want to hide those kinds of transactions.”

An example of a smear artist operating both LLCs and super PACs is Republican communications strategist Liz Mair. (When you hear that somebody’s title is “communications strategist,” they’re probably in the smear game.) Mair’s résumé shows she was once online communications director at the Republican National Committee. There she led what she calls a “groundbreaking online media outreach effort aimed at electing John McCain, Sarah Palin and Republicans across the country.”

More recently, her website says, she advised Republicans Carly Fiorina, Rick Perry, and Rand Paul. And for a split second, she worked for Scott Walker in his brief run for president. (A day after her hiring by Walker was announced, Mair was forced out of her job for tweets that disparaged Iowans—those who would decide the first presidential primary contest.)

Mair’s company, Mair Strategies, is an LLC. In November 2015, she helped start up an anti-Trump LLC called “Trump Card.” According to the Wall Street Journal, Trump Card LLC was intended to be a “ ‘guerilla campaign’ backed by secret donors to defeat and destroy” Trump’s candidacy. “I certainly know donors who are very happy that their fingerprints will be kept off things,” Mair told the Journal. However, Trump Card LLC seemed to quickly fizzle out. (Mair didn’t respond to my numerous requests for an interview and information.)

Mair then launched an anti-Trump super PAC called Make America Awesome. It boasted of using “unconventional and cost-effective tactics.” It was a smear group. Mair was cagey about who, exactly, paid and directed her. The law doesn’t require her to disclose that.

Mair’s online job description says a lot about how operatives like her employ social media to use journalists to advance narratives. “About 90% of journalists get story ideas from online media, or use it to conduct research or fact-checking. Getting information out through the blogosphere means it gets an audience with mainstream reporters organically,” Mair writes on her website. “Many voters continue to rely on Google search results for information impacting their votes, and Google continues to treat blog and ‘non-traditional media’ results very favorably in its results. There is no easier (or cheaper) way to deal with search engine optimization than to get favorable coverage out there at a consistent rate.”

She goes on to say that Internet, social media, and blogs reach “activists” who “influence politicians to an outsized degree” and “treat online media as one of two vital sources of news and information.”

Now that we have an idea of the tactics and players in the smear industrial complex and a sense of its scope, we can move on to the smear’s post-2010 coming of age.