Reid Hoffman, the Silicon Valley tech billionaire behind LinkedIn, reportedly funded the legal non-profit defending Fusion GPS, the Democrat-backed consulting firm behind the famously discredited Christopher Steele dossier at the heart of the Russia hoax.
According to IRS filings reported by The Daily Caller Monday, the anti-Trump Integrity First for America (IFA) contributed $620,000 in 2018 to Bean LLC’s legal defense fund, the holding company for Fusion GPS.
EXCLUSIVE: Who Has Covered Fusion GPS's Mounting Legal Bills?
A non-profit backed heavily by tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, who has funded several anti-GOP disinformation operations, contributed $620,000 to a legal defense fund for Fusion GPS in 2018. https://t.co/GXX8Y6YWZo
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) December 22, 2020
IFA was also launched with funding primarily from Silicon Valley tech giants. In 2017, The New York Times reported Hoffman had plans to pledge a seven-figure sum to the leftist non-profit. Monica Graham, the chairwoman of the group’s board, told Agence France-Press the next year that Hoffman had been a significant donor of the California group financially assisting IFA’s startup.
According to The Daily Caller, IRS filings show the group raked in just $2.9 million from contributions in 2017. If Hoffman had followed through on his promise of more than $1 million, that would make Hoffman responsible for at least a third of the organization’s funding.
Hoffman, the Caller reported, has been the money behind several anti-Trump and anti-Republican operations that have also been subject to criticism for amplifying false disinformation. Fusion GPS itself attempted to undermine the Trump presidency with the Russia hoax, fueling never-ending and disproven conspiracies linking Trump to the Kremlin government.
In 2018, Hoffman apologized when The New York Times exposed the tech billionaire for having been the primary bankroller for the firm New Knowledge, which created fake online accounts to interfere in an Alabama Senate election. Hoffman boasts a Forbes-estimated net worth of $2.1 billion.
