Chamber’s Latest Lie: Our Foreign Fundraising Program Isn’t Part Of The Chamber

By Lee Fang Last week, ThinkProgress published an exclusive story about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s foreign fundraising operation. We noted the Chamber raises money from foreign-owned businesses for its 501(c)(6) entity, the same account that finances its unprecedented $75 million dollar partisan attack ad campaign. While the Chamber is notoriously secretive, the thrust of our story involved the disclosure of fundraising documents U.S. Chamber staffers had been distributing to solicit foreign (even state-owned) companies to donate directly to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6). We updated our investigation with a chart showing over 80 foreign companies giving at least $885,000 to the Chamber.

We documented three different ways the Chamber fundraises from foreign corporations: (1) An internal fundraising program called “Business Councils” used to solicit direct, largely foreign contributions to the Chamber, (2) Direct contributions from foreign multinationals like BP, Siemens, and Shell Oil, and (3) From the Chamber’s network of AmCham affiliates, which are foreign chambers of the Chamber composed of American and foreign companies. The Chamber quickly acknowledged that it receives direct, foreign money, but simply replied, “We are not obligated to discuss our internal procedures.” Instead of providing any documentation or proof to demonstrate foreign money is not being used for electioneering purposes, the Chamber launched an aggressive media strategy to first, attack ThinkProgress with petty name-calling and second, to confuse the media by highlighting the Chamber’s relatively minor AmCham fundraising, which the Chamber says (also without documentation) totals “approximately $100,000” from all 115 international AmCham chapters. The media largely ignored ThinkProgress’ revelation about the Chamber’s large, direct foreign fundraising to its 501(c)(6) used for attack ads, and helped the Chamber bury our scoop with misinformation.

Now, the Chamber is peddling a new spin. Yesterday, the Chamber’s Tom Collamore alleged that the Chamber’s foreign Business Councils are run as “independent organizations.” Repeating that myth today on hate-talker Glenn Beck’s program, Chamber lobbyist Bruce Josten claimed that the Chamber’s foreign Business Council fundraising programs are “completely unaffiliated with us.” However, the Chamber’s own website refutes Josten’s claim:

– The Chamber’s U.S.-Bahrain Business Council states that it is “under the administrative aegis of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and is intended to operate as a tax exempt business pursuant to Section 501(c)(6).” Similar language applies to the other Business Councils.

– The Business Councils are hosted on the U.S. Chamber’s website domain, and the Chamber Business Councils highlighted by ThinkProgress are all staffed by U.S. Chamber of Commerce employees.

– All of the Chamber Business Council fundraising applications highlighted by ThinkProgress direct applicants, including foreign corporations, to make their checks out to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, with related documents specifying its general 501(c)(6).

– Promotions to join the Chamber have included promises that foreign firms obtain “access to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and everything that it does” as well as pledges to help the foreign firms promote free trade policies in America. Chamber staffers from the Chamber’s Business Councils have claimed they help their foreign (and domestic) members wage a “two-front battle to knock down trade barriers abroad and keep our markets open at home.” Currently, the Chamber has attacked Democratic lawmakers for resisting a free trade deal with Korea.

The Chamber could have asked its foreign members and other foreign businesses to deposit their contributions in the Chamber’s Center for International Private Enterprise, an international Chamber-run 501(c)(3) nonprofit that does not run ads or any other type of political expenditure. Instead, ThinkProgress revealed that the Chamber had asked foreign businesses to donate to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6), a tax identity allowed to run unlimited political attack ads.

On top of the Chamber’s latest deception about its foreign fundraising program, the Chamber has little credibility. The Chamber illegally moved money from AIG’s tax exempt foundation to fund its attack ads in 2004. The Chamber also claims its current attack ad campaign is about “issues.” But the Chamber begged President Obama to pass the stimulus (as long as he stripped out tough “buy-American” provisions), and is now running attack ads against Democrats for voting for the stimulus. Many of the ads the Chamber is currently running are filled with misinformation and flat out lies. In fact, some responsible local television stations have even refused to run some of the Chamber’s partisan attack ads. On Tuesday, appearing on Fox News, Josten claimed that only 60 multinational companies are members of the Chamber, and it receives only $100,000 from its foreign affiliations. However, ThinkProgress blew this claim out of the water with proof that the Chamber is accepting at least $885,000 in direct donations from over 80 other foreign firms (in addition to the multinational members of the Chamber like BP, Siemens, and Shell Oil).

‘Are You Guys Eventually Going To Disclose?’ Chamber Responds Bluntly, ‘No!’

By Faiz Shakir

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd hosted the Chamber of Commerce’s chief lobbyist Bruce Josten this morning to discuss our reports documenting the Chamber’s foreign sources of funding. As he has done in the past, Josten resorted to name-calling as a defense for his organization, suggesting that we’re a “liberal left wing blog” that can’t be trusted.

When Todd pressed Josten on the substantive charge ThinkProgress leveled – that foreign dollars from undisclosed sources are helping to support the Chamber’s political activities – Josten responded, “I think this is a canard, absolutely absurd.” But Josten then ironically offered a huge “canard” of his own, peddling a conservative blog’s report. Josten claimed the Chamber won’t release its foreign donors because a 527 organization that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs worked for in 2003-04 skirted the law by delaying disclosure of their own donors.

In fact, 527s are required to release their donors, and as Todd informed Josten, the group for which Gibbs worked “did eventually disclose.” So Todd pressed the Chamber on whether his organization, which is operating like a 527 by running partisan political ads on television, would hold to the same standard:

TODD: Are you guys eventually going to disclose?

JOSTEN: No! […]

TODD: So your donors are afraid of a public backlash?

JOSTEN: Absolutely. […] Corporations, as I said, have employees, vendors, suppliers, and shareholders of all political stripes. They’re not trying to alienate anybody. They’re looking for representative organizations, such as mine and thousands of others, to be an express organization to advocate for them on their behalf.

TODD: It’s kind of a depressing outlook, the fact that we think that being public about where you stand on an issue, you don’t want to go public because of — you just fear some sort of potentially negative retribution.

“Corporations, I think, sit in a very different space here than individuals,” Josten explained, as a reason for why corporations shouldn’t have to disclose. (But of course, Josten is all to pleased to support the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision establishing corporate personhood.) Watch it:

So there you have it. The Chamber believes that while it is engaged in trying to influence the outcome of elections, it should not be held accountable to the public. And therefore, the Chamber claims it doesn’t have to abide by the rules that apply to other organizations that run political ads on television.

The Chamber has admitted to taking foreign funds for the same 501(c)(6) account they use for attack ads, and ThinkProgress caught them collecting $885,000 from over 80 foreign companies by investigating the Chamber’s own fundraising documents. Normally, organizations take international funds through a 501(c)(3), which is prohibited from political activity. However, what the Chamber is doing, fundraising from foreign corporations and asking them to deposit the money in their 501(c)(6) — an undisclosed, unlimited vehicle for their attack ads — is unprecedented.

As for the Chamber’s concerns that disclosure would lead to negative retribution, Paul Blumenthal at the Sunlight Foundation referred to this as “the coward’s argument against transparency.” He wrote, “The powerful, the wealthy, are hiding behind a cloak of secrecy out of fear that citizens may discover their political positions and hold them accountable. Shiver.”

As I told Raw Story, “It seems like the Chamber has a problem with democracy. They run ads on behalf of corporations that are afraid to reveal their agendas to the public. If the Chamber wants to engage in the democratic process to influence the outcomes of elections with paid TV advertisements, they shouldn’t be ducking a debate over their donors.”

Update TP Editor-in-Chief Faiz Shakir discussed the Chamber's foreign funding last night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Watch it here.

Bachmann Claims That The Chamber Is Using A ‘Separate’ PAC To Fund Campaign Attack Ads

By Ben Armbruster

Since ThinkProgress first reported on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s foreign sources of funding last week, the Chamber — and its enablers on the right and in the media — have engaged in a whitewash campaign that has deflected attention away from the core issue: that undisclosed monies from foreign entities may be improperly funding the Chamber’s political attack ads.

Yesterday on Fox Business, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) joined in when host Charles Payne asked the Minnesota lawmaker to comment on White House and Democrats’ calls for the Chamber to disclose its donors:

BACHMANN: This is about as low as it goes. It’s more than just disingenious, it’s a flat-out, patent lie. The Chamber of Commerce, who has been accused of taking foreign contributions to spend on elections, is absolutely not doing that. They have a separate political action fund and they use that only from American donors.

Watch it:

The Chamber does indeed have a political action fund. However, its PAC has so far raised $161,000 and spent only $104,000. Yet, the Chamber itself has spent more than $12 million so far this election season (and plans to spend $75 million), largely helping Republican candidates. Why is the Chamber spending so much while its PAC stays on the sidelines? Disclosure. Federal election law requires political action committees to reveal who is giving money to fund its campaign interests.

Prior to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, the Chamber would have had to run its political ads out of its PAC, contributions to which are disclosed. But the Court’s decision allows large corporations — such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — to spend unlimited amounts of money on political campaigns without publicizing their donors. Citizens United provided the Chamber with an end-around campaign finance law. Indeed, after ThinkProgress’s report, the Chamber not only refuses to say where the funding for its $75 million campaign comes from, but also will not prove that it separates foreign from domestic funding. “We are not obligated to discuss our internal procedures,” a spokesperson has said.

“If I was an enterprising reporter…I might ask the Chamber of Commerce to let me see their donors,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said today. “That seems like a pretty simple way to solve the debate…They say they take money from overseas, we know they are spending $75 to $80 billion running ads. Lets see where the money comes from to pay for those ads. There is an easy way to prove it all wrong.”

GRAPHIC: How The Chamber Gets Its Foreign Money

By Faiz Shakir

After consulting with the Chamber of Commerce’s chief lobbyist Bruce Josten, the New York Times and the Washington Post publish articles today largely dismissing concerns about the Chamber’s foreign sources of funding as a means to raise money to air political attack ads.

Both the Times and the Post articles fail to appreciate the scope of the Chamber’s foreign sources of funding, focusing instead too narrowly on independently-run, foreign-based “AmChams.” The Times casually disregards our report as part of a “Washington spin cycle” (which apparently also involves the New York Times editorial board). Eric Lichtblau writes:

“People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” said Bruce Josten, chief lobbyist for the chamber, as he recalled the 2008 allegations.

He accused Mr. Obama of using “smear tactics” in bringing up the issue at two separate campaign stops this week in order to deflect attention from his own record as the midterm elections approach. “This is a White House that seems to like to pick an enemy and use it as a foil to advance an agenda,” he said.

Mr. Josten said the Chamber of Commerce had 115 foreign member affiliates in 108 countries, who pay a total of less than $100,000 in membership dues that go into its general fund.

Similarly, the Post’s Dan Eggen writes:

R. Bruce Josten, the chamber’s executive vice president for government affairs, said in an interview Friday that the group “has never and will never” use dues collected from overseas business councils, known as “AmChams,” for U.S. political activities. He said the chamber is the victim of “a smear campaign” orchestrated with the involvement of the White House.

In fact, as ThinkProgress has noted, “AmChams” are only a small piece of the puzzle. Most of the Chamber’s foreign sources of funds come from large multi-national corporations which are headquartered abroad, like BP and Siemens. Direct contributions from foreign firms also are accepted under the auspices of the Chamber’s “Business Councils” located in various foreign countries. Here’s a visual graphic that demonstrates the Chamber’s foreign sources of funding:

Neither the Times nor the Post appear to have pressed the Chamber to answer two critical questions:

1) How many foreign sources of funding does the Chamber have? The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent received this statement from a Chamber spokeswoman: “[Of] the Chamber’s 300,000 members, a relative handful are non-U.S. based companies.” How many is a “relatively handful,” and how much do they contribute?

2) Are the foreign funds being directed into the same general account that is used to pay for partisan attack ads? Again, the Post’s Greg Sargent pressed on this point. The Chamber, which is running more than $10 million in political advertising just this week (the largest expenditure in one week by an outside group), said, “We are not obligated to discuss our internal accounting procedures.”

As David Donnelly, national campaigns director for Public Campaign Action Fund, told Politico: “They basically say, ‘trust us’ when there’s mounting evidence they’re outsourcing the funding of their political attacks ads? Yeah, right.” Apparently, the New York Times and the Washington Post were just fine with trusting the Chamber.

M.C.L Comment: Again if this story doesn't get liberals fire up to kick Republican ass in the upcoming elections I don't know what will. And the media proves how crappy they are in this story. It's either because their corporate owners are telling them don't even bother talking about it or they fear being call liberal media by the most biased news outlet in recent American history.

If groups tied to the Democrats were pushing 60 to 75 million in attack ads against Republicans Sean Hannity would be screaming like the little punk that he is. As much as I hate the Republicans I don't want to give them any excuses for why they lost and their candidates getting outspent 7 to 1 would be a pretty damn good excuse. And the idea companies overseas that benefit at the expense of the American worker are buying candidates so they can enact policies that favor those interest is wrong.

Obama slams GOP’s ‘open floodgates’ of foreign cash

By Agence France-Presse

BOWIE, Maryland -- President Barack Obama Thursday hit out at a wave of private and foreign cash swamping the US mid-term election campaign, urging backers to fight millions of dollars with millions of voices.

Obama stepped up his attack on the flood of outside money, often from unidentifiable sources and much of it financing opposition Republicans as they try to recapture Congress, pouring into races across the country.

"It could be the oil companies. It could be the insurance industry. It could be Wall Street. You don't know. Their lips are sealed. The floodgates are open, though," Obama said at a Democratic campaign rally in Maryland.

"Almost every one of these independent organizations is run by Republican operatives. They're posing as nonprofit, non-political groups," Obama said in his most outspoken attack yet on special interest cash.

"They've got names like 'Americans for Prosperity,' or the 'Committee for Truth in Politics,' or 'Moms for Motherhood' -- actually, the last one I made up," Obama quipped.

The torrent of cash has been swelled in this election by a Supreme Court decision in January that ruled campaign finance laws limiting the spending power of corporations, unions or advocacy groups infringed freedom of speech.

The top court's justices narrowly decided that big business firms could dip freely into their general funds to finance unlimited campaign advertising either in support or against a political candidate.

Obama mentioned a report by an offshoot of the liberal think-tank Center for American Progress this week, which said the US Chamber of Commerce may be using money from foreign corporations to attack Democratic candidates.

"We learned that one of the largest groups paying for these ads regularly takes in money from foreign corporations," Obama said, without mentioning the Chamber, often a fierce critic of his administration, by name.

"So groups that receive foreign money are spending huge sums to influence American elections, and they won't tell you where the money for their ads come from," Obama charged before a crowd estimated at 4,000 people, mostly students.

The president, who many analysts thought had rewritten campaign finance orthodoxy with his bumper fundraising in 2008, based on millions of small donors, complained conservative groups were outspending Democratic groups seven to one.

"This is a threat to our democracy. The American people deserve to know who's trying to sway their elections.

"So here's the bottom line. We're going to need to work even harder in this election. We're going to need to fight their millions of dollars with millions of voices."

Obama appeared at a historically black college in Bowie in his latest bid to convince the coalition of young and ethnically diverse voters who flocked to his campaign in 2008 to show up this year, even when he is not on the ballot.

His Democratic Party, reeling from high unemployment and the lingering economic crisis, fears heavy losses in mid-term polls in which the party of a first-term president often takes a beating.

Republicans, energized by the conservative Tea Party movement, need to win 39 seats to take the House and 10 seats to take the Senate.

Chamber Avoids Questions About Foreign Funding, Hosts Event With Its Foreign Bank Members Tomorrow

By Lee Fang Tomorrow, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to hold a reception for the Bahrain Banks Association, a trade group for banks operating in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The Bahrain Minister of Finance, Central Bank, and Bahrain Ambassador will be attending, and the event listing invites “banks and investment firms” to attend.

The Bahrain Banks Association includes many foreign investment firms that, as ThinkProgress reported this week, have been sending funds to the Chamber. The funds are deposited in the same 501(c)(6) account that the Chamber is using to run an unprecedented $75 million dollar attack campaign, mostly against Democrats like Jack Conway in Kentucky and Robin Carnahan in Missouri. ThinkProgress has documented at least $300,000 in foreign money to the Chamber from two countries alone. Below are a list of Bahrain Bank Association members which the Chamber has indicated are dues-paying members:

– Bahrain Financial Harbour Holding Company (based in Bahrain) – ICICI Bank (based in India) – TAIB Bank (based in Bahrain) – State Bank of India (state-owned and based in India)

The event occurs as the Chamber continues to refuse to answer simple questions about the legality of its fundraising operation for its political attack campaign. Foreign businesses and foreign agents are prohibited by law from contributing to any American political campaign expenditure. So far, the Chamber denies any inappropriate conduct, but has failed to produce any documentation that it is segregating its foreign dues from its American money. According to Graham Gillette, a participant at an Iowa event attended by Chamber CEO Tom Donohue today, Donohue replied to the controversy by simply attacking ThinkProgress as a “blog supported by George Soros.”

As ThinkProgress reported, the Chamber has internal fundraising departments called “Business Councils” — like the U.S.-Bahrain Business Council and the U.S.-India Business Council — which are run by Chamber development officers. Promotions to join the Chamber have included promises that foreign firms obtain “access to the US Chamber of Commerce and everything that it does,” noting that the Chamber is “enormous within the US.” ThinkProgress has reported that the application to join the Business Councils welcome foreign-owned entities, and application encourages businesses to wire or send their dues to the same general 501(c)(6) the Chamber is currently using for its political campaign advertisements all over the country. See below for a link and screen shot to one such application:

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with the Chamber hosting an event with Bahrain banks, or any foreign-owned banks. The problem arises if the Chamber is using foreign funding to help launch partisan advertising here in the United States.

Inconvenient Facts That The Chamber Hasn’t Refuted

By Faiz Shakir

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent reports that the Chamber of Commerce has issued yet another response to our story – at least the fifth different statement it has offered since we first reported yesterday morning on their foreign sources of funding. The Chamber’s latest effort is to engage in personal name-calling, referring to ThinkProgress as “a George Soros-funded, anti-business blog” that is “deceitful.” This smoke-and-mirrors response serves to obfuscate the basic facts which ThinkProgress revealed:

1) The Chamber acknowledges that it receives foreign sources of funding. 2) The foreign funds go directly into the Chamber’s general 501(c)(6) entity. 3) At least $300,000 has been channeled from foreign companies in India and Bahrain to the account. 4) The foreign sources include foreign state-owned companies, including the State Bank of India and the Bahrain Petroleum Company. 5) The Chamber’s 501(c)(6) entity is used to launch an unprecedented $75 million partisan attack ad campaign against Democrats.

Nothing the Chamber has said in response to our story refutes those basic set of facts. The right-wing business group claims that it has a “system” in place to ensure that money is not being used for illegal purposes, namely to influence U.S. elections. But the Chamber refuses to explain how that “system” works, and is instead demanding that the public simply trust-but-not-verify.

In a statement provided to Sargent, the Chamber reveals that foreign-based “AmChams pay nominal dues to the Chamber — approximately $100,000 total across all 115 AmChams.” But “AmChams” are only a small piece of the puzzle.

Most of the Chamber’s foreign sources of funds come from large multi-national corporations who are headquartered abroad, like BP and Siemens. Direct contributions from foreign firms also are accepted under the auspices of the Chamber’s “Business Councils” located in various foreign countries. The Chamber states that only “a relative handful are non-U.S. based companies.” Relative handful? How many is that? And how much are they contributing?

As long as the Chamber is willing to continue issuing statements, here’s some questions we have that perhaps they can answer for us:

1) What is this “system” they claim to have in place to keep foreign money out of their election program? 2) Why do they refuse to even say whether or not the foreign money is going into the same general fund that is used to pay for their attack ads? 3) If the foreign money isn’t paying for “political activities,” then what is it paying for? Lobbying?

Exclusive: Foreign-Funded ‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Running Partisan Attack Ads

By Lee Fang The largest attack campaign against Democrats this fall is being waged by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a trade association organized as a 501(c)(6) that can raise and spend unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors. The Chamber has promised to spend an unprecedented $75 million to defeat candidates like Jack Conway, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jerry Brown, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). As of Sept. 15th, the Chamber had aired more than 8,000 ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates alone, according to a study from the Wesleyan Media Project. The Chamber’s spending has dwarfed every other issue group and most political party candidate committee spending. A ThinkProgress investigation has found that the Chamber funds its political attack campaign out of its general account, which solicits foreign funding. And while the Chamber will likely assert it has internal controls, foreign money is fungible, permitting the Chamber to run its unprecedented attack campaign. According to legal experts consulted by ThinkProgress, the Chamber is likely skirting longstanding campaign finance law that bans the involvement of foreign corporations in American elections.

In recent years, the Chamber has become very aggressive with its fundraising, opening offices abroad and helping to found foreign chapters (known as Business Councils or “AmChams”). While many of these foreign operations include American businesses with interests overseas, the Chamber has also spearheaded an effort to raise money from foreign corporations, including ones controlled by foreign governments. These foreign members of the Chamber send money either directly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, or the foreign members fund their local Chamber, which in turn, transfers dues payments back to the Chamber’s H Street office in Washington DC. These funds are commingled to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) account which is the vehicle for the attack ads:

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has created a large presence in the small, oil-rich country of Bahrain. In 2006, the Chamber created a local affiliate called the “U.S.-Bahrain Business Council” (USBBC), an organization to help businesses in Bahrain take advantage of the Chamber’s “network of government and business relationships in the US and worldwide.” As the USBBC’s bylaws state, it is not an actual separate entity, rather it is simply an office of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 501(c)(6) trade association. Many of the USBBC’s board members are Bahrainian, including Aluminum Bahrain, Gulf Air, Midal Cables, the Nass Group, Bahrain Maritime & Mercantile International, the Bahrain Petroleum Company (state-owned), Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company, and First Leasing Bank. With each of these foreign board members to the USBBC contributing at least $10,000 annually, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce raises well over $100,000 a year in money from foreign businesses through its operation in Bahrain. Notably, the membership form provided by the USBBC directs applicants to send or wire their money directly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The membership form also explicitly states that the foreign-owned firms are welcomed.

– Like the Chamber’s involvement in Bahrain, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce operates in India through a group called “U.S.-India Business Council” (USIBC), which has offices around the world but is headquartered in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Dozens of Indian businesses, including some of India’s largest corporations like the State Bank of India (state-run) and ICICI Bank, are members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce through the USIBC. Annual membership dues range from $7,500 to $15,000 or more, and the money is given directly into the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) bank account. Like the USBBC, the USIBC generates well over $200,000 a year in dues for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from foreign businesses. On the USIBC website, many of the groups lobbying goals advocate changing American policy to help businesses in India. Under the manufacturing policy goal, USIBC boasts that it “can play a helpful role in guiding U.S. companies to India, while supporting various policy initiatives that will enhance India’s reputation as a major manufacturing and investment hub.”

– Many foreign “AmChams” or Business Councils operate outside the direct sphere of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce but nonetheless send dues money back to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. For instance, the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt is a separate entity based in Cairo that raises hundreds of thousands of dollars from both Egyptian firms and American businesses. However, the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt calls itself “the most active affiliates of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the” Middle East. Another foreign chamber, like the Abu Dhabi AmCham, which includes American firms and Esnaad, a subsidiary of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, claims that it is a a “dues paying member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and part of the global network of American Chambers of Commerce.” In Russia, the relationship between the American Chamber of Commerce there and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce here is opaque. This might be because many of the dues-paying members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia are Russian state-run companies, like VTB Bank, and controlled by the Russian government. Asked by ThinkProgress if the Russian Chambers pay dues back to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Ksenia Forsheneva, the membership development manager at the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, replied, “Unfortunately the information that you require is closed for the public.”

Previously, it has been reported that foreign firms like BP, Shell Oil, and Siemens are active members of the Chamber. But on a larger scale, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce appears to rely heavily on fundraising from firms all over the world, including China, India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Russia, and many other places. Of course, because the Chamber successfully lobbied to kill campaign finance reforms aimed at establishing transparency, the Chamber does not have to reveal any of the funding for its ad campaigns. Dues-paying members of the Chamber could potentially be sending additional funds this year to help air more attack ads against Democrats.

Here’s how it works. Regular dues from American firms to the Chamber can range from $500 to $300,000 or more, depending on their size and industry, and can be used for any purpose deemed necessary by the Chamber leadership. For example, the health insurance giant Aetna has reported that it paid $100,000 in annual dues to the Chamber in the past. But for specific advocacy or advertising campaigns, corporations can hide behind the label of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and give additional money. Last year, alongside their regular dues, health insurance companies like Aetna secretly funneled up to $20 million to the Chamber for attack ads aimed at killing health reform (publicly, health insurance executives claimed they supported reform). Last week, Politico reported that News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, gave an extra $1 million to the Chamber for its election season attack campaign.

There are many reasons foreign corporations are seeking to defeat Democratic candidates this November. The Chamber has repeatedly sent out issue alerts attacking Democratic efforts to encourage businesses to hire locally rather than outsource to foreign counties. The Chamber has also bitterly fought Democrats for opposing unfettered free trade deals. To galvanize foreign businesses, the Chamber has commissioned former Ambassador Frank Lavin — who served as the McCain-Palin Asia campaign director and has appeared on television multiple times recently saying a Democratic Congress is bad for business — to speak before various foreign Chamber affiliates to talk about the stakes for the 2010 midterm elections.

Because campaign finance laws prohibit foreign entities from contributing to political races here in America, we asked the Chamber to defend the legality of its fundraising operation. We have yet to receive a response. But as word of our investigation began to leak out yesterday, the Chamber informed Politico’s Mike Allen that it is now “preparing a response.”

Update The US Chamber of Commerce has responded to this post in a statement to the Politico's Ben Smith. The Chamber's Tita Freeman did not dispute that the Chamber's 501(c)(6) organization running attack ads receives foreign funds, and simply claimed, "We have a system in place" to prevent foreign funding for the Chamber's "political activities." M.C.L Comment: If this story can't get liberals fire up to kick Republican ass this election season I don't know what will.