On Monday, Ali Noorani, executive director of the George Soros-funded National Immigration Forum (NIF), acknowledged that his organization paid for the recent $250,000 Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT) ad campaign in support of the Gang of Eight immigration bill.
But Noorani also claimed that the funding for the ads came from the Chamber of Commerce, which was fully aware that its contribution to the NIF was earmarked for this purpose. In doing so, Noorani elaborated on the claim of Chamber funding first made by Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, a member of the EIT, on Thursday.
On Tuesday, Blair Latoff Holmes, senior director of communications for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, denied Noorani’s latest claim, just as she denied Rodriguez’s initial claim on Thursday.
Noorani told the Christian Post on Monday that the Chamber gave money to the NIF specifically for a project called Bibles, Badges & Business for Immigration Reform, and that the Chamber was aware that this project would finance the EIT ad campaign.
On Tuesday, the Chamber’s Holmes denied Noorani’s claim in this email to Breitbart News:
The Chamber has no involvement in this and I am not sure why you are dragging us into it. Bottom line is, the Chamber provided general support to NIF; no money was designated for any project. (“Earmark” is a technical FEC term that has no application here). Whether or how NIF used its general funds to support EIT, we do not know and did not direct.
Breitbart News notes that the individuals responsible for “dragging” the Chamber of Commerce into this story of the questionable funding of the EIT ad campaign are Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, a leader of the EIT, and Ali Noorani, executive director of the George Soros-funded NIF.
An accurate disclaimer at the end of the radio ads would have stated that they were paid for by the National Immigration Forum. Such a disclaimer, however, would have immediately brought George Soros’s role in the funding of the EIT to the attention of the public.
Noorani’s admission brings the total amount of the currently reported contributions made by the NIF to the EIT over the past two years to at least $600,000, and possibly as much as $700,000. Breitbart News reported earlier that the EIT does not exist as a legal entity, and, as such, can not pay for anything, let alone an ad campaign.
Noorani’s claim that none of the more than $3 million Soros’s Open Society Foundation has donated to the NIF since 2009 funded either the $250,000 EIT ad campaign or the other $350,000 to $450,000 of EIT activities supported by the NIF is unusual for a non-profit organization that does not appear to have established separate legal entities to pay for its various projects.
Breitbart News requested comments from both Mr. Noorani and Reverend Rodriguez on Tuesday about the developing controversy.
Breitbart News asked Mr. Noorani why, if his claim that the EIT ad campaign was paid for by the NIF’s Bibles, Badges & Business for Immigration Reform project is true, did the payment disclaimers on the EIT ad campaign fail to state that simple fact?
Neither Reverend Rodriguez nor Mr. Noorani had responded to our inquiries by the time this article was published.
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