ChamberLeaks: U.S. Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Firm To Investigate Opponents’ Families & Children

ThinkProgress published an exclusive report that the law firm employed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (a right-wing trade association representing big business) is working with “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress.

Isn’t that Special?

Attorneys for the firm solicited private security firms to develop a sabotage campaign against progressive groups and labor unions, including ThinkProgress, the labor coalition Change to Win, SEIU, U.S. Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com.

New e-mails reveal that the private spy company investigated the families and children of the Chamber’s political opponents. The apparent spearhead of this project was Aaron Barr, an executive at HBGary. Barr circulated numerous e-mails and documents detailing information about political opponents’ children, spouses, and personal lives.

One of the targets was Mike Gehrke, a former staffer with Change to Win. Among the information circulated about Gehrke was the specific “Jewish church” he attended and a link to pictures of his wife and two children.

Another target was Brad Friedman, co-founder of The Brad Blog. Barr’s profile of Friedman included information about his life partner and his home address.

This tactic of targeting opponents’ personal lives and family was not simply a random event. Rather, it was a concerted and deliberate effort to use anything possible to smear the Chamber’s political opponents. To dramatize his firm’s intimidation tactics, Barr sent an e-mail to Hunton & Williams' attorney John Woods that contained personal details about fellow Hunton attorney, Richard Wyatt.

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By Lee Fang

ThinkProgress has learned that a law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the big business trade association representing ExxonMobil, AIG, and other major international corporations, is working with a set of “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress, with a surreptitious sabotage campaign.

According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton & Williams. Hunton & Williams’ attorney Richard Wyatt, once represented Food Lion in its infamous lawsuit against ABC News, was hired by the Chamber in October of last year.

To assist the Chamber, Wyatt and his associates, John Woods and Bob Quackenboss, solicited private security firms to develop tactics for damaging progressive groups and labor unions, in particular ThinkProgress.

According to one document, the campaign included an entrapment project. The proposal called for first creating a “false document, perhaps highlighting periodical financial information,” to give to a progressive group opposing the Chamber, and then to subsequently expose the document as a fake to undermine the credibility of the Chamber’s opponents. In addition, the group proposed creating a “fake insider persona” to “generate communications” with Change to Win.

The security firms hoped to obtain $200,000 for initial background research, then charge up to $2 million for a larger disinformation campaign against progressives.

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Spy vs. Spy

EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Chamber’s Lobbyists Solicited Hackers To Sabotage Unions, Smear Chamber’s Political Opponents

The e-mails ThinkProgress acquired are available widely on the web. They were posted by members of “Anonymous,” the hactivist community responsible for taking down web sites for oppressive regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and American corporations that have censored WikiLeaks.

Anonymous published the e-mails from HBGary Federal because an executive at the firm, Aaron Barr, was trying to take Anonymous down.

Barr claimed that he had penetrated Anonymous and was hoping to sell the data to Bank of America and to federal authorities in the United States. In response, members of Anonymous hacked into Barr’s e-mail and published some 40,000 company e-mails.

It is widely believed that WikiLeaks has sensitive information about Bank of America, and plans to expose it later this year.

YAY for WikiLeaks!

This revelation prompted Bank of America to hire a law/lobby firm, Hunton & Williams, which in turn, according to the e-mails posted online by Anonymous, hired a firm to go after Anonymous and supporters of WikiLeaks.

For instance, one proposal targeted Salon reporter and WikiLeaks supporter Glenn Greenwald, with “actions to sabotage or discredit” him.

In October an investigation looking into the Chamber’s efforts to solicit donations from foreign corporations so it could run partisan attack ads during the midterm campaign. The Chamber also participated in secret fund-raising meetings convened by billionaire plutocrats David and Charles Koch.